Please Don't Tell Part 16

And then thinking that I didn't want to, that she could take care of herself, this once.

I dig my nails into my palms, but pain doesn't work when you're numb. I shouldn't have come here. I turn, but Mom's gone. I could walk back along the road . . .

But Levi asked for my help and he doesn't have anyone else.

I climb the steps. It's just a doork.n.o.b. How many doork.n.o.bs have I touched in my life? My reflection stares back at me, distorted.

"Joy, are you up front?" Levi's voice floats over. I grab it, breathe through it like a gas mask. "I'm down by the back porch."

I circle the house too fast, edging the slash of a shadow it throws on the ground. The porch is built into the hill that goes down toward the trees, toward the quarry. Levi's halfway up the steps, knees gra.s.s-stained, trying to haul a dead-drunk Mr. Gordon up the rest of the way.

"Thank you," he pants when he sees me.

"I haven't done anything yet."

"You came."

Mr. Gordon's evil-smelling, barely conscious. His sweatpants look like they haven't been changed in a week. We hoist him up the steps like we did at the funeral. I've got his feet. One's shoeless and rank. The shoe is on the lawn. I wonder if my shoes are still somewhere in the middle-school field, mangled by the lawn mower.

Levi wrangles open the door with his elbow. I suck in the alcohol fumes, focus on them, blot out the fact that I'm inside, inside, the house. It's ugly dark, the shades drawn.

I can't break. I'm carrying a man up a staircase.

If I thought being in this house would jog my memory, I was wrong. The only memories it's bringing up are- Don't think about it.

I'm getting good at not thinking. The key's not giving your brain any fuel or rest, and drowning it in alcohol the rest of the time. Mr. Gordon and I know that.

Adam's bedroom door-breathe-is blocked by a bedside table, several boxes. Was it Levi or Mr. Gordon who did that? Are they trying to keep something in or out?

We move a few more steps down the hall to the end. Mr. Gordon's room was designed to let in as much light as possible, a window covering nearly half the left wall, but it's blocked by a heavy curtain. "On three," Levi grunts. We swing Mr. Gordon onto the four-poster bed. He rolls over and starts snoring instantly, a rattily choking sound.

I am so terrifyingly dizzy for a second. Don't pa.s.s out, don't do that to Levi, don't give him another body to deal with.

I take a deep breath, let it out slowly. Okay. I'm okay.

Levi stares at his dad's motionless figure. Something builds in him until finally he rips a throw pillow off the edge of the bed and buries his face in it. I want to say something, but the words, the perfect words, they don't come. The fog in my head doesn't help. But he drops the pillow after a few seconds, and his expression is clean and normal.

"Screw my lack of musical talent, I'm going to write a one-hit wonder, too, and make a million dollars so I can pay you a million dollars for helping me drag my dad around," he says.

"I don't mind," I say. "Sometimes I lift my dad's weights."

"And sometimes you lift my dad." Levi arranges the blankets, sets out a gla.s.s of water, throws the curtain open. "Whenever you need a workout, just come over here. Dad lifting. It'll be an Olympic event."

Don't joke back. It's his tragedy to make light of, not mine.

"Sorry. You know when stuff's so real it stops feeling real? And then it gets funny?" He turns and smiles anxiously. "It was like, I got him all the way back up from the quarry and then I couldn't do the stairs and I sat down and freaked out. And I had your number."

"Should we maybe tell somebody about . . . him? This?" I say over the snoring.

"There's n.o.body. Adam's mom lives in Europe. He was an only child. No real extended family-just Adam. And my mom's family hates him."

We watch the rise and fall of Mr. Gordon's chest. I think we're both kind of expecting it to stop.

"I need to get out of the house," Levi says suddenly. "Sorry. I don't have my license, and Mr. Go- Dad's house is all the way up here, and you're still the only person I really know here. Sorry."

I forgot how big of a difference there is between school friends and friends you actually hang out with. "My mom gave me a ride here, but we can go for a walk."

"Down to the quarry?"

It's just an old quarry, it's not haunted, it's fine. I nod.

Downstairs, the portraits of Adam's grandpa, the framed signatures and alb.u.m covers and memorabilia-they're all gone, nail holes and dustless patches left on the wall. A million empty pizza boxes are stacked in one corner, next to mountains of half-crushed beer cans.

"I didn't know where the recycling was." Levi waves hopelessly at the mess. "n.o.body ever cleaned up after the birthday party."

He was here alone, piling up pizza boxes and trash with his dad pa.s.sed out upstairs.

"Were you the one who cleared off the walls?" I ask.

"Yeah. The first night I was here, Dad-I'm sorry, I can't-Mr. Gordon kept apologizing to the portraits of his father. Said he was sorry he let his family die out. It was all very, I have disappointed my ancestors."

Jesus. "You're still here, though."

He stops in the dining room. "The last time I saw Mr. Gordon, when I was a kid, he stuck Adam's guitar in my hands and put on a karaoke version of my grandfather's alb.u.m. The minute I opened my mouth to sing, any interest he might've had in me fell off his face."

"Doesn't he like having you here, since he hasn't seen you in so long?"

"Most of the time I don't think he realizes I'm here. Pretty sure he thinks I'm some kind of hired help."

"That's awful," I stammer.

He pushes open the door, steps into the light. "It's okay. I'm dumping this on you."

