Ways the World Could End by Hooper

Author:Hooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company

CHAPTER 16

Cleo

When I see Edie before homeroom on Monday morning, she gives me a hug, as if we have not seen each other in months, as if something monumental has occurred in that expansive time apart. It is a long hug, a hug long enough to have a beginning, middle, and end. In the beginning of it, my body is tense because any physical touch with Edie has that effect on me. In the middle of it, I begin to relax into the generosity of this hug. At the end of it, when I feel her hold on me release, I am sad and grateful at the same time.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” she says. “I’m sorry, again. I should have just asked you about your mom.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But I probably wouldn’t have told you anyway. It’s good you forced the issue.”

We had one minute until we had to be inside.

“Can we talk about it more? At lunch, maybe?”

“I’ll meet you at the lawn.”

She’s already sitting in our spot by the time I get there, cross-legged and slouched as she examines the contents of her brown paper bag. Her mom packs her lunch every day, which I’ve told her is “cute, bordering on pathetic.” I’ve made my own lunch since middle school.

“What did Mama pack you today?” I call out as I come up behind her.

She turns around. “An extra cookie for you, but I don’t like your tone, so two cookies for me.”

I laugh with the relief that we are back to normal.

I sit next to her, also cross-legged, my kneecap kissing her kneecap. I make an inane comment about the weather (it’s beautiful), and she makes an equally inane comment about her history homework. And then I decide we may as well get to it.

“So,” I say. “My mom.”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” she says. “I mean, if you don’t want to.”

“I never want to; but you’re, like, my best friend, so you should probably know.”

“I think Carter would be upset with you for saying that,” she says.

“He would,” I say. “Don’t tell him I gave you that title.”

“Does he know about what happened to your mom?”

I nod. “That’s pretty much why we’re friends. Two misfits in this weird world.”

“That’s why we’re friends too, huh?”

“Basically.”

She uncrosses her legs and stretches them out in front of her on the grass.

“So, it just happened last year, right?”

I nod. “Yeah, the anniversary was a week before I met you, actually.”

The anniversary sucked. The entire first year sucked. My first birthday without her (my fifteenth). My first summer without her. First Fourth of July. First Halloween. First Thanksgiving. First Christmas. First New Year. It all sucked. This second year without her sucks too, but at least all those firsts are behind me.

“You’ve been a nice distraction,” I say to Edie, and she smiles.

“I guess what I don’t get is—why does what happened to your mom make you a misfit?”

“You kind of had to be there, I guess.”

“Tell me.”

I sigh. “I don’t know.

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