Life and Other Complications Read online

  Caroline sat beside me on the pew. I was probably the only one who could see the strain around her eyes. Josh’s death was hitting her as hard as the kids who’ve gone into remission, only to have a resurge of cancer end them. She doesn’t want to think about this happening to her. Caroline prefers to be invincible.

  Two rows ahead of us, Madison Nelson was crying. Josh was her cousin. They grew up together. Madison isn’t like us. She hasn’t built up a shell against this kind of loss. She was devastated, and the rest of the family was so caught up in their own grief that they didn’t notice. It was Luke who slipped out of our row to go put an arm around her. She cried on his shoulder for the rest of the service.

  It shouldn’t have bothered me. Madison needed someone. And Luke is good at this. He was the natural choice. But I still wished it wasn’t him. Because it hurt to see them together. Even though they’re perfect for each other.

  Maybe because they’re perfect for each other.

  Caroline has her own post-funeral ritual. The rest of us always meet up at Luke’s house. If it was anywhere else, the Millers wouldn’t let me go. But they can’t call a gathering at the minister’s house inappropriate, even if we all spend the night. Instead, Mrs. Miller always threatens me within an inch of my life if I embarrass her. As far as I know, I haven’t yet.

  Luke’s parents know that there aren’t words to make us feel better. And they don’t try. They always hug us and then go upstairs, leaving us with lots of food and each other.

  Our post-funeral menu is always the same: hot dogs and Oreos. Luke, Caroline and I knew a girl in Kids’ Group named Morgan. She had a brain tumor and a mother who was convinced that a clean diet and all natural everything would make it go away. It didn’t work. The cancer got worse.

  Luke’s mom took Luke, Caroline and me to see Morgan in the hospital. We were nine and ten and not sure what to say. But Morgan talked to us about all the things she wished she could do, including eating hot dogs and Oreos. We couldn’t find hot dogs in the hospital. But we did find a vending machine that sold packs of Oreos. Luke raided his mom’s purse, and we bought every pack the machine had. Eleven packs times six cookies per pack meant sixty-six Oreos and proof that my teacher wasn’t lying when she said our multiplication facts would be useful. Morgan’s eyes widened as I broke open the first package of contraband, and we ate Oreos until her mother caught us.

  Morgan died a few days later. After the funeral, Caroline and I went back to Luke’s house, and we ate hot dogs and Oreos until we all felt sick. Mrs. Harrison doesn’t like to have cookies in the house. But this became her exception—Double Stuf Oreos after funerals. Because if we’re going to eat Oreos, we might as well go all in.

  Tonight, we were mostly done with our post-funeral meal, when Ben said, “I’m starting up Mount Washington after school gets out.”

  Ben can barely walk from one side of our school to the other without struggling for breath.

  “Is that safe?” Natalie said.

  “I’m dying,” Ben said. “Life isn’t safe.”

  And a heavy silence fell over the room. No one said something inane like, “You’ll be fine.” Ben has an incurable disease that is slowly smothering him to death. He’ll die of cystic fibrosis. Just like his older brother did.

  “Josh had no idea it was all about to end,” Ben said. “At least I know. And I don’t want to spend the time I have left, dying. I want to live my life.”

  And how do you argue with that?

  “How can I help?” I asked him at the same time that Luke said, “I’ll go with you.”

  “I’ll come too,” Natalie said, even though she shouldn’t.

  “Me too,” Kyle said.

  Because this is who we are, the friends who help you do what matters to you, even if it’s incredibly stupid.

  Ben’s face was relieved. “Thanks, guys.”

  “What will we need?” Natalie said.

  “My vest and a way to power it,” Ben told us.

  “Food,” Kyle threw in.

  “We’ll have to go slowly. So, tents and sleeping bags,” Luke said.

  “A first aid kit,” I added. And hopefully, not a medivac helicopter.

  “Why did it have to be a mountain?” I said to Luke an hour later as we cleaned up the kitchen.

  “I get the mountain,” Luke said.

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “Two years ago, I was thinking about doing it.”

