The After Girls (12 page)

And she decided that something needed to change.

Was it horrible to not want to see your best friend?

Ella hung up the phone with Sydney feeling spent —
guilty
. Maybe she should have just let her come over, but she had a feeling that she just wouldn’t quite understand. Sydney wouldn’t want to talk about Astrid. She’d want to talk about anything but. She’d want to distract her. She’d ask her to go shopping or something, but at the moment, the thought of a new pair of wedges — or weighing in on Syd’s stage-makeup choices — made Ella cringe.

So she stretched, looking out the window. It was a nice day out — so far, at least. In this town, a storm could come in a matter of minutes. She knew she should get up — do something — but she wasn’t ready to move. So she pulled her computer onto her lap.

She checked her messages first — like she had every hour since she’d hit send — nothing. Then she went to Astrid’s page. It was habit now, a nervous tic. She wanted something to happen. Maybe if she waited long enough, it would.

Ella clicked through the photos. She found one that she’d added, not all that long ago. Astrid smiled at her, showing her teeth, her hair draped across her shoulders. Her eyes were wide, and more than anything, she didn’t look sad. A blue sky stretched behind her, and round, pebbly rocks. On her shoulders, Ella could see the skinny straps of a swimsuit beneath a tank top.

They’d gone to the lake, the three of them. Ella had snapped the photo of Astrid before she’d gotten in. Astrid had been slathering on sunscreen. She had that perfect Irish coloring. Her skin was always so pale. Ella was going without. Her skin was pale, too, but it was olive. The sun could turn her around, even her imperfections, lighten her hair. She wanted to get burnt. At least a little.

“Shouldn’t you do that after you take your clothes off?” Ella asked. Sydney was already in the lake, splashing away.

Astrid shrugged. “I don’t really feel like swimming.”

Ella put her hands on her hips and dipped a toe into the water. “So what, you’re not going to swim at all?”

“I’m so disgustingly pale,” Astrid said. “Not like you guys.”

Ella just rolled her eyes. Astrid was gorgeous. It was impossible not to see. “Well you’re never going to get a tan if you keep slathering on that stuff.” She looked at the bottle of SPF 60 in Astrid’s hands. “It’s like a body suit.”

Astrid didn’t look up. She just kept massaging it into her leg. “My mom says I’ll get cancer if I don’t.”

“Oh, come on,” Ella said. “You won’t get cancer from a
tan
.”

“That’s what she says.”

“Well, she’s not here, is she?”

Astrid looked up at her then. “She’ll know when I come home,” she said. “Why do you think I don’t just whack my hair off because she’s not here? She’d see it as soon as I got home. It’s impossible to hide.”

Ella sighed. Sometimes Astrid could be so weak. “If you want to cut it, just cut it.”

“She’ll kill me if I do,” Astrid said. “She’d ground me forever.”

Ella shook her head and bounced into the water, running forward to grab the rope swing that they always used for the first plunge. She looked at Astrid as she walked the rope back. “Well you know, she’s right,” she said. “You’d be crazy to cut your hair. It’s gorgeous. It’s perfect. People hire Hollywood stylists to get theirs to look like that.”

“I hate it,” Astrid said, her face serious for a moment. “It’s not me.”

“You’re nuts,” Ella said, and she grabbed the rope, felt it rub, scratch against her palms, lifted her feet and flew, higher, faster, ’til there was nothing but her and the air, a cloudless sky, and openness all around her. She let go, and the water hit her feet first, washed up her legs, surrounded her as she held her breath and plugged her nose, struggling to readjust her swimsuit bottom as the water bobbed her up.

“Nice,” Sydney said when she was barely out of the water. “A, you coming?”

Astrid glanced at the rope, and then back at her friends. “No,” she said. “I’m not ready to go in yet.” But it was the same song and dance, because they all knew that she wouldn’t, that she’d dip her toes in the water, walk ’til it hit her knees, but then amble back, sit on the rocks at the edge.

And she never ever took that plunge.

And she never let herself get burnt.

And she never cut her hair, either. Ella had never thought a thing of it, but now she felt almost sick. Had Astrid really hated the way that her skin looked? Had she really detested her long, beautiful hair? Had she really been so fearful of disappointing her mother that she couldn’t be herself?

