because it was late at night and that’s the hardest time to hold things in – June began to talk. She talked about how her mom was out most nights, even when she wasn’t working; how she came home early in the morning, knocking into things and stinking of alcohol. She talked about her father who she’d only met twice. She talked about the time her mom fell and sprained her wrist after tripping over June’s school bag and blamed June, and June felt really guilty, but also didn’t totally know what to think because of what she smelled on her mom’s breath.
June talked and talked, felt the words pouring from her mouth as though she was a faucet and had forgotten how to turn herself off. And when she was finally done, she was struck with a wave of horrible embarrassment. She had ruined her new friendship when it had barely just begun.
“I’m sorry,” June barely managed to mumble. Her cheeks burned with shame and disgust at herself, at how needy and weak she suddenly felt.
But as she looked up, she saw that Delia was staring at her, her head tipped to the side. She didn’t look bored or freaked out or like she thought June was a weirdo. She smiled in this way that made her seem very wise. “Crazy that we have such messed-up families, and yet somehow we both turned out so awesome, right?”
June felt something lifting inside of her. We. “Right,” she said. She forced a laugh and then she meant it.
They brushed their teeth after that and put on pajamas. Delia got them three glasses of water (“I need two, in case I dream about a fire,” Delia said), and they lay side-by-side in Delia’s enormous queen-size bed. Delia combed June’s hair with the switchblade comb – Delia insisted on doing it, because her own curls were too thick and would break the teeth off, and she hadn’t yet used it on anyone – and June felt almost drugged with happiness and relief. Now that this girl was her friend, everything might just be okay. She wouldn’t be so lonely anymore. She wouldn’t be alone. This girl was going to change everything.
The pit in my stomach is so enormous, it could swallow up my room, the house, the whole entire world.
I abandoned Delia, and now she is dead.
A gut punch of sadness hits me, so intense I can barely breathe. I open my closet. I reach in toward the back and feel for the picture. I pull it out and sink down onto my bed.
The frame is glittery pink with two enamel teddy bears on top, holding a heart between them. Delia gave it to me the summer after sixth grade. It was a joke but also not a joke. The photo is of the two of us peeking out from under these ridiculous floppy sun hats that Delia had bought for us. There I am – blond hair, forgettable face – and next to me is Delia, her dark curly hair taking up half the picture, olive skin, big strong nose, fierce chin. Her huge mouth opened in the world’s biggest smile. Delia always insisted she was kind of crazy looking. “Not pretty,” she would say. “Sexy.” But she was half wrong, because when she smiled like that, she was the most beautiful person you had ever seen.
When we stopped being friends, I kept telling myself it was only for now, a temporary thing. One day it would all go back to normal. I was always so sure of that.
Finally, finally the tears begin to fall. We will never have the chance to make up. I will never have the chance to apologize. I will never have the chance to tell her anything ever again. She is really truly gone.
I put the frame on my lap and take the phone out of my pocket. I call voicemail so I can hear her voice, hear the last words she’ll ever say to me.
“Hey, J, it’s me, your old pal . . .”
I had so many chances to fix things between us. So many chances that I didn’t take. Whatever was going on in her life, if I had been there, I would have kept her safe.
“Hey, D,” I whisper over her voice. I need to say these words, even though she can’t hear me. “I know we haven’t talked in a while, and that a bunch of crap happened, but I really miss you.” My chest is so tight, my heart might burst.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” she finishes inside the phone.
The tears are still coming, an impossible amount of them. I keep talking. “And I’m so, so sorry about everything that happened, I should have . . .”
And then I stop, because here is the weirdest thing: The message is over, but somehow it isn’t – there are still sounds coming through my phone. There’s a scuffling, and then Delia again. Only this time, she isn’t talking to my voicemail, but to someone in the background. “I’m going to tell,” Delia says. There is a teasing lilt to her voice, but underneath there’s something darker. “I’m going to tell what you did.”
I press my ear to the speaker. There’s another voice, male, shouting. I can’t make out the words, but I can hear the tone: anger. Fierce and frightening. I hold my breath, and my body fills with ice. And then the message clicks off.
Adrenaline courses through my veins. I’m not crying anymore. What I think I just heard . . . this is not possible. I cannot have heard it.
I start the message again, and again there is Delia’s voice. The scuffling. Delia: I’m going to tell. I’m going to tell what you did. And then the voice in the background, that male voice, that anger.
The blood is pounding in my ears. There is no mistake. That person in the background, I know who it is.
It’s Ryan.
My hands are shaking, I can barely breathe. I check the time. It’s after one a.m. Ryan will be sleeping.
The phone rings four times and goes to voicemail. I hang up and call again. It rings and rings.
Finally, he answers.
“Mmm’lo?” I imagine his face pressed against his pillow, one bare leg kicked out from under the comforter, because that’s the way he always sleeps. I imagine him with Delia, yelling the day before she died.
“I need to talk to you.” My voice sounds strange, barely like me at all.
“Are you okay? What time is it?” I imagine him sitting up in bed now, scratching his chest. I imagine his slow, sleepy heart starting to pound. “Did something happen?”
Yes, I think. Something very, very bad. But what I say is, “Can you meet me?” Because I know I need to do this face to face.
He hesitates for only a fraction of a second. I imagine him thinking how late it is, how early he needs to get up for swim practice. “Of course,” he says, like I knew he would. Because a thing I know about Ryan is that he always does what’s expected of him. Then again, maybe I’m wrong about that.
“Should I come over?”
“No,” I say. “I’ll come to you.”
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