All the Bright Places (32 page)

His mother lets out a sound I’ve never heard before, low and guttural and terrible. Once again, I want to throw the phone into the water so it will stop, but instead I keep saying “I’m sorry” over and over and over, like a recording, until the sheriff pries the phone from my hand.

As he talks, I lie back against the ground, the blanket wrapped around me, and say to the sky, “May your eye go to the Sun, To the wind your soul.… You are all the colors in one, at full brightness.”

I stand in front of the mirror and study my face. I am dressed in black. Black skirt, black sandals, and Finch’s black T-shirt, which I’ve belted. My face looks like my face, only different. It is not the face of a carefree teenage girl who has been accepted at four colleges and has good parents and good friends and her whole life ahead of her. It is the face of a sad, lonely girl something bad has happened to. I wonder if my face will ever look the same again, or if I’ll always see it in my reflection—Finch, Eleanor, loss, heartache, guilt, death.

But will other people be able to tell? I take a picture with my phone, fake smiling as I pose, and when I look at it, there’s Violet Markey. I could post it on Facebook right now, and no one would know that I took it After instead of Before.

My parents want to go with me to the funeral, but I say no. They are hovering too much and watching me. Every time I
turn around, I see their worried eyes, and the looks they give each other, and there’s something else—anger. They are no longer mad at me, because they’re furious with Mrs. Finch, and probably Finch too, although they haven’t said so. My dad, as usual, is more outspoken than my mom, and I overhear him talking about
That woman
, and how he’d like to give her a piece of his
goddamn mind
, before Mom shushes him and says,
Violet might hear you
.

His family stands in the front row. And it is raining. This is the first time I’ve seen his dad, who is tall and broad-shouldered and movie-star handsome. The mousy woman who must be Finch’s stepmom stands next to him, her arm around a very small boy. Next to him is Decca, and then Kate, and then Mrs. Finch. Everyone is crying, even the dad.

Golden Acres is the largest cemetery in town. We stand at the top of a hill next to the casket, my second funeral in just over a year’s time, even though Finch wanted to be cremated. The preacher is quoting verses from the Bible, and the family is weeping, and everyone is weeping, even Amanda Monk and some of the cheerleaders. Ryan and Roamer are there, and about two hundred other kids from school. I also recognize Principal Wertz and Mr. Black and Mrs. Kresney and Mr. Embry from the counseling office. I stand off to the side with my parents—who insisted on coming—and Brenda and Charlie. Brenda’s mom is there, her hand resting on her daughter’s shoulder.

Charlie is standing with his hands folded in front of him,
staring at the casket. Brenda is staring at Roamer and the rest of the crying herd, her eyes dry and angry. I know what she’s feeling. Here are these people who called him “freak” and never paid attention to him, except to make fun of him or spread rumors about him, and now they are carrying on like professional mourners, the ones you can hire in Taiwan or the Middle East to sing, cry, and crawl on the ground. His family is just as bad. After the preacher is finished, everyone moves toward them to shake their hands and offer condolences. The family accepts them as if they’ve earned them. No one says anything to me.

And so I stand quietly in Finch’s black T-shirt, thinking. In all his words, the preacher doesn’t mention suicide. The family is calling his death an accident because they didn’t find a proper note, and so the preacher talks about the tragedy of someone dying so young, of a life ended too soon, of possibilities never realized. I stand, thinking how it wasn’t an accident at all and how “suicide victim” is an interesting term. The victim part of it implies they had no choice. And maybe Finch didn’t feel like he had a choice, or maybe he wasn’t trying to kill himself at all but just going in search of the bottom. But I’ll never really know, will I?

Then I think:
You can’t do this to me. You were the one who lectured me about living. You were the one who said I had to get out and see what was right in front of me and make the most of it and not wish my time away and find my mountain because my mountain was waiting, and all that adds up to life. But then you leave. You can’t just do that. Especially when you know what I went through losing Eleanor
.

I try to remember the last words I said to him, but I can’t. Only that they were angry and normal and unremarkable. What would I have said to him if I’d known I would never see him again?

