Part 16 (2/2)

The guy who was helping me backs away nervously.

”What?” I ask again.

Then I follow her gaze to my hands, to the rope. And it flashes back to me-the morning I found out about Ingrid. Before they told me how she did it, I thought about all the tools she could have used to die. The gun her dad kept in his safe, the knives in the kitchen, the pills in her mother's medicine cabinet. A rope.

”Mom,” I say. ”You don't think I . . .”

Her hands are shaking.

”Mom, it's not what you're thinking.”

”You've been so angry.” Her voice wavers. ”You wouldn't meet with the therapist. You never tell us about how you're doing. I try to talk to you but you keep pus.h.i.+ng me away. I worry about you all the time all the time.”

”Mom,” I say. ”I would never do that.”

And then, in a narrow aisle of a hardware store, with millions of nails and bolts and hooks and hoses and spools of fis.h.i.+ng wire and tiny lightbulbs and ropes and flower seeds, I step forward, I reach out, and I hug my mother for the first time in months. Her hands grab onto the back of my s.h.i.+rt and I can feel her chest heaving as she tries not to cry. She feels so small all of a sudden, so fragile. Without even thinking, I whisper, ”I'm okay, I'm fine, I'm okay, I'm fine,” over and over until she starts breathing normally again, until she lets go and steps back, cups her hand under my chin, and says, ”Promise me.”

”I'm okay,” I say. ”I promise.”

19.

When we get home, I find my dad in his office and lead him and my mom outside. We walk past my sad little car, through their vegetable garden, over the hill, around a few smaller trees, and up to my oak. It looks beautiful in the sunlight.

”This is what I've been working on,” I say.

The ladder I built up the trunk looks straight and secure; the beams I've been able to attach extend six feet from the tree trunk, supported by st.u.r.dy braces.

”There will be one more beam there,” I say. ”And then I'll be able to lay all the floorboards down. I just haven't been able to build it yet.” I turn to my mom. ”That's what I need the rope for,” I say, softer.

My mother squeezes my hand.

My dad sucks in a breath of appreciation. ”A treehouse! Fantastic. I always wanted a treehouse when I was a kid.”

”They aren't just for kids, though. I found this book.” I open my metal toolbox, pull out the treehouse book, and hand it to them. ”See?”

With Mom looking on, Dad thumbs through pages of elaborate treehouses with kitchens that have ovens and tables and pots and pans; bathrooms with claw-foot tubs and pedestal sinks; living rooms with wood-burning stoves and couches and rugs.

He stops on a page with a simpler treehouse. It's pretty big and rustic and it doesn't have electricity or anything. It was built by two brothers who just like to sit up there some days and look out over a river. ”Yours is like this one, but also your own design. I like how you're building yours with the trunk going through the middle.”

”I just thought that might be cool.”

”It's beautiful,” my mom croons.

”Stunning,” says my dad.

They look so proud. I wish I could photograph their faces.

Spring

1.

The mornings are getting warmer. My parents' flowers are slowly blooming and their vegetables are sprouting up. I walk past the neat rows of plants and over the hill and down to my oak tree. Hoisting myself onto the branches, I think of how I will talk to Taylor soon. I can't hide from him forever. I don't want to.

I climb higher and settle myself into the rope swing my parents helped me secure to a thick branch. Yesterday, after I saw Dylan, I hauled all the leftover planks onto the part of the floor that I'd built already, so now it's easy for me to get to work sawing and hammering without making a million trips up and down.

I work for three hours, not even thinking about anything, losing myself in the sounds of the morning: the birds and the wind through the leaves and my hammer making contact with wood and metal. I finish the whole floor. I get up and step gingerly at first, to test how secure it is. After I'm convinced that it's strong enough to hold me, I walk from one side to the other and back-it's just as big as I wanted, twelve feet all the way across.

I stomp. I jump.

The planks are solid beneath me.

2.

Before first period, from across the quad, I spot Taylor, Jayson, and Henry walking toward me. I get a tingly feeling all over, half excited, half nervous.

Taylor and Jayson both smile at me and say hi.

”Hey,” I say to Taylor. I smile at Jayson, too, and look at Henry, thinking maybe now that I've been to his house he might acknowledge my existence, but he's scowling at the ground.

”Hold on a sec,” Taylor says to Jayson and Henry, and he steps up closer to me and guides me a few steps away.

”So,” he says. ”I was wondering if you wanted to do something Friday?”

”Actually,” I say, ”I was going to ask you the same question.”

From behind Taylor, Henry says, annoyed, ”Taylor, we have to go.”

Taylor turns to him. ”Just one second,” he says, and then, to me, ”Did you have something in mind?”

”Yeah. You know Dylan? Her-”

”Okay, fine,” Henry calls out. ”I'm leaving, you can catch up.”

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