She shifts a little, turning to face me more directly. Her brown eyes are intense and her hands are knotted tensely in her lap.
“Listen. I’m done with him, Sunny. He’s not important. He wasn’t worth it.”
I inhale, slowly. Exhale, slowly. Hear:
—and you are.—
For a moment, all I can feel is her urgency, her loneliness and regret. I shake myself.
“Look,” she says, sliding off the bumper and standing in front of me. “I suck at saying sorry.”
Before I can respond, she throws a small object into the back of the car, next to where I’m sitting, and briskly walks off, platform boots beating a fast rhythm against the pavement of the parking lot.
I look down to my left, at whatever it was she threw at me. It’s long and narrow and wrapped in newspaper—the news briefs section, with one readable headline: “Morbidly Obese Man Found Comatose in Bathtub.” I rip the paper. Inside is a black fountain pen, the simple kind that stationery stores always have. But all over it are Mikaela’s signature decorative swirls and thorny vines, in shiny silver paint. It’s beautiful.
There’s a note wrapped around it. The note reads, in Mikaela’s precise looping handwriting, “To match the blank book I gave you. It occurs to me that there are less invasive ways to get people to read your thoughts than, well, you know. Here’s to writing them down, the old-fashioned way.”
At lunch the following day, I head over to the picnic bench behind the art building, where Mikaela is sitting with David, Becca, and Andy.
I stop about ten feet away, take a deep breath, and walk right up to Mikaela.
“You don’t suck at apologizing,” I tell her quietly. I sit down on the side of the bench next to her and, very deliberately, loop my hair up into a bun and fasten it in place with the pen she gave me.
She gives me a tentative smile. I return it, just as tentatively. But I feel better, like there’s been an invisible wall between us and now it’s gone.
“So,” I say conversationally, “you never told me what happened to Cody. I can’t help noticing his conspicuous absence.”
“Funny you should ask,” she replies. “I was just telling these guys that Cody’s probably not coming back. He emailed me this morning—his parents pulled him out of school and everything. I think they’re looking for a private school. He’s staying with his aunt and uncle right now in Malibu.”
“Malibu? Poor him,” Andy says. “What a horrible, horrible punishment.”
“No, seriously, his aunt is some kind of cop and his uncle is a bodyguard for rich people. I bet they’re paying his uncle to keep an eye on him.” Mikaela reaches over and steals a chocolate-chip cookie out of Andy’s lunch. He tries to smack her hand away and misses.
David smiles faintly. “Remember how he used to drive us around all the time? Before he crashed the car, I mean. Even all the way out to Melrose. Good times.”
“Ah, he’ll still be an asshole even at private school,” Becca says, winking at me. “He’ll just be a rich private school asshole.”
“But he was our asshole,” Mikaela says with a forlorn sigh. We all stare at her. The corner of my mouth twitches, and then I dissolve into helpless laughter. Even the super-serious Andy looks like he’s trying to fight a case of the giggles.
“Okay,” I say, finally getting myself under control. “Now, wait, he emailed you? What else did he say? So help me, I’m curious.”
“Well, not much. He claims he’s going to ‘work his connection’ with that Wiccan coven thing he’s always going on about, but I think it’s just that he has a crush on that chick with the cloak. The one from the solstice party. I’m pretty sure she isn’t interested in a high school junior, unless she has a thing for little boys.”
“Ew.”
“No kidding. Hmm,” Mikaela says musingly, “I wonder if they’ve ever had hot and horny witch sex in the woods?”
“Oh, gross, you have to shut up,” Becca says, throwing a handful of corn chips at Mikaela.
“You’re always throwing food! Children are starving,” Mikaela retorts, grinning evilly. I wonder if she really is over Cody or if she’s putting on an act. I wonder if she’s going to keep in touch with him. Email him. Call him.
“Well, I’ve lost my appetite thanks to that mental image,” Becca says.
“Yeah, I think we need to change the subject,” I say.
“Oh, fine. Prudes, all of you.” Mikaela gets up and wanders around the table, stopping to look over David’s shoulder. “Hey, this is good. Really good.”
Andy leans over. “Nice, dude.” He looks up at me.
“What?” I frown.
Andy shrugs. “You should show her.”
David turns the sketchbook around to face me. He looks away, smiling a little, but his ears are red.
Inside is a tiny portrait. Of me. I mean, it’s clearly supposed to be me, but I’m not that … wistful-looking. Am I? It looks like David’s been working on it for a while, and I feel like I should say something, but I don’t know what.
“Yes, you look like that, Sunny honey,” Mikaela says.
“Like what?” I ask, suspiciously.
“Gorgeous, silly.” She circles the table and grabs my shoulders and gives them an annoying shake, then a quick hug. “You’re, like, the Queen of Sunshine.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Is she joking?
“It means I am wildly jealous that Da Vinci here drew a portrait of you. He never draws portraits of any of us. Just sketches us in awkward lunchtime situations.” Mikaela lets go of my shoulders and prances around, flitting her hands like they’re little fairy wings and singing, “La la la! Queen of Sunshine!” In her ripped purple tights, knee-high black boots, short skirt, and “Not all who wander are lost” T-shirt, she looks completely ridiculous.
“If you’re trying to imitate me, you’re failing miserably.” It’s so unlike me—really, Queen of Sunshine?—that I start laughing helplessly.
For some reason, I think about the old me then, with her bleached-blond hair, her “safe” group of swim team friends and nobody she really felt close to. I feel sad for her, really sad. Mikaela whirls dizzyingly around a tree, whooping, and I remember Shiri and me as little kids, running around the backyard in pillowcase capes and shrieking with giggles—Wonder Nerd and Super Dork.
We’ll always have yesterday … and today, and tomorrow.
Shiri left me more than that. Grief, confusion, anger. Maybe even underhearing, though I may never know for sure. And I’ve spent so much time remembering the yesterdays I can never get back. So much time wasted, when it’s today that’s really important.
That’s not me anymore, though. Yes, some things are worth fighting to keep. But some things you have to let go.
I take the pen out of my hair, and Mikaela’s blank book out of my bag.
In the middle of the first page, like a title, I write: TOMORROW. And then I turn to the next page and start writing.
Author’s Note
Like far too many others, my life has been affected by the suicide of someone close to me. I’m also no stranger to the battle with depression and despair. These issues are serious, and social stigma can make it even more difficult to talk about it when we are hurting. Don’t hesitate to reach out for help if you need it, whether it’s you or a loved one who is suffering. There are resources out there to help teens (and adults) cope with depression, suicide, and other crises. These are just a few: