Dessert First (25 page)

Mom also had this whole Kat-has-an-Internet-and-Skype-addiction freakout going, over my online time with Hunter. She thought if I got away from the computer and cell phone coverage for a week, I could straighten up and become a total homework drone. Yeah. That would happen. Proof no reality pills were mixed in with Mom's anti-anxiety meds.

And it was okay with me. These were Hunter's last days. There'd be no miracle cure. Not for Beep, not for Hunter. I'd have to go through it all over again, losing someone who mattered. But my heart was completely wrung out. I could feel it, flopping weakly in my chest like a goldfish batted out of its bowl, gasping. With nothing left to give.

I had emailed Hunter that, because of the camping, I'd be out of phone range and off the Internet for over a week. Because I knew I was maybe going to bail on him, I also passed on that I wasn't exactly sure when we were coming back, because part of our trip was snow camping, which was insane and unpredictable—like Mom—so we might be delayed.

For the last Skype session with Hunter, the night before our 4
A.M.
departure, I took Beep in his little urn and brought Skippy the dog, as moral support up to my room. I tried not to bring my heart at all, imagined it was in a protective box somewhere, because it was in no condition for this.

“Hey,” Hunter said, when I logged on. He'd been looking worse and worse, and a couple of prior Skype sessions had even blocked the camera on his computer with duct tape because he supposedly looked too bad. Now he looked terrible. He was pale and there were yellow-brown circles under his eyes. Everything in his face was sunken. His arms in the tee shirt looked bony, and the skin on them hung. He was sitting up in a hospital bed set up in his house, and the 49er hat was on his head, slightly lopsided. “Wearing your hat.” He paused, and his mom's hand came into the frame, holding out a little cup of water with a straw in it for him to suck on. He did, and there was a pause.

I had a bunch of jokes prepared, about snow camping, but instead I started crying.

“'S okay,” he said. “Hat is just for show. Go Ravens.”

I cried some more.

“'S okay to cry. Now, later. I know it's hard. But promise to smile and laugh someday. A bunch.”

I nodded, but broke down completely. This would be even harder for him. I wanted to help instead of make things worse, but my sobs turned into a horrible wuh-wuh-wuh sound when I tried to say something. “I'm sorry,” I finally wailed after blubbering. I was supposed to cheer him up. I couldn't even talk. I covered my face in my hands. “Sorry. Sorry.” That turned into a long wail.

“I'm not going to say good-bye.” His voice was strong. I looked up at the computer window. His face was there, staring right at my eyes. His eyes were wet too. “Just see you later.”

The wuh-wuh-wuh sounds kept pouring out of me again, so I couldn't even say that. I think, after a while, his mom turned Skype off on his end, because after a long sob-a-thon, when I looked up again, he was gone.

So our family drove off to the hills, and we snow-camped and were off the Internet for a whole nine days. Which proves I wasn't addicted, because I didn't shake or drool or vomit or anything. Not even when Rachel talked about herself constantly. But I ended up thinking about Hunter anyway, while we were hiking around, staring at rocks and trees. There were trees that were hundreds of years old, and when I heard that, it made me mad. Really?
Really?
Freaking
trees
get to be three hundred, and some kids die before thirteen? Or nineteen? The only good thing about it was that every night we could see the Milky Way. Two times, I even saw a shooting star. I thought of Beep being somewhere forever, even if only in my memory, and thought of Hunter being with him.

When we came back home, I sat in front of my computer and stared at its green-grass-and-blue-sky wallpaper and icons, glowing in the dark of my room. I couldn't bring myself to log on. I didn't check Facebook. Or post on my blog. Or check messages. Or even plug in my battery-dead phone. I sometimes stared at the screen, sick to my stomach. For three more days.

It turned out, while I was gone, Hunter had sent me messages and posted some things on my Facebook page. When I was camping, he'd posted a few short and funny messages about his days. Then, right on the first day I was back, but pretending not to be, he sent a “where are you?”

Kat R U back?

Kat. Would love to talk. R U around?

Hey Kat. Almost out of time.

Hey Kat—going now. It's OK. It was great hanging out with you online. Thanks for everything. I'll say hi to Beep, and we'll both see you on the other side. Like you said, always eat dessert first. Bye for now. Love love (more than you can imagine), Hunter.

The day after that message, Hunter went into a coma. A day after that, he died. When I finally found enough strength to log on to Facebook, I saw his mom's post that Hunter passed away in his sleep the night before.

So I never said good-bye.

I didn't know what to do. So I typed a Facebook status, in emotional-trauma Mom Calmese:

I stared at that for a long forever, pretending not to be finished, as if until I clicked post he wouldn't really be dead. Then I clicked post. I'd wait a few days to change my Facebook status back from “It's complicated,” to “Single.” I don't know if that was horrible, or even what the waiting period is supposed to be when your complicated relationship with a DBF ends because he finishes dying. If that was heartless, it fit, because my heart felt torn out. I sent a condolence card to Hunter's mom and dad and little sister. I told them I was really sorry and I'd miss Hunter and he was a great guy. Which didn't even scoop the top inch of the ocean of what I wanted, or needed, to say. But for once I was out of words.

Mom asked if I wanted to go out to the funeral. A little late. I stared at her a long time. Not much point. Hunter wouldn't be there. And I'd already done the feeling awkward and out-of-place thing. So, no.

Mom looked relieved. I felt hollow.

I hope the music was nice. Hunter would've liked that.

The next morning, when Evan's mom picked me up for carpool, Evan was wearing a black armband made out of crepe paper stapled over a tennis wristband. He gave me one and then gave one to Tyler when we picked him up. Tyler looked at it, confused, which was understandable but also pretty much how Tyler looks at everything before 9
A.M.

