Watching his face is like watching clouds race across the sky. Guilt chasing sadness chasing shame.

For a long time he doesn’t say anything, but then he does. “Your mother was the first woman I ever loved. We had you girls and we were happy for a long time.” He covers his eyes with his hands. “But the last few years, things changed.”

I almost wish I’d seen their vision. I’d love to know what they were like in the beginning. It’d be nice to have those memories.

He goes on. “Your mom and I weren’t happy anymore.”

“No,” I say, “Mom was happy.”

He closes his eyes but doesn’t tell me I’m wrong. “Yes, your mother was happy. But I wasn’t.”

“But then why didn’t you just tell her?” I ask, frustrated. “You could’ve gone to counseling or on more dates or something. Danica and I could’ve helped you.”

“I made a lot of mistakes, Evie. You’re right. I should’ve told her. I should’ve tried harder.” He looks up at me for this next part. “And when Shirley came into my life, I should’ve walked away. But I didn’t. And then it was too late. I couldn’t come back from what I was feeling.”

I’ve imagined having this conversation with him so many times, but I never expected him to admit that he made a mistake.

I’m more angry than frustrated now. He’s my dad. He’s not supposed to make these kinds of mistakes. “But you made vows to Mom. You promised her you’d love her forever.”

“Evie, sweetheart, sometimes things change.”

I’m so angry now, I’m incandescent with it.

“You promised her forever. You promised us, but you chose Shirley instead. You love her more.” I know I’m not being fair and that I’m not making sense. All I want to do is smash things. I want to make it so no one and nothing can hurt me ever again. I want to get rid of every nice, kind, sweet, soft feeling inside myself until there’s nothing at all. No joy, but no pain either.

“No, you’re not allowed to think that. I love you and Danica more than I love anything else in the world,” he says. “I’m sorry for what I did, but the thing I’m most sorry about is losing you.”

Tears slip from my eyes. I don’t try to wipe them away. There’s so much more to come.

He pulls me into his arms and hushes me, the way he used to when I was small.

“Don’t hush me,” I say, jerking away from him. “What I want is for you to explain to me why people make promises to each other. Why bother to love people if they’re just going to die and leave you all alone? You believe in God. Tell me why He would make the world like this. Tell me why He’s so cruel.”

I look at him and wait for him to give me some kind of answer because he’s my dad and he’s supposed to have the answers. He always used to.

He looks out into the blue-dark night, and it’s a long time before he says anything.

Finally, his eyes travel over my face. “You’re getting so big. I couldn’t have imagined you would get this big.” He looks out over the courtyard. “Here’s what I think. If you get very, very lucky in this life, then you get to love another person so hard and so completely that when you lose them, it rips you apart. I think the pain is the proof of a life well lived and loved.”

“That’s a shitty answer,” I tell him.

“Yes,” he says. “It is.”

I’m crying hard now, inconsolable. All I see is X’s face on the funeral program.

In loving memory: Xavier Darius Woods.

In loving memory.

In memory.

“It’s not worth it,” I say.

Why do I have to love him? How am I supposed to live without him?

“I can’t answer your questions, Evie. I don’t know why we lose the people we love and how we’re expected to go on after we lose them. But I know that to love is human. We can’t help ourselves. The philosopher-poets say love is the answer, but it’s more than that. Love is the question and the answer and the reason to ask in the first place. It’s everything. All of it.”

For a long moment, I watch the lights across the courtyard turn on and off and then on again. I wonder what’s happening in each of the apartments. Who have they lost? Who are they about to lose? What have they survived?

Someone laughs high and loud. It sounds like something breaking. A small wind blows, and there’s no warmth left in the air now. My tears dry on my face.

“Dad, I don’t think I can go to your wedding after all.”

I feel how much I’ve hurt him, and then I feel his struggle to accept what I’ve said.

“All right,” he says.

“I don’t know if I’m ever going to forgive you.”

He drops his head into his hand. “It’s all right, my sweetheart,” he says.

Somehow the way he says it makes me feel like maybe I’m the one who needs forgiveness.

“It’s all right,” he says again.

And it’s not all right, not really. But it’s nice of him to say so.

CHAPTER 53

The Light and the Dark

WHEN I IMAGINE X dead, I don’t see darkness. In darkness there’s still hope. Some hidden thing in the places you can’t see. Grief to me feels like an endless landscape of white light. No secrets. And no surprises either.

You can see clearly all you have lost.

Everything that’s no longer there.

CHAPTER 54

One Million, Eight Hundred and Fourteen Thousand and Four Hundred Seconds

SOMETIMES THE ONLY thing to say about a period of time is that it’s passing and that you’re surviving it.

Graduation festivities kick into high gear. The yearbook comes out, and everyone, even the most jaded and cynical kids, turns nostalgic and earnest. We reminisce, sign each other’s books and make promises we really want to keep.

Cassidy’s parents go away to Europe, so she throws some kind of party almost every night. I go to all of them.

At my request, we start going back to Surf City Waffle. I have too many memories of X by the pool at Cassidy’s house to want to go there anymore.

Every Sunday, I wonder if this is the Sunday when Sophie and Cassidy will break up. Things between them have been getting slowly worse. They smile less and touch less and bicker more.