Hope and Dean are ruining everything that is good in this world. I’m minding my own business, going downstairs to play video games just like any other Saturday. Before I even make it to the last step, there they are, jumping apart on the couch. Dean wipes his face guiltily, and Hope is all, “You can stay.” And I am like, “No fucking thank you,” only without the F-bomb because I am totally cool with all this. Cool like an August day with no air-conditioning.
I go outside because at least I know they won’t be there, but the den is definitely getting added to the map of Places That Could Be Contaminated with Make-Out Juices.
“Hey, Barton, c’mere. We need a fourth,” yells Ethan.
He and his younger brother, Jace, and this guy Mikey are playing cornhole in Bella’s front yard. I walk over, even though I know it’s probably a bad idea. I think about asking them why Bella or her friend can’t be their fourth, but decide against it.
“You know how to play, right?” says Ethan.
“Yeah.”
Mikey glances toward my house before asking, “Can you play without spazzing out?”
I ignore him and pick up a beanbag. I’m on Ethan’s team, and it’s really pretty easy. You have to throw the beanbag and get it through a hole in a piece of wood. A bag on the board is one point. A bag through the hole is three.
Ethan and I tear Mikey and Jace to shreds.
“The spaz can play!” crows Ethan, slapping me a high five.
It’s hard to know whether I’ve been complimented or insulted. I tic-sniff, and Mikey whispers something to the girls, and they snicker into their fists.
I try to shake it off and focus on the game. I already knew where Mikey fell on the Making Fun of Tourette’s spectrum—this isn’t a surprise. My next bag soars through the hole without even touching the sides. And apparently that is the thing that puts Mikey over the edge.
“I think Tourette’s must give you secret cornhole-playing abilities,” he says. On his next throw, he yells a cuss word at the top of his lungs. His beanbag sinks it. “Success!” he yells, holding his hands in the air like a goalpost.
And because it worked, he does it on every turn. And then Jace starts it up. And Ethan, too. The girls are laughing so hard, they can barely keep it together. I’m annoyed, but I’m trying not to show it, because that’ll only make it worse. I hate how the swearing is what everyone thinks when they hear “Tourette’s syndrome.” I know, I know, it’s what they always show in the movies because it’s so freaking funny. But it sure doesn’t feel funny right now. Mikey really hams it up, making his voice sound all unhinged and screwing his face up when he screams out F-bombs and C-bombs and basically every kind of bomb there is.
And then I rear my arm back to make a throw and, just as I’m letting go, he screams out a word that would make Pam drag him into the bathroom and shove a bar of soap in his mouth. It is not a coincidence. It is every. Single. Time. Ethan shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything. Mikey’s eyes are mean, and the girls stop laughing. I start missing shots, but I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of watching me have a meltdown, so I force myself to hold all my sharp edges together until the game is over. Then I make a weak excuse about needing to do something inside.
But I’m not okay the same way a powder keg or a gas leak is not okay.
My feet carry me to the office that doubles as my dad’s trophy/weapon room and Pam’s craft room. Pam is there, repurposing an old window.
She looks up from her work. “Hey, Spencer, how’s it going?”
I shrug. “Okay.”
“You feeling okay on your meds?” she asks, bringing us to a grand total of three for today. “Because we can always try something else if—”
“I’m fine. The all-over tics stopped. I don’t want to talk about it, okay? I think I’m gonna get a snack.” This is always a good idea when you don’t know what else to do.
She eyes me for a second longer. “Well, I just made some coconut fudge. It’s on the counter.”
She brushes her hair out of her face and gets back to her project. I trek to the kitchen. Maybe if I eat my weight in coconut fudge, I won’t feel like everything is conspiring to wreck me. Plus, the idea of Dean finding the empty pan is pretty appealing. The sound of giggles hits me before I turn the corner.
“Stop it. I don’t like coconut!” Hope’s voice sounds different. Softer or higher or something.
“This will change your mind about it, I promise.”
Dean chases her mouth with a piece of fudge. She finally accepts, taking a dainty bite so that her lips touch his fingers. He pops the rest of it in his mouth with a wink.
This is the horror that lurks between me and an entire tray of coconut fudge. This is what every day for the rest of my life is going to be like.
“Excuse me.” I squeeze past and grab a piece of fudge, bumping Dean a little as I do because they haven’t left me any room.
“What’s your problem, man?”
“Nothing. Just. Do you guys have to be everywhere?”
