All We Can Do Is Wait(66)

“Yeah,” Skyler said softly. “I get that too.”

“You’re lucky.” Morgan sighed. “You got good news today.”

“I know. I’m really lucky.”

“Maybe I’ll be lucky someday too.”

“I’m sure you will be.”

Morgan sighed again. “I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know if I should go home or what.” She picked at the safety pins on her sweatshirt. Skyler thought that maybe Morgan shouldn’t be alone now, not just yet. Though this was not exactly a happy, stress-free place to be. But still. Maybe it was something. A distraction.

“Well,” Skyler said, pointing to Jason and Alexa, who were watching to see if Morgan was O.K., seeming to not want to return to the fraught conversation they’d just been having with each other. “I’m going to stay until they hear about their parents. Do you want to stay with me?”

Morgan nodded. “Yeah. That sounds . . . I was going to say ‘good,’ but none of this is good. It sounds right, though, I guess.”

“O.K.,” Skyler said. “Good.”

“Thanks.” Morgan sniffled, pulling her sleeves over her hands. “I’m gonna go get something to drink. Do you want something? They give me free sodas and stuff here.”

Skyler shook her head. “No, I’m good. Thank you, though.”

Morgan stood up, looked around the waiting room, this small space where so much happened, every day. She turned to Skyler. “You should talk to them,” she said, gesturing to Jason and Alexa. “You’re, like, calming or something.” She gave Skyler another smile and walked off, Skyler a little amused, or was it amazed, at the idea that she could calm anyone down. But it had seemed to work on Morgan.

So she got out of her chair and went over to Alexa. “Hey,” she said, raising her eyebrows a little, as if to say How crazy, how strange.

“Hey,” Alexa said, arms crossed over her chest, looking rattled and on edge.

“You O.K.?”

“I don’t know,” Alexa said, her mouth crinkling into a frown. “I really don’t know.”

“Who was Kyle?” Skyler asked, noticing Jason, who was now wandering in a little circle near them, bristle. Skyler turned to him. “He was your boyfriend?”

Jason nodded. A little dip of his head, and then a bigger one, his eyes wet with tears. “Yeah. Yes. He was.”

“And he was my best friend,” Alexa added. “Or at least I thought so.”

“He was,” Jason said, turning to his sister, a pleading sound in his voice. “He was,” he repeated, more quietly this time.

“What happened to him?” Skyler asked, hoping she wasn’t pressing too much, but thinking that maybe, if Jason and Alexa just talked about it together, it would help somehow.

“He was in a car accident, last summer,” Jason said, eyes on his sister. “He died. I was supposed to be with him that night, but . . .”

Jason trailed off, looked at the ground, the three of them falling into silence. Skyler wasn’t sure if she should ask anything else. But before she could, Alexa turned to her brother.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Alexa said to Jason, softly, but seeming to mean it. “You didn’t make him drink. You didn’t make him drive. That was him. He did something really stupid. And he did it on his own.”

“But if I’d just been with him!” Jason was getting worked up again, his eyes wide and pained. “If I had just answered the phone and been with him. It wouldn’t have happened. And he’d be alive. He’d have New York. He’d have his five houses. And maybe you wouldn’t hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Alexa said. “I just didn’t know. I didn’t know you were so sad when he died. I thought you were just ignoring me. I thought you didn’t care about me. It hurt. I didn’t hate you. I don’t hate you. I was just . . . it hurt.” She was teary now too, her arms pulled tight against her chest, trying to keep herself together.

“I didn’t tell my sister a lot,” Skyler interjected. “I mean, we’re close, but there was a lot . . . happening in my life that I didn’t tell her.” She paused, thinking she should stop talking, but Jason and Alexa were both looking at her, waiting to hear what she had to say.

“Because I was scared to. Because I was embarrassed. Because I thought it might change her opinion of me. She figured out what was going on, eventually, but I wish I’d told her sooner. When I thought she might be dead today, I felt so lost, like the only other person in the world who speaks this . . . whole language was gone, and I’d never get to speak it again. That no one would ever understand me in the same way, for the rest of my life. I’m so lucky that she’s alive. I feel so, so lucky. That I get to talk to her again. That I get to tell her things.”

Skyler felt silly, a little embarrassed, a little cruel, for talking about life and the future when everything around her was death and ruin. “Sorry.”

Jason snorted. “No. That was good. It was good. But Alexa and I don’t exactly speak some secret sibling language.”

“But you have Kyle, right?” Skyler said. “To remember, I mean. That’s something you both have in common. Someone you loved.”