“Everything okay, Lexi?” Luke grinned at Lexi and ruffled her hair. “Did you tell Anna I’m okay?”

“Yes.” She rolled her eyes. “She, like me, was ecstatic to hear the good news. But she will kill you if you ever put us through that again.” She wiped her eyes. “I didn’t know I could cry that much.”

“But I didn’t put you through anything.” He laughed easily and I wanted to punch him for laughing like everything was okay. Didn’t he realize what he had put Lexi through?

My phone started ringing again and I groaned as I saw my dad’s name on the screen again. “I am coming, Dad. Luke is okay. We are just—”

“—Bryce, you need to come downstairs and meet me in the lobby.”

“Lexi and I will be there in a minute.”

“Come alone, Bryce.” His voice caught and my heart skipped a beat. I’d never heard my father sound this serious and emotional before.

“What’s up dad?” I sighed into the phone, annoyed. I saw Lexi and Luke exchange a glance and look at me as I talked and I rolled my eyes to indicate my annoyance at my dad’s call.

“It’s your mother.”

“What about her?”

“She’s not well.” He paused and took a deep breath.

“What do you mean?” The blood drained from my face. “What’s wrong with her?”

Lexi clasped her hand to her mouth and looked at me with wide eyes.

“Come down, Bryce. Please.”

I hung up the phone and looked at Lexi with bleak eyes. I felt as if my body had just caught on fire. “My dad wants me to go downstairs to talk. Something’s wrong with my mom.”

“Your mom?” Lexi’s smile dropped from her face. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, no. I’ll go. I’ll be right back.” I knew I was walking because I was getting closer and closer to the elevator but I couldn’t actually feel my feet moving. The out-of-body sensation reminds me of how I felt going into combat the first time. It was surreal and deafening at the same time. As I got into the elevator, I watched as Lexi and Luke stood there together, watching me. It was a curious look; one I wasn’t used to. They looked like they pitied me. I’d never had anyone pity me before.

“Bryce.” My dad rushed up to me as soon as I got out the elevator and his eyes were red. That was even curiouser. He looked like he had been crying. My dad never cried. He had no need to—everything in his life was perfect. Just perfect.

“Where’s mom, dad?” The words echoed in my ear and I looked around to see who had spoken.

“She’s gone, Bryce.”

“Gone where?”

He put his head in his hands and I think he held in a gulp. It was all quite strange. “Bryce, it was your mom in the accident.”

“No.” I pulled his hands away from his face. “Stop lying.”

“Bryce, mom has died.”

“No.” This time my voice was firmer and louder. “No, she cannot be dead. She was going to leave you.”

“Bryce.” He looked at me with a strange pain in his face. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not me you should be apologizing to, dad, it’s mom. Go and find mom and apologize to her.”

“I’m sorry, Bryce,” he whispered.

“No. No you’re not sorry. Go and tell mom!” I shouted and pushed him. “Go and tell mom what a shitty husband you’ve been. You’re lying. She’s going to leave you.”

“I know.” His voice was quiet and a tear fell from his eye. “She had me served with divorce papers.”

“What?” I hadn’t known that my mom was actually strong enough to follow through with her words. I hadn’t expected her to really leave my dad. “What are you talking about?”

“Bryce, we can talk about this later. Do you want to see your mom before she is sent to the funeral home?”

“She’s not dead.” I sob. “She can’t be dead.”

“I don’t know what to say, Bryce.” He tried to put his arm around me and I shrug away from him forcefully.

“Don’t you dare touch me.” I pushed him hard, wanting to harm him in some way physical. “Where is she?”

“Let’s go and see her.”

“I want to see her by myself.” My head is pounding as if someone is hitting me with a hammer over and over again. “I need to see her by myself.”

“Just come with me. I’ll take you there and leave you alone with her.”

I counted the tiles as I followed my dad and try to walk on every other tile without touching the grout lines. I can only walk on the navy blue tiles, not the white ones, I tell myself. If I touch the white ones, even by mistake, the game is done and I lose. I can’t touch the white ones. I jump a little bit to make sure that I don’t even let my heel touch the white ones. But then my dad stopped right in front of me and I stumbled and land right in the middle of a white one. I wanted to scream. And I wanted to punch him hard. He made me lose the game.

“She’s in there.” He tapped on a door and I stood there for a moment before going in. I heard the television playing some gameshow and I turned around and snarled at him for playing such a horrible joke on me. My mom wasn’t dead. Maybe she was just injured. I could hear the TV playing. I bet she was happy to have some time to herself in the hospital, before coming back home to cook countless dinners. I pushed open the door with a smile on my face, ready to cheer my mom up. I had to blink to become accustomed to the darkness of the room. The curtains are drawn, the lights are off and the only light is that the TV is emitting.

“Mom, do you want me to turn the light on?” I fumbled around, looking for a light switch. I turned it on and the room was filled with a bright fluorescent light. I understood why the light had been off now. “Mom?” I stared at the bed and see my mom lying there with her face looking straight up. As I walked to the bed, I can feel every nerve ending in my body alert and waiting for a command.

“Mom?” I stopped at the edge of the bed and look down. Her face is pale white, almost grey, with a tinge of blue. “Mom, do you want me to go home and get your blusher?” I knew she would want to put a little makeup on her cheeks. “Mom.” I touched her cheek slowly, praying silently for her to open her eyes and shout “April Fools.”

I put my fingers on her neck to see if I felt a heartbeat. And, at first, I think I am positive that I felt one. It’s beating quickly and I breathe a deep sigh of relief—but then I realized it’s my own heartbeat I am counting. I put my fingers under her nostrils to see if any air is coming out and I just watch her face. My brain already knows the truth that my heart doesn’t want to accept it. I closed my eyes for a second and think about her happily cooking for my party—she had been so alive, so carefree, so determined. And I was pretty sure she hadn’t been on anything. She was getting better. I knew she had been getting better.

