“Taylor should feel terrible,” Sam says, a strain in his voice. “I can’t believe she said those things to you. I’m sorry, Julie. I wish I was there. I wish I could do something about all this.”
“I wish you were here, too.”
He lets out a long breath. “It feels like this is all my fault.”
“Sam—you can’t blame yourself for any of this.”
“But it’s hard not to,” he says, sounding frustrated. “Mika wouldn’t be feeling this way, and getting into fights, and no one would be saying those things about you if I hadn’t … If only…” His voice trails off.
“Stop it,” I say. “That isn’t your fault, Sam. None of this is. And I don’t care what people say about me, okay?”
A long silence.
“I feel so useless, though. Not being able to do anything,” he says. “Not even for Mika. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I lost her, you know? At least you can talk to her, though. Maybe you can go over there, see her in person.”
“I don’t know if she would even listen,” I say.
“You think you could you try again?”
“You know I want to,” I say. “But every time we talk, I always have to hide something from her, and I think she can sense it.… It’s like this wall between us now.”
“So what are you thinking?”
I hesitate to answer this. I’m afraid of what he’ll say. “I want to tell her about you. I think it would fix things between us. I think she’d understand.”
Sam goes quiet.
“Do you think I shouldn’t?”
“I don’t know, Jules,” he says. “I don’t want something bad to happen to our connection.”
“But you said there’s also a chance nothing will happen,” I remind him.
“I mean, maybe nothing will. It’s still a big risk, you know?”
“So you’re saying this is a bad idea?”
Sam goes quiet again, considering this. “I’ll let this be your call.”
I stare out the window, wondering what to do. “I wish you gave me clearer answers sometimes.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I had them.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I couldn’t wait another day to see Mika. I couldn’t leave things the way they were. The guilt was eating me up, making it hard to focus. The sun casts shadows along the driveway as I reach the front door to her house. The van is parked outside the garage, so her parents must be home, too. I hope it’ll be her mom who answers when I ring the doorbell. Whenever there was bickering between us, she was the peacemaker.
The sound of footsteps lets me know someone’s coming. Mika’s front door has multiple chains and locks. I listen from the other side as somebody undoes them, one after the other. The door cracks open.
Mika peeks at me through the length of a chain. “What are you doing here?”
“I was hoping we could talk,” I say.
“About what?”
“Anything.”
Mika says nothing. She just stares at me through the doorway.
“Can I come in?” I ask.
Mika considers this. Then she shuts the door on me, and I think the answer is no. But the last chain unlocks from inside, and the door opens again. Mika looks at me without a word before turning back inside. I take off my shoes and follow her into the hall.
Steam rises from the kettle as Mika goes to shut off the stove. I hang beneath the archway of the kitchen as she grabs a few things from the cupboards. I sense something different about the house. I sniff the air. Incense? It’s coming from the other room. Since Mika seems busy at the moment, I decide to follow the smell.
There is a wooden cabinet in the living room. On the middle shelf, whiffs of smoke rise from a silver bowl where the incense is burning. A beautiful bowl of fruit sits beside it. I noticed the cabinet the first time I came over to Mika’s house a few years ago. It’s always full of photographs. Portraits of people in Mika’s family whom I’ve never met. She once told me they were pictures of ancestors. She said it is a symbol of respect for the dead.
And then I see it. A picture of Sam that wasn’t there before. He’s smiling in his plaid shirt, a blue sky behind him. Something cold moves down my back, sending a shiver through me. I keep forgetting that to the rest of the world, he’s dead.
“It’s the best one I could find.”
I turn around. Mika is holding a tea tray.
“The picture,” she says. “My mom and I picked it. She said he looked handsome.”