7 January 2016
After Adrian punched me in the hallway at school, which I read on Marcus’s SnowFlake page was retribution for his expulsion, despite not even being the one who’d e-mailed his video confession to Principal DeShields, I spent most of my free time in my room, contemplating my existence.
I’ve been wondering why the sluggers haven’t abducted me since Thanksgiving. They’ve had plenty of opportunities, and there were definitely a few times I might have pressed the button. Maybe they don’t want Earth saved after all. Maybe they’re messing with my head. They want to see if I’ll break under the pressure. Maybe the world isn’t going to end, and I’ll spend January 29 waiting for an apocalypse that won’t come.
Diego sent me a couple of texts, left some messages, but I deleted them unanswered and unread. I’m not sure I did the right thing, breaking up with him. I’m not sure we were ever actually a couple. I’d seen him naked and he’d seen me, so we were more than friends; I just don’t know what more actually means. I wasn’t kidding when I told him I loved him. Somewhere between his bursting into my chemistry class and punching his knuckles bloody on his steering wheel, I fell in love with Diego Vega.
As human beings, we seek meaning in everything. We’re so good at discovering patterns that we see them where they don’t exist. One summer my parents sent me and Charlie to stay with our uncle Joe in Seattle. I had to share a room with Charlie, and his snoring kept me from sleeping. Uncle Joe gave me a white-noise machine. When it was time for bed, I fired it up and listened to the static. It was nice at first—like crumpling paper or a fly’s endlessly buzzing wings—but after a while, I began to hear things in the noise. Random words or bits of music repeating. I woke up Charlie and made him listen, convinced I’d discovered a secret message left by spies, but he punched me and went back to sleep. Once I heard the pattern, I couldn’t stop hearing it, and I spent the rest of the summer looking and listening for patterns in other random sources—the wind, clothes tumbling in the dryer. I even pulled out one of Uncle Joe’s old television sets to watch the snow.
We look for the same patterns in our lives to give them meaning. When someone says, “Everything happens for a reason,” they’re trying to convince you there’s a pattern to your life, and that if you pay close attention, it’s possible to decipher it. If my mom hadn’t packed my lunch on 18 September 2013, I wouldn’t have gotten to the cafeteria early and sat at a table that belonged to a group of seniors, which included my brother. Charlie wouldn’t have stolen my lunch, and I wouldn’t have been forced to buy something to eat and sit at another table on the other side of the cafeteria. Jesse never would have seen me, and we wouldn’t have met. We wouldn’t have dated, fallen in love, and Jesse’s suicide wouldn’t have destroyed me. I wouldn’t have gone to the boys’ room to cry and run into Marcus on his way out. Marcus and I wouldn’t have started fooling around, and I wouldn’t have gone to his party to prove that I could. I wouldn’t have bumped into Diego and gotten to know him, and we wouldn’t have fallen for each other. A person who believed in patterns might be tempted to believe Diego and I were fated to meet.
Only, it wasn’t fate. It wasn’t destiny. And it certainly wasn’t God. It was chance. A random series of events given meaning by someone desperate to prove there’s a design to our lives. That the minutes and hours between our birth and death are more than frantic moments of chaos. Because if that’s all they are—if there are no rules governing our lives—then our entire existence is a meaningless farce.
If Jesse didn’t have a reason for hanging himself, then his death was pointless. And if Jesse died for nothing, how can I live for anything?
• • •
The doorbell rang, but I didn’t move. Mom was somewhere in the house; she could answer the door. I was inert, still in my school clothes, lying on top of my sheets, dozing in a transitory space between asleep and awake. My skin was moist, but I was too lazy to crank up the fan. I must have drifted off, because I didn’t hear my mom calling my name until she was standing over my bed, shaking me.
“Henry, wake up.”
“What?”
“There’s someone here to see you.” She hesitated in a way that made me think it was Diego. I hadn’t told her we’d broken up or whatever, but she wasn’t stupid, either.
“I’ll be out in a minute.” Mom left. I got a whiff of my pits, slapped on some deodorant, and changed into something less pungent. I wasn’t sure what was left to say to Diego. Nothing had changed. If he stayed with me, he’d end up hurting someone, and I didn’t want him to spend the last days of Earth behind bars. But I missed him. I missed his goofy smile and his stupid jokes and how he blushed when his stomach gurgled. I wasn’t sure if I could see him and hang on to my resolve.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry.
