Tease(52)

I didn’t know that. The birthday thing, I mean. I knew about the garage. Everyone knew about that stuff almost the second it happened, or pretended they did. People at school had different stories about what she hanged herself with. I try not to let myself picture it, though obviously sometimes I can’t help it, like that day at Teresa’s.

For a long time the paper didn’t print any of those details; my mom said they probably didn’t want to give the rest of us any tips on how to commit suicide. But obviously now that there’s a big criminal prosecution thing, the whole story is out.

All of a sudden I see something out of the corner of my eye and nearly jump off the bed. It’s Tommy, standing still and silent in my doorway. I feel like I’ve been caught doing something much worse than what I’m doing. Like by having my laptop open, with Emma’s name all over it, my little brother can see me buying Emma those roses, putting the sign in her yard, throwing my shoe at her and Dylan. Or like he knows what happened that weekend right before everything else happened—that weekend that was so great, until the world just crumbled around me.

“Hey, bud, what’s going on? Don’t you knock anymore?” My voice is light, or at least trying to be. Tommy doesn’t come in my room at all these days, so I’m not really mad about knocking. I’m happy to see him.

The feeling doesn’t seem to be mutual. His frown doesn’t shift when he says, “Door was open.”

“Oh. Okay. You want to come in?”

“Mom said you’re in charge since you’re home now. She went to the store.”

God, I’d forgotten all about Mom, and my ride home with Carmichael. The fight at Natalie’s office is still pulsing in my head like a thrumming baseline, but it’s just background noise to everything else. Everything is layers of noise these days—the pain of losing my friends and Dylan, buried under my family going through this, buried under school, buried under the lawyers, buried under . . . I don’t even know. I feel like I’m looking up at my brother from the bottom of a deep, dark well. And even though he’s standing right there, just a few feet away, it’s almost like I can’t really see him. I wonder if he’s at the bottom of his own well, looking up at me.

“Come in,” I say, patting the bed. I close the laptop and slide it back under my pillows.

Tommy shrugs and comes into the room, but he wanders over to the desk. My textbooks are stacked up, still shiny and new, and still mostly untouched. The wall over my desk still has its giant corkboard, but it’s not covered in photos of me and Dylan or me and Brielle anymore. I took those down a while ago, and lately I’ve been hanging mix CDs up there. Some are ones I was going to give to Carmichael, but I kept chickening out, figuring he’d think I was being a dumb girl. Anyway, I guess I’ll have to get rid of those now. People are just flying out of my life these days.

My brother sits down in my desk chair and spins around. That used to be his favorite thing, and I haven’t seen it in a while. When he catches me smiling at him, though, he stops.

“Mom says everything’s gonna be over soon,” he says darkly.

“She does?” I ask. This is definitely true, but I’m not sure how he means it.

“She said you’re going to settle.”

It’s such a grown-up term, but then, I guess Tommy’s getting to be more of a grown-up by the second. His voice is deeper now, and God knows he’s more of a moody teenager than I ever thought he’d be.

I can’t help but frown, though. “I guess that’s what she thinks,” I say. “I mean, that’s what Mom and the lawyer want.”

“But not you,” he says, and it’s not exactly a question.

“I don’t think . . .” I pause, pulling my knees up under my chin. I’ve been spending so much time trying to not talk about all this with the boys that I’m not even sure where to start. Of course, now I know that Tommy was still hearing about everything, even at camp. But I still try to avoid the subject, try to protect him and Alex.

Just like with everything else, I’m obviously doing a terrible job.

I clear my throat a little. “I don’t think I did anything wrong,” I say. My voice sounds small and unsure. I’ve said these words a million times, but for some reason, saying them to Tommy, I’m ashamed of them. I’m ashamed, period. I can’t look at him when I add, “They want me to apologize, in court. To say I . . . that I had something to do with . . . what happened. But I didn’t. Or, I mean, everyone was doing it . . .” I look down, unable to finish the sentence.

“I know,” Tommy said. He sounds like he means it. The old Tommy, who always took my side in fights with Mom or on game nights at home, would have said the same thing. “But what are you going to do?” he asks. “I mean—I don’t want you to go to jail.”

His voice breaks on the last word and I look up finally. He’s trying not to cry—he’s staring at my stupid mostly empty corkboard, biting his lip.

“They won’t send me to jail,” I say. “They won’t. It might be—I mean, you know about those youth home places? At the very worst it might be something like that.”

His eyes squeeze shut and his shoulders shake, just once, and I hurry to add, “But that’s not gonna happen.”