The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek(54)

“Sit down, honey,” Rex’s mom said, gently pulling at his hand. “You’re in shock. We all are.”

Leif’s hand was over his mouth again. Ben’s sacrifice theory. Could that really have happened to Alicia? Up until last Friday, he would have said No way, of course not, it’s a SCHOOL.

But now he thought: Yes. Yes, it definitely could have happened.

Rex sat back down. He knew that nothing he said to his parents right now would make any difference.

“Look,” Rex’s dad said, rubbing his son’s back, “when something terrible like this happens, it’s impossible to comprehend, and so we try to come up with all kinds of explanations. But the truth is, when God says it’s your time, it’s your time. All we can do is pray. For Jean and Bill. For Melissa.”

That’s not all we can do, Rex thought, allowing his rage to simmer, mainly because he knew the alternative involved losing control. “Has anyone seen her body?”

Rex’s mom and dad looked at each other.

“Well, I’m sure someone has,” Rex’s dad said.

“But, like, her parents? Have her parents seen the body?”

“Sweetie,” Rex’s mom said after blowing her nose, “you don’t need to concern yourself with morbid details like that right now. I think you’re just gonna get yourself more worked up.”

“So that’s a no?” Rex asked.

“It’s okay, Rex,” Leif said, not thinking this line of questioning would lead anywhere productive.

“Oh, is it, Leif?” Rex looked at him. “Alicia is dead. She’s dead.”

“I know,” Leif said, taking off his glasses to wipe away tears. “I know.”

“Are we doing her funeral?” Rex asked his parents, milliseconds after the thought occurred to him.

Rex’s dad sighed and grimaced. “I’m afraid not. Shackelford already offered the Boykinses a funeral on the house. Free service, free coffin, free everything.”

“Well, you should offer that too! Alicia was my best friend, Dad. The Boykinses aren’t even that close with Shackelford!”

“Rex, come on, you think I don’t know that? Of course I offered. I was going to either way, but Shackelford beat me to the punch.”

“That’s true, honey,” Rex’s mom said.

Rex’s dad shook his head. “Jean and Bill had already signed the paperwork with Shackelford. I wasn’t gonna press ’em on it. They’re out of their heads right now, don’t know up from down, and I don’t blame ’em, either. Sorry, son.”

Rex clenched his jaw, then picked up the Nerf basketball and hurled it against the wall.



* * *



—

“IT DOESN’T FEEL real,” Leif said.

It was the first thing either of them had said in at least ten minutes. They were on their island, sitting on their rocks, not bothering to decide who would sit on which boulder, not adhering to the rules of statements and questions, maybe because they were too in shock to remember to. Or maybe because in a world where their best friend could be around one second and gone the next, those rules now seemed pathetic and meaningless.

“I know,” Rex said, staring out toward the woods where Ben lived.

“Remember when Alicia wore a cape for three weeks in fifth grade?” Leif asked. “And when people asked which superhero she was, she would say, ‘None of them, I’m just a girl in a cape.’?”

“Don’t do that,” Rex said.

“Do what?”

“Start talking about her in the past tense. Like, reminiscing. I’m not ready for that.”

“Okay. Sorry.” Leif wasn’t necessarily ready either, but he couldn’t help himself. He felt an obsessive need to remember every little detail he could about Alicia, that if he didn’t do that right now, the memories would all fade, like a vivid dream that evaporates as soon as you lift your head from the pillow.

He’d thought about that time, only a few weeks after she’d moved to Bleak Creek, when Alicia invited herself to a sleepover he and Rex had already planned. Rex told her it would be weird to have a girl spend the night, and Alicia told him, “You’re weird for saying that.” He’d also remembered when, in sixth grade, Jeremy Hawkins found a toad on the playground and proceeded to organize an impromptu game of “frog baseball.” Before the first pitch was thrown, Alicia took the wiffle ball bat from Jeremy and said, “How ’bout we play some Jeremy baseball?” She then proceeded to clock him repeatedly in the head with the plastic bat until the PE teacher intervened. She was sent to the principal’s office, but Jeremy never touched a toad again.

And now Alicia was gone.

She was never coming back.

She and Leif would never sit together near a cozy fireplace, or work on crossword puzzles, or make beautiful offspring that were perfect combinations of all of their best respective features. He wouldn’t even get to tell her how he felt. He would spend his whole lifetime never having told her.

That seemed impossible.

“I really don’t think there was a fire,” Rex said, still not looking at Leif. “Don’t you feel that too?”

“Honestly,” Leif said, “I don’t know what to think.”