Mrs. Franklin sat at the dining room table with my mom. She looked out of place in our house, like finding a van Gogh displayed amongst an army of Thomas Kinkades. Even dressed in a simple outfit of shorts and a blouse, she radiated refinement. A crispness that my mother, in her shabby clothes, could never match.
I thought she must have come to confront me about breaking into her house, and that cops would surely be busting down my door any moment, but I resisted the urge to panic. If police were on their way, freaking out wouldn’t help. “Hi, Mrs. Franklin.”
She turned toward me, the bare hint of a smile on her lips. “Henry. I can’t believe that for as long as you and Jesse dated, I’ve never met your mother.”
“Lucky you.”
Mom scowled at me. “You know, I have a box of baby pictures around here somewhere. Keep it up, mister.” She pushed back her chair. “It was really nice to meet you, Helen. We should have lunch sometime.”
“Absolutely.” She waited for Mom to disappear outside before motioning for me to sit. When I did, she stared at me for so long that I began to feel the same way I did when the sluggers examined me. “I never liked you, Henry.”
Mrs. Franklin’s pronouncement should have shocked me, but it didn’t. “Thanks?”
The hard edges of her face softened momentarily. “It wasn’t you—I’m sure you’re a fine young man.” I noticed the way she lingered on my black eye, and wasn’t sure I believed her. “It was Jesse. I wanted him to focus on his studies. You were a distraction.”
“Jesse would have been valedictorian if—”
“I’m glad he found you, though. You made him happy.” Mrs. Franklin’s voice was wooden, like she was reciting lines, but I didn’t know whether it was because she was insincere or because if she allowed any emotion to creep into her voice, she’d fall apart.
“About the other night—”
Mrs. Franklin held up her hand. “I think I understand.”
“You do?”
“No, I suppose not. But I’m sure you had your reasons.”
“You turned Jesse’s bedroom into a sewing room.”
“I’d burn down that house if I had the nerve.” Mrs. Franklin’s composure cracked. A mad giggle escaped from her mouth, and she seemed as surprised by it as I was. “Jesse is imprinted all over that house. Down every hallway, in every wall. He’s gone, but he’ll never be gone.”
I considered taking her hand, offering her comfort, but if that was what she wanted, there had been plenty of opportunities after Jesse’s death. His funeral, the wake, the lonely days after when even eating had become an unbearable chore. “Why are you here?”
Mrs. Franklin cleared her throat. “We didn’t speak at Jesse’s funeral—I was too bound up in my own grief to be concerned with yours. I hope you can forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“I wanted to ask you . . . I wanted to know . . . Did Jesse tell you he was sad?”
The question blindsided me the same way Jesse’s suicide had. “No more so than anyone else.”
“Did he ever talk about wanting to hurt himself?”
“Not with me,” I said. “Audrey knew a little, but he kept that part of himself from me.”
For some reason, that made Mrs. Franklin smile. “So like Jesse. He hated to be a bother, and only wanted to make people smile. Especially you.”
“He did. I don’t think I was ever happier than with Jesse.”
“Neither was I.” Mrs. Franklin folded her hands in front of her, and I think we both got a little lost remembering how amazing Jesse was. The way the sun shone brighter, and no trouble seemed to matter when he was near. “Do you think it was my fault?”
“I don’t know.” It probably wasn’t the answer Mrs. Franklin hoped for, but it was honest, and she deserved the truth. “Maybe. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe nobody is to blame.”
“My son was very lucky to have had you in his life.” Mrs. Franklin pushed back her chair and stood. She was even more imposing towering over me. “Please don’t break into my house again.”
“Yes, ma’am.” As she turned to leave, I stopped her. “Did you find anything when you were cleaning out Jesse’s room?”
Mrs. Franklin furrowed her brow. “Like what, Henry?”
“I don’t know. Anything that might have explained why he killed himself?” The whole time we were talking, I kept hoping she’d reveal that she’d discovered a letter addressed to me, something Jesse had left behind that would make sense of everything.
She shook her head, eyes downcast. “What would it have changed if I had?”
“At least we would have known.”
“But knowing wouldn’t return Jesse to us.”
She began to head toward the door again. I’d broken into her house looking for closure, and I think she came to mine looking for the same. I’m not sure either of us found what we were looking for, but maybe continuing to search was the best we could do.
“Mrs. Franklin?”
She sighed. “Yes, Henry?”
“If you knew the world was going to end, but you had the power to stop it, would you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Franklin’s back was to me, but I imagined I could see the determined set of her jaw, the same resolute expression I’d seen on Jesse’s face a hundred times. “Because Jesse believed that life wasn’t worth living, and I refuse to prove him right.”