Signs of You (20 page)

I look up at the cracked plaster ceiling. “Well, you can give up. Be like an evil spirit—just mess with life. Or you can keep trying to get it right. Like the good spirits.”

Jay manages a sleepy, crooked smile. But then I see something pass over his eyes, tiny ripples of worry. “You know I'm sorry, right?” he asks.

Then I realize it wasn't worry I saw; it was a spirit, a faint f licker.

“About?”

“That I couldn't like you back,” he says, closing his eyes. “You know, like a girlfriend. I do love you, though. Always will. You know that, right?”

He knew. All this time.

But I don't feel a rush of embarrassment. I don't feel a sudden need to don my armor of numbness. Instead, I feel something totally unexpected: relief. “I think we're both kind of bad at this,” I tell him. “The whole f iguring-out-what-to-do thing.” I study his face; he looks so tired, so sad. “We'll get better at it though. We will.”

He shoots me a look. It's kind, it's I'm sorry, it's—
still family
? He doesn't have to say anything else.

My eyes say it all:

Obviously. I love you, too
.

Chapter 21

Sort of Beautiful

I leave Jay's room and f ind Kate asleep on the white couch in the living room with CMT blaring on the TV. Noah is out on the front porch. There are two beaten-up white wicker chairs, and he's in one of them. I head out the front door and sit on the other chair, and it creaks and groans under my weight.

“Cheap chairs,” Noah says. “But I think they'll hold up.”

“You sure?”

“Yes,” he says. “Because there is a very recent
Horoscopes
magazine on the porch next to mine, which suggests someone has been doing some intense literary reading in this chair of late. So it must be sturdy.”

I smile and lean back in my crappy chair and look up at the sky. The beautiful clear blue is fading; there's a storm cloud coming in from the west. The wind is picking up, and I see a few birds playing in the sky, riding the currents high up toward the clouds and then diving straight down over and over again.

“So did Jay, like, propose or something?” He sounds worn out. “Come to his senses?”

I keep my head back, my eyes focused on the birds looping in the sky. And go with the truth. “Jay's kind of messed up, isn't he?” I ask.

Noah doesn't answer right away. He sighs and leans back, too. “We all are. But he's a little more than most. Especially in the girl department,” he adds, but not harshly. “And I knew you couldn't see it.”

Before I can answer, the rain starts.
Hard.
It blows onto the porch and we jump up, stand against the house.

“Go in?” I ask.

“Please, no,” he says. “I can hear the twang through the door. Don't make me go in there. Let's just . . . stay out here.”

“In the rain?”

“We'll stay close to the house. We'll stay mostly dry.”

So we do. But we don't stay dry. We sit down, side-by-side, getting sprayed by the rain that's blowing in.

“We're totally getting soaked,” I say, even though I don't mind.

“Can I ask where you went earlier?” Noah asks.

“Because you've been the king of telling us where
you
go all the time . . .”

“True. And sorry.”

“So
is
that where you were the whole time? At that professor's house in the cemetery?”

“Yeah,” he says. He holds a hand out to catch a few raindrops. “I wanted his help, even before you guys wore the cross. But turns out he couldn't help all that much. They'd found the book but put it back thinking that might make it all stop. But it totally didn't.” He looks at his rain-soaked shoes. “I'd hoped he could help me understand all the spirit stuff; I thought he might help me reach Cam. But now I just feel like I'll never get a chance.”

I pull my knees up close to my chest. “I have something to tell you,” I say. “That might help. My mom. She crossed. Through me
.
”

“So she's—” Noah starts, but stops, unable to f inish the question.

“Yeah,” I say. “She's gone.”

“You okay?”

I think about the joyride with Mom, how it felt to take that silver bird necklace and toss it off the bridge. How I felt this idea sing through my veins when her soul was in mine, that missing your own life in someone else's honor doesn't work. It doesn't honor anything or anyone; it just adds more sadness to the world. I think about how good it felt to drive with the windows down, my sunglasses on, the music up
.

“I'm okay,” I say. “And I think I f igured something out: that even though someone might be sick, or sad, or gone, you have to live anyway. I think that's the best way to remember. So you don't forget them, but you don't let them stop you, either.”