I stomp out of the kitchen. I was managing a second ago, and now I feel like the world is exploding. But only inside my head, and it'll take every piece of me when it goes. I chew on my block of fudge, but it doesn’t even taste good right now. What the fuck is wrong with my life that I can’t enjoy coconut fudge?
“Spencer,” Hope says in a mom voice.
I turn, and she’s got her arms crossed over her chest like, “Didn’t we just talk about this?” Dean and his stupid face are right behind her.
I throw up my hands. “I can’t do this right now.”
Everything is caving in. I don’t want to be me anymore. I would give anything to get out of my brain for just one minute.
“Spence?” She’s scared now. Uncertain.
Her voice comes to me through fog, and I see her like she’s standing behind a shower curtain. I can’t do this. I can’t. I’d rather it all be over.
Pam joins Hope behind the shower curtain, wiping her hands on her pants. “Spencer, are you okay?”
I hate all the pity in their voices. Hate it.
“Everybody leave me alone! I just want to die!”
It seems like a good idea when I say it. The only idea. I walk straight to my dad’s gun safe. Kick the wood-burning kit aside. Enter the combination. I can see it playing out inside my head. I turn the handle.
There are strong arms around me like iron bars, pulling me away, holding me back. I fight against my brother, but the guy’s got at least forty pounds on me, and he’s not going anywhere. He stays. And he stays. And he stays. And after a couple minutes, his arms stop feeling like a wrestling hold and start feeling a lot like a hug. I hug him back. I think I’m crying.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it, man. We’re gonna figure this out.”
And then Pam is there, closing the safe, joining the hug. Hope hugs me, too, so pretty much everyone is hugging and crying at this point. Everything is kind of a blur, and before I know it, I’m in the car, and Pam is whisking me to a special Saturday doctor’s appointment.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say. “I feel fine. My tics are so much better.”
“You’re not fine. You haven’t been fine for weeks. I don’t want to hear it.” She grips the steering wheel harder, and I know it’s useless to argue.
When we get to the office, we have to wait until Dr. Davenport comes to open it up just for us. Pam explains what happened, while I sit there feeling embarrassed.
Dr. Davenport does not necessarily agree with her assessment. “You know, a lot of kids his age have these kinds of mood swings.”
But Pam has already gone full-on Mama Bear. “Well, my kid doesn’t. This isn’t him, and you’re going to find something else to give him so he can still be him.”
The doctor agrees. (A wise decision if he values his life.)
It takes eight days before I agree with Pam about the meds. Eight days when my tics get bigger and more frequent and the full-body tics start up again. But also eight days that make me feel like someone is slowly sucking the poison out of my soul. It was impossible for me to realize how bad things had gotten until things started to get better, and I could say, “Oh, wow, this is what life is supposed to feel like.”
They’re gonna try me on another med, but not until we’re sure this one’s out of my system. Pam already has big plans to watch me like a hawk. Not that she doesn’t already.
I walk into the trophy/weapon/craft room, and try not to think about what happened there eight days ago. There’s a new lock on the gun safe now, and it only opens with my dad’s fingerprint. “I think I’m gonna go ride bikes, okay?”
Pam’s hawk eyes switch on. “Are you sure?”
I haven’t really left the house except to go to school since it happened. “I’m fine. I’ll get Hope to go, too.”
It’s a lie. I’m still avoiding her, because I don’t know what to say, but I don’t have to tell Pam that.
Pam’s eyes downgrade from hawk to peregrine falcon. “Okay. But come right back after. And call me if you get into trouble.”
I hold in a sigh. “I will.”
“Is your phone charged?”
“It’s charged.” I leave before she can think of anything else to ask, like if I know the number for 911.
I grab my bike from the garage and wheel it down my driveway. I’m about to hop on when I hear a voice from behind me.
“Hey!” Hope is running down her front stairs with a book in her hands. She was probably reading on her porch swing again.
“Hi.” I scuff my toe against the asphalt.
“Do you maybe want company?” she asks.
I smile. “Slushies?”
“Slushies. Let me just get my shoes.”
She starts back toward her house, but before she can get to the driveway, I call out, “Hope?”
She turns. “Yeah.”
“Thanks for still being my friend. After, you know, everything.”
Her eyes get kind of blinky and red. She comes over and gives me a hug, and she whispers, “We’re always going to be friends.”
March 4, 7:57 PM
Hope: AHHH!!! Only three more days till you get home!!! I can’t believe you’re bringing a boy this time! I can’t wait to meet Nolan, and don’t worry, I will totally help you out with Mom and Dad.