“Oh mom.” I fell to my knees and placed my head on the bed sobbing. “Oh mom, how could you leave me? I need you mom. I need you to be here for me. We can do this together. I support you. I support you mom. Leave dad. I’ll come with you. We can do this. Oh mom. I love you. I love you so much. Mom, wake up. Wake up. Mom, wake up.” I screamed sobbing at this point. No death has ever affected me this much, this deeply, this painfully. Every atom of my body was crying out in hurt.

“I’m sorry, Bryce.” I felt my dad’s hand on my shoulder and I don’t say a word. I hadn’t even heard him come in. I wanted to scream at him, tell him it should have been him that had died. I wanted to tell him how much I hated him. But I didn’t want to do it in front of my mom. She wouldn’t want that. She had loved my father, for all his flaws, even though he had broken her. She had loved him.

I stood up and stared down at her face—so beautiful, even in death. I bent forward and kissed her cheek for the last time. “I love you, mom,” I whispered in her ear and walked out of the door. I used my sleeve to blow my nose and wipe the tears from my eyes. “Sorry, mom,” I said to the air. I knew my mom had always hated me using my clothes as a handkerchief.

“Bryce, we need to make some decisions.” My dad addressed me and I looked up at him with hatred in my eyes.

“How did she die?”

“She was in a car accident.” His eyes were cold as he responded to me. I guess, when we were alone he didn’t have to put up a pretense.

“She died from a car accident.”

“She wasn’t in her car. Someone hit her as she was getting into the car. They lost control.”

“I see.” I didn’t see. What sort of senseless driver could do that?

“They were texting,” he sighed. “They took their eyes off the road to text and, when they realized they were about to hit the car in front of them, they swerved and hit your mom.”

“So they took a life to avoid a fender bender,” I said, bitterly.

“I’m going to work on passing a no texting while driving law.”

“So you’re already thinking of the job again?”

“Bryce, please. We can’t continue like this. Your mom wouldn’t want that.”

“You don’t know what she would have wanted.” I walked away from him and back to the lobby. I wanted to go to Harpers creek. In fact, I needed to go to Harpers creek. I needed to be alone. I needed to punch the ground and to scream. I needed to think.

“Do you really think your whore of a girlfriend is going to be there for you more than me, Bryce?” My father caught up with me and I turned around and right hooked him.

“You shut up, you son of a bitch.” I hit him again. “You f**king prick; it should have been you in there.”

“Bryce, Bryce, he’s not worth it.” Lexi’s voice distracted me from hitting my dad again and he backed away from me as she ran up to me.

“He’s an asshole, Lexi.” I looked at her with wild eyes. “My mom is dead because of him.”

“I didn’t kill your mom, Bryce.”

“You pretty much did,” I shouted, suddenly overwhelmingly tired.

“Come on, Bryce.” Lexi took my arm and led me to the side of the room. “It’s going to be okay.”

“It’s my fault, Lexi,” I burst out, looking at her caring face. “It’s because I’m evil. Everyone dies around me.”

“No, Bryce, you can’t think that.”

“Eddie died, Simon died, now my mom.”

“You aren’t responsible for anyone else’s death, Bryce.” She reached over and looked in my eyes. “You’re a good guy, Bryce.”

“I slept with Anna.” The words spurted out of my mouth without control and I cringed at the look of shock on Lexi’s face. But I still continued, “the night of the party I slept with Anna. I was f**ked up on alcohol and pills; I didn’t know it was her. But I didn’t stop it. I f**ked up, Lexi. And now, now I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make it right. I don’t want to lose you. I love you, but I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep it in. I can’t pretend everything is okay. I love you. I want to be with you. But I’m not a good guy. I’m just not a good guy. I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t keep being punished. I don’t want anyone else to die.”

I know I should given her the chance to respond to what I’d just said, but I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I just wanted to drown in my sorrows. I just wanted to get away. I ran back to my dad to ask him for the car keys. I’m surprised when he gives them to me right away. I looked back at Lexi and her big, brown eyes are still wide with shock. I wanted to tell her I loved her and beg for her forgiveness, but I know that I don’t deserve it. Instead, I run out of the hospital and to the car. “It’s going to be okay.” I heard my mother’s voice whispering in my ear as I drived and I cried, silently. Nothing is ever going to be okay again, I thought to myself.

Chapter 3

Lexi

I tried to avoid Luke’s gaze as he walked up to me. I didn’t want to see the “I told you so,” in his eyes. I felt cold inside. I was in shock. How could Bryce have slept with Anna and, more importantly, how could Anna have slept with Bryce? She was meant to be my best friend. She was my oldest friend. She knew my secrets. She knew how much Bryce meant to me—how much he had always meant to me. I can remember the first time I ever told Anna about my crush on Bryce.

We had gone to our first high school football game as freshmen and we had played a game called If not him, then who? We basically chose a famous actor and said if we couldn’t date him, we would pick and then choose a guy from the football team. We couldn’t really see what the guys looked like in their uniforms, but we had been lucky to have gone to Jonesville High (where football reigned supreme) because the school created a leaflet with all the players’ photographs on it.

“Okay, if not Matt Damon, then who?” Anna had giggled at me as we sat huddled together in the bleachers, ignoring the game.

“Oh, it will be hard to match up to Matt Damon.” I had surveyed the leaflet and had immediately been struck by the confident and handsome gaze of Bryce Evans. “Him.”

“Ooh, he’s cute.”

“He’ll be my pick every time,” I laughed. “He could be an actor. He’s hot.”

“I think this Eddie guy is cuter,” she had laughed and pointed to a skinny looking guy.