Love Letters to the Dead(37)

“Same thing you are, I guess,” she replied, her voice turning suddenly curt. Then she added, “Landon’s older brother is friends with the guy who lives here.”

“Is Landon your boyfriend?” I asked, gesturing to the guy I’d seen her with.

“Yeah,” she said.

“That’s cool. He’s cute.”

“It’s so weird,” she said, “that I haven’t even seen you since … I mean, where have you been?”

“I’m sorry. It’s just, you know. I’ve been busy, I guess. With the new school and stuff.”

“So, you’re here with those girls?” she asked, pointing toward Natalie and Hannah, who she’d seen outside the supermarket.

“Yeah.”

“They seem sort of weird.”

“No, they’re actually, I mean, they’re really nice.”

Natalie and Hannah are obviously different from Janey, who now looked like a popular girl through and through, in her red-for-the-holidays minidress and matching headband. Janey stared at them for a minute. Natalie had stopped dancing and walked over to Hannah and Kasey at the table. She took the shot out of Hannah’s hand. Hey! Hannah mouthed. Natalie threw it down and then left and went back to dancing, dancing like if she stopped, she would collapse.

Janey leaned in and said, real soft, “Are they, like, in love or something?”

“Who?” I thought she meant Hannah and Kasey. “Oh, no. He just—I think he makes her feel safe or something.”

“No, them. The girls.”

I was really surprised that Janey had noticed this. I was impressed. They did a good job of covering it up. I think what Janey must have recognized is the look of hurt in Natalie’s eyes when she took the shot. I nodded, slightly. I made a shh finger over my lips. Janey nodded back, like, I get it.

Then she said, “Well, are you going to introduce me?”

“Yeah. Just don’t, um, don’t say anything about my sister or whatever, okay?”

Janey looked back at me, her face falling into a worried frown. Before she could say anything else, I led her over to the table where Hannah was.

“Hey, Hannah,” I said, “this is my friend Janey, from—”

Janey broke in. “From forever. Only she doesn’t talk to me anymore.”

Hannah nodded, studying Janey. “You’re pretty,” she said. “You look like a Disney princess or something.”

I think Hannah meant that as a compliment, but it didn’t quite come out that way. Janey let it roll off. “Thanks,” she replied. “I like your dress.”

Then Janey looked at Kasey next to Hannah, and she looked back at Natalie dancing, and she did something pretty great. She grabbed Hannah’s hand and said, “So, do you want to go dance or what?” and she pulled her away from Kasey and onto the dance floor.

I watched them, Hannah dancing with Natalie and Kristen now, and Janey doing more conservative moves on the edge of the circle. I remembered how actually wonderful Janey is. I felt a pang, watching her bobbing her blond head and remembering how there was a time when there was no secret I couldn’t tell her.

I needed some air, so I went out to the balcony. I was standing there, looking at the tangled fingers of the tree branches reaching for the winter-clear sky, when Tristan came out and lit a cigarette with his giant kitchen lighter.

“Laurel. What are you doing alone out here? Wait, let me guess. You are ‘thinking about things,’” he teased.

“Shut up.” I smiled.

With Tristan around, the sad I felt changed from sad like watching a balloon drift out of sight to sad in an it’s-good-to-know-your-soul-works way.

“How are you doing, Buttercup?” he asked.

“All right.” I shrugged. “I guess.” And then I asked him, because for some reason it’s easy to talk to him, “When you first thought you were falling in love with Kristen, did you ever get scared? Because I get that way with Sky, and I think that I might have sort of screwed stuff up.”

Tristan looked at me, and he said something I’ll always remember. “Let me tell you something, Buttercup,” he said. “There are two most important things in the world—being in danger, and being saved.”

I thought for a moment of May. I asked him, “Do you think we go into danger on purpose, so we can get saved?”

“Yes, sometimes. But sometimes the wolf comes down out of the mountains, and you didn’t ask for it. You were just trying to take a nap in the foothills.”

Then I asked him, “But if those are the two most important things, what about being in love?”

“Why do you think that’s the most profound thing for a person? It’s both at once. When we are in love, we are both completely in danger and completely saved.”

When he said that, it made sudden sense. “Thank you,” I said.

He stomped out his cigarette and ruffled my hair before he went back inside.

I took out my phone and dialed Sky’s number. His voice was soft with the edges of sleep creeping around it.

“Sky?” I asked.

“Yeah? Where are you?”

“I’m at this party. Could you come and take me home? I really want to see you.”

He agreed, so I said bye to my friends and blew a kiss to Janey, who was sitting on Landon’s lap by then. I waited outside until Sky’s truck pulled up. When I got in, I put my hands against the heater. He took them in his and rubbed them to warm them up. I leaned over and kissed the part of his shoulder that pushed against the threads of his sweatshirt.