March 5, 11:18 PM
Hope: Two more days!!! We’re going to eat catfish and go peach picking and watch every musical ever, and I’m so excited for you to meet Dean! I mean, I know you’ve already met Dean, but that was when he was hot, mysterious, and, okay, slightly douchey, Boy-Next-Door Dean, and now he’s Boyfriend Dean, and you’re going to love him, J, you really are.
March 7, 9:06 AM
Hope: I know you’re on a plane now, and you can’t see this, but I’m following your trip home because I can’t. Freaking. Wait. I want to hear everything about Samoa!
March 7, 11:44 AM
Hope: We’re in the car! On the way to Atlanta! To pick you up at the airport! There aren’t enough exclamation points in the world to convey how excited I am! But I’ll try: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!
March 7, 1:02 PM
Hope: We may or may not be waiting just past the security checkpoint. With a huge, embarrassing sign. And balloons. And Dad’s cookies.
March 7, 1:26 PM
Hope: Squeee!!! Your plane just landed! Counting down the minutes.
March 7, 2:11 PM
Hope: So . . . you’re still not here. Did you miss the part about the cookies because I really thought that would do it?
March 7, 2:23 PM
Hope: C’mon, Janie. Throw some elbows. I want to see you!
March 7, 2:39 PM
Hope: Oh my gosh, they’re saying a woman collapsed on your plane. That must have been so scary.
Hope: That’s probably where you are. You’re probably helping her.
March 7, 3:14 PM
Hope: Janie, just hurry up and get here, okay? I’m starting to get a bad feeling.
Mar 9
Some things that suck about funerals:
1) You have to be the center of attention during one of the worst days of your entire life. You have to talk to a bunch of people (most of whom you barely know), when really all you want is to be alone. But you can’t because there’s the afterthing at your house, and before that, the burial and the funeral and the receiving line and the wake.
2) And while we’re on the subject, who the hell thought it would be a good idea to call it a wake? Because it’s not like she’s going to wake up. But every time someone says the word “wake,” all I can think is, “Wouldn’t it be the best thing in the world if she just woke up right now?”
3) Not being able to cry.
I know that sounds weird. All you do at funerals is cry.
I listened to a podcast one time about how different grieving is in other countries. In Haiti, they believe the dead are always with you—that people are a part of your story even after they die. They mourn their dead, fully, intensely, and then they celebrate them. The part I can’t forget is this clip they played of women at a funeral. And these women, they were wailing. Not crying or even sobbing—this was something different from all that. These were air-rending, gut-clenching sounds. Shrieks with the power to rip through anything—air, hearts, the illusions we create to make ourselves feel better. These women were offering up an earnest sacrifice and grabbing clawfuls of solace in return.
It struck me that no one in America cries like that. Not even at funerals. And it struck me again at Janie’s funeral. Maybe we should. Maybe being forced to stand up tall, all shiny haired and pink cheeked, and say profound, beautiful words about someone you can’t find the will to function without, to be so fucking poetic in front of everybody—maybe all of that is a terrible idea. Maybe if we weren’t trying so hard to stay strong, be cool, cry pretty, we’d all be a lot better off.
Now that she’s gone, I think I’d much rather wipe my pretty tears, tear my speech in half, and scream at the heavens until my throat bleeds. The shocked church ladies would be thrown back against their pews, stapled by the arrows coming out of my mouth. They’d get how it feels.
4) People who think the Janie-size hole in my heart can be filled with casserole. Which brings me to why I started writing this in the first place: I can’t do this. I can’t sit downstairs with well-meaning people, who think casseroles and hugs can put any kind of dent in how I’m feeling. Who want to tell stories like they know anything about Janie, and who keep telling me how great my speech was at her funeral. I don’t have the energy for their arm pats and hugs—to make them feel better by letting them feel like they’re making me feel better.
So, I ditched. I grabbed the cheesiest-looking lasagna, and I carried the whole effing thing upstairs, and yes, I did see you, Mrs. Fontaine from across the street, and you can wipe that judgey look off your face. I locked my door and flopped on the floor of my closet (gently, because lasagna), and then I burst into tears because I realized I’d grabbed two spoons.
If Janie weren’t dead, she’d think this was the best idea ever, and she’d be in this closet with me, stuffing lasagna in our faces and giggling like crazy about how this was so much better than being downstairs. That’s when I decided to break out the notebook she got me for my fifteenth birthday. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that she won’t be here for my sixteenth.
