Dessert First (26 page)

Bailing on Hunter somehow came up in that week's depression session with Dr. Anne. Tissues were involved.

You'd think, with something as insanely painful as (a) having your cool friend die and (b) failing him by disappearing at the end, the last thing you'd do is spit it up in front of a trained therapist. Once you start chewing on that in front of a shrink type, you know it'll come up again and again.

And you'd think, sitting next to that sharp spike of emotional pain on the couch, you wouldn't just hop on it. Oww. No, you'd expect to sit nearby, pretending it wasn't there, blowing flat little lie bubbles in a monotone. “Oh. Fine. No. Nothing new.” (Long silence.)

But that's not how therapy works. At least not if you have a low threshold of boredom, like me. Plus, I was trying to figure it out—how could I do that? And how come, at the end, Hunter said it was okay and still said “Love”? By then, he knew I'd bailed. When it was getting darkest, I'd unplugged my little night light from anywhere he could see.

“Everyone has a limit,” Dr. Anne said, from behind her big frame glasses and little notepad. “Where we can't stay close and give anymore. To someone dying too soon.”

I sat across from her on this couch in her little Berkeley office that's so crammed with ferns it was like rain forest therapy. I didn't say anything.

“What training do you have,” she asked, “to take care of yourself while being there for someone dying?” Since she sticks “Ph.D.” after her name everywhere in the building, Dr. Anne might be a little biased on the importance of training.

“Just life.” Which had been way too much practice lately.

“Why was it your job, anyway, to be there for Hunter? You're sixteen and still hurting from Beep.”

“I was kind of his girlfriend.”

“Were you?”

Probably not. I shrugged.

“Why would that make it your job anyway? Why was it even your job to post the cancer updates for Beep, or spend Wednesday nights and Thursday mornings at the hospital with him, when your mom was showing houses?”

“Because I could.” It was hard to explain.

“Do you know what a parentified child is?”

“A thirty-five-year-old guy with two kids who still plays shooter videogames?” Sometimes Mom pays the woman just to listen to my bad jokes. Which Dr. Anne rewarded, as usual, with a pained smile, then ignored.

She tried again. “In some families where the parents have problems, one child steps up and takes on adult responsibilities that really shouldn't be hers. People should be taking care of her, but she ends up trying to take care of them instead.”

This was relevant how? “I don't even do my homework.”

“No,” she agreed. “You do things like talking your brother through dying.”

“I didn't choose that. It just happened.”

“But you chose to become Hunter's friend and support. And when he died, maybe it was too much for you.”

Well, duh. “You think that's me?” I asked. “
I'm
all parentified?”

“What do you think?”

“I think this year sucked completely. And most adults are basically insane. They're not, like, role models. They don't even eat dessert first.”

The call came after school later that day, when I was at the kitchen pantry, trying to figure out a snack, which was hard, because all we had were boring healthy choices. (No eating dessert, period, let alone first.) Mom had her hands in dishwater when the phone rang, so I grabbed one of the phones on the fourth ring, the same time Mom grabbed the other.

“Hello,” the woman's voice was gentle, in response to Mom's greeting. “This is Joanna Lange, Hunter Lange's mom.”

I was too shocked to say anything, even though I was holding one of the phones. I clicked mine off, set it on the countertop, and then stepped back, like I was afraid a poisonous stinger would poke out of it.

“I'm
so
sorry,” Mom said, after the introductions, and they were off to tearful cancer mom bonding, talking about Beep and Hunter and their boys dying, like they were old best friends. That went on a long time.

I stood there frozen.

They somehow made a shift to talking about me. I could only hear my Mom's side of the conversation. “Yes, she really is only sixteen.”

Good. Maybe Hunter's mom would only prosecute me as a juvenile, for disappearing on her son.

“Yes, Kat
is
special. And amazing.” Mom looked over at me with shining eyes. “Of course, that would be okay. If it's okay with Kat . . . Of course I'll let you talk to her.”

