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.I think it’s because I always thought Milo and I would be each other’s first time.I secretly wanted it.I wanted us to be clumsy and bad and awkward with each other first, practice until we got crazy good, and then we’d stop and go find other people to impress in bed.Or whatever.But his first time ended up being with Missy and my legs never opened for anyone, which in Branford is probably not a bad thing.“Yo, Eddie,” Jeff says.I look up.He tosses a can of beer at me.I pull the tab and take a gulp.I don’t like the taste of beer, but there are worse ways to be a follower, I guess.“You know, this time next year we’ll be getting ready to leave,” Jenna says loudly enough to silence everyone around her.“One more year at BHS and then grad.”“Don’t say that,” Missy says.“Do you like Pikesville High?” Milo asks her.“It’s nice.I’ve met some really great people.I have friends,” she says.“But I don’t know, being back here … I just miss you guys … a lot.”A chorus of sympathetic murmurs.Mary walks over and gives Missy a big hug and then Missy cries.She cries beautifully this side of the bonfire and Milo is looking at her with such … I don’t know, such want, I think, and that’s beautiful too.I hate that I’m so numb and empty and disconnected from most of these people but even I can see worth in stupid little moments like these.These people aren’t even my family, but I can see their value and if I can see it in something this small, when I feel this bad, then—Then why didn’t he?I take another sip of the beer.Try to distract myself from the knot in my throat and the fact that I feel like I’m going to cry.“If I lived in Pikesville, I’d kill myself,” Deacon mutters.“Deacon,” Jenna hisses.I stare at the bonfire until I realize it’s fallen uncomfortably quiet and everyone is staring at me.I have to replay the conversation to understand why and then I understand why.“Oh.It’s okay,” I say to Deacon.I’ve just glimpsed what my life is going to become after the initial grief passes: people making jokes about offing themselves in front of me and apologizing for it after and then all the awkward silence that follows.“It’s okay.”“Sorry about your dad,” Deacon says.He doesn’t look embarrassed or apologetic about what he said.All its potential offensiveness probably never would’ve occurred to him without Jenna’s help.“That was supremely fucked up.”“Yeah,” I agree.“It was.”“Is it true your mom’s like, catatonic?”“Deacon!” Jenna again.“What?” Deacon asks.“It’s not like we’re not all thinking it.” He turns back to me.“Jenna’s plan of action once she found out you were coming was to shut the fuck up, basically.”“It’s okay,” I repeat.It actually is okay.The casual way the questions roll off Deacon’s tongue makes me want to answer them.It’s like it’s only us, him and me, talking about this.Everyone else slowly fades into the background until they’re ghosts.“She’s kind of catatonic, I guess.She doesn’t get dressed a lot.”“Did he leave a note?” Deacon asks.I nod.He gives an impressed whistle.“For a while there, my mom thought it had been a murder—”“Okay,” Milo says, not so much a ghost anymore.“That’s enough.”“It’s fine.” I turn back to Deacon and sip at my beer.“My mom thought that too, for a minute.It just turned out we didn’t…”“Didn’t what?” Deacon prompts.I shrug.“You think you know someone and you don’t.” And then I take it a step further: “I mean … I don’t know.You could all be jumpers.Wrist slitters.OD’ers.Stand in front of a train.I had no idea my dad was suicidal.”Missy shivers.“God, that’s a terrible thought.”“Did you see it?” Deacon asks.“Okay, that’s the line,” Aaron says.“You crossed it.”But everyone is staring at me, waiting for me to speak.“I did,” I say.They all go so still.They all seem to stop breathing at once.I clear my throat.“It was getting late and I knew he liked to go to Tarver’s Warehouse sometimes.He’d spend hours out there, just taking photographs.Dinner was getting cold—he misses dinner all the time, so I don’t know what made me go to get him this time … but I went and I get there and—” I finish off the beer and everyone is eating this up.“I saw him on top of the roof and he was doing something with his hands…” I shrug.“I don’t know what he was doing with his hands.So I waved and I shouted and he looked up and he crossed his arms over his chest and he stepped off.”“How close were you?” Deacon asks, leaning forward.They’re all leaning forward.“I heard it,” I say.Milo drops Missy off at home first.I like that.I’m in the backseat, staring out the window, counting the tops of streetlights.“Why did you lie to them?” Milo asks.I shrug but I don’t say anything.After that, I become my mother.Which means for four days I stop brushing my hair and live in my housecoat and shuffle around the house, mute and sad, and I don’t answer my phone.Milo sends me four text messages.One a day.STATION’S BORING WITHOUT YOU.MISSY’S NOT HERE ALL THE TIME, WHATEVER YOU THINK.COME OVER TODAY.OR CALL ME.ARE YOU OKAY?The truth is, I’m fine.I’m kind of tired of everything, I guess, but I haven’t given up—I’m only pretending to, so I can drive Beth insane.It might be working.She says one hundred words for every three she manages to force out of my mom and every two she forces out of me and her eyes develop this panicked glint.That’s sort of cool.Day four starts like: Beth bursts into my room and tries to wake me up.I keep my eyes closed, but I pick at the mattress, so she knows I’m awake—I’m just not responding to her.“Eddie! Up!” She sits down on the edge of my bed and shakes my leg.“Up! Up! Up!”She waits about five minutes for me to acknowledge her and when I don’t, she gives up, gets off the bed, and leaves the room.That’s nice.I stretch out and stare at the ceiling
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