As everyone begins to break apart and walk away, Ryan finds me to say, “I’ll call you later?” It’s a question, so I answer it with a nod. He nods back and then he’s gone.

Charlie mutters, “What a bunch of phonies,” and I’m not sure if he’s talking about our classmates or the Finch family or the entire congregation.

Bren’s voice is brittle. “Somewhere, Finch is watching this, all ‘What do you expect?’ I hope he’s flipping them off.”

Mr. Finch was the one to officially ID the body. The paper reported that, by the time Finch was found, he’d probably been dead several hours.

I say, “Do you really think he’s somewhere?” Brenda blinks at me. “Like anywhere? I mean, I like to think wherever he is, maybe he can’t see us because he’s alive and in some other world, better than this. The kind of world he would have designed if he could have. I’d like to live in a world designed by Theodore Finch.” I think:
For a while, I did
.

Before Brenda can answer, Finch’s mother is suddenly beside me, red eyes peering into my face. She sweeps me into a hug and holds on like she never plans to let go. “Oh, Violet,” she cries. “Oh, dear girl. Are you okay?”

I pat her like you would pat a child, and then Mr. Finch is there, and he is hugging me with his big arms, his chin on my head. I can’t breathe, and then I feel someone pulling me away,
and my father says, “I think we’ll take her home.” His voice is curt and cold. I let myself be led to the car.

At home, I pick at my dinner and listen to my parents talk about the Finches in controlled, even voices that have been carefully chosen so as not to upset me.

Dad: I wish I could have given those people a piece of my mind today.

Mom: She had no right to ask Violet to do that.

She glances at me and says too brightly, “Do you need more vegetables, honey?”

Me: No, thank you.

Before they can start in on Finch, and the selfishness of suicide, and the fact that he took his life when Eleanor had hers taken from her,
when she didn’t get a say in the matter
—such a wasteful, hateful, stupid thing to do—I ask to be excused, even though I’ve barely touched my food. I don’t have to help with the dishes, so I go upstairs and sit in my closet. My calendar is shoved into a corner. I unfold it now, smoothing it out, and look at all the blank days, too many to count, that I didn’t mark off because these were days I had with Finch.

I think:

I hate you
.

If only I’d known
.

If only I’d been enough
.

I let you down
.

I wish I could have done something
.

I should have done something. Was it my fault?

Why wasn’t I enough?

Come back
.

I love you
.

I’m sorry
.

At school, the entire student body seems to be in mourning. There is a lot of black being worn, and you can hear sniffling in every classroom. Someone has built a shrine to Finch in one of the large glass cases in the main hallway, near the principal’s office. His school picture has been blown up, and they have left the case open so that we can all post tributes around it
—Dear Finch,
they all begin.
You are loved and missed. We love you. We miss you.

I want to tear them all down and shred them up and put them in the pile with the rest of the bad, false words, because that’s exactly where they belong.

Our teachers remind us there are just five more weeks of school, and I should be happy, but instead I feel nothing. I feel a lot of nothing these days. I’ve cried a few times, but mostly
I’m empty, as if whatever makes me feel and hurt and laugh and love has been surgically removed, leaving me hollowed out like a shell.

I tell Ryan we can only ever be friends, and it’s just as well because he doesn’t want to touch me. No one does. It’s like they’re afraid I might be contagious. This is part of the suicideby-association phenomenon.

I sit with Brenda, Lara, and the Brianas at lunch until the Wednesday after Finch’s funeral, when Amanda walks over, sets her tray down, and, without looking at the other girls, says to me, “I’m sorry about Finch.”

For a minute, I think Brenda is going to hit her, and I kind of want her to, or at least I want to see what would happen if she did. But when Bren just sits there, I nod at Amanda. “Thanks.”

“I shouldn’t have called him a freak. And I want you to know I broke up with Roamer.”

“Too little, too late,” Brenda mutters. She stands suddenly, knocking into the table, making everything rattle. She grabs her tray, tells me she’ll see me later, and marches off.

