That got a smile out of me, but only a tiny one. “I have to call him.”

“You don’t have to. But unless your heart really is a lump of coal, you should.”

“How about a text to start with?” I bargained.

“Sure,” she mused. “I really want a granola bar.”

I pulled out my phone and tried typing. All that came out were idiotic things like, “Who died?” and “I heard there was a death in your family. Sucks.”

“Help me!” I pleaded to Becca. She grabbed my phone.

“How about, ‘You haven’t been in school. Hope everything is ok.’”

“But I know it’s not okay.”

“He doesn’t know you know, and maybe he wants to be the one to tell you.”

“Hit send before I chicken out.”

“Done.”

I waited until the last possible second to walk into first period. No reply texts from Leo, but I couldn’t bring my phone to class to keep checking. If a teacher heard the buzz of a text, that would be an instant confiscation until the end of the day. I placed my phone in my locker on top of the bag of cookies that was becoming less edible as the week wore on. Throughout the morning, I checked my phone in my locker every chance I got. Nothing. When lunch came around, I decided the wait was too much for me. But I wasn’t ready to call Leo and sound like an asshole. Instead, I visited Mr. Esrum, Leo’s creative writing sponsor. I looked through the glass window of his office door. Head down, he graded a stack of papers on his overflowing desk. I knocked on the door. He looked up over the top of his glasses and waved me in.

“May I help you?” he asked. He wasn’t overly friendly, but I appreciated that in a person. Leo liked him, so I guess I did, too.

“Hi. I’m a friend of Leo Dietz…” I started.

“You must be Alex! He writes about you. I probably shouldn’t have told you that, though.” His sly smile indicated he was trying to make me feel good with this comment, but it had the opposite effect. I didn’t respond to it.

“Do you know if Leo’s okay? They told me in the office that one of his relatives died, but they couldn’t say who. I thought you might know.”

“Sweet of you to be so concerned.” If he only knew how sweet I really was. “I’m afraid it was his brother, Jason. He was killed trying to dismantle a roadside bomb. Horrible.” It was horrible. I wondered if Leo tried to picture the death, the explosion ripping his brother’s body apart. I knew from experience that it didn’t look anything like in our movies. “The funeral is next Wednesday. They have to wait until the body is shipped back.” Mr. Esrum cringed, as though he knew he said too much. “I’m sure you could be excused if you wanted to go.”

I hadn’t thought that far ahead that there would be a funeral. That after I talked to Leo, there would be more.

“I’ll think about it,” I said somberly, and began backing out of the office. “Thank you,” I mumbled.

“Alex?” He stopped me. “I’m sorry.”

I closed his office door.

Inside I was seething. What was he sorry about? To me? I didn’t know Leo’s brother. I didn’t know what to do at all, and he was sorry?

I ran down the hall to the only place I could think of and fumbled for my key ring to let me into the book closet. Once inside, I sat down at a desk and rested my head. The book closet felt so sad and empty without Leo. Old books that no one wanted to read, clocks telling time for no one but us, and there wouldn’t even be an us again if I went through with it. My body wanted to cry, to release the pain and sadness that consumed it, but it wasn’t my sadness. I wouldn’t allow it.

I flipped through pages of Bradbury until I felt calmer, more focused. What would I have wanted from Leo if my brother died? I knew my answer was selfish. It was the same thing I had always wanted from Leo: to make me feel so good that I couldn’t remember why I felt bad. But Leo was better than I was, and I knew it. I could tell by the way I caught him looking at me during movies. The way he laughed at things I said. I had used him because I needed him. Now he probably needed me. I didn’t think I could be there for him, for what he needed from me. But I couldn’t not talk to him. I remembered how horrible it felt when Davis, a guy I didn’t even like that much, didn’t call me. Just to say something. To acknowledge my pain.

The guilt had overflowed.

I left the book room, the hallways empty, and returned to my locker. Leo still hadn’t texted me, but I couldn’t use that as an excuse. The guilt punched me in my stomach until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I had to say something to him, lest be devoured by my guilt. I found Leo’s name in my phone and called. Every ring brought me further into panic mode. What would I say? Could I really help?

Leo’s voicemail picked up. I nearly hung up, the dread of leaving a message overwhelming. But it was that or call again, and the weight of my conscience would have crushed me by then.

Beep.

