“Do you still want the world to end?”
I wasn’t kidding about the hospital being boring. No TV, no books, just a lot of time to write and think. And I’d spent a fairly huge chunk of that time thinking about the sluggers. “No. I don’t think so.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Honestly?” I said. “It wasn’t any one thing.” I looked at Zooey—into her eyes, into the deep pools of amber. I recognized what I saw there. The emptiness, the grief. I could have been looking into a mirror. I could have told her something inspirational, something to hang her hope on that would help her through the long, lonely nights where she wouldn’t be able to think about anything but the little life that might have been. Instead I told her the truth. “Jesse’s still dead, Diego might end up back in juvie. The world pretty much sucks. But the bad shit that happens doesn’t cancel out the good. I mean, a world with people like you in it can’t be totally crap, right?”
I wasn’t sure if anything I’d said had helped. Zooey’s eyes were wet around the edges, but she wasn’t crying. Not really.
After a moment she said, “I’m considering changing my major.”
“Oh yeah? What to?”
“Premed,” Zooey said. “I think I want to be an obstetrician.”
“That’s pretty cool. But you’ll definitely have to trade up from Charlie.”
That made Zooey laugh. A real laugh. Beautiful and alive.
“Hey, Zooey?”
“Yeah.”
“Will you tell me about her? About Evie?”
It took her a moment to get started, but once Zooey began talking, she didn’t stop until visiting hours ended.
23 January 2016
On the seventh day, Dr. Janeway released me from Quiet Oaks under strict orders to continue taking my antidepressants. I also had to meet with her twice a week at her office for therapy.
I expected Mom to pick me up, but Charlie and Zooey were waiting for me instead. Zooey hugged me fiercely, and Charlie slugged me in the arm. They weren’t there to take me home, though. They had a different destination in mind.
Mom and Nana were waiting for us at the county courthouse for Charlie and Zooey’s wedding. I stood beside Charlie as his best man, and Mom fussed over a radiant Zooey. Nana filled the courtroom with stories about the time she caught a shark off the coast of Key West, and the time she single--handedly uncovered a plot to murder the pope. When the judge finished, she took a group photo of us, and Nana played Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Denton out on a little keyboard that was stashed in the corner. She didn’t miss a note.
The ceremony was brief but wonderful. We had dinner afterward at Neptune’s because Mom couldn’t take the day off, not even for her son’s wedding. That’s how life is; it just goes on.
? ? ?
Diego’s painting from the winter carnival was leaning against my bed when I finally got home. Charlie said he’d found it outside the door the day I was admitted to the hospital. A note was taped to the frame that read This isn’t a painting; it’s a mirror.
28 January 2016
The smell of popcorn filled the living room, and Charlie and Zooey wouldn’t stop kissing on the couch. It was pretty disgusting. Mom and I had a bet on how long it would take before they were pregnant again, though I thought it was gross for Mom to be wagering on her eldest son’s sex life.
I was emptying popcorn into a plastic bowl while Audrey prepared our drinks, when the doorbell rang.
“Get that will you, Henry?” Charlie yelled from the living room.
“You’re closer.”
“Bunker’s already started.”
I sighed and set the popcorn bag aside. “Ten to one, it’s Charlie’s friends.”
Audrey poured the root beer too quickly and it overflowed. “Shit!”
“Smooth.” I laughed as I walked to the door. When I opened it, Diego was standing on the step, dressed in gray shorts and a black sweater. I hadn’t seen him since the winter carnival, and I didn’t know he’d returned from Colorado. I was too stunned to speak, so I stood there like a moron.
“I really hope you’re the one who ordered the nude model, because the last house I went to let me strip down to my underwear before telling me they weren’t.”
I threw my arms around Diego, accidentally knocking the back of his head with my cast, but I didn’t care because he was here and not in jail and I’d missed him so much.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I can’t help it; I love to make an entrance.” He grinned so big, it hurt to look at him.
“Everything cool, Henry?” called Charlie.
“Yeah,” I said. I pulled Diego outside. “What happened to you?”
Diego filled me in on the hearing and how he almost ended up in juvie again. “It was pretty close. The judge was ready to toss me back in, but my lawyer argued that since Marcus wasn’t pressing charges, there was no one to refute my story that I’d been acting in self-defense.”
“I don’t know what I would have done without you.”