Mom handed me the phone. “I'm
really
sorry, Mrs. Lange,” I said, like all those people said to me after Beep's funeral. “Hunter was a great guy.” I couldn't say anything more, because I choked up.

Hunter's mom was nice on the phone, which surprised me. I expected “Girl, I'm going to rip your lungs out, for abandoning my boy.” But it was like she was trying to take care of me, even though it was Hunter who died. Who I'd left by himself at the end.

“Hunter gave me his Facebook and email passwords,” she said. “So I could read what you wrote him. I stayed up most of last night reading it.” That was hundreds of hours of private messages over months. Some, really private. Well, uh oh.

She went on and on about how much it meant to Hunter that I'd sent him all those messages, and what a great friend I'd been to him, while I squirmed more and more.

“Um, Mrs. Lange?” If she'd read all our messages, she must have seen my last, about how I bailed on Hunter and never told him I loved him. I didn't know why she was saying nice things. “I let Hunter down. I disappeared. At the end. I never told him I loved him. So I . . .” My voice broke, and I couldn't go on. The waterworks on my end really kicked in. Mom was looking at me with alarmed wide eyes. This was news to her, I guess. I turned my back on her, to continue without unnecessary Mom-is-freaking-out distractions.

“Oh, honey. Don't ever think that,” Mrs. Lange said. “Hunter knew how you felt about him. Knew it would be hard for you when he died. Was worried about you. He loved you. He was so glad he got to know you.”

I sniffled for most of the conversation after that. And she went on about how much it had meant to Hunter, hanging out with me, even 3000 miles away. And how much it meant to her, to read my wonderful messages, what a present it was to her, to see her son's words back. She'd printed a lot of them out, and was putting them in a scrap book, with other things to remember Hunter by.

Okay. Wow.

“Hunter had a class ring. It meant a lot to him. He wanted you to have it if that's okay.”

“Um, yes,” I said. “That would be . . . yes, please.”

I stood in silence for minutes after the call, still holding the phone. Amazingly, Mom just let me be. Hunter's mom wasn't mad at me. And she said Hunter had understood, and that he wasn't mad. Instead, he was sending me a present. I had done the worst thing ever, and my sweet DBF had sent forgiveness.

The buildup to the Worst Day Ever (When No One Actually Died category) was the next day. That's when Evan asked if we could walk to school early together the following morning, because he wanted to tell me something.

Which weirded me out all evening. Did he want to be my boyfriend, now that Hunter had died and Cipher wasn't returning messages? Or—oh no—did he have a crush on some other girl, and he wanted to talk to me—his “just friends” female advisor—about how to tell her?

I couldn't go through that again. Or did he want to form a band with me in it? Or tell me he formed a band, but I wasn't in it? Or that he knew I was Cipher and had fallen in love with me because of our online exchanges, like Hunter, but for real?

I went through another dozen even more bizarre possibilities and worked up sympathy for Mom: You can make yourself crazy worrying about unlikely stuff.

Finally, I cheated and went back online as Cipher to send Evan a message.

C:
Hey, Skinnyboy—long time no type. What's up, and how are you?

E:
Glad to hear from you. Otherwise kind of worried.

C:
Why? If you tell me, I promise not to jab you with my poisonous tentacles.

E:
Revealing a deep dark family secret tomorrow.

C:
Do tell. (*Cipher's tentacles quiver in excitement, so she has to fold them, to keep from injuring herself.*)

E:
Sorry. You'll have to wait for my memoirs. It's a secret
.

C:
You can tell me. My unusually tiny mouth is sealed. Give it over, Skinnyboy.

E:
Sorry, mystery girl, you should know—some things are better left mysterious.

Even though I hounded him, he wouldn't say what it was. Evan always sent playful messages to Cipher, so I figured he was being random about the “family secret.” And frustrating.

The next morning I put on my ruffled blue top with the long sleeves, not just because it's cuter than my other shirts, but also because it was clean. Ironic, what with the difficulty later of getting out the bloodstains.

Evan showed up fifteen minutes early, even for a non-carpool day. Mom gave me a puzzled, worried look on my way out. Rachel was still in the bathroom beautifying.

