Little Do We Know(77)

I didn’t try to catch up to him.



Luke must have given the front-desk person his name, because by the time I arrived at the studio, our escort was already there, waiting to take us to makeup.

We sat next to each other in silence while someone named April fixed my hair and put powder on my face. I’d been holding back tears since the café, and now, as hard as I fought them back, I couldn’t keep them from streaming down my cheeks.

April squeezed my shoulders and bent down low. “Are you okay, sweetie?” she whispered as she handed me a tissue. “You have to stop crying or I can’t do your makeup.”

I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t stop.

“You’re on in three minutes,” a voice behind me said.

Luke didn’t skip a beat. “I’ll do it alone.”

He got up and left the room, and I didn’t see him again until he appeared on the monitor, sitting on the couch next to an interviewer with black hair named Adam.

The two of them took their seats: Adam on a chair and Luke on the couch, facing him. Luke didn’t even glance over at the empty spot next to him where I should have been sitting.

Luke gestured with his hands more than he usually did, but aside from that, he told his story exactly the same way he had over the last few days. Right until Adam asked him the final question: “So, Luke,” he said, leaning in closer to him. “Tell me. Do you believe in heaven now?”

And then he went rogue.

Luke laughed. “Hell, I don’t know,” he said. “Who knows anything. You don’t know. I don’t know. I’m just happy to be alive. I’ve always been kind of a live-for-the-moment guy, but I’m even more so now. The world looks different. Colors are brighter and food tastes better and the air smells cleaner, even in LA.” He was talking faster now, like he’d finished that coffee, chased it with a chocolate bar, and washed it all down with a Red Bull. “I’m in love with this amazing girl named Emory, and we only have four more months together before we go off to separate colleges, so I’m going to get back home tonight and wake up tomorrow and enjoy every second I have with her. If anything, this experience has taught me to soak up every second of every day, because we never know when it will be over. I’m not afraid of what happens next. I honestly don’t care. I’m just damn glad to be here.”

Adam held up his hand and Luke high-fived him.



The ride home was brutal. Luke barely said a word. When he pulled up in front of Covenant, he put the car in park, but he didn’t even bother to look at me. He kept his gaze fixed on the windshield. “Tell your dad I’m not coming tonight,” he said. “I’ve done enough to help him.”





Once I was in my costume, with my makeup on, standing at my stage mark under the lights, I felt like a whole new person. I was a whole new person. I was Emily Webb, and I was killing it.

When the curtain came up for Act Two, the spotlight shone on Charlotte. She stood confidently in the center of the stage and delivered her lines.

“George and Emily are going to show you the conversation they had when they first knew that—as the saying goes—they were meant for one another. But before they do, I want you to try and remember what it was like to have been very young. And particularly the days when you were first in love; when you were like a person sleepwalking. You’re just a little bit crazy. Will you remember that, please?”

When the stage lights dimmed at the beginning of the show and I could see out into the audience, I spotted Mom in the aisle seat in the first row, waving wildly at me. D-bag was next to her, staring down at his program. Mr. and Mrs. Calletti were sitting next to him, and Addison was on their other side. And then I spotted Luke and did a double take.

I stared at him, hardly able to believe he was sitting there. He’d come after all. He’d picked me over them.

“Hi,” I mouthed.

“Hi,” he mouthed back.

The stage went dark and the spotlights came up, shining warm and bright on Tyler and me, and I went back to work.

“Emily, why are you mad at me?” Tyler asked.

“I’m not mad at you,” I said.

“You’ve been treating me so funny lately.”

The lines came easily, and my feet seemed to carry themselves to the stage marks without me even having to think about it. By the time we reached the final scene, I was pumped and ready.

Someone handed me a tissue so I could dab the sweat from my face. Someone else handed me my water bottle, and I drained it in one gulp. I was taking slow, even breaths through my nose, when Ms. Martin grabbed my hands and knelt next to me.

“This is it. Remember, you’re saying good-bye to the things that matter most to you in this world. You’re telling this roomful of people to think about the things that matter most to them. Close your eyes.” I did. “Picture the three things you wrote down that day. What did you want to say good-bye to?”

I thought about Hannah and my patch of grass. And the sound of my mom’s voice. And this stage.

“Ready?” she asked. I handed her my empty glass as I nodded. “Go.”

She stepped away and the curtain rose.

I stared across the stage at the mourners gathered together at the graveyard, and when I heard my cue, I stood and walked slowly to my stage mark.