It was always me.
But they didn’t make me say any of that. Marian gathered me up in her arms, and Liv wrapped her arms around us both. It reminded me of the way my mom always hugged me, like she would never let go if she had a choice. Finally, Marian whispered something softly. It was Winston Churchill. And I hoped I would remember it, wherever I was going.
“ ‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’ ”
12.21
Remainders
Lena wasn’t in her bedroom at Ravenwood. I sat down on her bed to wait, staring up at the ceiling. I thought of something and picked up her pillow, rubbing it against my face. I remembered smelling my mom’s pillowcases after she was gone. It was magic to me, a piece of her that still existed in my world. I wanted Lena to at least have that.
I thought about Lena’s bed, the time we broke it, the time the roof caved in on it, the time we broke up and the plaster had rained down on everything. I looked at the walls, thinking about the words that wrote themselves there the first time Lena told me how she felt.
You’re not the only one falling.
Lena’s walls weren’t glass anymore. Her room was the same as it was the day we first met. Maybe that was how she was trying to keep things. The way it was at the beginning, when things were still full of possibility.
I couldn’t think about it.
There were bits of words everywhere, I guess because that’s how Lena felt things.
WHO CAN JUDGE THE JUDGE?
It didn’t work like that. You couldn’t reset the clock. Not for anyone. Not even for us.
NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER
What was done was done.
I think she must have known, because she left a message for me, written across the walls of her room in black Sharpie. Like the old days.
DEMON MATH
what is JUST in a world
you’ve ripped in two
as if there could be
a half for me
a half for you
what is FAIR when
there is nothing
left to share
what is YOURS when
your pain is mine to bear
this sad math is mine
this mad path is mine
subtract they say
don’t cry
back to the desk
try
forget addition
multiply
and i reply
this is why
remainders
hate
division
I rested my head against the wall next to the words.
Lena.
She didn’t respond.
L. You’re not a remainder. You’re a survivor.
Her thoughts came slowly, in a jagged rhythm.
I won’t be able to survive this. You can’t ask me to.
I knew she was crying. I imagined her lying in the dry grass at Greenbrier. I would look for her there next.
You shouldn’t be alone. Wait for me. I’m coming.
There was so much to say that I stopped trying to say it. Instead, I wiped my eyes with my sleeve, and opened my backpack. I pulled out the spare Sharpie Lena kept there, the way people have a spare tire in the back of their car.
For the first time, I uncapped it and stood on the girly chair in front of her old white dresser. It groaned under my weight, but it held. And I didn’t have long, anyway. My eyes were stinging, and it was hard to see.
I wrote on her ceiling, where the plaster had cracked, where so many times other words, better words, more hopeful words had appeared above our heads.
I wasn’t much of a poet, but I had the truth, and that was enough.
I will always love you.
Ethan
I found Lena lying in the charred grass at Greenbrier, the same place I had found her the day she shattered the windows in our English class. Her arms were flung over her head, the same way they were that day, too. She stared up at the thin stretch of blue.
I lay down next to her.
She didn’t try to stop the tears. “It’s different, you know that? The sky looks different now.” She was talking, not Kelting. Suddenly talking was special. All the regular things were.
“It does?”
She took an uneven breath. “When I first met you, that’s what I remember. I looked up at the sky and thought, I’m going to love this person because even the sky looks different.” I couldn’t say anything. My breath was caught in my throat.
But she wasn’t finished. “I remember the exact moment I saw you. I was in my car. You were playing basketball outside with your friends. And the ball rolled off the court and you went to get it. You looked at me.”
“I remember that. I didn’t know you saw me.”
She smiled. “See you? I almost crashed the hearse.”
I looked back up at the sky. “Do you believe in love before first sight, L?”
Do you believe in love after last sight, Ethan?
After death—that’s what she meant.