“He's briefing me for a test,” I fibbed cheerfully, before closing the door with a thud to punctuate my lie.

Evan fidgeted with his backpack straps while we walked.

“You were going to tell me something?” I said when we were most of the way to school.

“Yeah. I told you that so I wouldn't chicken out.” He looked down at his shoes, like he had speaking notes on them.

He'll say he wants to be my boyfriend
. That thought brought a swirl of emotions. First, a jolt of terror, that it would screw up our friendship, then a warm feeling that I really, really wanted him to say it. But over the top of everything, a hollow echoing
No
, which didn't make sense. Evan was a great guy, and I loved being around him, but I had this weird feeling it was wrong and scary, especially if it
didn't
wreck our friendship.
What?

“It happened a long time ago, but I never told anyone.”

Okay, that sounded exactly
not
like telling me he wanted to be my boyfriend. The surge of disappointment was so huge, it was painful.

We got to the block where school was, but Evan turned up the path past the tennis courts to the baseball and soccer field, instead of heading toward the buildings. I followed. When we got to the sports field, he stopped and grabbed the fence for support.

I took my backpack off and set it down, to signal I'd wait, even if it was a long story. Evan kept his backpack on, as if he didn't want to get too comfortable.

“So.” Evan had his fingers knotted through the chain link fence. He absently kicked the ground, staring out toward Portland Avenue. He looked like Beep used to, when he needed to have a serious conversation, but could do it only half-distracted by a videogame. “When I was six, Mom had a baby.”

What? Evan was an only child.

“I got this ‘I'm the Big Brother' tee shirt to wear to kindergarten, and Mom went off to the hospital. She was supposed to bring me a baby brother back home, and he'd be named Tony, after Grandpa.”

Sometimes you know you're about to hear the worst thing ever, from the buildup and body language.

“But they never brought the baby home. There was something wrong with his heart. He only lived five hours, and the whole time, they knew he was going to die. Mom and Dad didn't want to waste Grandpa's name on a dead kid, so they never even gave him a name. After he died, he was just ‘Baby Boy Ford.'”

I put my hand over my mouth.

Evan was still looking away, like he could see something in the distance. “Mom was messed up when she came home. Depressed or something. She barely even got out of bed, maybe for weeks. Long enough, anyway, so I can still remember. They wouldn't let me wear my ‘I'm the Big Brother' tee shirt. I threw a fit, because I
was
the big brother, so they took the shirt away. The rule after that was we were never supposed to talk about my dead baby brother. Ever. And we don't. I only found out the whole no-name story from my aunt.”

How could they? How could they not give their dying baby a
name
? How could they ignore him and pretend he never existed at all, because it hurt when he died? How. Could. They. It would be like us pretending there never was a Beep. “That—” my voice was raw “—is such total, utter, complete
bullshit
.”

Evan looked shocked, like I'd slapped him. Which stunned me. Was he going to defend his parents? For that?

“It's not!” He was flushed and there were tears in his eyes. “It's true. I just never told anyone.”

I reached out to touch his arm, confused, not understanding his words. I knew I'd said something wrong, but was still floored by the nameless dead baby brother thing.

Evan pushed my arm out of the way. “Forget it.” He brushed past me and stomped off toward class. I had to grab my backpack, before I could chase him.

“Evan!” He had a big head start and was moving in almost a run. “Wait.”

“No,” his voice was tight and furious. He didn't turn around. “Screw you.”

I stood there, stunned. What just happened? I replayed our conversation. My stomach dropped. When I'd said “bullshit” to what his parents had done, Evan thought I was calling bullshit on him.

I couldn't find Evan at lunchtime. I'd sent him texts but just got an error message. Had Evan blocked my number? He wasn't where we always met outside, or at his locker. By the time I got to his fourth-period classroom, he was long gone. I looked all over, even got so desperate I went into the lunch room, on meat loaf day, to experience its dead-animal-baked-in-cat-box-and-ketchup smell. Which nearly made me join Rachel as a vegetarian, but didn't turn up Evan.