Absent (Katie Williams)

us?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Did it look like . . . ? Did it seem like Lucas . . . ?” I give up.
    “Did it look like he liked you?” Brooke asks for me.
    “Not that it matters,” I mumble.
    Brooke’s laugh is dark enough to douse a few of those lights across the street. “Here’s a lesson from the school slut: They always look that way when they’re kissing you.”
    I don’t know what to say to that. We stand in silence.
    “It’s not so bad, you know,” Brooke finally says, “having them think things about you that aren’t true. They all think I was a druggie.”
    “Brooke. You died of a cocaine overdose.”
    “I wasn’t a druggie, though. I only tried it a couple of times.”
    “Really? That’s it?”
    “That’s it. It’s like a ridiculous after-school special: The chick gets pregnant the first time she has sex, the kid crashes the first time he drives drunk, the girl dies . . .”
    She doesn’t finish the last one. Her mouth twitches, like only a fraction of the smile can make it through. “I’m just saying, we’re dead now. What does it matter what they say? How is it any different from what they said about us when we were alive?”
    You’re right, I should say. It doesn’t matter about them. But I can’t quite get the words out, so I don’t say anything, just pick out patches of dark across the road, trying to guess which house will be the next to turn on its lights.

4: FAIRNESS
    WHEN I EMERGE FROM THE STAIRWELL THAT LEADS DOWN from the roof, the extracurriculars are ending, just in time for everyone to get home for dinner. I linger at the ragged edges of groups of student council officers, basketball players, half the chorus for the spring musical, and the track-and-field runners. In one short walk down the school hall, I hear my name mentioned again and again. Everyone is talking about what Kelsey Pope said in the grief group meeting, about how I killed myself.
    By the time I reach the end of the hall, I’m sick of my own name. But when I hear it one more time, coming out of the art room’s half-open door, I stop, because this time it’s Mrs. Morello’s voice saying it. I peer in to find her teetering on one of the stools that line the high tables. Mr. Fisk, the art teacher, sits on the stool next to her. Across from them sits Usha.
    I can’t see Usha’s face, only the back of her messy black bob and the tips of her elbows peeking out from either side of her rounded back. Her arms must be crossed over her chest, which is not howUsha sits at all. Usha sits legs akimbo, head tilted, hands constantly in motion, tapping on the table or her own knees, unless she has pencil and paper, in which case, they’re busy drawing. I step closer to this tough-jawed, pulled-up version of Usha.
    “. . . authorized a mural to memorialize the students we’ve lost this year,” Mrs. Morello is saying. “We’ve designated a section of wall in the hallway. Right by the doors to the student parking lot.”
    A memorial mural.
    I imagine my face floor-to-ceiling high, my painted pupils staring down at students who rush below it. I imagine two girls, decades from now, pausing beneath it. One of them will say, “Who’s that?” And her friend will shrug and answer, “Some girl who died.” And I’ll be standing behind them, silent as my mouth painted on the wall.
    Some girl.
    Who died.
    Mrs. Morello is beaming down at Usha, the kind of lipless smile adults use when they have a present hidden behind their backs. Usually something you don’t want. Usually socks.
    “The school board decided that, rather than hire a professional artist, it would mean more to have a student paint it. It would be a way to—”
    “No,” Usha says.
    Mrs. Morello blinks rapidly. “Pardon?”
    I’m startled, too. Usha isn’t a suck-up well-rounder, but she’s never rude to teachers. In fact, she was always telling me that it’s rude to raise my hand only to point out when a teacher has made a mistake.
    “You were going to ask me to do it, right?” Usha asks Mrs. Morello in the same detached voice. “Paint it?”
    “Well. Yes.”
    “So, no. I don’t want to paint your mural.”
    “But . . .” Mrs. Morello’s smile falters, then regains its ground. “It’s not my mural. It’s for Paige. Principal Bosworth has decided that you’ll have complete creative freedom. Whatever you think best expresses Paige and Brooke and the school’s loss, you can paint it. And Mr. Fisk recommended you