“What’s your name?”
“Not Lydia. Answer the question.”
Out of all those in the area we’re in, this is the simplest tombstone. Gray stone. Black lettering stating Lydia’s name, birthdate and the day she died. Nothing else. No loving mother, sister or friend. No angel wings or harps or flowers drawn in for effect.
Not-Lydia reaches over and tears out the grass encroaching on the marker. It’s not an irritated motion, but it’s done with enough care that it finally feels weird to be at the cemetery by the grave of someone I had no relationship with. This place should be for those who want to remember. Maybe now I’ll stop coming. “Who was Lydia to you?”
“Didn’t know her.”
My head whips in her direction. “What?”
“Didn’t. Know. Her.”
My insides completely bottom out. This girl had given me a reason to stay away and now it’s gone.
“Answer the question,” she prods.
James Cohen has the word beloved underneath his name and his marker is upright, standing easily two feet in the air. His picture is engraved on it and his image is nothing like the memory of him burned into my brain.
There’s a stark loneliness to Lydia’s stone that I wouldn’t have noticed before James Cohen. “It wasn’t her choice.”
“I agree,” she says in a small voice. “Lydia would have wanted more.”
We’re silent and the wind rustles through the leaves above us. School starts tomorrow. The first day of my senior year. I had plans for how this year was supposed to turn out, but the death of a complete stranger changed me and I don’t like it. I pray nightly that my life will return to exactly how it was before.
“Who did you lose?” She circles the conversation back to me.
This guy haunts me. To the point where I’m starting to believe that ghosts do exist. “Someone.” Someone I didn’t know.
She nods like I told her something deep. “Yeah. That sucks. You know, they wouldn’t want you to grieve like this. They’d want you to move on. Live and let live and all that.”
And all that. I chuckle and dip my head, yanking down the bill of my cap. I have no idea what James Cohen would have wanted. Not a clue. “Why are you here?”
She twirls the flower. “I like dandelions.”
“For real. Who’d you lose?”
“No one here.” She meets my eyes and I’m drawn in. They’re gray—a color I’ve never seen before on a girl. This is crazy. I know her somehow and it’s like an itch in my brain that I can’t scratch because I can’t peg her. How could I forget someone so strikingly gorgeous?
A car honks and a woman slips out the driver’s side of the beat-up, multitoned, two-door piece of crap. She’s a thin bleached blonde about my older sister’s age, except this lady doesn’t scream stay-at-home mom with two kids.
“Stella!” she yells. “Let’s go, girl.”
Stella. This is Stella. How could I frigging forget Stella? “I do know you. We go to school together. In third grade, you sat beside me and Cooper Higgins and...”
Her spine visibly straightens. “You were saying?”
...and Cooper Higgins called her Trash Can Girl. I mumble a curse and wonder how I can somehow rewind the conversation. I meet the one person who’s been able to block the images of blood pumping out of an artery and I almost call her trash. Slick, moron. Real slick.
Stella stands and brushes off the dirt from her butt. “See you at school tomorrow, Jonah. Or maybe I won’t since I’m so memorable.”
She knew who I was the entire time. The black sludge inhabiting my veins forms fingers and grips my soul. I had this feeling a few times before in my life—before James Cohen.
One of them was when I spotted Stella crying underneath the slide on the playground in third grade. I told myself she wasn’t crying because Cooper had made fun of her clothes and because I had laughed at his joke, but deep down I knew I was wrong. And as I was back then, I’m paralyzed as to how to atone for it.
Stella eases into the passenger side of the car and I wait, hoping she’ll look once in my direction. The car vibrates as it turns right onto the narrow road, and Stella keeps staring straight ahead.
When am I ever going to learn? Or change? Or...I hate this. I snap off my baseball cap and cram my fingers into my hair. The ground beneath me feels unstable and I’m tired of walking on sinking sand. Why did everything have to change?
Stella
Careful to avoid the fifth step of the outdoor metal staircase, I hop onto the sixth step, and rust sprinkles to the blacktop below. Joss walks in front of me and she’s slow going up the steps because she’s doing that stupid hip sway to catch the eye of the guy who lives in the apartment below her. The sad part is, he’s watching, but I don’t think he’s the kind of guy she should aim for.
“He doesn’t have a job,” I tell her when she reaches the second-floor walk and stops the stupid butt roll.
“You don’t know that. He could be a superstar living off residual checks.” Joss slides the key into the lock of her apartment door, but it’s a meaningless gesture since the lock broke last month and the door will open with the slightest push. We both agreed to continue with the show of unlocking and locking for security reasons. “There are many theories as to why he’s always home.”
“Like he sells crack?” I mumble under my breath.
“Heard that,” she sings. Joss nudges the door open and struts into her one-bedroom apartment. “Anyway, he doesn’t have enough class for crack. I’m leaning toward meth.”
“My mistake. I get the dealer’s social classes mixed up.”
Joss laughs and begins to root through the cupboards, pulling out boxes of crackers and Pop-Tarts to assess expiration dates. “Hungry for dinner?”
“Sure.”
It’s a tiny place that’s five code violations beyond being condemned. Last year, the stupid landlord painted the lone window shut, making our little ant trap a fire hazard. The living room slash kitchen is the same size as most walk-in closets and the only bedroom barely fits a twin-size bed. My knees hit the sink when I sit on the toilet, but unlike the other units, Joss keeps the space homey thanks to her fascination with carousels. She’s found several paintings of them at yard sales.
“I talked to that guy at the car dealership today,” says Joss. “He said if you can enter that co-op program at school that he’d get you on part-time during the day and then you can have a full-time job as soon as you graduate.”
“Awesome.” Though internally the awesomeness of it is lost on me. It’s as if someone’s wrapped a plastic bag over my head and air is no longer a privilege. “Thanks for setting it up.”
“No problem.” Joss pitches a box of crackers into the garbage. “A girl’s gotta work.”
“Yep.” It wasn’t until this moment that I realized I was buying into that college crap the guidance counselors cram down our throats.
I plop onto the gray couch and dust scatters into the air along with the scent of mildew. Joss and I salvaged this fine piece of furniture near the dumpster on eviction day last month. I bet the great Jonah Jacobson doesn’t smell mildew when he lounges on his couch. He and his little group of friends have tortured me since elementary school and I hate them for it.
Well, not exactly Jonah, but more his