We Are the Ants(74)

“Tell me you didn’t do it, and I’ll believe you.”

“No, you won’t.” Diego stood up, kissed my cheek, and got in his car. “Merry Christmas, Henry.”

? ? ?

I called Audrey as soon as Diego’s car disappeared down the street. She was waiting outside of my house fifteen minutes later. We drove to IHOP and got a corner booth and some pancakes, which didn’t make me feel any better. Audrey talked about inconsequential things while I tried to sort out what had happened with Diego. It felt like a breakup even though we were never a couple. His leaving hurt like the punch of finality that only comes from a broken heart. I recognized the pain because I’d felt it the day I found out Jesse was dead.

“I miss him,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud; I’d only been thinking it.

“You’ll work it out with Diego.”

“Not Diego. Jesse.”

“Oh.” Audrey chewed a bite of soggy pancake, but I imagined it tasted like gravel to her, the way everything had tasted like gravel to me since Jesse’s death. “I miss him too.”

“He should be sitting beside me, holding my hand under the table, kicking my foot with his foot, turning everything into a dirty joke.” I dragged my fork through the syrup on my plate, creating trenches that quickly filled in again. “If Jesse were here, everything would be different.”

“Yeah,” Audrey said, “it would be. But Jesse’s not here. I am and you are. Jesse’s dead, Henry.”

“Why? Why did Jesse kill himself?”

Audrey shook her head, raised her napkin to her face like she was going to cry. I waited for her to give me the answer I’d been waiting months and months for. “I don’t know. I wish I knew, but I don’t. I wish I could point to one specific reason that caused Jesse to give up, but I can’t. Sometimes, people just quit wanting to live, and there’s no good reason for it. It’s so f*cking selfish and cruel to the people left behind, but we can’t change that. We can only live with it.”

The rational voice in my head knew Audrey was right, but the other voice—the one that loved Jesse and hated him and felt terrible for not trusting Diego—refused to accept what she was saying. “I know Jesse, Audrey. He would have left something behind.”

“He didn’t.”

“I tried to ask his parents at the funeral, but they wouldn’t speak to me.”

“I’m sure the police searched Jesse’s belongings for a suicide note.”

“They didn’t know Jesse; they wouldn’t have known what to look for.”

Our server approached with a cheery smile that disappeared the moment he saw Audrey’s grim expression. He dropped the check and scurried away. “I can’t make this better for you, Henry. Jesse’s gone, and we’ve got to move forward with our lives. You’ve got your family, a niece on the way, and a guy who really likes you.”

All those things were true, but I’d stopped paying attention as an idea struck me. It began as a spark and exploded, spreading like a universe within my mind. Audrey was still talking when I said, “Let’s break into Jesse’s house.”

“What?”

My thoughts whizzed around my skull so near the speed of light that I could never catch them. “It’s Christmas Eve. Jesse’s parents dragged him to Providence every year for Christmas. They won’t be home. I know where they keep a spare key, and I know the alarm code.”

It was a perfect idea, and I couldn’t understand why Audrey was staring at me slack-jawed and bewildered. “Why on Earth would we break into Jesse’s house?”

“To figure out why he killed himself.”

“But why, Henry? Why does it matter?”

I slammed my fist onto the table, causing the plates of soggy pancakes and mugs of bitter coffee to jump. The other diners turned to stare, but I couldn’t be bothered. “Because if Jesse didn’t have a reason for killing himself, then his death was meaningless. And if Jesse’s death is meaningless, then so are our lives. So is everything, Audrey. I thought you out of everyone would get that.” I threw some cash onto the table and walked to the parking lot. The night sky was clear, but I could hardly see the stars for all the streetlights. They were up there, though. I’d seen them from the slugger’s ship. I’d seen them all.

The door opened and closed behind me, but I didn’t turn around. “You know,” I said, “if we were on one of the planets in the Alpha Centauri system, looking toward Earth, we’d see Jesse still alive.”

“But he wouldn’t be, would he?”

I shook my head.

“What would be the point of watching Jesse die all over again if we couldn’t do anything to prevent it?”

“At least we’d know.”

Audrey walked to her car, unlocked the doors, and got in. She started the engine and rolled down the windows. I stood watching the stars. “Come on. If we’re going to commit a felony, we’ve got to do it before my curfew.”

? ? ?

I spent a lot of time at Jesse’s house when he was alive, but I never really looked at it until Audrey and I parked on the street and sat quietly in her car with the lights off. It was a typi-cal Florida house, which is to say there was nothing architecturally interesting about it. It had no history, no quirky lines or idiosyncratic ornamentations. It was solid and functional, though larger than most of the other houses on the street. The hedges under the windows were trimmed so perfectly, I doubt I could have found a single leaf out of place. The grass was green and neat, the mulch surrounding the various trees bright and woody. The driveway was marred by nothing, not even a single drop of oil. The Franklins’ house was pristine, perfect, and sterile, right down to the tasteful white holiday lights that lined the edge of the roof, and the festive wreath hanging from the front door.