Part 7 (2/2)
If I stretch out my right arm, reach past Jordan, I can almost touch the fridge. When we sit at the kitchen table you can no longer open the pantry door. My feet are tucked up under my chair because the food processor, coffeemaker, and toaster live under the table.
”I hate the Greats,” I tell Dad, shoving bacon into my mouth. ”Don't,” I snap at Jordan, who's just elbowed me in the process of twisting to pick up the toast he dropped. ”Brat.”
”Leave it, Jordan,” Mom says. ”I will clean after. You do not want to be late for school.”
”Yes I do!” Jordan says, sticking his tongue out at me.
”I do not want you to be late for school. Stop with these wriggles! Eat your breakfast. You have ten years, not two!”
”No, you don't, Micah,” Dad says, ignoring Jordan and Mom. ”You always have a wonderful time up there.”
”No, I don't. I always run away and hide so I don't have to be anywhere near them. Or my stupid cousins.” I'm keeping my elbows firmly by my side so I don't whack into the wall or Jordan's sticky mouth. Not that I object to hurting him, but I don't want slimy syrup all over my elbow.
”Jordan! Stop!” Mom takes the maple syrup away.
”But I don't like bacon without sweet.”
”Your bacon, it drowns! You have ten minutes to finish. We must go. Vite!” Mom walks Jordan to his school on her way to the posh one where she teaches French. Every school day she battles to get him out the door.
”I think it would be good for you to get away, Micah. With everything that's been going on. Fresh air-”
”You mean with . . .” I falter. ”With him being dead?”
Dad nods. ”Yes. Zach was your friend. You're taking it hard.”
”She mourns, Isaiah,” Mom says. ”We must allow her this.”
”Zach's a fart!” Jordan says. I am tempted to strangle him right there at the kitchen table. I would love to watch his head fall into his syrup-drowned bacon.
”Quiet, Jordan. You must act your age,” Mom says, squeezing out of her seat, avoiding the bicycles, putting her plate in the sink, and the maple syrup in the fridge.
”There's much more s.p.a.ce upstate,” Dad says.
”There's more s.p.a.ce in a coffin than there is here!” I imagine Zach stuck in one. The bacon loses flavor. I'm chewing dust.
Dad turns to Mom. ”She belongs there.”
I force myself to eat the rest of my bacon.
”She should be put to sleep,” Jordan says.
”Quiet,” Mom tells him.
”You should be flushed down the toilet,” I say, without even looking at him. ”With the alligators.”
”Mom!” Jordan wails.
”Quiet, please. You know she doesn't mean it.”
Dad looks at me. He knows that I do.
”You do not have to go where you don't want,” Mom says, her back against the kitchen sink. ”But perhaps you could think about it. Things have been so . . .” Sometimes she struggles to find the right English word. ”So . . .” She pauses again and notices Jordan pulling his bacon to pieces and then pus.h.i.+ng it through the lake of syrup. ”Stop, Jordan! Either you eat or you don't.” She turns her attention back to me. ”Foul. Things have been so foul. Perhaps it would help to get away? It does not have to be with the Greats.”
”Where else would she go?” Dad says. ”Are you proposing we send her to Club Med?”
”Well, couldn't you take her along on your next a.s.signment?”
Dad and I look at each other. ”No!” we say at the exact same time.
Mom starts laughing. ”You two could not be more alike.”
Dad is wearing the same scowl I can feel on my own face. The sight of it makes me scrunch my forehead even more.
Mom leans forward over Jordan's head, ducking to avoid the bicycles, and kisses my cheek. ”You do not have to go anywhere you do not want.”
”Did you take your pill?” Dad asks.
I don't bother answering.
AFTER.
”I don't think he loved me,” Sarah tells me.
I am sitting alone. She slides in next to me as if we're friends. How can she have forgotten how much we're not? Why is she talking to me about whether Zach loved her?
”Did you?” she asks.
”Did I what?” I don't want her to sit next to me. I want to eat my lunch alone, undisturbed, un.o.bserved. Ever since Zach disappeared-no, ever since Brandon blabbed-people have been watching me, talking about me. But me and Sarah sitting together for lunch? That's too weird. Everyone in the cafeteria is watching, leaning forward, trying to overhear.
”Did you love him?” she asks, lowering her voice.
I roll my eyes so I don't have to say out loud how stupid I think her question is. ”He's dead, Sarah,” I say quietly. ”Thinking about him, talking about him all the time, that's not going to make him come back to life. You do know that, right?”
She flinches but her eyes don't fill with tears. ”I just asked you if you loved him. Why's that such a hard question to answer?”
I sigh. ”It doesn't matter. He's dead.”
”You're scared of answering,” Sarah says. ”That means you loved him.”
”If you say so. I suppose you think you loved him.” I don't want to talk about Zach with her. I don't want to talk about Zach with anyone. Saying his name hurts, thinking it . . . I realize then that neither of us has been saying his name. We say ”he” or ”him” or ”his” but never ”Zach.”
”Of course,” Sarah says.
”We weren't together, Sarah. Brandon was lying. And I've been messing with you. We'd run together sometimes. There wasn't anything else to it.”
”You have his sweater.”
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