How many other things like that had Ella missed?

Ella shook her head and kept on going through the photos. Nights in the cabin. Afternoons in front of lockers. It was a while before she found one she didn’t recognize — a picture of a darling girl with red hair, so tiny and so young. It must be Astrid, when she was only five or six. Young and innocent and happy and
alive
. She looked to who posted it, and the name caught her eye: Jake. It was put there by Jake.

Ella couldn’t help it. She clicked. His photo was of him at the piano. So that’s what he must be studying in school — she’d never even asked. She scanned his info — college, Chicago School of Music; hometown, Charlottesville, West Virginia; relationship status …

Single.

Ella jumped when she heard her phone ring.

She pushed the computer aside and looked down at her phone. It was a number she didn’t recognize. Reluctantly, she clicked answer.

“Hello?”

“Ella?” The voice sounded friendly. Familiar. “It’s Jake.”

“Oh, hey,” she said, her eyes flicking back to her computer screen. She felt like she’d been caught. “How do you have my number?”

He laughed. “You do work for my aunt, you know. I have my ways.”

“Oh,” she said. “Yeah … what’s up?”

“I was just calling to see how you were.”

“How I am?”

“You fainted, remember?”

Ella shook her head. It was like she’d taken a course in valley girl. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m feeling okay.”

“Good enough for dinner?” he asked.

Ella’s heart raced because for a second, she thought he was asking her on a date. Even though he couldn’t be. Because now he’d met Ben … and Ben had made it clear as day that he was her boyfriend, and …

“Uhhh …” she stalled for time.

“Grace, I mean —
we
— were all thinking that if you were feeling up to it, it might be nice for you to come over for dinner. To the house.”

“Oh,” she said. And it all made sense then. Of course he wasn’t asking her out — what was wrong with her? He was just asking her over to the house. To Astrid’s house.

“I mean, only if you’re feeling up to it,” Jake continued.

“Yes,” she said, eagerly. “Yes, I am.”

“Great,” he said. “I’ll tell Grace. She said you could come over around seven.”

“Okay,” Ella said. “That sounds good.”

“Oh, and Ella,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“I really do hope you’re feeling better.”

“I am,” she said.

“Good,” he said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“See you tonight,” she echoed, and she hung up the phone and set it down on her bed. She felt better. Truly. She was going over to Astrid’s house. She was going to be there again, she was going to see what it was like, and she was going to finally get to spend some time with Grace.

But it didn’t last.

In seconds her phone was ringing again. Ella picked it up and her heart stopped, because there she was — staring right at her. She heard herself scream, saw the phone drop from her hands. One smiling face and six little letters.

Astrid
.

The sky was clear when Sydney got to the cabin, and the caution tape was gone. It looked like the Falling Rock police had actually come through for a change. It was better this way. Not so scary. With the cloudy blue sky above it, it almost looked quaint. Almost.

Sydney stepped up to the creaky old porch, stomping hard to get the clay off of her combat boots. The ground was damp today because it had rained last night — she hoped to God it wouldn’t rain again.

The door was shut — tight. It was funny how the police had done it that way, as if it actually mattered at this place. Sydney slowly placed her hand on the doorknob and turned. She knew that it wouldn’t be locked.

She stepped inside, and the faint scent of oranges hit her — it smelled like her house after her mom had cleaned. The books and yearbooks were no longer scattered across the floor. Neither were the blankets. Sydney walked up to the old armoire and opened it — there they were, neatly stacked, probably just as they had been when A had come here herself. Perhaps she should give the FRPD more credit than she had in the past. Altogether, the place looked better now, more like it used to. Less like death.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out. It was Max.

Hang tonite?

Sydney rolled her eyes. What the hell did he want anyway? They hadn’t even talked since she’d drunkenly demanded to be taken home. And now he wanted to “hang.” She would have called Ella for advice, but the girl was in post-faint mode, and she didn’t want to bother her. Plus, she knew what Ella would say. “You are
too good
for Max. Tell him you’re busy and you’ll see him at practice.”

But she couldn’t help staring at the center of the room where the three of them all used to sit — where they used to talk about these things. What would Astrid have said? Would she have tossed her hair over her shoulder and echoed Ella? Maybe.

