My mom nods, and Nathan doesn’t follow. Maybe he thinks this is a girlie good-bye that he can’t share. He’s not wrong, though he’s not right in the way he imagines. I trudge down the hall to the end, where the last door is closed. It creaks when I open it, making me think nobody’s been in there for a while, and I find things exactly as I left them. The bed’s still unmade, even. My shoes are still where I threw them—in the corner near the closet, which is cracked open, showing the mess I promised to tidy up and never did. A thin coat of dust has settled, and I know the reason my mom’s reluctant to clear it away is because once it’s gone, I am gone. The dust is me, gross as that sounds, but it’s my dust, my cells, my hair, and cleaning this room is the same as admitting that Liv Burnham is a memory.
Tears pool in my eyes as I stare in the mirror that tops my white dresser. There are tons of photos pinned up around the edges in the framework of my life: candids of Morgan and me, strip photos from goofy booths, and a pic collage that Morgan made for my one-month anniversary with Nathan. I didn’t even realize she’d raided my phone, let alone had our selfies printed.
I kneel beside the bed and rest my cheek on the sheets. From my weeks at the Frost mansion, I can tell these have a much lower thread count, cheap even, but they feel better than the fanciest Egyptian cotton. My fingers curl into my blue plaid comforter, bunching it closer and closer, until I’m hugging it. A couple of stuffed animals tumble onto my head and land beside me on the floor.
Why can’t I come home?
I want to go home.
The tears drip down my cheeks, off my chin, and dot the dark shirt I’m wearing. Though I didn’t do it consciously, I’ve come to my old house in mourning, black on black. Eventually Nathan comes in search of me. He pauses in the doorway, and I watch the memories hit him, a beating he didn’t expect.
“Pull yourself together,” he orders. “It’ll be worse for Mrs. B if you break down.”
That’s true.
I wipe my face with my sleeve and start to get up, only to find Nathan transfixed, blocking my exit. “That’s exactly what Liv used to do when we were watching some tearjerker.”
Though my heart skips, I try to play it off. All this time, I forgot about something crucial: body language. “I don’t have a tissue or a handkerchief. What else can I do?”
Nathan can’t seem to look away, struggling to put it into words. “It’s not so much what you did as how you did it. That … Morgan, that was eerie.”
“We were best friends for eight years. Is it so strange that I’d pick up some of her mannerisms?” Part of me wants him to guess, so I won’t be alone with it.
If he loves me, if he really, really loves me, he’ll know. That’s unfair, I get it. But that’s how I feel at this moment.
“I suppose not. But I never noticed before.”
“Have you ever seen me cry?”
His expression finally clears and he steps aside. “Not that I can remember.”
“Well, there you go.” I pluck a T-shirt I borrowed from Morgan as Liv from the closet and add, “I need to wash my face.”
Lingering in the bathroom, I manage to get myself together. By the time I head back to the kitchen, you can’t tell that I melted down. Dinner is in the oven now; I can smell it. And Mom is cleaning up the kitchen. Though Morgan wouldn’t think to offer to help, I can’t just watch. So I nudge her aside and roll up my sleeves.
My mom looks seriously startled. “Are you sure?”
“I only look helpless,” I assure her.
The ordeal gets easier when Jason smells the food and emerges from his lair. He’s quieter than before, but he looks better than Mom. Dad is the last one home, as usual; he rolls in just as the food is coming out of the oven. I swallow the joke that he does this on purpose to avoid helping. Coming from Liv, that was funny; from Morgan, it would freak everyone out.
Dinner is fine, but my insides feel like they’re on fire when my mom drags out the album and settles between Nathan and me on the couch. There are tons of Morgan-Liv photo ops over the years. I can remember when I fought so hard to keep her from showing Nathan the shot of the two of us in matching ruffled swimsuits, aged nine. This time I don’t attempt to hide any of the pictures, and we listen to her reminisce for over an hour. These stories are all that’s left.
She doesn’t even seem to notice she’s crying until I shut the book. “If it’s okay, I’d like to push pause on this for now.”
We didn’t even get to junior high.
My mom sniffs, her chin trembling, and I lose the battle. While Morgan may not be demonstrative, I can’t watch this anymore. I can’t, I can’t. I won’t. I wrap my arms around her, tight, and hold on like I used to, before the accident, before everything was broken.
Before.
She surprises me by squeezing hard, rubbing my back like this is for me. And maybe it is.
“I know I can’t take her place,” I whisper, which is insane for so many reasons, “but what if … I mean, I lost my mom. And—”
“You’re already like a daughter to me,” she says. “I know what you’re going to say. And yes, of course. You will always be welcome here. You’re family.”
It’s not what I want, but it’s all I can have. I nod. Then Nathan leans over, wrapping his arms around us both. The three of us lean and cry, until my dad clears his throat. At first I think it’s because he wants us to stop, but when I glance over, there are tears in his eyes too. Jason turns up the volume on whatever game he’s playing in his room.
“Me too?” Nathan asks.
“Definitely.”
“We’re not sending either of you to college,” my dad mutters.
But that’s how he’s always been, acerbic when he gets emotional. I give a shaky laugh like I’m supposed to, and say, “Thanks for dinner, but we should probably get going.”
“I want you here at least once a month,” Mom says.
That’s not enough, but it’s more often than most dead people get to visit their families. At this point my soul is starving and I can’t turn away crumbs.
“Sounds good.”
Nathan thanks them again for dinner, then trails me out to the VW. But he pauses beside it, staring up at the half moon overhead. The stars are spangled bright, too.
Maybe I’m supposed to ask what he’s thinking about, but I’ve had enough. I get in and wait for him to do the same.
“You okay?” he asks when he does.
“Yeah.”
“I guess you could call that cathartic.”
“Mm.” It’s shitty to ice him out like this, but I’m so breakable. Driving away feels impossible, the last thing I want to do.
When I go to start the car, he puts his hand over mine, forcing me to look at him. As Liv, I don’t think I ever drove Nathan around, so the angle feels weird. He’s definitely not thinking about our shared automotive past, however. A niggling worry makes me try to pull back. There will be no more accidental making out between us, especially not in my driveway.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
He turns my palm over and with silent, heartbreaking focus, inscribes LIV on my palm. When Nathan raises his gaze to mine, I’m pretty sure he’s asking a question.