Everything You Are(82)

After her shower, she’s more than happy to climb back into bed, still weak from the overdose. All afternoon, she drifts in and out of sleep. Nothing to do, nothing to worry about, nowhere to be.

It’s a relief to be away from Ethan. He’s alive, and that’s all she wants to know about him right now. She’s glad to be away from the house, away from the cello, away from the guilt about Steph and school. There’s nothing she can do about any of it here, so far away, and that makes a quiet place in her brain that hasn’t been there since the accident.

A shadow, the scuff of a chair moving, alert her to someone in the room, and her eyes flicker open to see Steph sitting in the chair watching her. It takes her a minute, blinking and clearing her eyes of sleep, to see why her friend’s face looks all wrong. No makeup. Not the tiniest trace of eyeliner or mascara. No pale foundation. Not even lipstick.

Allie pushes herself up in bed. “Are you okay?”

“How the fuck would I be okay?” Steph’s eyes are red and puffy. She’s even taken out her nose and eyebrow rings, and she looks younger and alarmingly normal.

“I’m sorry,” Allie says.

“You didn’t even say goodbye. All of these years we’ve been friends, and you didn’t think about me at all?”

“I did!” Allie protests. “I thought about you plenty. I just couldn’t . . . You’d have said something. You helped my dad find me.”

“Well, forgive me for caring,” Steph snarls, but Allie can see how close she is to tears, knows the anger is a shield.

“I really am sorry, Steph. I can’t explain it, or I would.”

Steph flings herself onto the bed and hugs her. “You idiot. I was so worried. Life without you would have been devastating.”

“If I’d told you, I wouldn’t have been able to do it,” Allie admits, hugging her back.

“Promise me you won’t ever do it again.” Steph grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her.

Allie laughs, even as she’s wiping tears from her eyes. It’s amazing how her body keeps manufacturing tears, like there’s an endless supply of them. “Cross my heart. I didn’t really want to die, Steph. What’s with the new look?”

“What? Oh.” Steph touches her face as if she needs a reminder. “I kept crying so much I got tired of redoing my eyes. And then I just said fuck it and scrubbed it all off. And the nose ring sucks when you’re blowing your nose every five minutes. And the eyebrows looked stupid without the rest of it. So.”

“I’m sorry,” Allie says again.

“Your dad’s not so bad, either,” Steph says. “Just so you know.”

“Not going to pepper spray him anymore?”

“He told you that? I thought he’d gone and killed you. You’ve put me through hell, Allie. You owe me big-time.”

Allie sighs, the weight of the world settling back down on her, only not quite so heavy as it was before. Her eyes catch on something sitting on the floor by the door.

“What’s the duffel bag for?”

“Suicide watch,” Steph says cheerfully. “Brought some things. Are you ready?”

“To go home? I guess.” And she is, all at once. She wants her own bed, to get a snack from the fridge. It will be different now that she’s speaking to her father again. Easier.

“You’re not going—” Steph claps both hands over her mouth.

“What? I’m not going where?”

“Nothing. I went by the house and got you clothes. Figured your dad would bring you stuff you hate.”

It’s an evasion. Steph sucks at lying, but Allie doesn’t have the emotional energy to dig out the truth. It will come out soon enough. Steph also sucks at keeping secrets.

“One thing I need to tell you.” Steph drops her eyes and picks a hair off her leggings. “Don’t be mad.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise.”

It’s going to be big, to extract this kind of promise, but Allie says, “I owe you, remember?”

Steph glances up at her, and then away again. “Me and that lady, Phee, we cleaned up Trey’s room today.”

Allie feels everything inside her go still.

Steph rushes on. “We didn’t, like, get rid of his clothes or his trophies or anything. Just—we turned off the TV and did his laundry and cleaned up some. Like what your mom used to make him do on Saturdays. It’s still his room.”

“It will always be his room.”

“Are you mad?”

“Dad and I couldn’t do it.” It’s the closest she can come to saying thank-you.

“Go get dressed. They’ll be here in a minute.” Steph sits up on the bed and bounces. “This mattress sucks.”

“It’s not supposed to be a Hilton.” Allie takes the bundle of clothes Steph hands her, stopping dead in her tracks on the way to the bathroom.

“They who?”

Steph’s eyes go wide in a feigned innocence that Allie knows way too well. “Your dad. And Phee. Hurry up already.”

Allie slams the door and locks it instead of leaving it cracked, penalty for the lie she knows her friend is telling her. She just can’t figure out what Steph is on about. Her face in the mirror looks washed out and old, she thinks. Even her eyes look faded. It doesn’t matter. She tries to comb through the tangles in her hair with her fingers. “Hey, did you bring me a comb?”