“Hey, Leo, it’s Alex. I heard what happened. To your brother. And I’m, um, really sorry. Shit. That was stupid. Never mind. I mean, let me know if you need anything. Bye.” I hung up and threw my phone into my locker with a bang. The battery exploded out of its compartment. Instead of helping, I said the least helpful thing anyone could ever say to a person whose loved one died. I wished I could erase the message, suck the word “sorry” from the English language, and hack it to pieces with a rusty ax.

I ripped a cookie out of my locker and chomped on it, then spit it on the floor. It still tasted good. It should have tasted horrible, been filled with tiny, writhing maggots, and containing high levels of toxic sludge.

My guilty brain couldn’t handle the rest of the school day, so I skipped out. Since the one thing that really made me forget everything—Leo—was also the reason for my pain, I opted for a gory movie brain fry. In bed with my laptop, I watched as topless girls received blades in their chests, as doppelgangers killed their good selves, as old ladies ate their grandchildren. It was sick and wrong, but it was all I could do. Once again, life had become too much to handle. The pile was too great. I pulled the covers over my head and listened to the screams.

CHAPTER 25

SATURDAY I WORKED all day, and the craziness of a nearby college football game kept Cellar busy. It would have sucked dealing with the morning tailgater drunks, but I was lucky to be making subs in the back. The day moved quickly, the Patron Saint of Subs doing what she did best.

I brought subs home for dinner, and my family ate together in the kitchen. AJ and CJ were still too young and clueless to have any plans for Saturday nights, and I needed to spend the evening with Becca before she headed for more chemo torture on Monday.

“I’ll do the dishes,” CJ declared when dinner was over, and proceeded to crumble our sub wrappers.

“You’re such a help,” Mom said sarcastically.

“So you’ll raise my allowance?” CJ hinted.

“Only if you stop raising my blood pressure.”

I heard my phone ring from my bag in the hallway, and I ran to get it. I assumed it was Becca asking me when I’d get to her house. But it was Leo. I forced myself to answer it.

“Hey,” I said.

He cleared his throat. “Hey.” Silence.

“How’s it going?” Lame. Stupid. Dumbass.

“Pretty shitty. You?”

“Much less shitty, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Was I supposed to be talking? When my dad died, people loved to regale me with their memories of him. It bugged the hell out of me. My dad was dead, and their personal stories seemed to belittle that fact, like, “He was your dad but I knew him first.” I wish people were forced to write their stories of the dead down, so when the living were ready to hear those stories they’d be there waiting. The only story I had about Jason was from freshman year. He was a senior, and I had no idea where I was going for first period. But I really had to go to the bathroom, so I ducked into the nearest one assuming it was a girls’. It was not. One lone pee-er straddled a urinal. I gasped when I saw him, which caused Jason to turn around, still peeing. “The fuck?” he asked. I said nothing and ran out, lucky no one else saw.

That didn’t feel like an appropriate story to share after someone’s death.

“Could you come over?” Leo asked hesitantly.

I didn’t know what to say. Becca was expecting me, and she’d be out of commission again soon. On the other hand, how could I say no when Leo’s brother just died and he wanted me to come over? But on the other hand—or, I don’t know, foot—my original plan was to break things off with him before his brother died. Now that death was involved, I only saw it as going one of two ways: I end it, or I become his intense, committed, we can never leave each other because we’ve survived death together girlfriend. I wasn’t sure I could handle that. Still, I wasn’t yet the world’s biggest asshole, so I told Leo, “Sure. I can come now if you want.”

“My parents are at my aunt’s house.” I didn’t know if he told me because parents being home was always awkward, especially grieving ones, or if he was telling me “my parents aren’t home.” “So can you park on the street?” he finished.

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” It was a parking thing. “See you soon.” We hung up, and I went upstairs to change clothes. Not that I needed to look nice, but I smelled like ham. Or maybe I wanted to look a little nice. Show respect. Instead of a printed t-shirt, I put on a plain, black t-shirt with my jeans and Chucks. Pretty much what I always wore, which didn’t make it any less appropriately somber. I grabbed a few DVDs from my collection, just in case Leo, too, liked a little gore to keep his brain at bay. I also packed the cookies originally plated for a breakup. Now they’d look like a gesture for the grieving, which made me seem a lot nicer than I was. I called Becca to tell her of my change in plans.