How can it be real that we’ll never get to do stuff together again? A movie montage, like the kind from a cheesy Lifetime movie, plays in my head—Hope and Janie, the highlights. Singing into our hairbrushes while making terrible music videos, spending every second of summer at the community pool, watching musicals until four in the morning, poring over maps with the seriousness of UN delegates.
It’s that last thought that really guts me. It sets off a vision in my head of the whole world, and each person Janie touched is a tiny light, and then Janie’s light just—poof—winks out. And then so do the others, like dominoes. And now I’m not just missing Janie for me. I’m missing her for everyone else. My parents, her boyfriend, the friends she’ll never make and the children she’ll never have. And nameless people all over the world. Faces that stare out at me from my walls, drawn with my sister’s careful fingers.
Sometimes one bright spot in a sea of crap can be the thing that gets you through. My sister was that bright spot for so many people. And now that she’s gone—what are those people going to do now? What am I going to do?
I don’t understand how she could be so vibrant—so her—while she had this darkness growing inside of her. How did I not see it? If it was taking her over, shouldn’t there have been some kind of sign, like her blue eyes turning gray? How could a tumor kill someone like Janie? It reminds me of when we used to read Harry Potter chapter by chapter before bed. The part where Hagrid is outraged, saying a car crash couldn’t kill Harry’s parents.
Well, a tumor couldn’t kill my sister.
It’s not dramatic enough. She should have been mauled by a tiger in Sudan or taken out by a rogue bullet in a Russian mafia showdown. Not that I wanted any of that to happen. But she’s that kind of magical. And my life felt like it had been brushed with magic when she was in it. Any minute now, I keep thinking someone’s going to say, “Janie’s alive. She had to fake her death as part of a multinational conspiracy.” Or maybe even, “Yer a wizard, Hope.”
But none of that happens. And after I saw the body, I stopped waiting for it.
She wasn’t supposed to be so still. Janie is motion. There’s no potential energy. Every ounce of her is kinetic. Using everything she has right now. Never saving anything for later. Which is good, I guess, because she didn’t get a later.
The lasagna I’m eating tastes suspiciously healthy, like maybe someone snuck in some eggplant or the noodles are made out of quinoa. Someone is knocking on the door, but I’m not going to get it, so they can just keep knocking.
“I’m leaving something for you.” It’s Spencer’s voice.
And now he’s shuffling away. Hang on, I’m gonna peek out. There’s something wrapped in stupidly cheery napkins (side note: who thought napkins with tulips and daisies were a good idea?) that he’s stuffed through the crack under the door. I guess I should go see what it is.
Okay, I’m back.
I snaked my way over, careful not to flip the lasagna onto my shoe rack, and retrieved Spencer’s mystery gift. Written on the napkin in his messy boy handwriting were the words: In case you want dessert.
He left me cookies, Pam’s Peanut Butter Blossoms, which he knows are my favorite.
I think I’ve changed my mind.
The food and stuff? Sometimes it can help.
FROM: [email protected]
DATE: Apr 27, 11:18 PM
SUBJECT: grief
You’re in a dark tunnel. In the distance, there’s the faintest circle of light, so you know it’s possible to feel good again someday, but at the same time, it feels like you’ll never get there. All the steps are made with such painful slowness, that maybe you don’t even want to try. Maybe you want to curl up in the middle of the tunnel and stay there. Maybe forever.
May 12
Hey Janie,
It’s been two months, since, well, you know. I don’t even know why I keep writing like this because I know you can’t read it, but I could really use some sisterly advice right now, okay? If you were here, you’d know exactly what to do. But you’re not here. I feel like that summer when you taught me how to swim without floaties, and anytime I started to sink, you’d be there, pushing me up, and I knew there was nothing to be afraid of. Now I’m in the deep end all alone, and I’m floundering. I mean, I really have no idea what I’m doing, and I am so, so afraid.
There are a million things you’ll never get to do. That’s the thought that consumes me. That you could have all these dreams and plans and then, poof, it’s over. If I think about it for too long, my lungs won’t let me take a full breath and my heart starts beating in my ears. It’s better not to think about it.
So, I chase the things that keep my mind empty. Don’t make plans beyond the next hour. Don’t build fantasy worlds where good things happen to good people and sisters live. Real life is no place for a dreamer.