“What's this?”

“Kat's good friend Hunter died day before last. So she's wearing a black armband. For respect. Because we're her good friends, we're wearing them too.”

“Oh,” Tyler put it on, stretching it out to get it up on his bicep. “Okay.” A few minutes later, half way to school, he added, “Sorry, Kat.”

“Me too,” I said. But sitting next to Evan, who'd unfriended the Tracies on Facebook because those girls were mean to me, who'd said nice things about my awful haircut, and who brought us black armbands because Hunter was important to me, I felt . . . held. I was sinking, and he was trying to hold me up. I teared up again, and it wasn't just about Hunter.

We piled out at Albany High, and yanked our backpacks out of the trunk. Tyler shuffled toward the entrance, but Evan stopped, waiting for me.

“Thanks.” I started sniffling again. “For the armband. You're really thoughtful.”

“I'm sorry. That everything hurts.” He put down his backpack and gave me a hug. The bell rang, which ordinarily sent Evan scurrying to class—he's
always
on time. But he kept hugging. I cried.

Eventually, I stopped. By then the second bell rang, and we were officially tardy. Evan, though, pulled a packet of tissues out of his pocket—those cute ones called Sniffs that have a cartoon cat on them—and gave me a tissue. I blew my nose and wiped off my cheeks and dabbed at my eyes so I wouldn't look like I'd been run through a car wash. I crumpled two of them, soggy, before it hit me. “You brought armbands
and
tissues?”

“Thought you'd be having a rough day.”

Evan, a guy, brought tissues. For me. I stopped and looked at him. “You're—” I picked up my backpack. “Great. Thanks.” We wandered to class, through empty, echoing halls.

At lunch, Calley Rose joined us, and even brought a soccer ball. I'd stopped carrying mine around in a mesh bag months earlier, because I was academically ineligible to play soccer anymore—the no-homework flunking-out thing. “Thought you might want to kick something,” Calley said.

“Thanks. But I think that works for angry, not sad.” And, unfortunately, not for self-loathing. “But we could pass back and forth.” We did.

Amber and Elizabeth came by and gave me long hugs, and sat with me. Which I didn't deserve. Out of respect, Elizabeth didn't even flirt with Evan, for the whole hour.

Near the end of lunch period, Evan turned to me. “You haven't told one joke today.”

Calley Rose's eyes went wide with alarm at that.

“That part might be broken.” Or I was too stunned for it to work. Stunned that Hunter had actually died. Stunned that I'd abandoned him. Stunned that everyone else was being so nice to me. Especially since I was now officially a horrible person.

That night in the dark of my room, lit only by the computer screen, I was online as Cipher, half-heartedly playing with Evan by shooting messages back and forth. He went into full-blown flirt mode, and I couldn't take it.

Too soon, too weird. Evan was flirting online with a girl he didn't know he'd met, and he was a great guy. At some point someone nice—which (whew!) excluded Tracie—would take him up on that, and he'd have a girlfriend. Who wasn't me. But who he'd start spending all of his time with. Instead of with me. And here I was, as Cipher, giving him flirting practice with other girls. How insane was that?

But Evan and I probably didn't belong together anyway. Evan was great. And me? I was an awful excuse for a human being, for bailing on Hunter. We didn't exactly match. So I typed that to him.

C:
I have to go away for a while
.
Or maybe forever. I'm not well.

E:
What's wrong?

C:
(*Cipher is having poisonous tentacle remorse. If she was a person, Cipher wouldn't be a good one.*) Maybe I really am poisonous. Or poisoned somehow. Not safe for humans.

E: You'll be better soon
.
You're hard on yourself. I like being around you.

Humph. Evan didn't even know he'd ever been around Cipher.

C:
It's nice your ignorance is so deep. I'll swim away in that darkness, hiding my awfulness from my friend Skinnyboy. (*Cipher smiles, sadly.*) Cipher's sick of herself. It would break her heart if Skinnyboy got sick of her too, and she's worried it might be catching. She's swimming away for a while, or maybe forever. She might get her gills working again someday. Don't wait up, though. Thanks for playing, but I'm not sure I can be playful anymore. Bye, sweetheart.

Then I logged out.

• • •

The next morning, when we got out of carpool into the milling tide of students belched out of mom cars, Evan tried to talk to me about it. Or about something, anyway.

“Uh, your friend Cipher . . .” He tugged distractedly at his hair instead of heading up the concrete steps toward the front doors.

This, officially, I could not take. Before I could think, I said, “Evan, if you ask me for another girl's phone number now, I'm going to hit you until one of us cries, and I'm such a mess, it'll be me.”

“What? Why?”

I didn't know what he was asking—why he'd ask for Cipher's number, or why I'd hit him, or why I was such a mess. I shook my head. “Never mind. I'm just having a bad incarnation.”

“What's wrong?”

“Everything. Me.” Or everything, but especially me. Evan was one of the only persons left who liked me, so it would be awful if my self-loathing turned out to be contagious.

“I think you're great,” Evan said, like a mind-reader.

“Thanks. You're awesome. But between the two of us, I'm the only good judge of character. You didn't even used to know that Tracie was evil.”

The bell saved me from further conversation. I didn't actually hide from Evan at lunch, but I was miserable company. On our walk home at the end of the day, I didn't even try to make conversation. His attempts fizzled out.

“You'll be okay,” Evan announced, when we got to my house, which was only slightly out of his way. But he looked down at the sidewalk, like even he didn't believe it.

I never managed to say good-bye to Hunter or answer his “I love you” with how I felt. So that night, before I changed my Facebook status to “Single,” I sent Hunter a last email. Not that he was still picking them up.