Ryan's Bed

She was shaking Willow.

Time sped ahead. Time slowed to a crawl. Time was all over the place, in patches.

When I noticed the sirens, the flash of red and white outside my bedroom window, I reached over and held Willow’s hand.

My face. My body. My heart—it all went with her, because she was me.

My twin sister killed herself on June twenty-ninth.

We would’ve been eighteen the next day.

“Uh. Hey.”

It was nearing eleven the next night. Robbie and I had been there almost twenty-four hours. I hadn’t left Ryan’s room except to visit the bathroom, and I was currently sitting on his bed, book in hand. He edged into the room, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched forward.

I should’ve felt all sorts of weirdness, but I was at the point where I’d sit on the roof and not give a flying fuck what anyone had to say. Keeping my finger between the pages, I closed the book and waited.

“Um . . .” He paused, staring right at me.

He had no idea what to say. I could see the floundering on his face, but he shook it clear and a small smile showed. His dimple winked at me. He raked a hand through his hair, leaving it as rumpled as it was yesterday. I knew why those two girls had squealed. He was all sorts of dreaminess.

I waited for the spark to flicker in me. I should blush? Giggle? Sigh?

No. Nothing.

I felt nothing, and then I remembered how it felt to lay in his bed, and I knew that wasn’t true. I felt some peace around him for some reason.

He scooted farther inside, glancing back at the door before leaning against his closet. “The whole my-bed thing . . .” He motioned to where I was sitting. “Did you want the bed again tonight?”

I looked down. I didn’t want to see his eyes when I asked this question. “Are my parents coming back?”

There was silence, and it stretched past the point of not having an answer. He had one. He just didn’t want to say it.

I shook my head, letting the book fall to the bed. Wrapping my arms around myself, I turned away. “Never mind.”

He cleared his throat. “For the record, I’m not supposed to know about your folks.”

I looked back. “But you do?”

The hesitancy and fear I’d seen on his face melted away to reveal the sorrow, and he nodded. “Yeah. I eavesdropped on the call. They’re at a hotel. I guess your grandparents are coming tomorrow.”

“Oh. Okay.” I cleared my throat. “Thank you.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “You don’t have to thank me for anything, but I do have to know about the bed. I was trying to tell my mom maybe it was me—like, you could sleep when you were around me because of my teenage pheromones or something.”

I cracked a grin. “That’s a new theory.”

“Hey, not all of us are child Einsteins like your brother.”

“Touché, and neither am I. I’m the only normal one in my family.”

But I wasn’t normal anymore.

“Yeah.”

Maybe he thought the same thing because another silence descended over us. It felt like a sullen quiet too, as if maybe we’d both realized the true travesty of this situation. My remark-able quality had gone from being the slacker to the surviving twin.

“Well, fuck.” I breathed.

He’d been picking at his jeans but looked up. “What?”

“Nothing. Yes, I’d like to sleep in your bed, if that’s okay with you.”

“It’s fine with me.” He grinned. “It was kinda nice, waking up to find a hot chick in bed with me. My friends will get a kick out of that—”

“You aren’t going to tell them!”

His eyes widened. “No. I know, I wouldn’t, I mean—I’m not that kind of guy, but my sister has a crush on one of my friends. She already told him. I overheard that phone call too.”

“What are you? A male Veronica Mars?”

He scoffed, but that dimple was flirting with me.

“I get bored easily,” he said. “I shoot hoops to keep busy. You know, like restless leg syndrome? I have that, but it’s my entire body and brain. It doesn’t turn off sometimes.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, Mom said I couldn’t play today. She was worried some of my friends would show up, and she didn’t want anything to get out.” He snorted, rolling his eyes. “I’ll get blamed for it, but it’s always Peach who tells. She never gets in trouble.”

Robbie was beloved. Willow was perfect. And I guess I was the one who got in trouble, like him.

“It’s the same for me,” I offered faintly.

I got blamed for the laxatives. I was the one they thought had an eating disorder. They ignored the bowl of Cheetos in front of me during the “intervention” talk.

“Mackenzie, your father and I want you to know that we love you a great deal. Looks do not define our self-worth . . .”