Sometimes I turn over all the picture frames with you in them. I squirrel away everything that reminds me of you in dresser drawers and the darkest corners of my closet, so I don’t have to see it. And sometimes I take all the photos out and cry over them for hours because it hurts more not to look. Last night was one of those nights with the crying and the looking. Someone at the foundation sent us all this stuff of yours, and a bunch of information about the work you were doing and how great you were. Which is nice, truly, but it sent Mom into one of those moods, and she kept crying and hugging me, long past the point where it stopped feeling normal. So, I pulled away and said, “I miss her, too.” And she smiled and touched my cheek and said, “I’ll be okay. God made sure you’d be here to finish what she started.”
And I know she meant it as a kindness, but it just felt awful. I ran upstairs and pulled out all my pictures from that trip we took to New Orleans. I needed to feel your arms around me so badly and hear you laugh. The lack of it was killing me by degrees. I needed more than just photos. I needed you. And the emptiness was more than I could bear.
So, I climbed through Dean’s window.
I know. I know. I said I would never do it. But I did do it, and it’s too late now for your lectures from beyond the grave.
I tiptoed out of the house in a T-shirt and my bare feet. The ground was cold, and it almost made me turn back. If it had been just a little colder, maybe I wouldn’t have done it. If Dean had slept through me knocking on his window. Because I knocked like a coward or like someone who wanted the fates to decide what happened next. The fates thought it would be a good idea for Dean to show up at the window shirtless and with TV-commercial sleepy hair. Clearly, they are pro people getting laid, these fates.
Dean opened the window and ran a hand across his exhausted eyes like maybe he was too tired to be seeing clearly. “Hope?”
“Hey,” I whispered. And then I climbed through the window and into his bed.
He reached out a hand to steady me. “I never thought I’d see you do that.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
And I was so stupid, Janie. I curled up against him under the covers like I didn’t know what was going to happen. But I did know.
I knew from the first second he started kissing me. I could have said no so many times, but I didn’t because I knew he would have stopped, and I didn’t want him to. I wanted to feel something.
Is this what it was like for those other girls? They slipped through his window because their worlds were falling apart? Or maybe they really wanted to. Maybe for them, it was fun and powerful, an adventure and an awakening. Seems like that'd be nice. Maybe some of them just wanted to be next to someone.
That’s been the hardest thing, Janie. I miss the closeness we had. Even when you were thousands of miles away without Internet, I still felt you around me. Like how a blanket fresh out of the dryer holds its warmth for hours if you snuggle up tight enough. I hated having you gone, but every time you came back, it was like our lives were one long conversation and we had just paused for a second to catch our breath. And now you’re gone, really gone, and it’s over.
I’ve never felt this alone. I don’t know how to do it. Every time I write a letter to no one, it rips a hole through me. I knew Dean couldn’t fill the empty spaces you left, but I was desperate. So, I let him peel off my clothes like layers on an onion.
And before you even ask, yes, we used protection. I may be stupid, but I’m not dumb.
And it was fine. Sometimes it was kind of awkward, but he was sweet, and it only hurt a little, and it really wasn’t awful or anything. But what do you do with the feelings after? When they’re too big and you’re not ready for them? I think you talk to your big sister about them, only that’s not an option for me anymore.
When it was over, he held me close and told me he loved me.
I nuzzled my head under his chin, and whispered, “Let me fall asleep first.”
“What?”
“I don’t want your eyes to close first. Let me fall asleep first.”
“Okay.” I could tell he thought it was weird, but what guy who just got to have sex is going to argue about something so minor?
So, I pulled my T-shirt back over my head, and snuggled up beside him. His big hand spanning my shoulder blades felt like safety. I closed my eyes as he was still staring into them, and, as promised, he let me fall asleep first. When I was in that space between awake and dreaming, I felt like everything might be okay. But when I woke up, I felt more alone than ever.
Could you please just come back? I need you, okay.
Hope
FROM: [email protected]
DATE: May 17, 3:47 AM
SUBJECT: Questions I wish they’d stop asking me
Are you going to go to Emory like Janie?
Are you going to major in Biomedical Engineering like Janie?
Do you want to work for a foundation someday like Janie?
Do you like jelly on your chicken biscuits like Janie?
Like Janie. Like Janie. Like Janie.
Jun 7
Dear Janie,
It’s over. First boyfriend, first time, first breakup, first everything—you can take them all and put them in a box of firsts, and I don’t even care if you use those stupid Styrofoam packing peanuts or not because these aren’t the kind of memories I want to keep for posterity. If I could blot Dean out of The History of Hope with one flick of my wrist, I would do it.
We did not have the most amicable breakup. Can you tell?
