Page 22 of Everything All at Once

It said:

Relax. I know you.

That was true. Em did know me, and she wouldn’t take me skydiving.

She would never take me skydiving.

I scribbled a quick message and threw it back at her:

Is it skydiving??

She read it, rolled her eyes, and didn’t look at me for the rest of the class.

When the bell rang I tried to grab her arm, but she was excellent at evading me. It helped that she was so fast. She was out of the room before I’d even packed up my things. I started rushing, shoving my history book and notebook and pen into my bag quickly so I wouldn’t be alone for too long. I’d already been approached by four people telling me how sorry they were about my aunt, and I’d only been at school an hour.

It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate it.

Because Idid.

But it also made me a little angry.

I mean—it was bad enough that she was dead. I didn’t really need the constant reminders.

The thing we needed from my house was small enough to fit in Em’s backpack, which, to be fair, was kind of a big backpack. I had no idea where she was heading, but I’d decided to go with it.

Em drove a black Jetta she’d bought secondhand with her own money (she’d worked at a juicery in town since she was fourteen, “Not because I think juice cleanses work, Lottie, but because everybody else does.”). She’d named the car Joan Jetta, something she thought was very clever, and she told anyone who showed even the slightest interest.

“Are we going alone?” I asked when she merged onto the highway.

“Jackie has dance—”

“I can’t believe you’re actually dating a ballerina.”

“And Abe said he’s been spending too much time with you as it is. And I’ve been getting the feeling you need some alone time lately. And yes, I’m dating a ballerina and you’re clearly jealous.”

“By alone time, do you mean alone time with you?”

“Of course I mean alone time with me. Gross, do you want alone time with, like, just yourself?”

“That’s actually what alone time is, you know. Like—alone.”

“Whoever invented alone time did not have a best friend as interesting as I am.”

Em liked being alone when she was sleeping. Other than that she was either with me or Jackie or with various members of the track team.

She wouldn’t tell me where we were going. All I knew is that we were headed toward the ocean. She stopped at a drive-through and bought us fries and salads (I never asked questions when it came to her culinary preferences), and we ate them in turns, passing each between us. I found myself wondering, not for the first time, what the rest of my aunt’s instructions would be. And also—why had she written the letters in the first place? Because I couldn’t deny that it was nice to have them, but it was also sort offrustrating. Was there something obvious they were doing that I wasn’t smart enough to see yet?

But at the same time I found myself wishing they would never stop, because as weird or creepy as it might have been to get messages from beyond the grave, I missed my aunt too much to say good-bye quite yet. And so much of her writing was public and popular.... I liked that these were just for me.

“Lottie, seriously? You have such a problem sharing,” Em said, grabbing the almost-empty carton of fries from me.

“Sorry,” I said. But I wasn’t sorry. You should never apologize for fries.

“We’re almost there, anyway. Are you excited? Any ideas?”

I looked around the car for a landmark, but all these little seaside towns started to look alike after a while. I hadn’t been paying attention; I had no idea what exit we’d gotten off.

“I don’t know where we are,” I said.