Amy lets out a bitter laugh, and I wait for Clay to step in, but she just sits there, avoiding my gaze and completely quiet.

“So, if a guy had to crash in here with us, our parents would be fine with one of us sharing a bed with him?” Amy retorts. “It’s the same difference.”

I glance at Clay, seeing her eyes downcast, and I know she has things to say. I know she wants them gone, but of course, nothing surprises me with Marymount girls. Once upon a time, I’d hoped I’d have some friends here, and if I didn’t, then maybe one person who thought I was worth the sacrifice if she could just be close to me. But none of them want to stand up for themselves. They either need me or tolerate me.

“I’ll share a bed with you,” Krisjen says.

And I shake my head, surging to my feet. “Eat me,” I say. “I don’t need any favors.”

• • •

Rain falls, thunder cracking across the sky, and I flash my gaze to the window, seeing the drops pummel the panes. Shadows dance across the ceiling, and I lie in bed, phone in hand, and contemplate dragging Trace’s ass out of bed to pick me up.

Tears hang at the corners of my eyes. It shouldn’t hurt. I’m used to being seen differently, aren’t I? I close my eyes, my chin trembling.

The girls fell asleep easily, but I haven’t slept all night. I’m ready to go home. I draw in a breath, my chest shaking, struggling to stay quiet.

But then, the bed dips behind me, the sheet moves, and a body presses into my back, arms slipping around my waist.

Clay’s scent surrounds me, and I open my eyes, seeing she’s no longer in the other bed with Krisjen and Amy. She holds me tightly.

“Just let me go,” I barely whisper.

“I can’t.”

Her breath caresses my ear, and I have no energy to fight her. The tears fall, and I just lie there, letting her mold her body to mine, holding me tighter as she buries her nose in my hair.

“Do you think I want it to be this hard?” I murmur in the quiet so Krisjen and Amy don’t hear. “It’s not a choice, you know?”

She’s silent, and I stare over at the other two sleeping.

“Sometimes I tried not to feel it,” I say. “Tried to force myself to get excited around a boy and to ignore the way my heart beat faster around…”

But I trail off, knowing she gets the idea.

I don’t know why I’m telling her this. It’s not that I need her to understand, because there are so many others in the world who will.

But for some reason, I can’t stop talking. “But it wasn’t who I was,” I tell her. “I saw women everywhere. They were all I saw. I didn’t notice men the same way. How they walked or laughed or danced. I could never picture myself in a guy’s arms.” I turn over in her arms and look at her in the dark. “All I dreamed about was someone wanting me. I wanted to look over in class and see a girl looking at me the way I looked at her. Having someone touch my fingers and hold my hand or pass me notes in class. I wanted someone to have a crush on me—someone with a soft body and soft hair. Everyone else got to have that. All the fucking movies and love songs, and…” I choke on a sob, forcing it back down. “It just got so lonely, and after a while, I just got angry.”

There were other gays at Marymount. The odds were in my favor that I wasn’t alone, but no one would out themselves in such a small town.

Except me. I was already an outsider, because of where I come from, so why hide anything else as if that would help?

“I sneak into Wind House sometimes,” she whispers.

I blink. The funeral home?

“Why?” I ask.

She’s quiet for a moment and then says, “To watch, at first.”

Thunder rolls overhead, the rain growing harder on the windows, and we both lie on our sides, eye to eye.

“When Henry…” She swallows. “When he died, my parents called the funeral director and let them know which hospital to pick him up at,” she tells me, keeping her voice just between us. “My mother was shattered, and Mrs. Gates held her hand and said, “‘I will be very careful with him.’”

Mrs. Gates is the funeral director. It’s a hard enough job, I can’t imagine having to prepare children for burial.

“She puts people back together,” Clay tells me. “She’s started to teach me how to put people back together.”

I stare at her, barely able to see her face in the darkness, but I keep listening, because I don’t think anyone else knows this.

“I needed to know what happens when we’re gone,” she says. “That night, I just couldn’t get it out of my head. How he was alone.”

The kid was only ten.

“They wouldn’t think that he was cold or scared,” she continued, “so I went to him. Broke the basement window and climbed through and stayed with him.”

I tuck my hands under my cheek, and she does the same, taking her time.

“Mrs. Gates found me the next morning.” I watch her. “Asleep against the wall outside his locker. She tried to send me home. Almost called my parents, but I refused to leave. I wanted to see. I needed to see what happens after we die. Where my brother went.”

I’ll bet she put up a fight. No one says no to Clay. I almost smile, imagining the tantrum she probably threw. She was only fourteen.

“She was so frantic.” I hear the amusement in Clay’s voice. “She didn’t know what to do. My parents would’ve killed her if they’d ever found out that she let me watch.” She paused and then continued. “Johnny Caesar came in that morning. You remember him?”

A local rock star about seven or eight years older than us. Made a couple of albums with a small label who screwed him out of rights and royalties, but he got out from under it. Got a big record deal and was about to hit it big. Become a worldwide superstar.

“She didn’t want to get in trouble, but I needed to know and she understood,” Clay says. “I stood back, way back, and watched her embalm him. Wash him. Patch up the gashes from his car wreck. The track marks on his arms and how gaunt his face had become. She cut his hair. Put makeup on him. Dressed him.”

I was at that funeral. He was a friend of Army’s.

“He looked alive again,” she goes on, lightning flashing across her skin. She put him back together so he could be remembered how I’m sure he wanted to be. He looked nineteen again, with his whole life ahead of him. Before life tore him apart.”

My mom probably wishes she was remembered differently. Or better. I’m not sure it would’ve been a comfort, seeing her dressed in her best at a funeral, even if we could’ve afforded one, but people don’t deserve to be remembered for how they died.

“She wouldn’t let me watch her prepare my brother, of course, but after Henry was buried, I…” She hesitated. “I started coming back. I’ve gone back again and again—helping, learning—because every time her phone rings, someone needs her. Someone is looking for guidance and comfort, and I need to be reminded that life is short. I don’t know what happens when we die…” Her breathing shakes, and I inch in closer. “But I do know life is too short. There is no tomorrow. This is all there is.”