16 Things I Thought Were True (20 page)

I'm alone in my room. Adam's gone home, and the boys and Mom are chatting quietly in the living room. I feel like I'm holding my breath. I can't get full sips of air. I sit cross-legged on the bed, staring at the blank wall.

I need to call Amy's parents, offer my condolences. Say something. Do something. Show them people care. But my insides feel grated and chopped up. I swallow and swallow and finally reach for my phone lying at my feet. Taunting me. I turn it on and click to my Twitter page. My heartbeat spikes when I notice the follow status. I'm at 5,002 followers. I made it.

I close my eyes and imagine Amy squealing and jumping up and down. I imagine her so excited the words tumble out over top of each other. So much for that. This doesn't change one single thing. Reaching five thousand followers brought the opposite of good.

There's a knock at my door, and it pushes open before I can respond. Jake walks in. His face looks how I feel—wrecked.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Not really. I can't believe it. I can't believe she's gone. It doesn't seem real.”

“I know. I keep expecting her to text me. I keep finding myself about to text her,” he says.

“People my age shouldn't die.”

“No.”

We're both quiet, thinking how wrong it is. And how unreal. It's so hard to digest. How could this happen? Amy was good. She'd been through so much. She had so much ahead of her.

Jake shifts from foot to foot and stares at everything in the room except me. “I know it's not a good time to ask, but I really need to know. Is it true?” he finally asks. “What Lexi said?”

I blink. Frown.

“Did you know she posted that video of you online?”

I hear the disappointment in his voice, and it adds a layer to the shame I've tried to bury. Jake is struggling with this on top of everything. He doesn't want to believe the worst about me. My heart aches more. “Does it matter?” I ask softly.

He hangs his head and then slowly shakes it. “No, I guess not, not in the whole scheme of things,” he says softly, but then he sighs. To him, it does; it matters a little. He doesn't want it to be true. “I believed in you, Chaps. And so did Amy.”

I stare at him. And then I nod. For Amy, I'll tell him the truth. Exactly what I've told no one else. Amy would want me to tell the truth. I close my eyes and breathe, still not wanting to accept that she is gone.

“I knew,” I tell him softly. I sigh. “I saw Lexi post it. I didn't stop her.”

His eyebrows lift.

“I thought, you know, it'd be funny. Maybe people would think I was cool. I didn't know what it would turn into. I didn't know it would go viral and everyone would see it. I erased it after she left. But it was too late.”

“You erased it?”

My cheeks burn and my body folds up even more. “I've been so ashamed. I mean, Lexi was right. I wanted people to like me.” I take a deep breath and tell him the rest. “I found out later Lexi also e-mailed it to a boy at school—from my account. She thought he had a crush on me, so I think she was trying to get back at me, because she had a crush on him too. She was always so competitive about boys. Anyhow, he sent it to other people. And from there…”

He shakes his head. “You erased it though. She did this by e-mailing that boy. It got out because of them. There was nothing you could do about that once it was sent.”

I raise my eyebrows. Shrug. I never thought of it that way before. “Maybe. I don't know. It doesn't really matter. I'm the one who did the dancing.”

“Everybody does stuff like that, Morgan. But you didn't post it. To me, it matters,” he says. “I knew it wasn't you.”

“It shouldn't matter,” I tell him.

“I know. But you're my little sister. I didn't want it to be you. And you didn't ask her to post it. Or send the e-mail. She did it behind your back. She set it in motion. Not you. There's no way you had control over what happened.”

My relief makes me feel weak. “Do you think so?”

“I do. This wasn't your fault, Chaps. No matter how hard you've been trying to convince yourself it was. You didn't ask her to do it. She did it and she's the one who was wrong. Not you.”

God knows where Jake picked up his values in our faulty family tree, but I'm grateful for them. And for his support.

“Thank you,” I tell him, and maybe I don't quite believe it yet, but I'm starting to.

I remember how many times he's stood up for me over the years. My protector.

“It was my dad who called,” I tell him. “When Lexi was here.” I stare down at my feet, at my chipping toe nail polish, blushing. “I told him to never call me again.”

Jake sighs and walks to the bed and sits down beside me. “Yeah. I kind of figured. It was bad timing, you know. You just found out about Amy. You can call him back. Explain it. He'll understand.”

I shake my head. “But Mom wouldn't like it.”

“Chaps. You don't always have to please everyone else. Sometimes you have to look out for yourself. “

I stare at him and blink. And finally the tears come. Because he's right. And he sounds exactly like Amy. I miss her so much. And I miss what she might have had with Jake. I still can't believe she's gone.

It's my first funeral and for that, I suppose, I should consider myself lucky. But it's awful. Until now, I kept thinking it was all a mistake, that someone would clear up the misunderstanding. I kept expecting her to walk in and start babbling to me. But this. This makes it real. Horribly real. My friend is gone. My stomach has knots and my throat's sore from swallowing.