So, you already know I slept with him. (I know you know because I can feel you making the silent judgey face all the way from heaven.) And you already know it was a huge mistake. (But really, couldn’t you have made a tree fall in front of his window or something?)
Anyway. So, we did it, and I didn’t want to do it again, except sometimes I was just so upset and wanted to feel close to someone, so sometimes I would do it again. Turns out missing your dead sister is not a good reason to have sex with someone. And apparently Dean is not built to handle relationships that are mostly crying and only sometimes hooking up because a couple weeks ago we were sitting in his truck in the KFC parking lot, and out of nowhere he said, “I have needs.”
And at first I was like, “What are you talking about?” Because I had no idea at all. He has needs. What, like, for fried chicken? Because we could’ve fixed that right then.
(Side note: The KFC parking lot is a TERRIBLE place to break up with someone. They can’t go anywhere after, so you’re both stuck with a catastrophically awkward ride home.)
And then he was all, “I know you’re going through a lot, and I’m trying to be there for you, but we hardly ever go on dates anymore, and we never hook up, and . . . I have needs.” He said it all slowly like he was talking to a child. Maybe that was the part that made me snap.
I started insta-crying, the tears flowing fast and thick. Dean was pressed against the door, as far away from me as he could get. “Can you not see that I am drowning in need?” I managed to get out.
“This isn’t working for me.”
Wait. This wasn’t just a talk, this was The Talk. The one we don’t come back from.
“What are you saying? You don’t love me anymore?”
“Hope.” He looked like he wanted to crawl out the window, but I wasn’t about to let him off that easy.
“Well?”
He squirmed in his leather seat. “You’re not giving me anything to love.”
I didn’t know anything could hurt that much, J. If telling someone you love them is a gift, then revoking that love is like cutting the tightrope out from under them. That’s when the real falling begins.
“This was supposed to be forever.” Wasn’t it? Why does everything have to be over so quickly? Why doesn’t anything last?
He looked at me like I was crazy. “We’re in high school.”
“How can you do this to me?”
Dean’s voice was exasperated with a side of guilty. “I’m not doing it to hurt you. If I stay, it’ll only make it worse. It would be like lying.”
Something about the way he said it. “Are you cheating on me?”
A flash in my head—him after practice. Talking to a girl with long brown hair and hands that flew around when she talked.
“No.” Did he say it too fast or just fast enough?
It didn’t matter. We were still over. It didn’t even matter that a few days later I spotted a girl with long brown hair tapping on his window. I didn’t wait to see if she talked with her hands.
Because with every day that goes by, I’m starting to realize he could have been anyone. As first boyfriends go, he was pretty dashing, but no matter what, this was a relationship I was destined to destroy. Because right now I need more than anyone can give me. Right now, I want every relationship to be forever because the person I thought I’d have forever with is gone.
So, that’s it then. We’re done. In the words of Nellie from South Pacific, “I’m gonna wash that man right outta my hair.” I just wish you were here to tell me approximately how many washes it will take.
Love you,
Hope
Jun 16
Hope’s Triathlon Training Schedule (pre-Janie):
Sunday - Run 4 miles, swim 20 minutes
Monday - Off
Tuesday - Bike 10 miles
Wednesday - Run 6 miles
Thursday - Swim 30 minutes
Friday - Off
Saturday - Bike 20 miles
Hope’s Triathlon Training Schedule (post-Janie):
Running and crying
Swimming and crying
Biking and crying
Jun 19
Hey Janie,
Things are bad. Well, they haven’t been good since that day you were supposed to come home, and instead collapsed on an airplane, but now they’re worse. I’m sitting in a tornado of papers right now, and I’m worried you’re going to hate me, but I had to take control. I can’t keep living like this.
See, after about a month of listening to me whine about Dean, Spencer decided it would be a good idea to kidnap me. It wasn’t the scary kind of kidnapping—usually bringing your grandma along is a good indicator that nothing sinister is about to happen. But I’m still calling it what it was—a kidnapping. I was sprawled on the floor of my bedroom this afternoon, listening to every sad song in the world and cutting up pictures of Dean while hooked up to an IV drip of chocolate. And Spencer decided to bust in and demand that I get in the car with him, even though, hello, I was obviously very busy.
I figured we were going to get peach ice cream or something, and it didn’t even occur to me to ask where we were going until I realized we were on 75 and getting farther away from Peach Valley by the minute.
“Um, where are we going?” I asked.
Spencer looked damn pleased with himself. “You’ll see.”
“Mimi, where are we going?”
“North Georgia.”
