A Million Miles Away (23 page)

She focused on her lips, the tiny pixels that made them, finally forming the words.

“Michelle is dead.”

She began with the day of the party, the day she met him. The next day, saying good-bye to them from the top of the stairs. The hours passing. The policeman showing up at her house, dissolving life as she knew it into a giant flood, which she had been drowning in ever since.

“I was weak. But that’s no excuse. Or maybe it is an excuse. I don’t know. I’m all mixed up. I can’t get my life in any kind of order. Then there was you.”

When it was finished, she loaded the file onto a flash drive, dropped it into an envelope, and sealed it. She remembered Peter had told her that the wives and children of his friends often sent CDs or flash drives with photos, so they could load them and look at them, even if there was no Internet. She wrote out the address of his base, though she knew he was being moved to an unknown location. It would find him eventually.

“Maybe I am a monster,” she had told him. “But I still love you. Remember? Permanently. And I’m so, so sorry. Take how sorry you think I am and multiply it by a million. I promise I will never lie to you again. And trust me, I know what it’s like to do things every day, like talk to someone and love someone, and then never do it again, all of a sudden. For things never to be the same. So do you. But if you forgive me, I’ll keep my promise forever, no matter if you love me or if you never talk to me again. I love you permanently either way. I know how to do that now.”

Dawn was rising over Lawrence in pinks and oranges and blues as she placed the envelope in the Maxfields’ mailbox.

She shivered, though it wasn’t cold. Summer was coming soon.

Hope and fear were a strange combination, but they were better than before. Maybe he would forgive her, and maybe he wouldn’t, but at least whatever he felt would be real.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Kelsey woke in the bright, bare Chemistry classroom later that morning, her cheek flat against the desk, where drool had collected around her mouth. She sat up and found someone beside her, touching her back.

Gillian.

“Hey,” she said. “Class is over.”

“Oh, right,” Kelsey said, wiping her chin and running her fingers through her hair. “Embarrassing.” On her phone, she saw a text from Meg, introducing herself and asking to meet up and practice her moves. She had made sure to leave Peter’s little sister “Kelsey’s” number. Kelsey was touched, but she couldn’t deal with it now, half-awake.

Gillian’s mouth lifted in a smirk above her. “As your former lab partner, I can assure you that this isn’t the first time you’ve drifted off in Chem.”

Kelsey stood, putting on her backpack. “Yeah, but I didn’t have you to kick me under the table this time.”

“I don’t know if that would have done the trick, honestly,” Gillian said. “You were almost snoring.”

“Huh, well,” Kelsey said, and she flattened her wrinkled dress. She wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. She started to shuffle out of the classroom, yawning, wondering how she would make it through the day.

Gillian stopped her with a hand on the shoulder, and looked closer at her face, speculating. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

In answer, Kelsey pointed to the drool on her desk.

“You need coffee,” Gillian said. “And sugar.”

“I didn’t have time to grab any this morning,” Kelsey said. “So, I guess—”

“Let’s go,” Gillian said, pushing her back.

“It’s only third period, though. Lunch isn’t until—”

“Did I say anything about lunch?” Gillian said, smiling.

Kelsey felt her eyebrows rise without her permission, her mouth turn up at the corners. A thousand pounds lifted off her shoulders. She realized she hadn’t smiled, or felt anything, really, that didn’t have something to do with Peter for the last few weeks. Gillian was not one of Kelsey’s phantoms. She was so solid, so real, next to her, and had evidently decided Kelsey wasn’t a lying piece of crap.

“Why—” she started, and Gillian stopped, turning to look at her. “Why are you talking to me again?”

Gillian pursed her lips, thinking, and then kept walking, forcing Kelsey to follow her. “Because you’re different today. And I’m different today. I just feel different. Best friends have a way of sensing these things, I think. Which I wish I could explain via science, but I can’t—”

“Gil, you’re right.” Kelsey let out a relieved laugh, trying to keep up. “I told him last night. I mean, I took a video of myself telling him. Because it felt too weird to write a letter. Anyway, I sent it in the mail. He’ll get it soon, I hope.”

“I don’t think it even matters when he hears it, actually.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were honest with yourself.”

“And you were going to just, like, ignore me until you felt differently? Until you sensed something?”

Gillian thought for a moment. “Remember when I knew you had gotten your period before you did?”

It was true. She had handed Kelsey a tampon one day their sophomore year, seemingly out of the blue. “Still. That’s crazy.”

Gillian narrowed her eyes, smiling at Kelsey, as if to say,
Look who’s talking
.

“Fair enough,” Kelsey said, shaking her head.

“We have to swing by Ingrid’s Theater class,” Gillian said, as familiar as could be. “Then you can show us how to skip school.”

Kelsey grinned. “It’s easy, really.…”

Theater class was held in the echoey auditorium at the opposite end of the school. After the bell rang for fourth period, Kelsey and Gillian ducked into the last row, careful not to draw the attention of the Theater teacher, who sat with his back to them. The houselights stayed low.

When Ingrid walked to the center of the stage, Kelsey and Gillian crawled closer to the front, ducking behind the rows of seats.

“My name is Ingrid Krakowski and I will be performing a monogogue from Neil Simon’s classic 1991 play,
Lost in Yonkers
.”

Gillian almost spit to keep from laughing out loud. Kelsey elbowed her.

“I’m sorry,” Gillian whispered, “but did she just say monogogue?”

Ingrid furrowed her brow and began, tripping over the words with the worst New York accent Kelsey had ever heard. “‘Thirty-five years ago, I could have been fighting’…”

Suddenly, Kelsey stood up from her auditorium seat, behind Ingrid’s drama teacher, and waved frantically, putting a finger to her lips. Gillian joined her.

