Page 86 of The Last Thing You Said

“Ben?”

“Or Simon?”

I shake my head.

“Hon,” she says. “You need to tell Simon it’s over. I mean, he knows about you and Ben, right?”

“I would guess that the events of last evening probably erased any doubts he had about me and Ben, yes.”

“Look, when the Renters showed up, I thought, Perfect, this is exactly what she needs, a cute guy to get her mind off the jackass. And Simon’s so sweet to you, for a little while I thought it might actually work.”

“Yeah,” I said, “me, too. But Ben’s everywhere I go, you know? I mean, look, I can’t even watch a parade without him being right across the street.”

“He’s not right across the street, Luce. He’s down the block. And it’s not like you can avoid him in this town.”

“I can try, can’t I?”

“Let Simon down easy, okay?” Hannah says. “He’s a nice guy, but you have to end it with him. Because, darlin’, Ben is more than just across the street. He’s in your heart.”

The Day Lulu Made a New Friend

On Lulu’s first first day of school without Trixie, her footsteps echoed in the empty hallways. The hour was early, too early, but she needed the quiet, the time before the rooms filled up and the teachers looked on her with pity in their sad eyes, for they, too, missed the happy girl called Trixie.

She found her locker and emptied the books and notebooks and pens from her backpack. She walked through the school, out a back door, to the long stretch of picnic tables and leafy trees that stood guard over the grand lake.

She had never felt as alone as she did at that moment, in this place where she and Trixie ate lunch on days when the sun warmed them and the scent of lilac and violet carried on the cool breeze.

Lulu took in a deep breath of the crisp, late summer air, now tinged with a sharp trace of algae bloom. She walked back into the school to spend that first day with the classmates she’d known her entire life, but who would never be the kind of friend to her that Trixie had been, since the very first first day of school.

She walked to her homeroom in the media center, where a girl sat alone at one of the tables, a girl Lulu didn’t know. Her blond hair swirled around her like cotton candy.

Lulu was filled with a wave of courage.

Lulu smiled at the girl.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Lucy.”

“My name’s Hannah,” the girl said. “Want to sit here?”

Lulu nodded, and when Hannah smiled at her, Lulu’s heart lit up like a carnival ride.

45 · Ben

I get home from Guthrie’s around noon and take a quick shower. The knuckles on my right hand are bruised and bloody, and I wonder what Simon’s face looks like.

There are four chairs set up in the front yard for the parade, and at first I think how fucked up it is that Mum and Dad put out a chair for Trixie, but then I remember that Dana was going to watch the parade with us.

Until she found me on the porch with Lucy’s head on my lap.

The Watermelon Days parade is a big deal—the whole town comes out for it, and we’ve always had a front row seat. It’s the first time I’ve seen Mum and Dad together in days. Dad’s got his shit together. He’s had a shave and a shower and is wearing clean clothes.

“Hello, sweetie,” Mum says as I sit down in the lawn chair next to her. “What on earth happened to your hand, Ben? And your eye is swollen!”

“I’m okay, Mum, it’s nothing,” I tell her.

“It’s not nothing! Were you fighting?”

When I don’t say anything, Dad jumps in. “Your mother asked you a question, Ben.”