“Mimi! You promised,” said Spencer, just as I said, “What?! That’ll take hours!”
“I’m sure Dean’s head will be just as ready to get chopped off when we get back.”
I glared at him and turned my whole body sideways toward the window. He may have dragged me on this adventure to nowhere, but he couldn’t make me talk to him.
Janie, do you know how long an hour is to sit in the car with someone without talking? It’s a really freaking long time. It is also, it turns out, my breaking point.
“So, where is it that we’re going?” I directed my question at Mimi, keeping my head pointed straight toward the driver’s seat like Spencer wasn’t even in the car (we both know I’m an expert at a freeze-out).
“She already told you. North Georgia.”
“Yeah. But why? Are you planning on taking me to a secluded cabin and dicing me into little pieces?”
“Lands sakes, Hope.” Mimi put a hand over her heart, but you know she reads too much true crime to be really, truly scandalized.
“We’re going to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park,” Spencer said. Well, actually, he sighed it. I think he was annoyed at having to reveal his big secret.
“Again with my original question. Why?”
“Photinus carolinus.”
“Bugs? You’re kidnapping me and driving me hours away to the mountains to look at bugs?”
“They’re not just bugs.” Spencer made his mortally offended face. “They’re—well, I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but you’ll see.”
I kept up a steady stream of complaining as we drove along roads that were increasingly winding, and my ears started to pop as we pulled into a parking lot with what felt like thousands of other cars. Picture that time Mom and Dad thought it would be a good idea to drive all the way to Kentucky, only worse. We meandered our way to the front of a line that seemed to be for a trolley. There was a big yellow sign at the front. If there hadn’t been so many sweaty kids blocking it, I might have been able to see what I was in for. A guy wearing one of those fishing hats with all the lures herded two kids onto the shuttle, and I was finally able to see the sign.
“Fireflies!” I punched Spencer in the arm.
He looked appropriately startled. “What?”
I pointed at the sign and the words Firefly Viewing Information, which were now plainly in view.
“Would it have been so hard to tell me that?”
“I did tell you. Photinus carolinus.”
“Hmph.”
An old-fashioned trolley pulled up, painted bright red and green, with beige-rimmed windows. For some reason, I felt like I was about to go for a ride on the very hungry caterpillar. It made me smile for the first time since Spencer dragged me on this impromptu bug-watching trip. Spencer paid our fare—one dollar apiece, cash only, exact change. It was nearly twilight by the time we curved around the top of the mountain. I remember him tic-ing a lot on the way there.
“We’re almost at the Elkmont trailhead.” Spencer handed us each a flashlight with the end wrapped in red cellophane. “Be ready. We need to get a good spot.”
“Why are they red?”
“Because we don’t want to disrupt the fireflies or impair our night vision.” Like, obviously. Like, this was Firefly-Watching 101. “Keep it pointed at the ground and only use it to find me. Then turn it off.”
“Where are you going to be?”
“Getting our spot!” And with that, he shot off through the crowd of fanny-pack-wearing tourists.
He raced around, darting through trees and tall grass, until he found the perfect place to set up a folding chair for Mimi and a blanket for us. I wasn’t sure what made that spot any better than the spots thousands of other people were clustered in, but if anyone would know about finding the best spot, it’d be Spencer.
In the walk from the trolley to The Best Firefly-Watching Spot Ever, I received no less than eleven mosquito bites. It didn’t matter that they could be biting any number of other people. Remember how Mama always used to say we must be made of sugar with the way the mosquitoes eat us alive? Anyway, Mimi passed me some lotion, and I flashed her a grateful smile. My gratitude did not extend to Spencer, who was two seconds away from clapping his hands together with glee.
“These better be some damn good fireflies,” I told him.
“They will be,” he replied, all confidence and honesty.
I sat beside him on the blanket, and we watched the last bits of sunlight seep out of the sky. Nothing was happening yet, so I stared at the thumbnail moon that seemed to appear out of nowhere. And I waited. I was thinking about complaining again when it happened. Fireflies. And not just a few, but thousands. All at once, in a ripple of light that fanned out through the trees. Like one little guy decided to shine, and then all the other little guys were trying to catch up so as not to be outdone.
And then darkness.
I held my breath, wondering if that was it, and then it happened again. The woods were on fire, every last insect lighting up at once. Except it wasn’t really all at once, it was more like a pattern. A dance. Dominoes falling and a swaying constellation and fifty thousand fireflies playing a game of Telephone.
