I woke up sometime in the middle of the night and discovered that Danny wasn’t beside me on the couch. I went to look for him in the bedroom, but he wasn’t in bed, either. The computer was off. Danny’s BMW was still parked in the same place I’d left it at the beginning of the week. He had to be in Christina’s room.

I found him in her bed. He was lying on his side, covers pulled up to his chin, crying silently. When he saw me come into the room, he raised the blanket, inviting me to join him. We snuggled close in her room, in the bed that still smelled like her, and imagined that she might walk through the door any minute and smile at us.

“Why is life so goddamn unfair, Jessica?”

I’d been asking myself that more and more lately, but hearing it from him was frightening. If he started railing against Christina’s fate, he’d eventually start refusing to accept his own, and then he’d be completely lost. I couldn’t let him start asking himself why everything had turned out this way.

“You shouldn’t think about things like that, Danny. We’ll never get answers to questions like those.”

He sat up in bed and began to cry again. “Why did she have to die?” he asked me over and over again. “She had her whole life ahead of her. Why her? Why not me? Why didn’t I die? With me, it wouldn’t have mattered. Why couldn’t I have died in her place?”

I got out of bed and left the room, fleeing to the backyard to escape his words. It would have been just as wrong for Danny to die. Fate was a dirty, cold-hearted liar who played favorites at random, without caring in the slightest what was fair or what made sense.

Dawn was beginning to break when I returned to Christina’s room. Danny was still awake, wiping his tears with his sleeve. “Why not me?” There it was again, that question I had neither the ability nor the desire to answer. “It wouldn’t have mattered with me. I would have died for her so happily!”

 

***

 

Returning home very late in the evening, I tried to sneak off to my room without being noticed.

“Jessica!” my father thundered.

My parents were both in the living room. They were only still awake because they’d been waiting up for me. “Where were you?”

“At Danny’s. I told you.”

“You haven’t been at work all week, and your certification exams are in September!”

Certification exams. Stupid words on lifeless paper. Were there actually people in the world who cared about stuff like that? “I took the week off,” I said defensively. “I told you—something happened.”

“We’re not sure we believe it,” my mother said, trying to be the mediator. “Who did you say died?”

“Christina! Danny’s roommate and best friend!”

“What does that have to do with you?”

Was she serious? She actually didn’t seem to believe me. But then, why would she? I’d never told her about Christina. Maybe I should have. “She was my friend, too!” I shrieked.

“What happened?” my mother asked. “Car accident?”

“Drugs,” I replied curtly. “She died from bad heroin.”

“Heroin?” My mother paled. “Jessica, what are you doing around heroin?”

“Nothing. But Danny’s roommate used to be an addict.”

“Oh my God!” My mother clapped her hand to her mouth in horror, fingers trembling. “He made such a good impression on us. Why would he be living with drug addicts? You said he had his own apartment.”

Heat began spreading through my body. “You guys are completely misunderstanding this! It’s his apartment, and he doesn’t do drugs. At all. He just helped Christina because—”

“Well, you’re not hanging around that Danny in the future,” my father interrupted, pronouncing Danny’s name as though it were an insult. “Apparently, he’s not good for you anymore!”

“Not good for me?” I echoed in disbelief.

My mother gave me a sympathetic look. “He doesn’t seem to be the right sort of company for you, Jessica. You should get back in contact with your old friends. You were so happy last summer, with Alexander and Vanessa?”

“I am happy!” I shouted. Traitorous tears rolled down my cheeks as if to belie my words. “I’m flying to America with Danny this year, and I might stay there for months!”

My mother shook her head in despair, and my father shouted back, “Fine! But until then, you’re sleeping here. This is never happening again. You’re staying at home and going to work and that’s it! End of discussion!”

I squared my shoulders resolutely. “I’m an adult. I can do what I want.”

“Be reasonable,” my mother pleaded. “We’ve always given you so much freedom. You’re being completely unfair right now.”

“The funeral is on Wednesday,” I said coldly, “and after that, I’m going to Danny’s, and I’m staying there until he’s halfway stable again. It could be a week, it could be a year. He really loved his best friend, you know.” I spun around, leaving my horrified parents standing there.

Then I poked my head back into the living room and added, “I don’t care whether it’s fair. Life is never fair. You guys should probably get used to that.”