The heat of the night wrapped around me as I heard the rapping on my door. A heavy hand and my heart was suddenly so very heavy. I threw the covers off, ran to my door. My father never came in unless I said I was awake or opened the door. He allowed me my sanctuaries, wherever I could find them.

I opened the door to his long face, his red eyes. “Can you come into the kitchen, dear?” His voice was a tremor and I started to shake. My mind raced to my sister, so many miles away, in a city that terrified me.

I followed him to the kitchen. The light over the stove was on, casting a yellow glow around us. My father was wearing the blue and white striped pajamas my sister sent last Christmas. A gift from us both. She always described the gifts to me on the phone, then wrote my name on the card.

My father pulled out a seat, so I took it. The wood made loud bumbling sounds as I pulled it back in. “What’s going on?” My voice was a whisper, hollow. “Is it Aunt V?”

“No,” my father replied, calming my heart a moment. “And it’s not your sister.” He quieted it even more.

“Then what?”

“There’s been an accident.” My ears rang. My heart raced wilder, more thundering. I thought of Britt. My lone friend with a car.

“Is it Brittany?” My father shook his head, reached for my hand. I let him take it. I wanted answers, but I would take this comfort to get me through the next seconds.

“It’s Christina.” My breath left me, and my father’s voice became a buzzing noise. “She was in a car accident.”

“She doesn’t have a car,” I replied. Disbelieving.

“I know. But she was in an accident. She was the passenger.”

“Is she okay?” I knew the answer. It was just what you said when you heard news like this. You had hope in your chest and you needed to let it out before it was curb stomped on the ground. My father’s head went back and forth, swaying. Or maybe I was swaying in my seat. I stood up, my chair flying back, hitting the wall behind me. “FUCK!” I screamed. My father stood, gathering me in an instant.

There was too much death. Too many years stood between this one and the last, but it still felt raw. My heart was crumbling, the air in the room was being swallowed by my heavy gasps. I slid slowly to the floor, pulling from my father. My hands wrapped around my knees and I wept. There was silence around me, my cries cut through it.

The phone rang on the wall. The old one my father would never replace with a cordless. He picked it up and I choked on my heaving, wanting to hear every word he said.

“Yes. She knows. I’m with her. Okay, okay. Yes. Yes, in the morning.” My father hung the phone up, stared at his feet.

“Who was that?” my voice cracked, ragged and red.

“The Winthrop boy.” I couldn’t be sure which one would be calling. It was tangled now. My brief evening with Ben, where I was sullen and confused, then laughing, meant we were tied in some way. He smiled at me in the hallways now, and I felt like I had a new friend. Someone else on my side. “I told him you would talk to him in the morning.”

I wouldn’t be talking to anyone in the morning that wasn’t my father, my sister, Britt, or Akia.

My father moved around me. Opening kitchen doors. Opening the fridge. He let me sit in my bubble, never intruding.

I smelled oatmeal, honey, and lavender when he washed his hands. I heard my cell phone, emergency only, going off in my bedroom. This was an emergency, right? Except, there was nothing anyone could do. My best friend. The other one of us who was ready to float out of this town, ready to take the world and make it hers. The one of us who had no fear. No quavering voice. She had the steady hand and someone had stilled it. I smelled oatmeal, horror.

I grabbed the chair next to me, pulled myself up. I laid my forehead on the seat, half anchored, half trying to be vertical.

“You don’t have to eat it,” my father said. “It’s just habit. I didn’t know what to do.” He knew what to do. It was in his presence. Just being there. I wouldn’t be eating what he made but it felt good to put my hands around the bowl. To let the steam touch my face. My father went to the couch, turned on the lamp. He sat down and watched me. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, what he was waiting for me to do. I was numb and movement seemed hard.

“I think I just want to go back to bed.” The words came out, autopilot. “I think I need to…be alone.” I wouldn’t say I needed to sleep. That was a lie. I looked at the clock on the wall. 3 a.m. I sometimes woke at that hour. I would stare out my window at the school, count how many hours of sleep I was missing. Try to weigh and measure how tired I would be.

I never made it to my graduation. I had one week of solitude ahead of me before the day was to come. We had plans. So many plans. Britt was taking us to Topeka. We were searching for the perfect outfit to wear under our gowns. We were going to meet at my house to decorate our caps. We were getting manicures and pedicures. We were ready to walk down that aisle. Say goodbye to Burlingame. Steps into the future.

Instead, I stayed in bed for two days, until Tuesday. I only took calls from my sister, Akia, and Britt. I called neither of the Winthrop boys back. I had no intention of calling any of the Winthrop boys back.

Christina was in the car with someone from school. Someone who had been drinking. Christina did not drink. She also did not, to our knowledge, spend time with the person who was the reason she would never see her high school graduation. She had never, to our knowledge, shared a friendship or her desired romance, with Rodney. They’d known each other since kindergarten, just like the rest of us. But they did not speak. They did not.

Except they must have. They must have known each other in a way the rest of us did not know. They told us he was taking her home.

This would have been the time we investigated. The time for us to tear everything apart. To look for the clues. To form an alliance. To create a plan. But the plans were done. We would never scheme again.

Our past was worth saving. I wanted to place it in a jar, carry it with me. I wanted to pull it out when I left. Press it against my cold window. Instead, I buried it all. I pushed it into the caverns of my heart. I pushed it there to rest with my mother. I wanted to run away and nothing felt right except the possibility of escape.

I made a list for my father. He taught me that. When I wanted something irrational, something crazy, to write it down. I could examine my choice that way. I could determine if it was too outlandish. I could possibly talk myself out of my crazy desire. It normally worked. This time it did not. I wanted to leave Burlingame that week. I was a high school graduate. No ceremony was necessary. It was a formality I no longer cared for. I could not walk into that building again and not see my friend. I could not see the faces of my other friends. It would be too much.

I planned to beg, if the list didn’t work. But it never came to that. My father agreed to cut our summer short. He agreed to change my plane ticket. I would be going to live with my sister within a week. When I broke the news to Akia and Britt, they admitted they had no intention of going to graduation either, but their parents thought it would be good for them. I thanked God for my father then. There were times when he made me do something I didn’t want to do, arguing I would regret it. And he was always right. But he did not argue me on this. He saw into my wounded heart. He saw into my red eyes, and he knew.

There was nothing left to do here. There was nothing left to see and I could not live in a prison of memories again. I needed to write away my grief in a new place. In any way I wished. I needed to pretend shame couldn’t catch me.

I never told my friends I wouldn’t be going to Christina’s funeral.