Noah's eyes soften as he looks into the storming sky. He nods.

“So I'm okay—in that way. Like, I'm hurt, but I'm okay at the same time. Make any sense?”

“Absolutely.”

“And if you listen, maybe Cam will come to you, too. You'll get your chance.”

Noah looks at me in a way he never has before, like he's happy and sad and wants to
say something
about it all. But he's afraid to.

I gently nudge him, asking.

“I was wrong,” he f inally says. “I thought I knew what I wanted to say to Cam. I thought I wanted to ask him why he did it. Why he left us.” He pauses as the wind blows, his blond hair lifting in the breeze. “But I
know
why. He was in pain. And after the doctors couldn't f ix him, and the meds couldn't f ix him, and pot couldn't f ix him, he just needed the pain to stop.” His eyes f ill with tears. That beautiful blue starts to glisten. Noah's eyes have always been the most beautiful among us; they've always been the most honest.

“You'll get a chance,” I say softly. “I know it. Now that we understand this. You can be his doorway. Maybe he was just waiting for you to f igure out what you needed to say.”

Noah looks at me now, his sparkling eyes just barely more hopeful than sad. “I think I know what I need to tell him,” he says. “I don't need to ask him why he did it, I need to tell him that I
know
why. And that I understand. I understand that when you're in pain, it's so much easier to make a bad choice. So much easier.”

I feel tears well again. We sit for a minute, just listening to the storm, holding what we know between us.

“Those are some crazy dark clouds,” he continues. “You can't even see an outline of the sun behind them. And don't bail on me when I say what I'm about to say.” He leans into me, our shoulders touching. “But the clouds—they're like a coronagraph.” I f lash him a what-the-hell-is-a-coronagraph look. “Remember when I said I got one?” he asks. “When we were in Kate's basement?”

I shake my head. “Sorry. Not sure I was paying attention.”

“Well,” Noah says, running a hand through his damp hair, “a coronagraph is this thing that f its over a telescope when you're looking directly at the sun. It blocks out the direct light from the center so you can see stuff in the sun's atmosphere that would've been blotted out by the brightness. Like if you look at the sun without one, all you see is this blinding blob of light. But with a coronagraph, the main starlight is blocked out, and you can see the most amazing things in the sun's atmosphere that you would've missed—f lares, coronal f ilaments, these crazy beautiful loops of light. It's amazing.”

I don't say anything. I have no idea why we're talking about this.

“So,” he continues, “I f igured it out. That's how you have to see grief. Like it's a coronagraph, a lens to look at life through.”

“I don't get it—” But I stop before I can f inish my sentence because my stomach dives like those birds in the sky and my heart thunders in my chest right along with the storm.

Someone's here. A spirit.

“Like you,” he says. He scoots a little closer, our legs touching, side-by-side now. He looks back up at the storming sky. “If I'd never been hurt, if I'd never been through anything, I might have only seen the bright stars like Sarah and those other super popular girls. And they'd blot out the
really
beautiful people. The people who sometimes get overshadowed—the intricate f lares and f ilaments.” He looks at me,
directly
at me, with those eyes. “I wouldn't wish what has happened to us on anyone. But if it hadn't happened, I would never have
seen
you—a beautiful, complicated loop of light.”

It's the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. And yet, it goes against what I thought earlier, what I said to my dad. It stands in the face of what I thought I'd learned.

“You don't think we're just damaged?” I ask softly. “That all we have in common is what we lost? All the grief? That we're just some messed-up club?”

“Not at all,” he says. He gently tucks a wet strand of my brown hair behind my ear. “I don't think what we share is grief, I think we share what grief has let us see.”

I close my eyes and f lash warm all over despite the chill of the rain. I feel so . . . seen. Like he said. Like I've been building a bonf ire and waving f lags and jumping up and down trying to get Jay's attention for years, but Noah has quietly spotted me all along. Like he's taken this loss we all share and turned it on its head, made something beautiful, waded through it, eyes wide open.

I open my eyes again and expect to see Noah's eyes still looking back at me, but I don't. I see a f lash of someone else's.

“Spirits,” I whisper.

Noah smiles. “Oh yeah? And what do you think they want?”