The church is a nondenominational one. Amy's parents are seated in the front pew. An old woman in a wheelchair sits in the aisle beside her mom. Her skin is thin and creviced, and her chin wobbles and shakes. I guess it's a grandmother, but Amy never mentioned her. It doesn't seem fair that she's there and Amy is the one in the casket.

I can't bear to look at her. Not yet. We're all seated in the aisle behind her parents and off to the right, but they haven't turned their heads. Adam is on one side of me and my mom on the other. Jake and Josh are beside her. Adam's parents sit behind us. His little brother is home with a sitter.

Before the sermon begins, I turn and look around, touched to see the church is crammed tight. Amy would be impressed. I recognize faces from Tinkerpark, some of the showgirls, the other girl who works in the snack shop. I'm embarrassed to realize I don't know her name and make a mental note to find out. Amy would have known.

There are a lot of other kids our age. Adam whispered that they're from the private school Amy went to her only non-homeschooled year. I think she would have liked going to school with Adam and me...less fancy, more friends.

I slip my hand inside my purse and sneak out my phone. Trying to be discrete, I hold it up and snap a picture of the crowd.

“Morgan,” my mom whispers and smacks at my hand, but I ignore her. I think about posting the picture on Twitter later. To show our friends. Her account has more followers than mine does now. I think she'd like the tribute, but then I think about it and decide no. Amy didn't want me to live my life on Twitter, and she doesn't have to end her life on it. The people that are here are here. I'll print out a picture later and leave it with her family. I put the phone away and soak in the moment—as much as it sucks to do that.

When the minister has walked in and is seated, a choir at the front begins singing “Amazing Grace,” the first song I learned on the recorder in sixth grade. My mom wraps her arm around me and presses her head to mine. I rest against hers for a moment before moving away. We have a lot to work through, but I know Amy would be happy to see that we're trying.

Tears are flowing in that church. So many, I imagine, if we collected them, there would be pails and pails of tangible sadness.

I blink as the minister begins to speak. His voice is low and soothing. He's young with dark, curly hair that I think might have the gray dyed out. He has cowboy boots on under his white robe. The biblical part of the sermon is brief and then he talks about Amy. He talks about her irreverence, her charm, and her bravery.

And when he is done, he turns to the crowd.

“Would anyone like to come forward to share their memories of Amy?”

I jump to my feet. I will not allow one second of an awkward pause for my friend. Not one. I ignore all the eyes on the back of my black dress as I walk up the aisle, trying to walk less like a duck and more like a lady in the high heels I borrowed from my mom.

I manage to navigate the stairs to the podium and move down the mike so it's close to my mouth. “Amy was my friend,” I say to the crowd. In the back of the church, a baby cries. I know how it feels. But I swallow hard and keep going. “I didn't know her long, not long enough. But in the short time I did, she was the best friend I ever had.”

I glance at Adam and he nods in approval.

“And, man, she could talk.” I smile, remembering. “Her heart was big. She was forgiving and didn't judge and she was…true. She taught me to embrace the truth. Even the hard ones.” I glance at the minister, and my cheeks redden and I stop for a minute to get myself back on track. “Amy was…amazing.” I glance at her mom and dad and then quickly away so I don't lose it. My hand goes to the bracelet she made me, and I wind it around my wrist. I remember her telling me it was magical. I wish she would have kept it for herself.

“Shortly before Amy passed on,” I pause and swallow, “we went on a road trip. Amy, me, and my…boyfriend.” Adam hides his mouth behind his hand, but Jake lifts his thumb in the air. I smile. Amy would approve. “Along the way, we learned a lot about each other. A lot.” I smile down at the mike. “Amy wasn't afraid to share.” I stop and blink and swallow the growing lump in my throat. “She helped me realize what was important and she never made me feel silly about being wrong.” I finally glance at her parents, hoping they don't think I'm being disrespectful or trite, but they're smiling through their tears.

“She was beautiful. She really was. And right before…the last time I spoke with her, she made me promise her I would show the world who I am. As if she knew she was leaving me.” I take a deep breath and stare down at my borrowed shoes. “I will be forever grateful to Amy, for showing me the difference between things I thought were true and things that really are.” I pause and the tears domino up in my eyes, ready to tumble out. “Like that only the good die young,” I say and hiccup a little as I hold in a sob. “I miss her.”

I step down from the podium then. It's blurry as I make my way back to my seat, but Jake walks past me, on his way to the podium, to say something else about the Amy he knew.

***

After the funeral service, Amy's parents host a gathering in their home. The house is cleaner. Emptier. I'm standing beside her dad, leafing through a portfolio book he wanted to show me, at some of the things Amy made and sold in her Etsy store. I see how talented she was and touch my bracelet again. I do that a lot now. Adam wears his and Jake is wearing both of the ones she gave him. I guess he decided to keep Josh's for himself.

