Part 21 (2/2)

”I know.” I nod, even though I know she can't see me.

15.

The garage is a terrifying, claustrophobic mess of junk that my parents refuse to throw away, but right now, as I dig through it, I feel like a sweepstakes winner collecting on my prize. It's too good to be true that any of this stuff-the old globe where the Soviet Union still exists, the five Persian rugs from when my mom was obsessed with auctions, the countless candleholders and little figurine things that my dad's held on to from the seventies-any or all of this could be mine.

I'm furnis.h.i.+ng my treehouse. Under boxes of dusty records, I find a rug with a blue and green design, bordered by a pretty amber color. Pus.h.i.+ng more boxes aside on one of the shelves, I find some of my dad's old things. I read the dirty quotes in his yearbooks and find his junior-year picture. His hair is a little long around the ears and he's wearing a leather cord as a necklace. He looks surprisingly cool. Next, I find a hummingbird feeder that's made of carved wood and gla.s.s. I hold it toward the lightbulb in the ceiling to get a better look at it. Whoever made it carved bird shapes into the wood and painted their beaks yellow and their eyes blue. The tips of their wings are painted red. I put it with the rug.

Soon it gets hard to breathe. Dust is everywhere. I grab a battery-operated boom box and a couple empty wine crates and escape into the fresh air. Before shutting the garage door, I pull out an old cardboard box and rip off a little part of it. In the house, I get a marker and tape to attach it to a stick. Like a little kid I write, Keep OUT.

Once I get everything brought up the treehouse ladder, I'm too tired to do anything else. I unroll the rug and lie down on top of it. It's a little dusty, but at this point I don't really care. I lie there and look out one of the windows across all the other trees. Up here, from this angle, it looks like I'm in the middle of a forest. I don't close my eyes; I don't fall asleep. I just stare out the opening and listen to the faraway sounds of cars on the road in front of the house.

Later, I hear footsteps through the yard, getting closer. I'm afraid it's my parents because I decided to stay home from school again today, and I doubt they'll be thrilled. The footsteps stop at the base of the tree. I hope my sign works.

Then I hear Dylan's voice. ”Is this real?” she asks.

I don't get up because I don't want her to see me. ”It's a joke,” I yell down.

”So can I come up, then?”

”No.”

I wait for her to say something else, but there's just quiet, followed by the sound of her stomping away.

”Wait!” I yell. Her footsteps stop. I climb down.

”Let's go somewhere else,” I say.

16.

At the noodle place, sitting across from Dylan at our favorite booth, I confess.

”I have her journal.”

Dylan's coffee mug is lifted to her mouth, but she doesn't sip.

”She slid it under my bed before she killed herself. At least I'm pretty sure she slid it under.”

She lowers her mug to the table, and fixes me with the kind of stare only she can pull off, the kind that usually makes me squirm under the pressure of it. But this time, I just stare back.

I repeat myself: ”I have her journal.”

She sips.

Holds the coffee in her mouth.

Swallows slowly.

Whispers, ”f.u.c.k.” ”f.u.c.k.”

Murmurs, ”Why haven't you told me?”

Reaches across to my arm.

She keeps her hand there until the waiter comes with our soup and surveys our table nervously, not sure where to set the giant bowls, and she has to let go. I open my backpack, and pull the journal out-black cover, a Wite-Out bird half chipped off. I hand it to her over the steam that rises from our soup. She takes it and looks down at the cover. Her hands are shaking, but her hands are always shaking. It could be the coffee, but I don't think so.

She opens to the first page. I know it so well by now. I've probably memorized every entry. She is studying Ingrid's self-portrait, reading what she wrote above it: me on a sunday morning me on a sunday morning. I keep wondering, What Sunday? What was I doing when she was drawing that? Where was I when she was watching the Wite-Out dry? What Sunday? What was I doing when she was drawing that? Where was I when she was watching the Wite-Out dry?

I ask, ”What about you?”

She looks, confused, from the journal.

”I want to know what happened to you. I know there was something.”

She looks back down, turns to the next page.

”Another time,” she says.

”When?”

”Later.”

”Later tonight?”

She doesn't answer me. She turns to the last entry. While she reads, I carefully tear my napkin into strips.

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