“… if she’d been a better friend…”
“… poor thing…”
“… some nerve…”
“Hey, Lexi, you want to sit here? Lexi. ”
She turned slowly, saw Zach’s ex-girlfriend, Amanda Martin, sitting in the pew to her right.
Amanda scooted sideways, made her mom and dad scrunch together to make room.
Lexi sat down by Amanda. She looked into the girl’s sad eyes, and suddenly they were both crying. They hadn’t been friends in high school, but it didn’t matter now; all that stuff just fell away. “It totally wasn’t your fault,” Amanda said. “I don’t care what people say. ”
Lexi was surprised by how much that meant to her. “Thanks. ”
Before Amanda could say anything else, the service began.
The priest said Mia’s name, and every high school girl in the church burst into tears, and more than a few boys joined in. The priest’s words painted a picture of a happy eighteen-year-old girl who was almost Mia and yet not quite. He didn’t say that she snored when she lay on her back or that she moved her lips when she read or that she liked to hold her best friend’s hand while they walked through the mall.
His words she could withstand. It was the slideshow of Mia’s life that devastated her. Mia in a pink tutu, her arms circled above her head … Mia holding a Captain Hook action figure, grinning … holding Zach’s hand as they stood in the cold ocean water, grimacing. The last picture was of Mia alone, wearing a crazy tie-dyed T-shirt and cutoffs, smiling for the camera, giving the world a thumbs-up.
Lexi closed her eyes, sobbing now. Music began to play: it was not the right music. Mia wouldn’t have liked the droning, solemn chords. And somehow that hurt most of all. Whoever had picked the music hadn’t thought of Mia. It should have been a Disney song, something that would have gotten Mia on her feet and made her sing along with her hairbrush as a microphone …
Sing with me, Lexster. We could be in a band … and Zach, laughing, saying, no more, Mia, dogs are starting to howl …
Lexi wanted to clamp her hands over her ears, but the words came from inside of her, memories blooming up and spilling over.
“Time to go, Lexi,” Amanda said gently.
Lexi opened her eyes. “Thanks, for letting me sit with you. ”
“You coming to graduation?”
Lexi shrugged. Had it only been six days ago she and Mia and Zach had been together in the gym, practicing for graduation? “I don’t know…”
People moved into the aisle, streamed toward the double doors. Lexi felt their gazes on her. Faces frowned in recognition as they passed her. Parents looked judgmental; kids looked sad and sympathetic.
Finally she saw the family. They sat in the front pew, still and stiff and dressed in black. People paused to offer condolences as they passed.
Lexi moved toward them, unable to stop herself. She was going against the flow; mourners stared at her, frowned, moved out of her way.
In the front row, the Farradays rose in unison and turned.
Neither Jude nor Zach acknowledged her. They just stared, dull-eyed, their faces streaked with tears.
Lexi had practiced what she would say to them a hundred times, but now, faced with the magnitude of their loss and her guilt, she couldn’t even open her mouth. The whole family turned away from her and walked to the church’s side door.
Lexi felt Eva come up beside her. She sagged into her aunt, giving up the strength it had taken to come here.
“No one blames him,” Eva said bitterly. “It’s not right. ”
“He wasn’t driving. ”
“He should have been,” Eva said. “What good is it to make a promise and then ignore it? He should be blamed, too. ”
Lexi remembered how he’d looked at her in the hospital; the green eyes she loved so much had been darkened by more than grief. She’d seen guilt there, too, as deep as her own. “He blames himself. ”
“That’s not enough,” Eva said firmly. “Let’s g