All the Bright Places (11 page)

“That’s too many,” I say.

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Early evening. Finch’s driveway. I stand with Leroy as Finch shoves his bike into the garage. He opens the door to go inside, and when I don’t move, he says, “We have to get your bag.”

“I’ll wait here.”

He just laughs and goes away. While he’s gone, I text my mom to tell her I’ll be heading home soon. I picture her waiting at the window, watching for me, even though she would never let me catch her at it.

In a few minutes, Finch is back and standing too close, looking down at me with blue-blue eyes. With one hand, he brushes the hair out of them. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this close to a boy other than Ryan, and I suddenly remember what Suze said about Finch knowing what to do with a girl. Theodore “Freak” or no freak, he is lean and good-looking and trouble.

Like that, I feel myself pulling back in. I drop Eleanor’s glasses onto my face so that Finch looks warped and strange, like I’m seeing him in a fun-house mirror.

“Because you smiled at me.”

“What?”

“You asked why I wanted to do this with you. It’s not because you were up on the ledge too, even though, okay, that’s part of it. It’s not because I feel this weird responsibility to keep an eye on you, which is also part of it. It’s because you smiled at me that day in class. A real smile, not the bullshit one I see you
give everyone all the time where your eyes are doing one thing and your mouth is doing another.”

“It was just a smile.”

“Maybe to you.”

“You know I’m going out with Ryan Cross.”

“I thought you said he wasn’t your boyfriend.” Before I can recover, he laughs. “Relax. I don’t like you like that.”

Dinnertime. My house. My father makes chicken piccata, which means the kitchen is a mess. I set the table as Mom ties her hair back and takes the plates from Dad. In my house, eating is an event accompanied by the right music and the right wine.

My mom takes a bite of chicken, gives my dad a thumbs-up, and looks at me. “So tell me more about this project.”

“We’re supposed to wander Indiana, as if there’s anything interesting to see. We have to have partners, so I’m working with this boy in my class.”

My dad raises an eyebrow at my mother and then me. “You know, I was terrific at geography back in the day. If you need any help with that project—”

Mom and I cut him off at the same time, telling him how good the food is, asking if we can have more. He gets up, pleased and distracted, and my mother mouths to me, “Close one.” My dad lives to help with school projects. The problem is he ends up taking them over completely.

He comes back in saying, “So, this project …” just as my mom is saying, “So this boy …”

Except for wanting to know my every move, my parents act pretty much like they always did. It throws me when they’re the parents of Before, because nothing about me is like it used to be.

“Dad, I was just wondering,” I begin, my mouth full of chicken. “Where did this dish begin? I mean, how did they come up with it?”

If there’s anything my dad likes more than projects, it’s explaining the history of things. For the rest of the meal, he talks nonstop about ancient Italy and the Italians’ love for clean, simple cooking, which means my project and this boy are forgotten.

Upstairs, I scroll around Finch’s Facebook page. I’m still his only friend. Suddenly a new message appears.
I feel like I just walked through the back of the wardrobe and into Narnia
.

I immediately research Narnia quotes. The one that stands out is:
“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.… Come further up, come further in!”

But instead of copying it down and sending it, I get up and mark the day off on the calendar. I stand looking at the word “Graduation,” all the way in June, as I think about Hoosier Hill, Finch’s blue-blue eyes, and the way he made me feel. Like everything else that doesn’t last, today is gone now, but it was a pretty good day. The best I’ve had in months.

My mother stares at me over her plate. Decca, as usual, is eating like a small, ravenous horse, and for once I’m doing my share of shoveling it in.

Mom says, “Decca, tell me what you learned today.”

Before she can answer, I say, “Actually, I’d like to go first.”

Dec stops eating long enough to gape at me, her mouth full of partially chewed casserole. Mom smiles nervously and holds on to her glass and plate, as if I might get up and start throwing things.

“Of course, Theodore. Tell me what you learned.”

“I learned that there is good in this world, if you look hard enough for it. I learned that not everyone is disappointing, including me, and that a 1,257-foot bump in the ground can feel higher than a bell tower if you’re standing next to the right person.”

