Cruel Love (Privilege 6)

Ariana walked to Soomie’s desk, put down the bag full of comfort foods she’d just acquired from the café and glanced at Maria. Maria’s brown eyes were pained as she rubbed Soomie’s back with her flat hand. “What’s … going on?”

“She was awake.” Soomie’s voice was flat and toneless. “She was awake and she was going to be fine. She was awake and we were all going to get to see her.”

“I know, Soom, but just because she’d woken up … that didn’t mean she was completely healed,” Maria said, leaning forward in Soomie’s desk chair, angling toward the bed. “The doctors must have missed something.”

Yeah, like a big, deadly air bubble in her vein, Ariana thought, watching Soomie closely. Her eyes were shot through with red and her nose was swollen. Her black hair hung in clumps around her shoulders and she kept tapping her fingers on her shins, like she was playing piano or hitting the keys on her BlackBerry.

“But she was awake, and I was going to get to see her,” Soomie said. One tear dropped from her eye onto her knee.

Maria looked up at Ariana, her own face drawn and tired. It was amazing how grief seemed to age people. Just looking at Maria now, Ariana could perfectly imagine how she was going to look at thirty years old. Still pretty, but in a dulled way.

“She’s been saying some variation of that, and only that, for the past half hour,” Maria said, keeping her voice down.

Soomie’s head snapped up. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not even here!” she shouted.

Both Ariana and Maria jumped. Maria raised her hands and pushed her chair backward. “I’m sorry. I was starting to think you were going catatonic on us.”

“Well, I’m not. I’m not crazy, okay? I’m not Lexa,” Soomie snapped.

She shoved herself up from the bed and crossed over to the far wall. The school had long since removed Brigit’s bed and her other furniture—a favor they hadn’t yet granted Ariana, even though she’d been without a roommate since Halloween—so the wall was completely bare. Soomie let out a groan.

“I just don’t get it,” she said, whirling to face the others. “Lexa had never been depressed a day in her life. Why did she do it? What could have possibly happened that would make her kill herself? Why didn’t she just tell us about it?”

“I don’t know,” Maria said quietly, slumping in her chair. “I guess we’ll never know.”

Ariana swallowed against her dry throat. “She had been acting a little strange lately, though,” she said, knowing full well that the girl had been acting just this side of bonkers. She felt as if she should try to come up with some reasonable explanation for all of this—some way to make Soomie feel better. “Was there … I mean, could there be a history of mental illness in her family or something?”

“The Greenes? Please,” Soomie scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “They’re like America’s most perfect family.”

“Well, except for the infidelity,” Maria pointed out. “And the constant power struggles.”

“And the ego-mongering, and the mind games,” Ariana added. “They do have a thing for extreme behavior.”

Soomie looked at them like they were losing IQ points by the moment. “They’re in politics! Hello?”

“Okay. Fair point,” Maria said. She pressed her slim hands against her thighs as she stood and crossed to the picture window looking out over the icy waters of the Potomac. “I just can’t believe she’s actually gone. Lexa Greene. Dead. We’re never going to see Lexa again.”

Ariana and Soomie walked over slowly and stood at Maria’s side. In the distance, a wide-winged gull swooped over the water, dipping and diving, before finally perching on a low, flat rock on the far bank. Quietly, Ariana’s stomach grumbled. She wondered how long they were going to stand here in silent contemplation. There was a ham-and-cheese croissant in that bag across the room, calling her name. She glanced sidelong at Maria and Soomie and told herself to suck it up. These were her friends, after all. The only ones she had left, aside from Jasper and possibly Tahira.

“What was the last thing she said to you, Ana?” Soomie asked, her voice hushed but hopeful.

Ariana thought back, wondering if she should lie. But what could be more perfectly poetic than Lexa’s actual final words?

“She said, ‘What would I do without you?’”

Soomie’s eyes brimmed with tears. Maria covered her mouth with one hand. Ariana let out a melancholic sigh.

“I guess now we’re all going to have to figure out what we’re going to do without her,” she said.

Soomie started to cry in earnest and Maria turned toward her, wrapping her up in her arms.

“I don’t think I can do this, you guys,” Soomie sputtered, her whole body shaking. “I don’t think I can take any more of this. Another funeral, another wake, seeing her parents …”

“Shhhh.” Maria stroked her hair. Ariana put one arm around Soomie’s shoulders and rested her cheek against the top of her head. Before long, Maria was crying, too, and soon Ariana felt tears streaming down her cheeks as well as they all grieved for their fallen friend.

FIGMENTS

As the white casket was slowly, painstakingly lowered into the ground, Mrs. Greene fell to her knees in the dirt. The sound that escaped her throat was like something from another, tortured reality—loud and shrill and throaty at once. A tall woman who could only have been her sister crouched next to her in her high heels, trying in vain to haul her back up. A pair of photographers swooped in for a better shot, but Senator Greene turned his wide shoulders toward them, barring their way. Throughout the funeral service at the church, the paparazzi had managed to be respectful, but apparently this unbridled show of emotion was more than they could resist.