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  “What are you talking about?” I finally asked.

  “As I began to say, no one would expect a girl of your age to know someone as well as, say, someone my age or Jordan’s age might know someone. When you’re young and innocent, there’s no obstacle too difficult for you to overcome, no mountain too high to climb. No danger is forbidding enough. You’re like these—what do they call them—young immortals who don’t think they need health care or something. It’s understandable. We’ve all been through that.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, Donald. I’m sorry.”

  “Jordan received a phone call first thing this morning. That’s the way it is with the women in her clutch lunch gang,” he said, giving her a disapproving look. “Can’t wait to get out bad news.”

  Now Jordan released a moan. It seemed to come from the very bottom of her soul and travel up her spine. I felt my heart stop.

  “What?” I practically screamed.

  “This troubled boy has apparently taken his own life,” Donald said.

  I heard the words, but they wouldn’t navigate to that place in my brain where meaning dwelt. They seemed to go into my ears and then bounce off my skull and fall out again.

  “What?” I thought I asked. I wasn’t sure I was forming words, either.

  “After he was brought home, he shut himself in his room. No one checked on him, we understand. Both his parents were at an affair. He had some sharp little tools he used for making his model planes and boats, apparently, and he bled to death. I’m afraid they won’t be able to keep this out of the papers,” he added. “It will be all over the news. You know how everything that happens to celebrities is Page One.”

  “The floor,” I said.

  “What?”

  It felt as if it were sliding quickly to my right, and then the wall on the right started to slide into the ceiling, and the ceiling slid down into the wall on the left, and this kept going faster and faster until I was carried along and spun so fast I lost consciousness.

  Later, Jordan told me that Donald had caught me and carried me up the stairs to my room and bed. I went in and out of consciousness for a while. A good friend of theirs, Dr. Battie, actually made a house call. He gave me a sedative, and I slept through most of the day.

  Every time I did open my eyes, Jordan was sitting there offering words of comfort. I simply stared at her, telling myself that if I could force myself back to sleep, I could eventually bring the nightmare to an end. I’d wake up again. It would be morning. I’d shower, get dressed, and go down to breakfast to listen to Donald’s lecture about how I had disappointed them. He would then talk about the future, admitting that perhaps they were a little too hard on me and that after things had settled down some, they’d permit me to invite Ryder to the house again, maybe to dinner, and we’d be more civilized about it all. Jordan would agree. I’d return to school, and we’d start where we had left off. Even Ryder’s sister would behave. All I had to do was fall asleep and push the nightmare out.

  But when I woke again, Jordan was still there. She was sorting through some clothes, separating garments. I watched her for a while because she didn’t know I was awake.

  “What are you doing?” I finally asked her.

  “Oh, you’re awake. Good. I’ve decided I have to give away some of these things that once belonged to Alena. They’re too good to waste, and there are many young girls who could benefit. What good are they doing anyone hanging in this closet? Alena would be the first to agree.”

  I looked at the window and saw it was nearly twilight. “Didn’t I get up this morning?”

  “What’s that? Oh. Yes, you were up.”

  She put one of the dresses down and came over to sit on my bed. She smiled and took my hand.

  “You’ve had a terrible shock.”

  I shook my head. “No, that was just a nightmare.”

  “How I wish it were,” she said.

  I felt my lips trembling. “It was,” I insisted.

  She patted my hand gently. “You’ll get stronger, Sasha. I used to sit with Alena in the early days of her illness and tell her that, and she would agree. It was because she had that attitude that she lasted as long as she did.”

  “Alena died,” I said.

  “Yes, she did, but she made sure she gave me as much as she could before going.”

  “Ryder’s not dead.” I shook my head, hoping to see her shake hers as well, but she didn’t.

  “I don’t care who they are,” she said. “They’re suffering. If anyone knows how deeply that suffering is, it’s Donald and I.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Now, we don’t want you to blame yourself for this in any way. Donald is very insistent about that. He wants me to set up therapy for you to make sure that doesn’t happen. He says the seeds for this were planted long before you met Ryder Garfield. There’s a lot of history you don’t know about, I don’t know about, and no one on the outside knows about. This incident recently just set off a tragedy that was bound to happen. If it hadn’t been you there at the time, it would have been some other girl. Donald’s right.”

  I turned my back on her.

  She put her hand on my shoulder. “I want you to know I’m here for you, Sasha. You can cry on my shoulder, talk to me, ask for anything you want or need, and I’ll get it for you.”

  I didn’t say anything. I closed my eyes so hard that my forehead ached.

  “Mrs. Duval will bring you something soft to eat, some eggs, maybe, or hot cereal, okay?”

  If I don’t talk, I told myself, this will all go away. It will be just a dream.

  “You need something in you. I don’t want to have to send you to the hospital or something. Please eat something,” she said, and stood up. “You poor dear.”

  I thought she had left, but when I turned around, she was still standing there looking at me.

  “When I see you like this, I see Alena again. It breaks my heart.”

