The Last Time We Say Goodbye
Page 88

Dad pulls up to Steven’s house and puts the car in park. We both peer out from the windshield for a minute. The Blakes’ house is a white two-story farmhouse with a big wraparound porch, like a well-maintained and well-loved version of Damian’s house. All the lights are on. The windows are bright, and the house looks warm.
Steven is lucky to live in that house, with his mom and his dad and his sisters, all under that roof.
I try very hard not to resent him for that.
I ring the bell. Sarah answers. I can tell by the look on her face that she’s not sure what she thinks of me being here right now.
“Is Steven home?” I ask.
She pushes the door open and steps aside to allow me to come in. “Steven!” she yells as she stalks off. “Someone to see you.”
My heart starts going fast when he appears at the end of the hall. For roughly 2.5 seconds I almost chicken out.
“Hi,” he says softly. “How’s Damian? I’ve been so worried all day. But I figured you would have called if . . .”
“Damian’s all right. False alarm.”
Steven lets out a breath. “Good. Whew. Good.” He tilts his head to one side, confused now as to why I’m here, and looks at me hard, before seeming to decide something. “Do you want to have dinner with us? We just sat down.”
“Oh, thanks, but no. My dad’s waiting for me in the car.”
“Your dad?”
“I just stopped by to give you this.”
I hand him the journal.
He looks at me blankly. “Should I know what—”
“No. It’s an experiment, of sorts. It started out as an assignment from my therapist.” I find that I can’t look directly at him when he’s holding the journal. “I want you to read it. I mean, if you want to read it. You don’t have to. Dave—my therapist—he said that I needed a recipient for my writing, like an audience. And tonight I figured out—I’ve concluded—that my recipient is you. If you want to read it. If you don’t, I get that, and I can take it—”
“I’ll read it,” he says, taking a step back like I might make a grab for it.
I think, Oh dear God, what have I done?
“Good,” I say, backing toward the door. “Have a nice night.”
Dad drives me home. He doesn’t ask questions, which I appreciate. When I get to the front door, Mom comes out to meet me. She looks a little bit freaked out. She watches Dad drive off without comment.
“Do I want to know?” she asks.
“No. Is there anything to eat? I’m starved.”
She finds us a box of macaroni and cheese, which she makes on the stove and then cuts some hot dogs into. I feel about five years old when I’m eating it, but I wolf it down. Mom watches me until I finish.
“Are you all right, Lexie?” She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “Do you want to talk about it? I’m here for you, sweetie. I know things have been hard, but I’m here for you. I will always be here for you.”
I squeeze her hand. “I know. I know you are.” I take a deep breath. “I was at Damian’s house this afternoon. He was one of Ty’s friends.”
“Yes, I know Damian,” she says. “Did you know, he put the most beautiful paper rose into your brother’s coffin? I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
Wow, the things I did not know that would have been so helpful. “Anyway, I thought that Damian might be feeling like Ty and Patrick, and that he might need my help. But then it turned out that he helped me.”
She nods. “Funny how that works.”
“I’m sorry for how I’ve been.”
She blinks at me, startled. “How you’ve been? There’s nothing wrong with how you’ve been. You’ve been getting by the best you can.”
“Well, I’m sorry for how I acted in the car on the way home from Graceland. That was not okay.”
“You said what I needed to hear,” she says. “I’m glad you did. It woke me up to what I was doing to you, while I was paying so much more attention to myself.”
“Mom . . .”
“I kept feeling your brother near me,” she says with a sigh, looking down into her lap. “Sometimes I would smell him, or I would hear his footsteps on the stairs, and I was trying to drink it away, Lex, and I’m sorry for that. I won’t do it again.”
“Okay.”
“About a week ago, I was driving back from work,” she says, “and I felt this presence with me, in the car.”
Uh-oh. Ghost in the car. Never a good thing.
“I was crying, the way I . . . do sometimes, and then I just felt it so strongly, that someone was there with me.”
She shakes her head like she still can’t believe it.
“And then what?” I prompt.
“Then I heard the voice.”
I stare at her. “And what did Ty say?”
She glances up at me, startled. “It wasn’t Tyler, sweetie.”
“It wasn’t?” I’m confused now.
“It was another voice. And it said, ‘Will you put your son in my hands?’”
I swallow, hard. “Mom . . .”
“And I said yes,” she murmurs. She lowers her head again, but she’s not crying. “I said yes.” She takes a deep breath, the kind of breath you take when a weight has suddenly been lifted from your shoulders.