It was getting dark out. I was just about to rummage in the fridge for something to eat when the doorbell rang. I should have known Logan would stop by. He had been texting me throughout the day, funny little memes like a cat clinging to a branch （Hang in there!） and dancing flowers singing （The sun will come out . . . tomorrow!）。 I was such a wreck at the hospital that I’d sent him away. He didn’t need to see me all puffy-faced and crying. I wanted him to like me, not feel sorry for me, although it was probably too late now.
“Hi,” I said when I answered the door. I tried to sound normal, like everything was fine now.
“Missed you at practice,” he said, pulling a bouquet of yellow roses from behind his back. They were the color of sunshine and cut through the darkness like a ray of light.
“Why are you so nice to me?” I asked. I didn’t deserve flowers after what I had done to my mom. In fact, they were just making me feel worse.
“Because you’re my girlfriend,” he said simply. I had never been anyone’s girlfriend, or gotten flowers, except for from my parents at my eighth grade graduation. But they weren’t the fancy kind like these were, with little vials of water on each stem to keep them fresh.
“Are you going to invite me in?” he asked. I looked and felt like shit, but those flowers looked expensive. I closed the door behind him as he stepped into the entryway.
“How’s your mom?” he asked, and I clenched my teeth to keep from crying. I didn’t trust myself to speak so I just shrugged. The crinkly plastic sheath around the flowers crunched against my chest as he pulled me into a hug. “It’s going to be OK,” he said into my hair. He let me go, then looked down at the flowers. “Let’s go put those in some water.”
I found a vase, and we set the flowers on the kitchen table. “I need to go check on her,” I told Logan. “She’s upstairs resting.”
I hated him seeing me like this. I thought he would take the hint and leave, but instead he asked, “Want me to come with you?”
I didn’t, but I nodded anyway. He slipped off his shoes and held my hand up the stairs. I indicated that he should wait in my room while I peeked in on her, then padded down the hall toward her open door.
I took a few steps into the room but stopped short of her bedside. Mom was lying on her back, hands by her sides, eyes softly closed. I could see her chest gently expanding and contracting—she was sleeping. I don’t know what I was so worried about. She didn’t have any more pills left, I’d made sure of that, and the other ways to do it seemed too complicated and messy. But I was still uneasy.
“How’s she doing?” Logan asked when I returned to my room. He was sitting on my bed, trying to solve my Rubik’s Cube. I didn’t want to talk about Mom, so I changed the subject.
“There’s a trick to that,” I said, indicating the cube, and he laughed.
“Yeah, you have to be smart!” he said playfully.
The sound of his laugh made me feel tingly all over, and I felt myself relax a little. “There’s a sequence of moves, you just have to memorize it.” I sat down beside him, and he offered me the cube. Our fingers touched as I took it from his outstretched hand. He lifted my chin. His eyes were the color of water, clear and blue and deep.
“I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone through all of this,” he said. “I’m here. Lean on me.”
His gaze was like a drug. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. I thought about what Mom had said, about how it had made her feel better to talk to someone. I decided to test the waters.
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” I started, then squeezed my eyes shut. I knew I shouldn’t say any more, but holding all these secrets by myself was exhausting. And I needed to be strong for Mom, now more than ever.
“So tell me,” he coaxed. And I imagined how good it would feel to have it all off my chest. To tell someone, just like Mom had.
“The accident that killed my dad . . . ,” I began. I would just tell him the basics, not the whole thing. Just that we were being taken care of, that we didn’t see any point of anyone going to jail.
“What about it?” he asked. A piece of hair fell in front of my face, and he tucked it behind my ear. “It was an accident, right?” He leaned on the word “accident,” like he wanted to make sure, but I shook my head.
“It was a hit-and-run,” I announced. This was the first time that I had said the words out loud, and they scared me. Because it was a crime. My dad had been murdered. And I had played a part in covering it up.