Mom waits politely, and when I don’t say anything else, she starts nodding. “This is great. That’s really good, Theodore. Isn’t that interesting, Decca?”

As we clear the plates, my mother looks as dazed and disconcerted as she always does, only more so because she doesn’t have the first clue what to do with my sisters and me.

Since I feel happy about my day and also bad for her because my father not only broke her heart, he pretty much shat all over her pride and self-worth, I tell her, “Mum, why don’t you let me do the dishes tonight? You should put your feet up.” When my dad left us this last and final time, my mom earned her Realtor’s license, but because the housing market is less than booming, she part-times at a bookstore. She is always tired.

Her face crumples, and for one awful moment I’m afraid she’s going to cry, but then she kisses me on the cheek and says, “Thank you,” in such a world-weary way that I almost want to cry myself, except that I’m feeling much too good for that.

Then she says, “Did you just call me ‘Mum’?”

I’m putting on my shoes at the very moment the sky opens up and it starts to pour. By the looks of it we’re talking cold, blinding sleet, so instead of going out for a run, I take a bath. I strip, climb in, water splashing onto the floor, leaving little pools that shake like beached fish. The whole operation doesn’t work well at first because I am twice as long as the bathtub, but the tub is full of water and I’ve come this far, and I have to see it through. My feet rest halfway up the tile of the wall as I go under, eyes
open, staring up at the showerhead and the black curtain and plastic liner and the ceiling, and then I close my eyes and pretend I’m in a lake.

Water is peaceful. I am at rest. In the water, I am safe and pulled in where I can’t get out. Everything slows down—the noise and the racing of my thoughts. I wonder if I could sleep like this, here on the bottom of the bathtub, if I wanted to sleep, which I don’t. I let my mind drift. I hear words forming as if I’m sitting at the computer already.

In March of 1941, after three serious breakdowns, Virginia Woolf wrote a note to her husband and walked to a nearby river. She shoved heavy stones into her pocket and dove into the water.
“Dearest,”
the note began,
“I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times.… So I am doing what seems the best thing to do.”

How long has it been? Four minutes? Five? Longer? My lungs are starting to burn.
Stay calm
, I tell myself.
Stay relaxed. The worst thing you can do is panic
.

Six minutes? Seven? The longest I’ve held my breath is six and a half minutes. The world record is twenty-two minutes and twenty-two seconds, and this belongs to a German competitive breath holder. He says it’s all about control and endurance, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that his lung capacity is 20 percent larger than the average person’s. I wonder if there’s something to this competitive breath holding, if there’s really a living to be made at it.

“You have been in every way all that anyone could be.… If anybody could have saved me it would have been you.”

I open my eyes and sit straight up, gasping, filling my lungs. I’m happy no one’s here to see me, because I’m sputtering and splashing and coughing up water. There’s no rush of having survived, only emptiness, and lungs that need air, and wet hair sticking to my face.

Thursday. U.S. Geography.

The
Bartlett Dirt
has named the top ten suicidal students in school, and my phone is buzzing because Theodore Finch is number one on the list. Jordan Gripenwaldt has covered the front page of the school paper with resources and information about teen suicide and what to do if you’re thinking of killing yourself, but no one is paying attention to this.

I turn off my phone and put it away. To distract myself and him, I ask Ryan about the “Wander Indiana” project. He is partners with Joe Wyatt. Their theme is baseball. They’re planning to visit the county baseball museum and the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame in Jasper.

“That sounds really great,” I say. He is playing with my hair, and to make him stop, I lean over and pretend to search for something in my bag.

For their wanderings, Amanda and Roamer are planning to focus on the James Whitcomb Riley Museum and our local farm and history museum, which is right here in Bartlett and features an actual Egyptian mummy. I can’t think of anything more depressing than to be an Egyptian high priest on display next to a set of vintage wagon wheels and a two-headed chicken.