  “You wanted to climb Mount Washington?”

  “I thought about running it.”

  Luke has to wear a heart monitor to make sure his heart rate doesn’t break 130 when we run. If he ran up Mount Washington, his pulse and blood pressure would go through the roof.

  “That could have killed you,” I said.

  Luke nodded. “That was kind of the idea.”

  The pot I was holding slipped out of my hands and fell into the sink, sending a wave of soapy water gushing over the side. “You were going to kill yourself with a mountain?”

  Luke offered me a towel, but I didn’t take it.

  “Why?” I asked him.

  Luke crouched down to clean up the water. “It was a bad month.”

  He thought about it for a month?

  “I was tired of waiting for the inevitable,” he said. “I wanted to go out on my terms.”

  “So you were going to kill yourself?”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “But you were thinking about it.” Which is almost as bad.

  Luke didn’t look at me. He had seriously thought about it.

  “You aren’t climbing Mount Washington with us,” I said.

  Luke stood up, his forehead furrowed. “What?”

  “You aren’t climbing the mountain with us.”

  “And when did that become your call?” Luke said.

  “When you lost your mind.”

  Luke’s face hardened. “I haven’t lost my mind.”

  “Trying to kill yourself, by definition, means you’ve lost your mind.”

  Luke’s voice was rising. “I’m not trying to kill myself.”

  “But you were thinking about it,” I yelled.

  I didn’t notice Ben and Natalie and Kyle all standing in the kitchen doorway until Kyle muttered, “I hate it when Mom and Dad fight.”

  “We are not fighting,” Luke and I said at the same time.

  “They’re yelling for the fun of it,” Ben said.

  Natalie’s voice was shaky. “Luke, are you really thinking about—” She couldn’t even say it.

  “No,” Luke said. “Aly’s overreacting.”

  “I am not overreacting!” I said. Though it probably would have been more convincing if I hadn’t been yelling.

  Luke walked out of the kitchen. The others slowly followed him. I banged the pot into the sink again and started scrubbing at it viciously. Luke wanted to die? The thought was unbelievable to me. How could he of all people even think about that? Ben’s right. People die suddenly all the time. At least we have forewarning. That’s supposed to make us the ones who appreciate life, not end it early.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s clean,” Ben said a few minutes later.

  I paused and looked over at him. I hadn’t heard him come back into the room.

  “I’m sorry,” Ben said. “I didn’t mean to start something between you guys.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Really? Because Luke’s scowling, and you’re beating up the pots and pans.”

  I put down the pot and started drying my hands with a towel. If Ben was concerned, I could imagine how much worse Natalie looked.

  “I’ll come back in,” I said.

  Ben gave me a little nod—thanks, maybe.

  I went into the family room and sat down in my usual chair.

  Natalie looked nervously between Luke and me. “How about a movie?”

  No one else had any better ideas, so we let the TV fill in the silence.

  Saturday, June 4

&nb
sp; I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up to the sound of my phone dinging. The room was dark except for the changing lights of the TV. The others were all sleeping, stretched out on couches or sprawled in chairs in their funeral clothes. I got up and glanced at the phone as I carried it into the kitchen.

  Caroline, 1:14 A.M.: I thought you were sleeping.

  Me, 1:15 A.M.: I was.

  Caroline, 1:15 A.M.: But I just saw you.

  Me, 1:16 A.M.: No, you didn’t. I’m at Luke’s.

  Caroline, 1:16 A.M.: Are you sure?

  Me, 1:16 A.M.: Yes.

  Caroline, 1:17 A.M.: But you had on your yellow sweater.

  Me, 1:18 A.M.: I don’t own a yellow sweater. I hate yellow.

  If she had been sober, she would have remembered that.

  Caroline, 1:18 A.M.: Big Bird is yellow. How can you hate Big Bird?

  Me, 1:19 A.M.: I didn’t say that I hated Big Bird.

  Caroline, 1:20 A.M.: Big Bird is a Sesame Street legend. He has a big-ass nest. You could fit a motorcycle in that nest.