Or would she have looked at Sydney with those eyes that always seemed to know everything about you, everything you truly felt, and would she have said that it was okay. That we all couldn’t be perfect. That she knew what it was like to feel lonely.

Sydney startled because it came so fast she could almost see it, this memory, playing out in her mind. It was one of those nights that they’d all met here, just a couple months ago, when the weather had finally gotten nice as Falling Rock welcomed spring. It was before some party — she couldn’t remember whose.

Sydney had come in and the candles were already lit and the blanket was out, but Astrid was sitting there, just staring out into space. Her journal was open and she gripped a pen in one hand, as if she’d been writing. She slammed it shut as soon as she saw Sydney.

“Sorry I’m late,” Sydney said, tossing her bag in the corner and pulling out a bottle of wine. “I found this tucked in the back of my mom’s cabinet — she won’t miss it for awhile at least. She’ll probably just think that George took it to one of his nerdy pretentious math parties.”

Astrid didn’t laugh.

“You okay?” Sydney asked, sitting down next to her and fiddling with the corkscrew.

“I don’t know,” Astrid said. “I feel weird.”

“What do you mean?” Sydney asked. “Like you’re sick?”

Astrid looked up at her then, and she half smiled, but it wasn’t one of those nice smiles. It was a smile that said,
There’s something I’m not saying
. “No,” she said. “I don’t think I’m sick.”

Sydney narrowed her eyes at her friend. “You have another fight with your mom?”

Astrid shook her head. She tucked her journal into her bag. Sometimes Sydney wondered what it said. “My mom only fights with me when …” her voice trailed off.

“When what?” Sydney asked.

Astrid just shook her head. “Never mind.”

“A,” Sydney said. “I know. Sometimes I swear my mom’s crazy. I mean, she just fell for George in like five minutes and sometimes she’s nice to me and sometimes she’s such a bitch and she just looks at me like I’m like not even her daughter. Everyone’s parents are a little nutso.”

Astrid nodded, but Sydney could see that her eyes were starting to water.

“Hey,” she said, putting her hand on Astrid’s shoulder. “You can tell me. It’s okay.”

“Sometimes I just feel alone,” Astrid said. Slowly. “Completely alone.”

“You have me,” Sydney said, but she couldn’t say more because then Ella was walking through the door, and Astrid was quickly wiping her eyes and saying “hey” like nothing in the world was wrong.

And Sydney let it slide, like she always did. She always figured that Astrid would talk to her when she felt ready. When she really needed to. Of course, she’d been completely, terribly wrong.

What would she have said if Ella hadn’t come in? Hell, what would she have said if Sydney had asked? If she had grabbed her, shaken her, gotten the wild truth out of her.

No one would miss me if I was gone.

Sydney could have reasoned with her, held her.
Helped
her. Astrid’s death was shocking, yeah, but in hindsight, was it really even a surprise? Sydney could have saved her. She’d had more than one chance.

Sydney slammed the door behind her and rushed to the wall, tearing one of the photos down. It ripped in two, half of it sticking to the wall, half of Astrid’s face in her hand.

Why the hell had it been so hard to just
ask
?

She had to change this place. Take the chills out of it. Make it so it wouldn’t be The Place That Astrid Died. So her aunt wouldn’t write about it in her next edition of town haunts. And the only way she knew how to do that was to erase their marks on it — to make it like they’d never been here at all. Maybe she couldn’t cry and she couldn’t faint and she couldn’t grieve like Ella could. Maybe no matter what happened, no matter how many days and weeks and
years
passed, she would always know that it was her fault — that, God help her — she’d all but killed her friend. But at least she could do this.

She stared at the torn photo and her heart broke all over again. She wanted to change this place, not destroy it. She carefully peeled off another photo, slowly, so it wouldn’t rip. It was one of Astrid, sitting in a tire swing that used to hang in Sydney’s yard, before the tree fell in a storm. She flipped it over and removed the scotch tape from each corner, crunching it into a wad.

She couldn’t fix it, she couldn’t make it so this place wasn’t awful, so it wasn’t the place that A had chosen to die, and hell, she sure couldn’t save Astrid — or even herself — but she could make it a little better at least. She could make this just a run-down cabin in a mountain town. Not a grave. They could divide the photos between them — they could even put them in a box or a book or something that they shared. It’d be better than having them stuck here.