Page 61 of Goodbye Days

I balk. She waits. So I start dusting her off. I sweep her smooth, almost-bare shoulders. They’re scented with honeysuckle lotion. The place where her neck meets her shoulders, even though her hair was probably covering it. I just want to do a good job. I don’t do it like I’m pounding cracker crumbs from car upholstery. More as if whisking the dirt from a treasured painting discovered in an attic. Her skin is warm under my fingers, like the first day of spring when you can open your windows.

I brush off her shoulder blades. The middle of her back. The back of her left arm. The back of her right arm. Her lower back, as low as I dare go.

My pulse tingles in my fingertips. “Should I do your legs?” She could easily reach her own legs. But…

“No,” she murmurs. “I want to walk around with dusty legs.”

Interesting. “See how I didn’t assume that you wanted me to because you’re a girl who’s afraid of a little dirt?”

She turns her head around partway so I can see her smile. “You’re not hopeless.”

I bend down and dust off the backs of her smooth thighs below the hemline of her dress. The minute I do, I start experiencing what we’ll call “some personal growth.” I’m really trying to keep this pure and innocent, and I’m not being gross about a friend, but I’m touching her legs and they’re really pretty. So I conjure the image of my grandma pooping to try to nip things in the bud and avoid any potential awkwardness when Jesmyn turns around. It mostly works.

“You’ll do great tomorrow,” Jesmyn says out of nowhere. And that reminder works even better than Grandma pooping. “You’re doing the right thing. I bet this’ll help.”

“I don’t want to make things worse somehow.”

“You won’t. You done? Am I good?” she asks, letting her hair fall.

“Yeah,” I say. “You’re good.”

On my way home, Darren Coughlin calls. I pull over to answer. He wonders if I have some comment on the impending investigation. I tell him I don’t and sit there and breathe and listen to my heartbeat until I’m sure I won’t have a panic attack while driving.

If I had a million dollars—well, first I’d pay Mr. Krantz—but then I’d pay the rest of it for just one hour when I don’t think about the Accident, about Judge Edwards, about the DA, about Adair, about legal bills, about prison, about any of it.

An hour when I can sit and let the warmth of Jesmyn’s skin ebb from my fingertips’ memory while my mind is as clear and tranquil as a waveless sea on a windless day.

I lie awake and the silence roars in my ears. The glowing green letters of my alarm clock read 2:45. I was almost asleep when a train woke me. Nana Betsy wasn’t kidding about bright and early. I’m meeting her at seven a.m.

I try to collect my stories of him. It won’t help me sleep, but I do it anyway. I line them up in my mind. I wash them and polish them.

I prepare to lay them to rest.

It’s the third week of eighth grade at NAA. I don’t know anyone because it’s my first year there (it’s an eight-through-twelve school). I’ve left all my few friends and more bullies behind at Bellevue Middle. It’s weird being at a school where everybody in your class is the new kid.

I’m sitting in the back of civics and the teacher, Ms. Lunsgaard, is droning on about bicameral government and checks and balances. This is the longest hour of the day because it’s the hour before lunch. I glance over at the kid next to me. He looks friendly and kind. He grins and starts making elaborate tying motions with his hands. He fits an invisible noose around his neck, tightens it, and jerks it upward, sticking his tongue out the side of his mouth.

I stifle a laugh and pantomime opening a bottle of pills and dumping the whole thing down my throat.

He doesn’t succeed in stifling his laugh. Ms. Lunsgaard peers at us. “Blake? Carver? This will be on the test.”

“Sorry,” we mumble. We meet eyes again. Under his desk, Blake pantomimes cutting his wrist.

The bell finally rings. I’m stuffing things in my backpack. Blake extends his hand to me. “Hey, man, I’m Blake.”

I shake his hand. “Carver.”

“That’s a badass name, dude. Sounds like a serial killer’s name. The Boston Carver.” He has a thick drawl. It doesn’t sound local.

“Yeah, I was named after a short story writer.”

“Oh.”

“An acclaimed short story writer.”

“Oh.” He does an impressed-old-lady voice and covers his O-shaped mouth.

I laugh. “So where did you use to go to school?”