  “Alena didn’t lose someone she loved,” I said. Maybe that was a terribly cruel thing to say to her, but I was suffering too much to care. Anyway, she didn’t look angry about it. She smiled, in fact.

  “Of course she did,” Jordan said. “She lost us. But you still have us. You still have me. Make sure you eat something,” she said in the tone of a warning, and then she left.

  I lay there for a moment, and then I heard a ping on my computer and sat up slowly. I didn’t remember turning it on, but I had probably forgotten to turn it off when I had left to meet Kiera. I was sure all of my school friends were writing to me. It amazed me that my phone hadn’t been ringing continually, but when I looked at it, I saw that it had been unplugged. That’s good, I thought. I didn’t want to speak to any of them, ever.

  I got out of bed. I felt wobbly but flopped into the seat at the computer. The e-mail list was full, but there was one that caught my attention.

  Kiera’s.

  I opened it. For a moment, the words looked fuzzy, but then I leaned closer and read it.

  Thanks for ruining my weekend.

  17

  Grief

  I didn’t respond to Kiera, and she didn’t call me. Mrs.

  Duval tried to get me to eat something. I refused. She brought it anyway, but I didn’t eat any of it, even though I didn’t leave my room. Jordan visited me twice before she went to sleep. I never saw Donald. I didn’t turn on the television or reattach my phone. Later, I did go on the Internet to read the news stories about the Garfields. Everything being told to the press was being told by their publicist. The story given out to the public was that both Bradley and Beverly were too overcome with grief to speak to anyone. Details were sketchy, but the publicist revealed that Ryder had been in therapy and a troubled young person for some time. The implication was that all of his problems were the result of chemical imbalances. There were no details about his death except the revelation that it had occurred at home and was a suicide.

  Reading the words on the Inter
net didn’t make it all less unreal for me. I continued to cling to the hope that this was all a celebrity publicity event and soon there would be retractions. Ryder was still alive but perhaps in some rehab. I had no factual reason to have the hope. I knew I was behaving like someone who simply refused to believe the truth even though it was staring her in the face. I walked about the suite, talking to myself as if there were a therapist in the room.

  He wouldn’t do this; he couldn’t do this. Mama taught me always to be skeptical.

  Yes, but not delusional.

  I was thrown back to when I was in the hospital after the accident Kiera had caused and I was told that my mother had died. No matter what anyone said, I wouldn’t believe it until Jordan arranged for me to see my mother in the hospital morgue, and even then I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t my mother.

  When the truth is so horrible, you squirm and twist like someone chained to a wall watching the room fill up with water. Do what you can, you can’t escape. You nearly drown in reality, and when you come up for air, the world you knew is changed forever and ever. You almost wish you were back in the room, even if it meant you’d die.

  I was chained to that wall. I screamed and screamed inside. No one but me could hear it.

  Later that morning, Jessica and Sydney made an attempt to visit me. Jordan came to my room to tell me they were at the gate, but I told her I didn’t want to see them.

  “It might do you some good to talk to your friends, dear. This is a hard thing to bear alone.”

  “They just want gossip to spread. I don’t want to see them,” I said firmly. “I don’t!”

  She winced, nodded, and left. I spent the rest of the day locked away, sleeping as much as I could. I wouldn’t go down to dinner and hardly ate anything that was brought up to me. When Jordan looked in on me later, I pretended to be asleep. She stood there for the longest time but finally gave up and left. She was there even before Mrs. Duval the following morning. I was still in bed, of course.

  “You have to come out of here, Sasha, and you have to eat more today. You’re only going to make yourself sick.”

  I turned over so she would be looking at my back, and then she left. She was in and out constantly, looking to do something for me, but finally, she gave up after lunch.

  Late in the afternoon, I went outside. Mrs. Duval had threatened to have me dragged out of the room if I didn’t. I still had not seen Donald, nor did I care to. Jordan didn’t hear me leave my room and go down the stairs. I was happy she hadn’t seen me leave the house. I still wanted to be alone, and a walk to the lake seemed the most soothing thing to do.

  Of course, what really drew me was the recent memory of being there with Ryder. The beauty of the lake calmed whatever demons were swirling around in him. I knew we both saw ourselves together there in the future, spending a quiet afternoon just drifting in a rowboat and talking softly. I would sprawl out on the floor of the rowboat and lean against him. Perhaps we would have stayed out until twilight and enjoyed the sight of the first star. Our kisses, our embraces, would have been extra special there. There was so much for us to do together. Why wasn’t that enough to overcome anything that had depressed him? Why didn’t that give him enough hope?

  I hated to admit it, but Donald was probably right when he had begun that long preamble to telling me about Ryder’s death. We really hadn’t known each other, especially people our age who hadn’t been with each other long enough to see behind the words as well as the walls. I had no doubt that Ryder had been honest about his past, but there were surely things he had not revealed, perhaps because he thought they would drive me away.

  Still, it was impossible not to wonder what it might have been like if we had successfully enjoyed the weekend. Perhaps we would both have been restored enough and strengthened enough to overcome any difficulties. We would have outlasted them because we would have shared too much to forget.

