Page 87 of The Last Thing You Said

“Look,” I say. I’m tired and hungover and my head’s pounding. “Can we just skip all this and go right to the part where I say I’m sorry and I promise not to do it again?”

“Oh, Ben,” Mum says, and my gut twists. I hate to disappoint her, but I hated that smug look on Simon’s face more.

After a minute or two of silence, Mum asks, “Where’s Dana?”

“She’s not coming.”

She reaches into the cooler and hands me a bottle of iced tea. “Not coming? Why ever not?”

“We’re done,” I mumble.

“Do you mean you’ve broken up?”

“That’s right.” I take a long drink of the tea. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mum says. “That seems a bit sudden.”

I don’t say anything as a couple of fire trucks blast their horns. The firefighters throw candy out the windows, and the kids in front of us scramble to get a few pieces. Something flies at me, and I reach up to catch it without thinking, without even looking.

I open my palm. A root beer barrel.

Trixie’s favorite candy. The candy Lucy left on her grave. I wonder how often Lucy goes there to visit my sister.

I wonder how often Lucy gets drunk like she did last night.

I think about how it felt to carry Lucy from the shore to the porch, how light she was, how she rested her head against my shoulder. I flex my fingers into a fist and remember the feel of Simon Stanford’s shoulder and chest and face beneath it as I pummeled him. What a fucking ass, the thing he said about Lucy.

And then it hits me, like I’m the one getting pounded. What if it’s true?

What if Lucy slept with him? Last night I figured he was lying to me, trying to piss me off. And it worked. But maybe he was telling the truth.

My stomach turns. Shit, what if it’s true? How could she do that?

God, I’m a hypocrite.

“I saw Lucy and her friend down by the café,” Mum says. “Why don’t you ask them to join us here? You’ve spoken with her, right? Like you promised?”

I stand up.

I bite my lip.

“I can’t.” My voice shakes. “I can’t ask her over here. What’s done is done and there’s no going back.”

“Ben—” Mum starts, but I cut her off.

“I’ve done some really stupid shit since Trixie died, you know?” I can barely get the words out, and I’m glad that the siren of the ambulance in the parade is loud enough that the dozens of spectators around us won’t hear what I’m about to say. “I’m sorry that I disappointed you.”

I walk away, away from the parade and the noise and my parents, up the hill to the cemetery, to Trixie’s grave.

I pull the root beer barrel out of my pocket, unwrap it, and set it on top of her gravestone.

“Trix,” I tell her, “I’ve fucked everything up.”

46 · Lucy

The last of the parade floats pass us. The Boy Scouts hit the street and sidewalk to pick up the missed candy and trash. Hannah waves her watermelon-shaped paper fan in front of her face.

“It’s hot,” she says. “Ready to go?”