  Me, 1:21 A.M.: Why would Big Bird park a motorcycle in his nest?

  Caroline, 1:22 A.M.: I don’t know. I think I’m drunk.

  Me, 1:22 A.M.: Don’t drive.

  Caroline, 1:23 A.M.: I can’t. I lost my car.

  Me, 1:23 A.M.: That’s good, because you shouldn’t be driving.

  Caroline, 1:24 A.M.: But I need to get home.

  Me, 1:24 A.M.: Where are you?

  Caroline, 1:26 A.M.: Somewhere with lots of solo cups.

  Me, 1:26 A.M.: That really doesn’t help. Why don’t you ask someone?

  Caroline, 1:27 A.M.: Okay.

  Caroline, 1:30 A.M.: This guy doesn’t know.

  Me, 1:30 A.M.: Why don’t you ask someone else?

  Caroline, 1:31 A.M.: Okay. What was I asking?

  Me, 1:31 A.M.: Where you are.

  Caroline, 1:32 A.M.: Right.

  Caroline, 1:37 A.M.: Bloody hell. I’m at the CIA.

  I leaned my head back against the refrigerator.

  Me, 1:37 A.M.: They don’t have a house on campus.

  Caroline, 1:38 A.M.: Are you sure?

  Me, 1:38 A.M.: Yes.

  Caroline, 1:39 A.M.: But the sign on the wall says CA.

  Caroline, 1:40 A.M.: I’m in freaking California.

  Me, 1:41 A.M.: You’re not in California.

  Caroline, 1:42 A.M.: Walls don’t lie.

  Me, 1:43 A.M.: Stay there. I’m coming to get you.

  Caroline, 1:44 A.M.: You’re driving all the way to California? You really do love me.

  Me, 1:45 A.M.: Usually.

  I put on shoes but still had two problems. 1) I had no way of getting to campus. 2) Going to a frat party by yourself is not smart. If Caroline had been there, I would have taken her with me. But Caroline was the one I needed to retrieve. I knew who my second pick would usually be, but we weren’t speaking. Natalie was too young, and well, Natalie. And the smoke would be bad for Ben. That left Kyle.

  I was pretty sure I was going to regret this, but I knelt next to Kyle’s sprawled body.

  “Kyle,” I whispered. He didn’t move. I touched his arm, but he just snored. “Kyle,” I said a little louder.

  Kyle didn’t move. But a voice behind me said, “Aly?”

  I looked back to see Luke sitting up. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to get Kyle to go with me to a frat party.”

  “Caroline?”

  I nodded.

  “Leave him. I’ll go with you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  But Luke was already putting on shoes.

  When we were both buckled into his car, Luke said, “Next time just ask me.”

  “We were fighting.”

  “You can always ask me. Even when we’re fighting.”

  Luke turned on the car and I said, “I didn’t know the rules.”

  “Are you planning on doing this often enough that we need rules?”

  “No. I don’t fight with you. I fight with Caroline.”

  “And you two have rules?” he said.

  “We don’t hit below the belt, and the fight can’t last more than thirty minutes. After that, we have to stop. Even if we don’t agree.”

  “I could live with those rules,” Luke said.

  “But we’re way past thirty minutes.”

  “Then I guess we agree to disagree.”

  “You mean I stop trying to stop you.”

  “Pretty much.”

  I looked out the window at the streetlights making pools of light on the dark road. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I looked back at his beautiful, steady face. “But the hike—”

  “Is going to be slow. It’ll have to be, if we’re going to have any chance of getting Ben all the way to the top.”

  “You promise me you won’t run?”

  “I promise,” Luke said.

  “You’ll be careful?”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  I still didn’t like it. But I knew I wasn’t going to stop him. And Luke keeps his promises.

  I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. “Okay.”

  We turned onto the road that leads into campus, and Luke said, “Which house?”

  “Chi Alpha.”

  He said something that should have been smurfed.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “They like to spike the punch.”

  Of course, Caroline had to end up at that house. I called her, but she didn’t answer.

  “She probably can’t hear it,” Luke said.

  I wished he would drive faster.

