Page 31 of Everything All at Once

I really, really hoped he wouldn’t.

I got to my study period before anyone else and took a seat near the back. I took outTo the Lighthouse, a book I was supposed to have finished last week (a bereavement absence gave many leniencies for missed assignments). I’d only read a paragraph before my phone buzzed.

The text was from Abe.

Meet me in the bathroom.

A weird text to get from your brother maybe, but I knew he meant the second-floor boys’ bathrooms. They were kept locked and supposed to be only for teachers, but Abe was so well liked (and Aunt Helen was so recently deceased), I had a hunch he’d weaseled his way in.

I let the study hall teacher know where I was going, and then I made my way to the second floor. I knocked on the door to the bathrooms and waited—nothing. I knocked again. Then I called his phone and heard the buzzing from within.

“Open up!” I hissed when he answered.

The door opened a minute later, and he pulled me inside, locking the door behind me.

“Well, this is a nice surprise!” he said, leaning up against a sink like this was his private office. “How’d you know where to find me?”

“You literally just told me.”

“Can’t be too careful, though,” he said.

“What do you want?”

“Just to see my sister. Is that a crime now?”

“Have you been to any classes today? You look pretty comfortable in here.”

“Relax, I’ve been to all my classes. We just haven’t gotten a chance to talk lately, and Mom possibly let it slip that the letters Harry gave you in his office were some kind oflist from Aunt Helen? I was just curious.”

“Oh.”

I hadn’t told my brother, hadn’t told my father, had kind of given the Cliff’s Notes version to my mom and Em and Sam. They still felt just too private a thing, too close to me.

I had the next one with me now, in my back pocket, waiting for the right moment. A chance to be alone. I’d gotten home late last night and didn’t want to rush through it.

“They are, kind of. Lists. More like... things to do.”

“Things to do.”

“Like, going to the party. That was one of them.”

“What else?”

“Different things. I think she just wanted to make sure I was okay. You know. When she knew she wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh,” Abe said.

“What do you mean?”

“I just said oh.”

“But you said it like it meant something.”

“Well, it just makes sense.”

“What makes sense?”

“Mom told me, you know, and it just made me wonder. Why she had left something like that to you and not to me.”