"It's not okay. I'm really bad at . . . saying the right thing."

There's a burned-out circle of old firewood on the lawn. I remember there was a fire the night of Adam's birthday party. Kennedy and Sarah danced next to it. Blurry memories. Dreams maybe. I don't know.

I follow Levi down the hill, away from the house, into the trees. One step. Two steps. Walking isn't hard. Moving forward isn't hard. More memories: sticks snapping, branches cutting me. Did I go into the woods the night of his birthday party, or am I thinking of the night in July I got drunk for the first time with Grace?

"So, okay. I'm about to be Advice Levi, and I'm sorry, he's annoying." Levi picks past a cl.u.s.ter of bushes like the ones I peed behind while Grace stood watch. "When it comes to other people's problems, the only thing you can do is listen and be nice. Whatever advice you have, that's secondary. You can't fix anything, but being nice counts for more than people think."

"Advice Levi's not so bad," I tell him.

We step out of the trees. I haven't been to the quarry in daylight since I was young. The rock drops off sharply, the edge sanded down by years of wind and rain. It's so big. A chasm. The bottom is rough with loose boulders. It looks like a giant dragged a mace through the earth.

Levi walks to the edge and the wind lifts, like it's trying to push him over, like when Grace almost fell.

"Levi. Don't get any closer."

"No worries."

He didn't gel his hair today. The breeze swooshes it along his forehead. I stand beside him and we both look down at the same time. The craggy bottom's maybe a forty-foot drop. One of the rocks is stained rust brown. If I was responsible for that stain, there's no way I wouldn't remember, no matter how drunk I was.

Vicious things are in my head. I hope Grace's face was the last thing he thought of. I hope it hurt.

"He died there," Levi says, pointing. "Right there."

It's so weird, how differently two people can feel about the exact same thing.

"Can I tell you a stupid story?" he asks.

"Yeah." Talk so I don't have to hear myself think.

"The first night after the funeral, I couldn't sleep. I had this feeling like Adam was down here and wanted to tell me something." He twists his earring. "I was hoping he'd tell me at the funeral, but he looked so fake, all made up. You were the only real thing there."

"Is that a compliment?" It feels like one.

"I guess it is."

"Okay. Sorry. Keep going."

"So I got up and I came down here in the dark. But I didn't feel him here. Dunno why I thought I would."

That's because he's not haunting the quarry. He's haunting Grace's dreams and I haven't been doing anything about it. You can't kill a ghost.

"The quarry itself, though," he says. "That gave me a weird feeling."

"It's a thing about heights," I venture. "One time when we were kids, my sister and I hiked this mountain with our parents. We had this dare to see how close we could get to the edge. It was the only time she was braver than me about something."

"It's like an impulse," he agrees. "Like . . . a suicidal impulse."

"She's not suicidal. Jesus."

"I didn't say she was."

I catch my breath. My head pounds. "Sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. That was dark. I was, like, hmm, how could I make my relationship with this girl weirder? I know! Bring up the universal self-destructive impulses of humanity. Brilliant."

I'm so tired. I remember how Grace almost plunged into the darkness, how the fear skinned the roof of my mouth. "At night it looks so much worse. You can't see the bottom."

He shrugs. "There's nothing scarier than what you can't see."

We're silent for a few minutes while the breeze throws itself over the edge. I kick a pebble, then another. The clatter's so faint.

"I don't like living here," he says quietly.

"Stay after school," I say. "Or hang out with Pres and me. We waste tons of time at his house."

"You are the nicest person in the world," he remarks, echoing what he said when we first met.

I wince. "You can only hang out with us if you don't call me that."

"You are the meanest girl in the world. The worst."

"Levi, if you hate it here, can't you go back to your mom's?"

"Nuh-huh." The silence draws itself out. "Not yet," he adds unhelpfully. "Besides, I can't leave before I've gotten to reap the full benefits of posing as the half brother of the deceased. I can wring at least two more ca.s.seroles out of this."

"You're not posing."

He snorts. "I didn't even know Adam. I suck for showing up and acting like my sadness is special because of genetics. I don't have a right to that."

"You don't need a right to sadness," I tell him. "Sadness just happens."

"I never nailed down the trick of sadness. I'm the positive guy, you know? You can't help people when you're b.u.mmed out. People like Advice Levi best."

"What other Levis are there?"

"I dunno. Bad Jokes Levi. Idealizes People Levi. f.u.c.ks Up Badly When Talking to Pretty Girls Levi."

"That must be hard to write on name tags."

"Bad Jokes Joy. Nice to meet you."

I'm going to laugh and it reminds me of how much I shouldn't be here.

"What other Joys are there?" he asks.

"There used to be only one Joy." I look at the ground. "Now I don't know what Joys there are."

"Which Joy was that?"

"Protects Sister Joy," I whisper like an idiot.

"She sounds cool. I look forward to meeting her."

"She's not around anymore."

"Something happen with you and your sister?"

I bite the inside of my cheek.

"I bet there's more to you than your sister," he says.

"It's like . . ." My head is fuzzy. "You know how you think there's one thing you're good at? Even if the rest of you sucks, it's okay, because you're good at that one thing? Until realize you aren't. You never were. And there's nothing left anymore to balance out all the bad stuff you do. There's no point to you."

"Whoa." Levi looks straight at me. "There's a point to you."