Ingrid opened her eyes wide, and cleared her throat, continuing louder. “‘Remember this. There’s a lot of Germans in this country fighting for America’…”

Kelsey had an idea. She held her stomach, pretending to puke, pointed at Ingrid, and pointed at the exit.

Ingrid looked at her, confused. The drama teacher turned, and Kelsey and Gillian ducked behind the seats.

“Um,” Ingrid said onstage, pinching her lips. “I don’t feel very good.”

“Do you need a moment?” the teacher asked.

“Yeah, my friend is going to be sick. I mean, I’m going to be sick.”

She ran off the stage.

The three girls met in the hallway, scuttled through the school, across the gym, only half lit as no one was using it. Kelsey peeked around before pushing open the emergency exit, finding herself blinded by the midmorning sun.

“Won’t that set off an alarm?” Ingrid whispered.

“If it does, it’s completely silent and no one ever does anything about it,” Kelsey replied as they jogged across the back parking lot. “Because I’ve been using that exit for years.”

“Good to know this school is serious about safety,” Gillian said.

“Where to?” Kelsey asked at the wheel of the Subaru.

“Tazza?” Ingrid asked.

Downtown, the girls took their iced mochas to the benches outside, squinting against the light. They used to do this every day during the summer, watching the shoppers walk by, rating the boys from one to ten.

“We haven’t done this in forever,” Kelsey said.

“You haven’t come out of your house in forever,” Ingrid said. “We’ve been worried about you.”

Gillian, who was sitting on Ingrid’s other side, leaned forward, catching Kelsey’s eyes. “What happened with… I mean…” She glanced at Ingrid, not sure if Kelsey was ready to tell her what she had done. “You know what I mean,” Gillian finished.

Kelsey sighed. The envelope was probably out of the mailbox by now, on its way to Peter. Though she had just seen him yesterday, he seemed so far gone.

“Kels?”

“I don’t know,” Kelsey said, her exhaustion catching up with her again. Her voice trembled. “We’re in love, Gil.”

Gillian reached across Ingrid to touch Kelsey’s knee. Kelsey tried to keep her lip from trembling.

“Or at least, I think we are. He doesn’t know it’s me yet, or maybe he does, or maybe he does and never wants to speak to me again.…”

“Stop,” she said firmly. “Don’t cry.”

Kelsey steeled her mouth. Gillian took a motherly tone.

“Take a deep breath.”

Kelsey did. It felt good. She took another one.

“Tell us everything.”

She did. And she didn’t eliminate a single detail. Each time the truth left her, she felt stronger, as if she were bleeding out a poison.

“So you didn’t know you liked him at first?” Ingrid asked. “You just missed Michelle.”

“And now I’m going crazier than I already am,” Kelsey said, rubbing her forehead. “I don’t know if he’s going to be okay, or if he’s going to love me, or hate me, or what.”

Gillian and Ingrid stared at her in silence.

“Well?” Kelsey pressed. “What do you guys think?”

Gillian’s brow furrowed. Ingrid sucked the rest of her mocha through a straw.

“I’m just glad you told him the truth,” Gillian finally said.

Kelsey shook her head, feeling her fists clench. “I had to. I couldn’t take it anymore. Ingrid, what do you think?”

“I think I don’t really care, because I don’t know this guy, and either way, you’re going to be just fine.”

Gillian punched her in the shoulder. “Ingrid!”

Ingrid shrugged. “Well?”

“Do you know what it’s like to be in love?”

“Yeah, probably. I don’t know. Probably not.”

Kelsey couldn’t wrap her mind around Ingrid’s indifference. She had forgotten what it was like not to care. She wondered if she would have said the same thing if their places were switched. If Ingrid had disappeared just as Kelsey had over the past year, perhaps she wouldn’t care, either.

“What are you going to do now?” Gillian asked.

Kelsey considered for a moment. A terrible, floating feeling had arisen this morning and stayed, even now. “I don’t know. Wait, I guess.”

Gillian uncrossed her legs and stood up. “Well, we’re not going to let you shut yourself in your room this time. For the sake of society at large. Who knows what you might do?”

Kelsey felt herself smile, about to thank her.

“I mean it,” Gillian said, and Kelsey had never appreciated her best friend’s bossy tone more than right then. Or Ingrid’s easygoing innocence, for that matter, blurting out everything without a second thought. She wished she could be more like them in some ways. She wasn’t, though, because that’s not how people work. They were different, the three of them, and Kelsey was beyond the point of looking back. Either way, they were behind her.

Even though she didn’t quite deserve it.

She stood to embrace her friends, and for just a second, she felt like she was on solid ground.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Kelsey entered her house that evening and thought she was dreaming again. No, it was real: the smell of dinner cooking. The sound of her father’s favorite music taking over the house. The sight of her mother chopping vegetables on a wooden cutting board, tossing the pieces into a large metal bowl. As Kelsey got closer, she noticed the table was set, napkins and all.

Kelsey hadn’t witnessed such a scene in a long time.

Her father had been warming up leftovers from the restaurant in the microwave late at night, and she and her mother were left to their own devices, mostly delivery pizza and macaroni and cheese, in Kelsey’s case.

“Is this for the group therapy people?” Kelsey yelled over the music.

“Kelsey!” Her mother jumped at the sound of her voice, too concentrated on the cabbage to notice her come in. “What did you say?”

“I said—” Kelsey began.

“Rob, turn that shit down, will you?” her mother called, and slapped her father on the butt.

Her dad turned around, saw Kelsey, and his bushy eyebrows lifted, his spatula in the air. “Hi, sweetie!”

“What’s all this?” Kelsey asked, the folk music at a reasonable volume.

“We’re having dinner together,” her father said.

“Really?”

“Sit down,” her mother said, her glasses tucked in her wild gray hair.