Amy's dad is busy chatting with someone on his other side; it seems like he's a work colleague the way they talk. Her mom is sitting in a chair beside the old woman in the wheelchair and their heads are bent as they talk. I search around the room until I see Adam. He's standing with a group of kids from Tinkerpark. A couple of the managers are here too. He lifts his glass when our eyes meet.

My gaze sweeps around the room, and I spot my mom. She's talking to someone, out of my sight, and I watch her nervously wringing her hands and chewing frantically on her Nicorette gum. I'm proud of her for giving up smoking completely. She loved it, and it hasn't been easy for her. She has a glass of wine in her hand and as if she feels my eyes on her, she turns and looks right at me and smiles a smile I haven't seen before.

For a moment, with the light streaming in behind her, she looks young and very beautiful. Lovely and frightened. Vulnerable. The hardness around her edges is softened. And then she points at me, and Bob White and his wife step into my sight. My heart thuds in my chest and I put down Amy's binder.

Adam is suddenly at my side, his arm around my waist. When I told him earlier what I said to Bob, he assured me I would deal with him again when I was ready. “You okay?” Adam whispers in my ear. I sense eyes on me and glance at Amy's dad. His eyes follow mine back to Bob.

“Your dad?” he asks. I nod.

“Yeah. I see it. Amy said you look just like him.” He smiles with his overly white teeth. “This would make Amy happy, you know. That he came to you here.”

“You're right,” I say. I look at Amy's dad. “She loved you so much,” I tell him.

He nods and presses his lips tight. “I know,” he says. “But thank you.” We both turn and watch Bob and Camille approach. Bob has visible sweat on his upper lip.

“Excuse me,” Amy's dad says, and he slips away, goes to his wife's side, and puts his hand on her shoulder. She presses into it, and I look at them for another moment, hoping they will be able to get through this. Wondering how they will.

Adam removes his hand from my waist but takes my hand.

“We're late,” Bob says when they reach me. “My apologies. It was the ferry.”

“It's good to see you, Morgan,” Camille says and steps forward and hugs me close. She smells like expensive perfume. When she steps back, Bob holds out his hand. I stare down at it and then look at him and we both start to laugh.

I take his hand and formally shake it. I really am my father's daughter.

“I hope it's okay. That we came,” he says.

“Of course,” I say but frown, thinking of what I last said to him. “I'm sorry.”

He nods. He knows exactly what I'm thinking. “I wanted to see you. And your mother invited us to come. She told us what happened, that you were upset about Amy the last time we spoke.”

“I'm sorry for how rude I was.”

“Don't even worry about it,” he says.

“We wanted to pay our respects,” Camille adds. “We're so sorry about Amy,” she says. “She was a lovely young girl.”

I nod and yet another lump forms in my throat. “She was.”

“She seemed like a good friend,” Bob adds.

“She was a great one.”

There's a pause.

“She called me, you know,” he says. “Before the surgery. She wanted me to know that you were a good person, to give you time. And she told me I better be good to you when you did. She assured me you would.”

“She did?” I shake my head and half smile at Amy's audacity.

“I really am sorry,” I say softly to Bob. “About what I said to you when you called. I was very upset.” I don't tell him that maybe I was testing him too, without even knowing it. I want to be loved for who I am, warts and all. Because I am far from perfect. I look at him and see we're both realizing it at the same time. That it was a test.

“Don't apologize. You and I are going to mess up a lot along the way.”

I nod, hiding a smile. He's implying that we have a future. And I want that very much. Jake and Josh appear at my side, their eyes burning with visible curiosity.

“This is Bob White and his wife, Camille,” I tell them. “Jake and Josh.”

“These are the twins?” Bob reaches to shake their hands. The boys are polite, but they don't remember Bob, not really. While they make small talk, I glance across the room. Mom is standing with Jake and Josh's dad. She smiles at me as she slips her hand into the crook of his arm. He leans down and whispers something in her ear. I raise my eyebrows and she rolls her eyes at me. I roll mine back. Maybe there are more reunions than one going on. Gross.

I turn to Adam, and he's laughing at something Bob said. I nudge him in the side. If he wants to be a good boyfriend, he really needs to stop getting along so well with my parents. Amy would have told him that. My heart sinks. I miss her way of telling it the way it was.

“Let me introduce you to Amy's parents,” I tell Bob and Camille. As we make our way toward them, I hear one of the Tinkerpark kids saying something to one of the private school kids, asking if they saw me in the video.

I think of Amy. What she wanted me to do—show them who I really am.

I slip my hand into Adam's and hold my head high.

And then I wiggle my ass.