“So not today,” I sing. “Because she smiled at me.”
FINCH’S RULES FOR WANDERING
1. There are no rules, because life is made up of too many rules as it is.
2. But there are three “guidelines” (which sounds less rigid than “rules”):
a) No using our phones to get us there. We have to do this strictly old-school, which means learning to read actual maps.
b) We alternate choosing places to go, but we also have to be willing to go where the road takes us. This means the grand, the small, the bizarre, the poetic, the beautiful, the ugly, the surprising. Just like life. But absolutely, unconditionally, resolutely nothing ordinary.
c) At each site, we leave something, almost like an offering. It can be our own private game of geocaching (“the recreational activity of hunting for and finding a hidden object by means of GPS coordinates posted on a website”), only not a game, and just for us. The rules of geocaching say “take something, leave something.” The way I figure it, we stand to get something out of each place, so why not give something back? Also, it’s a way to prove we’ve been there, and a way to leave a part of us behind.
VIOLET
153 days till graduation
Saturday night. Amanda Monk’s house.
I walk there because it’s only three blocks away. Amanda says it will just be us and Ashley Dunston and Shelby Padgett because Amanda’s not talking to Suze right now. Again. Amanda used to be one of my closest friends, but ever since April, I’ve drifted away from her. Since I quit cheering, we don’t have much in common. I wonder if we ever did.
I made the mistake of mentioning the whole sleepover thing to my parents, which is why I’m going. “Amanda is making an effort, and you should too, Violet. You can’t use your sister’s death as an excuse forever. You’ve got to get back to living.” I’m not ready doesn’t work on my mom and dad anymore.
As I cut across the Wyatts’ yard and turn the corner, I hear the party. Amanda’s house is lit up like Christmas. People are hanging out the windows. They are standing on the lawn. Amanda’s father owns a chain of liquor stores, which is one of the reasons she’s popular. That and the fact that she puts out.
I wait on the street, my bag across my shoulder, pillow under my arm. I feel like a sixth grader. Like a goody-good. Eleanor would laugh at me and push me up the walk. She’d already be inside. I get mad at her just picturing it.
I make myself go in. Joe Wyatt hands me something in a red plastic cup. “Beer’s in the basement,” he shouts. Roamer has taken over the kitchen with random other baseball players and football players.
“Did you score?” Roamer asks Troy Satterfield.
“No, man.”
“Did you even kiss her?”
“No.”
“Did you get any ass?”
“Yeah, but I think that was by mistake.”
They laugh, including Troy. Everyone is talking too loud.
I make my way to the basement. Amanda and Suze Haines, best friends again, are lounging on a couch. I don’t see Ashley or Shelby anywhere, but fifteen or twenty guys are sprawled on the floor playing a drinking game. Girls are dancing all around them, including the three Brianas and Brenda Shank-Kravitz, who is friends with Theodore Finch. Couples are making out.
Amanda waves her beer at me. “Oh my God, we need to fix your hair.” She is talking about the bangs I gave myself. “And why are you still wearing those glasses? I get wanting to remember your sister, but didn’t she have, like, a cute sweater you could wear instead?”
I set my cup down. I’m still carrying my pillow. I say, “My stomach’s bugging me. I think I’m going home.”
Suze turns her big blue eyes on me. “Is it true you pulled Theodore Finch off a ledge?” (She was “Suzie” until ninth grade, when she dropped the i. It’s now pronounced “Sooze.”)
“Yes.” Please, God, I want that whole day to just go away.
Amanda looks at Suze. “I told you it was true.” She looks at me and rolls her eyes. “That’s just the kind of thing he does. I’ve known him since, like, kindergarten, and he’s only gotten weirder.”
Suze takes a drink. “I know him even better than that.” Her voice goes slutty. Amanda slaps her arm and Suze slaps her back. When they’re done, Suze says to me, “We hooked up sophomore year. He may be weird, but I’ll say this for him, that’s one guy who knows what he’s doing.” Her voice goes sluttier. “Unlike most of these boring-ass boys around here.” A couple of those boring-ass boys yell from the floor: “Why don’t you come and try this on for size, bitch?” Amanda slaps Suze again. And on they go.
I shift my bag over my shoulder. “I’m just glad I was there.”
To be more accurate, I’m just glad he was there before I fell off the ledge and killed myself in front of everyone. I can’t even think about my parents, forced to deal with the death of their only remaining child. Not even an accidental death, but an intentional one. That’s one reason I came tonight without a fight. I feel ashamed of what I almost put them through.
“Glad you were where?” Roamer stumbles up with a bucket of beers. He slams it down, ice sloshing everywhere.
Suze looks at him through cat eyes. “The bell tower.”
Roamer stares at her chest. He forces himself to look at me. “Why were you up there, anyway?”
“I was on my way to Humanities and saw him go through the door at the end of the hall, the one that goes to the tower.”