of the breath I’ve been holding. At least she was already dead when her car caught on fire. It is such a pathetic relief.
The next folder looks empty until I tilt it and an envelope slides out. I peer inside with my head pulled back and catch a glimpse of photos of the blackened and mangled front of my mom’s car. I close my eyes and swallow hard, hoping that will keep me from throwing up as I jam the envelope back in the file.
“Are you okay?” my dad asks. When I look up, he is watching me.
“Are you?” I ask, deflecting. “You’ve been tapping on your phone nonstop.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” He always falls for distraction mixed with guilt. “The assistant from Senator Russo’s office emailed a minute ago. Apparently if I go right now to DC, I can meet him and someone from the NIH this afternoon.” His tone is dismissive as he shakes his head. “And this meeting is now a prerequisite before they’ll even consider my funding. And if I don’t go to this meeting I will now have to wait until September for anything to happen because the senator is off for summer recess. Feels like they’re trying to create a situation where I’m the one who can’t make it. I’m not even sure a senator is allowed to get involved in NIH funding.”
“There’s no way you can get there?” As much as I’ve been avoiding information myself, I don’t want his pride to be the reason he doesn’t find out something important.
He checks the time. “If I go right now to the airport, I guess I could be down there in time for a late afternoon meeting and then back home for bed.” He thinks doing this would be kind of absurd, though. I can feel it. Insulting to snap to it because they’ve told him to. But hesitation is also tugging at him like he is afraid of something slipping through his fingers.
“But maybe you should go?” I ask. Because that seems to be the way he feels.
“There are other ways to get the research funded, Wylie.” He frowns as he stares at the floor. Then he nods. “But I suppose I should go, yes. I’ve never been willing to play this politics game, which is probably why it’s taken me so long to get my research this far. But it’s too important now not to be willing to put up with some politics.”
And I know what he means by “now.” He means with me so directly involved.
I nod. “Then you should go.” Though I feel a deep pang of regret once I’ve said it out loud. I just wish I knew what it was exactly that I regretted.
“I don’t want to leave you here.” He motions to the box. “Doing this.”
“I’ll be fine,” I say, and while this does not feel entirely true, it also does not feel like a complete lie. It’s a reason for him to go—a good one. He should take it. It’s bad enough that I’ve put him through this whole thing with the file when I’m not even entirely sure why I’m doing it. “I’m supposed to see Jasper when I’m done anyway. I promised him I’d come by his place. I can walk from here.”
“Oh,” my dad says, failing to hide his concern. “‘Promised’ sounds serious.”
He likes Jasper well enough, but he worries about the same thing Dr. Shepard does: Jasper pulling me down. And it’s much harder to argue with my dad. He’s seen the state that Jasper is in—the circles under his eyes, his way of staring off into space randomly when you’re right in the middle of a conversation. I get why my dad is worried. I’m worried. But ever since my dad said his piece about Jasper shortly before Cassie’s funeral, he’s tried hard to keep his mouth shut about our friendship. Rachel, on the other hand, took the funeral as an invitation to jump right into the fray.
“HALF THOSE GIRLS will end up pregnant by the end of college, if they go to college,” Rachel muttered to me, motioning to Maia and the others. We were at the reception at Cassie’s house, which followed her funeral. Maia and her friends had been buzzing around Jasper from the start, “attending” to him in a way that was gross and also pointless because he was so out of it. “And, I mean, are they serious with the short skirts and the shaking their butts in his face? It’s his girlfriend’s funeral.”
I turned to look at Rachel, not sure whether to be pissed or grateful—for her being there in the first place, for weighing in on Maia and her friends, for trying to act like my mom. Because that’s what she was doing. That’s what she had been doing ever since I got back from Maine. And maybe that’s what made me angriest: her pretending that she could ever live up to who my mom had been.
“They are serious,” I said flatly, trying not to watch. Trying even harder not to care. I already knew enough about Jasper to know that their attention was making him feel worse. Like less of a person. Or more like a terrible one.
Maia and her friends had sniffled at Cassie’s service, and there’d been some running mascara. But I had been near enough to feel that underneath all of that, there wasn’t much more than a collective: ugh, crap, that totally sucks, but Cassie was kind of a disaster.
“Well, I think you should stay away from Jasper, too. I mean, look at him,” Rachel went on. “He’s a total mess. And this is exactly the kind of situation where—well, I could see how things between the two of you could—”
“Stop it,” I snapped at her. “I mean it.”
How dare Rachel pretend she had some special insight into Jasper and me? After everything we’d been through, Jasper and I were friends, but that was all. Of course, I would have much preferred if Rachel hinting otherwise didn’t bother me quite as much as it did.
Maybe I didn’t want a reminder about how someone “normal” would be feeling in this situation. Maybe normal was like Maia and her friends: ready to turn Jasper from friend into boyfriend at the first hint of the light turning green. I cared about Jasper. I cared about what happened to him. But not like that. No. I did not.
I was much better off steering way clear of all those kind of complications—and that wasn’t denial or whatever Rachel might think. It was what I wanted: none of it. Trevor—my one real foray into the world of romance a year ago—had been right to dodge the responsibility that was me. I would definitely never wish me on Jasper. Not now. Everyone was so worried about him dragging me down, but who knew how far or how fast I might fall? Or how deep I’d take him with me.
“Sorry.” Rachel held up her hands, then tucked them under her armpits. She wasn’t sorry, though. I could feel how badly she wanted to say more about Jasper and our “relationship.”
“Why are you even here, Rachel?” My face went hot as the floodgates opened. “I mean, seriously?” My voice was too loud; people were starting to stare. “You were my mom’s friend. And she’s dead. If you think you’re helping me, you’re not. So why don’t you go find something else that will make you feel better?”
Rachel blinked at me, stunned. But instead of storming off or telling me I was being rude, she nodded. “You’re right.”
Then she stepped closer and wrapped her arm around me. And, of course, I started to bawl. Couldn’t help myself. I didn’t stop until I felt someone’s hand on my back. My dad, I assumed.
“I’m so sorry, Wylie. I know how much she meant to you.” A man’s voice, not my dad. And from the look on Rachel’s face, she did not approve of his hand on me.
When
