“It’s her,” I said, my chest constricting. “It’s Hannah.”
“She can’t have done it on purpose,” Mom murmured, stroking my hair as I stared down at the photo. “It says it was sleeping pills. Maybe she took one and then was so sleepy she forgot, and accidentally took some more. I’m sure she didn’t mean to kill herself.”
I was just as sure that she had. Girls like Hannah Chang didn’t accidentally take too many sleeping pills.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, giving her a quick hug as I stood up. “But I gotta go or I’ll be late.”
“Pierce,” Mom said, looking at me nervously. “Are you all right? It’s okay if you want to stay home today. I know you and Hannah haven’t been close since…well, the accident. But you two were best friends once…”
“It’s all right,” I said automatically. “I’m fine.”
I went to the garage to get on my bike to ride to school. Dad had bought me a BMW convertible for my sixteenth birthday, thinking it would be incentive for me to get my act together and pass the driving test to get my license.
But of course it hadn’t worked. I’d taken the written exam forty-two times already online. I’d never passed.
Because I wasn’t all right. In so many ways.
Hannah’s horse stationery and heart stickers and being star of the basketball team and never forgetting a birthday and pretending evil spirits would possess your soul if you didn’t hold your breath when you went by the graveyard — all those things had just been window dressing to disguise the fact that underneath, she wasn’t all right, either.
But it had been enough to trick me. So much that I’d missed the fact that the whole time she’d been sitting there in front of me, something had been going on in Hannah’s life that was so awful, it had made her swallow a handful of pills and turn herself into a sleeping princess. Permanently.
How could I have been that disengaged?
By the time I got to school, everyone knew what had happened to Hannah. They were all talking about her as if they’d been her best friend once, and they’d sat behind her in study hall. Everyone was speculating about why she’d done it. Their whispers sounded like screams to me, because normally I wore earbuds in the hallway to block out all the noise, which only seemed to increase the buzzing I usually felt in my head.
But that day, I took them out. I had to listen, I told myself. I owed at least that much to Hannah. I had to find out what had happened to her.
All I heard, however, was people asking exactly the same question I was asking myself: How could a girl who seemed as sweet and as happy as Hannah Chang have gone home from school the day before and overdosed?
Where was she now? I wondered. Was she all right? Was she one of the lucky ones who’d been able to get on the right boat, the one that took people to a better place? Or was she still standing, cold and damp, in that other line, waiting for that other boat, on that awful beach?
I didn’t know. I realized I might never know.
But there was something I could find out:
Why.
That day, for the first time in more than a year, instead of spending my time between classes in the safety of my coffin, ignoring everyone, with my earbuds tucked in, I took them out and joined all the gossipy girls who hung at the vending machines outside the gym.
I put my money in and bought the most caffeinated drink I could find, in spite of my neurologist’s warning. I had decided it was time to stop being scared and start being dangerous, like my dad.
I cracked the soda open and downed it while I stood there listening to them speculate about why Hannah had done it.
I drank a second soda more slowly on my way to class — earbuds out — as I tried to remember everything from the last hour I’d seen Hannah alive. Had she seemed upset? Had she seemed sad?
And most important: What had she written on that note to Mr. Mueller, the one she’d left on his desk, the one that had made him frown?
Hearts. I remembered that. The paper she’d used to write the note to Mr. Mueller had been covered with hearts.
And love. I thought I’d seen her write the word love.
Why. Was that one of the words? Why couldn’t I have paid more attention to things that actually mattered?
Don’t. Had that been one of the words? As in, don’t even bother, Pierce. You’re as crazy as they all say you are.
When I got to study hall, I could hardly stand to look at her desk, let alone Mr. Mueller’s pale, sad face. Trying to engage had left me feeling raw. I hadn’t done it in over a year. Now I could see why: Engaging was incredibly taxing. How did people do it all day, every day?
I slid into my seat, careful not to look anywhere but down, in case the sight of Hannah’s empty desk unhinged me.
That’s how I happened to see a pair of shoes. Mr. Mueller’s black loafers, the ones with the tassels on them.
“Pierce,” Mr. Mueller said in a low voice. “Can I talk to you? I need to ask you a special favor.”
Trying not to think about his shoes — because of course that was a completely ridiculous thing to focus on at a time like this — I lifted my gaze to meet his.
“Yes, Mr. Mueller?” I asked.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the sad news about Hannah Chang,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “I did.”
“Well, the administration is really worried about copycat attempts,” he said to me in this conversational tone. Like we were the same age. Like we were equals. This was why so many girls adored Mr. Mueller. Because he never “talked down” to us. “Often when one student kills herself, other students get the idea to try it.…You’ve seen how people are putting flowers at her locker.”