  I had no way of knowing exactly what had occurred when the police returned him to his home. When did they take off the handcuffs? What threats and punishments did his parents give him? Did they tell him they were surely going to send him to that military-type school he feared? How come they didn’t know their own son well enough to anticipate that he might do something so drastic? How were they going to live with it?

  And what about Summer? Did she feel bad about it? Did she really hate him as much as she pretended she did? Maybe she was the one who first discovered that he had left school and had run to her parents with the information. If so, she would live with the guilt and be marred for the rest of her life. It pleased me to think so, but then again, perhaps I was asking myself these questions to avoid feeling any guilt myself.

  It wasn’t hard to see why or how that could be. Was there any doubt that if I hadn’t asked him to join me with Kiera, he wouldn’t be dead? Should I have gotten into my car quickly and followed the police car back to his house to make sure he didn’t think I was in any way to blame? Surely there was something more I could have done instead of spending the time worrying about myself and how Donald and Jordan were going to react to my lying about where I was going and why I was going there.

  I stood by the bench and hugged myself. The terns were back, only this time they were circling the lake, not simply exploring and leaving. They looked as if they thought they had found a private place and were taking pleasure in their discovery. The ocean was too common. Here, they were special. It brought a smile to my face, and my face welcomed it.

  “Hey,” I heard, and turned to see Donald coming toward me. Whatever softness had come back into my body fled like the terns, which shot up and away at the sound of his voice echoing over the water.

  He slowed down, paused, and looked out at the lake. “Look at this lake. I don’t appreciate what I have here enough. Jordan’s right about that,” he said. “I was talking to someone who might get it stocked with some fish.” He looked at me. “Glad you’re out for some fresh air. How are you doing?”

  “Okay,” I said, and sat on the bench. He stepped up to it, but he didn’t sit beside me.

  “Look. I want you to know I never wished for something as terrible as this to happen. Maybe I didn’t make that clear enough. I was just looking out for your best interests. I hope you believe me.”

  I nodded.

  “Although I do blame myself for what’s happened to you.”

  I looked up at him. “Why?”

  “As I’ve been saying, I should devote more time to you. People think that when girls get to be your age, they don’t want much to do with anyone older than twenty-five, but I know you’re different. You’ve been matured by hardships, and as a consequence, you’re mentally older than most other girls your age.”

  I didn’t say anything. He stood there, waiting for me to say something nice in return perhaps, but I wasn’t in the mood to hear compliments or say anything I didn’t wholeheartedly believe.

  “You don’t think so now or believe it’s possible, I’m sure, but this will pass. You have a wonderful future ahead of you, Sasha.”

  I sensed that my continued silence was making him uncomfortable. He fidgeted for a few moments, and then he walked over to the dock, checked something on one of the rowboats, and looked at me as if he had just thought of a brilliant solution to everything.

  “How about I take you and Jordan out to dinner tonight? Nothing fancy. Maybe we take a short drive up the coast and have some seafood. Okay?”

  “I don’t have much of an appetite.”

  “Well, you might in a while.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “You two go.”

  “I’m not worried about us,” he said a little sharply. “If you change your mind, let me know. I was hoping to do something for you before I left. I have a trip I must make,” he added, and started back to the house.

  Was I being unreasonable, unfair? Should I give credence to the idea that after having been burnt so badly by Kiera’s actions, he was sort of parent-battle-fatigued a
nd justifiably overly concerned about what I did and whom I knew? If I were in his or Jordan’s shoes, would I be the same way?

  I glanced back at the house and up at my room, Alena’s room. Considering their loss and the scars they bore because of it, as well as all of the embarrassing and nasty things Kiera had done, wasn’t it unreasonable to blame either of them for any of this? Was I the impulsive and foolish one, after all? If I hadn’t accepted Kiera’s invitation with an air of defiance and had simply waited out the restriction concerning Ryder Garfield, wouldn’t this all have turned out differently? In time, Jordan and Donald probably would have understood and become more sympathetic. Ryder might have come to trust them, and instead of plans being laid for his funeral, plans might have been made for our senior prom date.

  The girls in my school, even most of the guys, looked for every possible excuse whenever they did anything wrong or failed at something. I supposed that in that way, they weren’t all that different from kids with far less. It was simply easier for them to get away with it. Their parents were more egocentric. They were all so worried about their image in the social community, so they were quicker to back up their children, to support their lame excuses and look for some other place, some other person or idea, on which to lay the blame.

  The Garfields were already doing it in their first publicity attempts to explain their own family tragedy. Some chemicals in Ryder were unbalanced. How conveniently that would get them off the hook. So many other parents hid behind that socially acceptable excuse. Surely, there were some who had a legitimate claim to it, but I felt confident that this wasn’t the case with Ryder Garfield. How much clearer did it have to be made to me that his parents neglected both him and his sister when it came to promoting and pursuing their own show-business careers?

  If they did lay such heavy guilt on him for his mother’s miscarriage in Italy, then shame on them for not realizing how deep and painful that would be for a child his age. I welcomed the anger I felt toward them. It helped me contain my sorrow.