It was so beautiful, I stood without thinking about it. Spencer rose at the same time, like we were connected pieces of the same being. Maybe the bugs were rubbing off on us.
“It’s like watching music,” I whispered.
He didn’t say anything, just nodded and took my hand, and we watched and we watched, and every six seconds, there was darkness, and every six seconds, the universe unfolded in front of us. As the waves of glowing lights swept across me, the tight, dark things in my chest loosened. Tears formed on my eyelashes, but I didn’t wipe them away.
Spencer’s hand in mine, it felt good to be tethered to someone. The power of what I was seeing might’ve whisked me away if I didn’t hold on tight.
I emerged from the woods with the heady feeling that I’d been changed forever. And then I spotted a girl with hair the precise honey-on-whole-wheat shade that you had, J. I had seen something breathtaking, heart melding, majestic. And you were the only person I wanted to tell.
Spencer bounced along beside me. “So? Great, huh?”
“Yeah. It was really great.”
“I knew it! I knew you’d love it!”
The good things I was feeling curled up at the edges and collapsed in on each other. Because what I saw felt life changing, but with every step back to the trolley and real life, I was hit with a crushing realization: Nothing had actually changed, and nothing was going to change. You’re not coming back.
I pretended to sleep on the way back to get out of talking to Spencer. It’s mean, I know, but I knew what he was trying to do with this lightning bug thing, and I just couldn’t.
But Spencer was determined. He walked me home, and not just to my door, all the way up to my room. And I was yawning and stretching and dropping every hint, but he just kept pelting me with questions, and finally, I snapped.
“Damn it, Spencer. What do you want from me? Do you want me to say it’s okay that my sister’s dead and that it’s okay your brother had sex with me and then dumped me just because some stupid-ass lightning bugs all light up at the same time? Because it’s not. Nothing is okay. Nothing will ever be okay again.”
He stood there, stunned. I had finally stopped the flow of questions.
As if to prove my point, I noticed your purple J practically blinking at me from the map across the room. The pin was still sunk into Samoa, but it might as well have been digging its way into my brain. I crossed the room in two angry steps and ripped it out of the wall. The anger licked at my heart, and it felt good. Strong. Better than feeling weak any day. I decided the other purple pins needed to go and tore them out, one after the other. (Please don’t be mad.)
Spencer was horrified. “What are you doing?”
“She doesn’t need them anymore,” I said through my teeth. And then I was really fighting mad. “And neither do I.”
I tore down the blues and yellows, too. Spencer tried to block me, but I was possessed. None of it mattered anymore. The places I’d been? All colored by memories of you. Painful. Better to be removed. This list of places you’ll never get to go? It needed to come down right then.
There was stuff flying everywhere. I peeled away a map of New Zealand, and the picture behind it gave me a stab wound. It was a drawing of two little boys in Haiti holding hands after a storm. The first drawing you ever sent me. And I broke.
At least Spencer was there to catch me. I fell into his hug and cried into his T-shirt, and we stayed that way for a long time, him patting my back and whispering things that didn’t quite come together in my head but comforted me just the same. My foot started to fall asleep, but I didn’t want to let go, so I shifted my weight to the other foot. And then something happened. I felt Spencer, against me. I mean, we were hugging, so of course I felt him against me, but I felt something else against me. At least, I was pretty sure I did. And then he backed away all freaked out which pretty much confirmed it.
“I’m sorry.” He barely managed to get the words out, and then he ran (literally ran) out of my room and down the stairs.
I don’t even know what to do about him. Both right this second and in the meta sense. I know he wants things, and if I’m really being honest with myself, sometimes I think I might want them, too. But it’s more like the shadow of a future want. I can’t be anything to anyone right now, and I need him to get that. But I don’t think he does, and I’m already sorry for how I know I’m going to hurt him. I’m sorry I ripped down everything we built together, too. I’m peering out my window right now, but Spencer’s already safely inside his house. Dean’s light is on, and I wish like anything it wasn’t because I have to go outside to throw all these boxes and papers in the trash. His window is only a few quick steps away, and I don’t know how strong I can be. What if I can’t help myself?
Taking your things off the walls makes me feel like I can breathe for the first time in months. Like your ghost isn’t suffocating me. I can’t purge the memories, but this is the next best thing. I feel whole and empty at the same time. I’ve scrubbed my heart with fire, and now I get to find out if it was worth it. This is me taking care of myself. This is me saying good-bye. I love you, Janie, and I’ll never forget you, but I have to stop the vigil.
Missing you. Every second of every day.
Hope