“I think they're trying to get us to . . .” I pause. I take a breath; I get quiet. I feel chills up and down my arms, my heart pounding as fast as hummingbird wings.

The way to help the dead is by living.

And I kiss him. Like
really
kiss him. I've never kissed a boy before, not like this. And I
feel
it. From the top of my head, past my glued-together heart, all the way down to my unpainted toenails. I'm two places at once—forever in this moment, on this porch, grounded by this kiss, this warmth, this now-ness, and simultaneously soaring in the storming sky. Swooping like dizzy birds, unafraid of rushing dark clouds. And then I soar twenty feet higher, let the ground get smaller and smaller—because he's kissing back. And kissing back and kissing back. And it's so alive. Here. Now. The next right thing.

And then I notice it, a feeling like a rush of warm wind. A tear makes its way down my cheek. I gently pull away from Noah's lips, and the spirits are gone. It's just us now.

“They're gone,” I say, smiling. “Crossed. Through us.”

“That's—” he stops, searching for the perfect words.

“Sort of beautiful?”

“Absolutely,” he says, kissing me again. Lightly. Like a brush of spirit. “Absolutely.”

A
cknowledgments

Working with Dan Ehrenhaft is like being in the Exhilarating Collaboration Montage of a movie titled
The Editor
. His mix of genius, kindness, and belief in my work is the stuff of a writer's dreams. I hit the lottery when Soho said yes; thank you for making me a better writer.

To the entire team at Soho Teen, thank you for publishing my debut novel. I hope you know what a difference you have made in my life.

Having Jennifer Unter as my agent is like having my own personal cavalry. Complete with bugles and f lags. Thank you for championing my work and for making my greatest dream become a reality. I am so grateful for you.

I owe many thanks to those who helped me with research. It was nothing short of a joy. Thanks to Professor Carole Newlands at the University of Colorado Classics Department (CU Boulder) for her help with Latin. To Alison Hicks, the Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan Librarian at CU Boulder for her help locating Basque translations of the
Exercises
. To Josh Hadro, Deputy Director of the New York Public Library Labs. To the Sacred Heart Jesuit retreat center and Father E. Edward Kinerk, S.J. for taking me through an abbreviated version of the
Exercises
. Staying in my spare room there and eating our silent meals was a grand adventure.

I must acknowledge those who have given me the courage to dream big. Thanks to my professors at Brown University and especially to Professor Howard Chudacoff, who encouraged me as a history student. Your classes will forever sparkle in my mind. Thanks to my law professors JoEllen Lind, Rosalie Levinson, and Robert Blomquist. Acing a Blomquist Grilling about Latin phrases in a case (while I quaked with fear) is one of my greatest memories. Thanks to the
Valparaiso Law Review
for making me the Editor in Chief. I still draw conf idence from that appointment. And I'm sorry for the
Blue Book
errors I missed; I was secretly stealing time to work on this novel. Mea culpa.

Thanks to my MFA writing instructors Michael White, Elizabeth Searle, Suzanne Strempek Shea, Lewis Robinson, and Dennis Lehane. And to my critique partner of over a decade, Tara Thomas, for battling the crickets year after year. Thanks also to my high school creative writing teacher, Kathy Jacobs, who told me I could.

To my dear friends who have stuck with me, thank you: Kristen Fout, Jennifer Smith, Megan Smith, Lauren Fox, and my entire Boulder crew. Thanks to all the Colorado writers in my life for your support.

A writer could not ask to have better parents than the erudite, colorful, lovers-of-the-arts, Stuart and Ann Calwell. They are two of the most deeply good and honorable human beings I have ever known. Thank you for letting me f ly and for cheering my unconventional path in the skies. I love you.

Love to Elisa Rushworth, the greatest sister in all of recorded history. You are a treasure to me. Love to the rest of my fantastic family: Rushy, Abigail, Harry, Brittney, Patrick. And to the world's most loving in-laws, Kevin and Sue France. I adore all of you.

And to my beloved astronomer husband, Kevin, who has known me since I was the junior high Queen of the Nerd Herd: Thank you for loving me like you do and for believing in this book from the f irst word. You are the most magnif icent person I have ever known, reader of every page, partner in every step. Oh, how I love you.