Amanda examines the ends of her ponytail. She is the only person besides me who is ignoring her phone. “So how is it? Is it awful?” She stops examining long enough to look at me. “What?”

“Finch?”

I shrug. “It’s okay.”

“Oh my God, you like him!”

“No I don’t.” But I can feel my face turning pink because everyone is looking at me. Amanda has such a loud mouth.

Thankfully, the bell rings, and Mr. Black wants eyes on him, people. At some point, Ryan slips me a note because my phone is off. I see it under his arm, waving at me, and I take it.
Drive-in double feature Saturday night? Just you and me?

I write:
Can I let you know?

I tap Ryan’s arm and hand him the note. Mr. Black walks to the chalkboard and writes
POP QUIZ
and then a list of questions. Everybody groans and there’s the sound of ripping paper.

Five minutes later, Finch breezes in, same black shirt, same black jeans, backpack over one shoulder, books and notebooks and thrashed leather jacket under his arm. Things are spilling everywhere, and he retrieves keys and pens and cigarettes before giving Mr. Black a little salute. I look at him and think:
This is the person who knows your worst secret
.

Finch pauses to read the board. “Pop quiz? Sorry, sir. Just a second.” He’s using his Australian accent. Before he takes his seat, he heads right for me. He sets something on my notebook.

He slaps Ryan on the back, drops an apple on the teacher’s desk with another apology to Mr. Black, and falls into his chair across the room. The thing he set in front of me is an ugly gray rock.

Ryan looks down at it and up at me, and then past me at Roamer, who narrows his eyes in Finch’s direction. “Freak,” he says loudly. He mimes hanging himself.

Amanda punches me a little too hard in the arm. “Let me see it.”

Mr. Black raps on the desk. “In five more seconds … I will give each and … every one of you an F … on this quiz.” He picks up the apple and looks as if he’s going to throw it.

We all go quiet. He sets the apple down. Ryan turns around and now I can see the freckles on the base of his neck. The quiz is made up of five easy questions. After Mr. Black collects the papers and starts to lecture, I pick up the rock and flip it over.

Your turn
, it says.

After class, Finch is out the door before I can talk to him. I drop the rock into my bag. Ryan walks me to Spanish, and we don’t hold hands. “So what’s up with that? Why’s he giving you things? Is it, what, a thank-you for saving his life?”

“It’s a rock. If it was a thank-you for saving him, I’d hope for something a little better than that.”

“I don’t care what it is.”

“Don’t be that guy, Ryan.”

“What guy?” As we walk, he nods at people going by, everyone smiling and calling out, “Hey, Ryan,” “What’s up, Cross?” They do everything but bow and throw confetti. A few of them are good enough to call out to me too, now that I’m a hero.

“The guy who’s jealous of the guy his ex-girlfriend’s doing a project with.”

“I’m not jealous.” We stop outside my classroom. “I’m just crazy about you. And I think we should get back together.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“I’m going to keep asking.”

“I guess I can’t stop you.”

“If he gets out of line, let me know.”

The corner of his mouth goes up. When he smiles like that, there’s a single dimple. It was the thing that got me the very first time I saw him. Without thinking, I reach up and kiss the dimple when what I mean to do is kiss his cheek. I don’t know which of us is more surprised. I say, “You don’t need to worry. It’s only a project.”

At dinner that night, the thing I fear most happens. My mom turns to me and asks, “Were you in the bell tower of school last week?”

She and my dad are staring at me from opposite ends of the table. I immediately choke on my food, so noisily and violently that my mother gets up to pat me on the back.

My dad says, “Too spicy?”

“No, Dad, it’s great.” I barely get the words out because I’m still coughing. I cover my mouth with my napkin and cough and cough like some tubercular old uncle.

Mom pats me until I quiet down and then takes her seat again. “I got a call from a reporter at the local paper who wants to do a story on our heroic daughter. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I don’t know. They’re making a bigger deal of it than it is. I’m not a hero. I just happened to be up there. I don’t think he really would have jumped.” I drink my entire glass of water because my mouth is suddenly dry.