  When we made it to the Chi Alpha house, the lawn was strewn with empty red plastic cups and a few other things I didn’t want to identify. The music was loud enough to make the wooden steps of the front porch rattle under our feet. There were people everywhere, leaning on the railing, making out in the corners, laughing uncontrollably.

  Once we were inside, Luke yelled, “I’ll go left.”

  I nodded and started moving through the crowd to the right. The room stank of beer and bodies. And more than once I got trapped between groups of people. But I kept pushing my way further and further into the house.

  I found Caroline in the kitchen attempting to swallow some guy’s tongue. I had to yell before she noticed me and came up for air.

  “Hi, Aly,” she said. “This is Clark. He’s from New Hampshire too.”

  “Crazy coincidence. Come on. We’re leaving.”

  “No.” Caroline’s voice dropped to a stage whisper. “He could be The One.”

  “He’s not the one.”

  Caroline frowned. “How do you know?”

  “Because Clark hates Big Bird.”

  Caroline’s head whipped around to glare at Clark. “That is not cool,” she said, pushing him away.

  Clark stared at us in confusion as I took hold of Caroline’s arm and led her back toward the front door. Her steps were unsteady, but I’ve had plenty of practice at the marionette game of maneuvering a drunk Caroline.

  Luke caught up with us by the front door.

  “What’s on your hands?” I asked him.

  “Punch. I flipped it over.”

  Because he’s Luke.

  Luke drove. I sat in the back with Caroline, who was starting to look sick.

  “You are not throwing up in this car,” I told her.

  “Then you should probably pull over,” Caroline said.

  So we ended up parked along the road that leads away from campus while Caroline puked into a bush.

  When we made it back to his house, Luke and I got Caroline up the stairs. We laid her on her side on Luke’s bed and covered her up with blankets. It felt strangely like tucking in a child, if children smelled like beer and sick.

  When we got downstairs, Luke said, “Grilled cheese?”

  I hadn’t realized I was hungry.
But once he mentioned food, I could feel how empty my stomach was. “That would be great.”

  Luke grilled the sandwiches and slid them onto plates. We went out onto the back porch and sat on the top step to eat.

  When the sandwiches were gone, and the quiet had stretched out around us, I had to ask, “Why didn’t you?”

  “Why didn’t I what?” Luke said.

  “Why didn’t you run up the mountain?”

  He didn’t answer right away.

  “Were you worried about what it would do to your family?” I asked.

  “No. I wrote you all letters so you would understand.”

  He got as far as writing the letters.

  “Having one of your kids die is horrible,” Luke said. “It doesn’t matter when it happens. If anything, me going out on the mountain might have been easier for them. At least that way it would be all at once. They wouldn’t have to do the ICU vigil or sign the papers to take me off life support.”

  I was trying not to picture Luke in an ICU bed. The staff turning off the machines. His chest lying still. His skin turning cold.

  “I’d been living with this time bomb in my head for so long. Waking up every day wondering if this was going to be the day that if finally went off. And I couldn’t do it anymore. I hated it. I hated what it had done to my family. How much my dad worried and how Mom put her whole life on hold to be with me. I hated that it got to decide when I stopped breathing.” He looked at me, needing me to understand.

  And I realized that I could. Larry was his Rick, the thing that had stolen his childhood and left him powerless to control his own life. I could understand that.

  “So you decided to make the decision yourself,” I said.

  Luke nodded. “I wrote a letter, telling my parents which trail I was going to take. I was going to do it at night. Just start sprinting full-out up the mountain. When the pressures got too high and Larry burst, at least it would be my choice, not his.”

  “But you didn’t do it.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  Luke looked out at the dark yard. “It takes time to organize Search and Rescue. But you and Caroline weren’t going to wait that long. The two of you would have gone looking for me.”

  We would have.

  “You’re the runner,” he said. “You would have been the one to find me.”

  I could see it, Luke’s body sprawled out on the ground. Me trying CPR, anything I could think of to bring him back. But he was already gone. And I ended up cradling his head in my lap, agony curling my body over his.