I can’t hold it in anymore. My mouth opens up and the words tumble out. “I heard it wasn’t an accident.”
Ryan turns slowly, the smile gone from his face. “Wait, like, are you saying she . . .?”
I nod. “Did it herself.”
“Jesus. How?”
I don’t know. “But . . . there’s something else.” My heart is racing. I need to get this out. “She called me two days ago.” I hate hearing myself say this. I hate so much that it’s true. “But I just let it ring. She left me a voicemail. I didn’t listen to it at the time because I . . .” I stop. I didn’t because I couldn’t. Because I had worked so hard to try and put her out of my mind.
“What did she say?” he asks.
“I still haven’t played it yet.”
Ryan exhales slowly. “Maybe you don’t need to. Maybe it will only make things worse.”
“But how can things be worse than they already are?”
He just shakes his head, looks down, then leans back and holds out his arms in this way that I love, when I’m capable of feeling anything. Which right now I’m not.
I lean against him anyway, and he squeezes me tight. We stay that way, until the front door opens a few minutes later and Ryan’s mother and sister Marissa come in. We spring apart. I stand up.
“Junie, sweetheart!” Ryan’s mother. “We missed you over Christmas.” She puts her keys and her fancy purse down on the counter.
His sister waves to me as she walks up the stairs.
“Marissa told me what happened at your school today,” Ryan’s mom says. She frowns. “Such a terrible shame, a tragic waste. Did either of you know the girl?”
I don’t want Ryan’s mother to make a fuss, the way I know she will if she finds out the full truth. “I kinda used to, a while ago,” I say. “Not anymore.”
“Oh, honey, that’s still awful. I’m so sorry.”
She reaches over and gives me a hug. I know if she holds on too long, I will break apart entirely, because all of a sudden it turns out I am just barely holding myself together. I have to get out of here.
I pull away awkwardly. “I need to use the bathroom.” I feel Ryan watching me go.
Once I’m safely inside, I turn on the faucet and slide down to the floor, my back against the door.
I cannot wait any longer. I fish my phone out of my pocket and dial voicemail. I hold my breath.
First the automated recording. “Message received Tuesday, December thirty-first, three fifty-nine p.m.” And then Delia. “Hey, J, it’s me, your old pal.” Her voice sounds at once completely familiar and like I’ve never heard it before in my life. “Give me a call, okay?” She pauses. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
That’s it. That’s all there is.
Suddenly, I feel the edge of the door pressing into my back. Someone is trying to come in.
“One second,” I call out. My voice cracks.
I slip my phone back into my pocket, pull myself shakily to my feet. I splash water on my face and pat it dry with one of their soft towels.
I’d assumed there would be something in her voice to make this all make sense, but all that’s here is Delia sounding exactly the way she always did. She doesn’t sound like a girl who is getting ready to die.
Except . . . she was. It was the day before; she must have known. Did she call to tell me? Did she call so I could stop her?
I open the door. Marissa is standing there in the hallway, smiling at her phone. “Sorry,” she says without looking up. “I thought you were with Ry. He’s in his room.”
I walk down to the end of the hallway. He’s waiting for me on his bed, his blue plaid comforter bunched up behind him.
“Did you listen?” he asks.
I nod. “She said there was something she needed to tell me. But that was it. She always did like to keep people in suspense. Guess I will be forever now.” I try to choke out a laugh. Delia would have liked that joke. But the laugh gets mangled on its way out and comes out like a cough and a sob. I won’t let the tears come. I can’t.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper.
Ryan shakes his head, he clenches his jaw. “It’s beyond understanding.” And he looks like he is going to cry too.
“Junie?” Ryan’s voice jolts me out of my trance. It’s later. We haven’t been sleeping, just lying in bed, holding on to each other. The sun has gone down and the room is dark.
Now he holds something out in front of him. “Your present.”
It’s a tiny snow globe, a perfect winter ski scene behind glass. When I look closer, I realize the person on the slope is a rabbit.
“It’s Alva,” he says. “Or Adi.” He smiles. “When they went on vacation.”
I try to smile back, but my mouth won’t work right. “Thank you,” I say. “It’s perfect.” And I think about the rabbit wallet I have for him back home, how I ordered it custom from an Etsy shop and was so excited when it came. How I spent a long time wondering whether buying him a present referring to our private joke was somehow too much, too serious. And I thought for a long time about whether to get one rabbit or two.
I remember the girl who only had that to worry about. It all seems like a million years ago now.
We make our way back downstairs. The kitchen is warm and bright and smells like sweet cooking onions. There’s music coming out of the sleek speaker on the counter behind the sink – happy instrumental stuff with lots of percussion. Marissa sits at the kitchen table with her laptop open. Ryan and Marissa’s older brother, Mac, is there now too, standing at the kitchen island. There’s a tangle of peppers and onions sizzling in front of him in a pan.
Mac is nineteen and is different than the rest of his family. They all fit so easily into this world of happy family dinners, easy smiles. Even Ryan does, though on some level I think he probably wishes he didn’t. It’s a really good world to visit, but I’ve always only felt like a visitor. Sometimes it seems like maybe Mac kinda feels that way too. He graduated high school last year, and then went to Europe with his band. He came back a couple months ago and is starting a company with his friends, something to do with technology and filmmaking that’s supposed to be a secret. He lives in an apartment in downtown Philly with a few other guys, but he comes here sometimes for dinners and things. I always get the sense that he has some kind of secret life, maybe part of the world I used to belong to before I met Ryan. When my whole life was wrapped up with Delia.
“Mom’s at some exercise thing and Dad’s working late,” Mac says. “Here’s food if you guys want it.” He hands us each a plate piled with grilled shrimp and peppers and onions. He puts a platter of tortillas in the center of the coffee table and surrounds them with sour cream and homemade guacamole. Mac is a good cook, but the idea of eating seems absurd to me.
But not as absurd as the idea that Delia could be dead, which makes no sense at all.
I sit with my plate in my lap, barely moving.
Delia devoured life in greedy, gulping bites. She never had it easy – there was hard stuff with her family, and hard stuff maybe wired into her brain. But no matter how bad things got, she would never have chosen to leave the world when there was still the chance that things could change, and things could always change. There’s always hope.