The Secrets We Keep(18)

“You coming?” Alex asked.

I’d been in the hospital for twelve days and he was there the entire time, hovering, always asking me if I wanted something to drink or if my shoulder hurt. At first I thought it was sweet. I enjoyed his company over my dark thoughts. But now I felt suffocated. I needed some privacy to say goodbye to my sister, to apologize for the last words I’d said to her. But I was never alone. Alex was always there.

He offered me his hand and I took it, stared at it as I memorized every minute detail, every insignificant flaw as his fingers entwined with mine. “Where’s your coat?” he asked as he helped me out of the car.

“At home,” I said.

My parents were paranoid about bringing me out into the cold and had thrust two coats on me when they picked me up from the hospital this morning. Truth was, I didn’t want either one. Something about the slap of the cold air against my skin felt good, reassuring. Each goose bump that rose on my skin was welcome, a sharp reminder that despite the misery I was encased in, I was, in fact, still alive.

Besides, the two wool coats weren’t mine; they were Maddy’s. I’d worn her black dress, but having her coat surrounding me, her warmth seeping into me, seemed wrong.

“Here,” Alex said as he shrugged out of his. I turned to let him wrap it around me, flinching when his hand brushed against my neck. Up until now, the only part of my body he’d touched was my hands.

“Your shoulder hurt?” he asked. They’d reset my dislocated shoulder while I was unconscious. My arm was still in a sling, but that was mostly due to the weight of the cast on my left wrist.

“No, it doesn’t hurt. Your hands are just cold.”

He warmed them with his breath before turning the collar of his coat up around my neck. There were four white chairs facing the coffin, like sterile beacons directing me home. I didn’t want to sit in one. I didn’t want anybody’s focus on me. I wanted to fade into the background and watch from a distance as I made peace with my decision to become my sister.

Mom motioned for me to take the one beside my dad, and I sat down, felt the legs of the white folding chair sink into the wet ground under my weight. Alex took the seat next to me, his hand never leaving mine. Dad sat on the other side, his eyes meeting mine as he patted my hand.

“You doing okay?” Dad asked.

Not knowing how to answer, I shrugged. I was so far removed from okay that I couldn’t even put a name to the mess of emotions I was feeling. Anger, pain, regret, and an overwhelming amount of guilt churned together, leaving me numb.

“It’s going to be fine, Maddy,” Dad said, uttering the same reassuring words he had each morning as he left the hospital to go home and change. “We’ll get through this, I promise. So long as we still have you, we can get through this.”

I hadn’t seen Dad cry since that first day in the hospital, but he looked fifteen years older than I remembered. His suit was impeccable and his shoes polished, but the wrinkles around his eyes were a little too deep, his voice a little too raspy. Mom was quiet, had been since that night the nurse and Alex took me to see Maddy. Her eyes were red and her hands trembled. She caught me watching her and mouthed that she loved me as she reached across my father to smooth my hair. I did my best to smile, every broken piece of me becoming a little more jagged with the knowledge that their love was not for me, but for Maddy.

Not able to look Mom in the eyes, I turned toward the gathering crowd. I wanted them to hurry up and leave, for this whole thing to be over so I could go home and be alone.

The chairs had been set up in a semicircle, my parents and Alex and I seated at the front, my grandparents behind us. From where I sat, I could see nearly everybody, could feel their eyes watching me. Looking around, I spotted my cousins and my aunts. One uncle was quietly telling his kids to stop poking at each other. There were neighbors, our childhood babysitter, and a handful of guys from Dad’s office. I could even pick out the women from Mom’s book club. None of them bothered me. It made sense for them to be here, supporting my parents. It was the crowd behind them that had me squeezing Alex’s hand to the point of pain.

I’d figured Jenna would come. She was Maddy’s best friend and spent as much time at our house as Alex did. The rest—the field hockey team, the boys’ soccer team, the two dozen kids who’d never looked twice at me before today—they bothered me.

“What are they doing here?” I asked Alex.

Alex looked confused. “What do you mean what are they doing here? It’s your sister’s burial service, Maddy. Why wouldn’t they be here?”

“They don’t know m—” I paused, swallowed hard, and corrected myself. “They didn’t know Ella. I mean, with the exception of Jenna, I don’t think any of them said more than two words to her. None of them. Ever.”

“That doesn’t mean they don’t care.”

“Yes, it does,” I fired back, remembering how Jenna kindly asked me to drive myself to school our sophomore year because being seen with me wasn’t good for Maddy.

“They don’t care about Ella. They never have!”

Alex wasn’t one to swallow his own words, but I watched him do it, felt his hand twist in mine as he struggled to stay calm. “They are not here for her. They came for you, Maddy. You.”

“For me? For me?”