On Thursday, I meet with Mr. Embry because Principal Wertz and the school board are requiring all friends and classmates of Theodore Finch to have at least one session with a counselor, even though The Parents, as my mother and father refer to Mr. Finch and Mrs. Finch, are insisting it was an accident, which, I guess, means we’re free to mourn him out in the open
in a normal, healthy, unstigmatized way. No need to be ashamed or embarrassed since suicide isn’t involved.

I ask for Mr. Embry instead of Mrs. Kresney because he was Finch’s counselor. From behind his desk, he frowns at me, and I suddenly wonder if he’s going to blame me like I blame myself.

I should never have suggested we take the A Street Bridge. What if we’d gone the other way instead? Eleanor would still be here
.

Mr. Embry clears his throat. “I’m sorry about Finch. He was a good, screwed-up kid who should have had more help.”

This gets my attention.

Then he adds, “I feel responsible.”

I want to send his computer and books crashing to the floor.
You can’t feel responsible. I’m responsible. Don’t try to take that from me
.

He continues, “But I’m not. I did what I felt I could do. Could I have done more? Possibly. Yes. We can always do more. It’s a tough question to answer, and, ultimately, a pointless one to ask. You might be feeling some of the same emotions and having some of these same thoughts.”

“I know I could have done more. I should have seen what was going on.”

“We can’t always see what others don’t want us to. Especially when they go to great lengths to hide it.” Mr. Embry plucks a thin booklet off his desk and reads: “ ‘You are a survivor, and as that unwelcome designation implies, your survival—your
emotional
survival—will depend on how well you learn to cope with your tragedy. The bad news: Surviving this will be the second
worst experience of your life. The good news: The worst is already over.’ ”

He hands the booklet to me.
SOS: A Handbook for Survivors of Suicide
.

“I want you to read it, but I also want you to come talk to me, talk to your parents, talk to your friends. The last thing we want you to do is bottle all this in. You were closest to him, which means you’re going to feel all the anger and loss and denial and grief that you would feel over any death, but this death is different, so don’t be hard on yourself.”

“His family says it was an accident.”

“So maybe it was. People are going to deal with it however they can. My only concern is you. You can’t be responsible for everyone—not your sister, not Finch. What happened to your sister—she didn’t have a choice. And maybe Finch felt like he didn’t either, even though he did.” He frowns at a spot just over my shoulder, and I can see him going back over it all in his mind—every conversation or meeting with Finch—the same way I’ve been doing since it happened.

The thing I can’t, won’t, mention to him is that I see Finch everywhere—in the hallways at school, on the street, in my neighborhood. Someone’s face will remind me of him, or someone’s walk or someone’s laugh. It’s like being surrounded by a thousand different Finches. I wonder if this is normal, but I don’t ask.

At home, I lie on my bed and read the entire book, and because it’s only thirty-six pages, it doesn’t take long. Afterward, the thing that sticks in my mind are these two lines:
Your
hope lies in accepting your life as it now lies before you, forever changed. If you can do that, the peace you seek will follow
.

Forever changed
.

I am forever changed.

At dinner, I show my mom the book Mr. Embry gave me. She reads it as she eats, not saying a word, while my dad and I try to carry on a conversation about college.

“Have you decided which school you’re going to, V?”

“Maybe UCLA.” I want to tell my dad to choose a school for me, because what does it matter? They’re all the same.

“We should probably let them know soon.”

“I guess. I’ll be sure to get right on that.”

My dad looks at my mom for help, but she is still reading, her food forgotten. “Have you given any thought to applying to NYU for spring admission?”

I say, “No, but maybe I should go work on that now. Do you guys mind?” I want to get away from the booklet and from them and any talk of the future.

My dad looks relieved. “Of course not. Go.” He is glad I’m going, and I’m glad I’m going. It’s easier this way, because otherwise we might all have to face each other and Eleanor and this thing that has happened with Finch. In that moment, I’m thankful I’m not a parent and I wonder if I ever will be. What a terrible feeling to love someone and not be able to help them.