She laughs, startling me again. I look at her. She isn’t smiling, and her eyes are closed.
“That’s what he said.”
“Yeah?” I’m distracted, because I’ll never know his side of that conversation. “What did you say to that?”
She shakes her head. “I can’t remember.” She opens her eyes. “The good news is the doctors say it’s dissociative amnesia, not retrograde amnesia, which means that my not remembering the minutes before or after the accident isn’t brain damage. I’m protecting myself, according to them.” She laughs the same cold laugh, and for a moment, she looks like Autumn did on the couch, but she takes a deep breath, and it clears.
I shouldn’t ask her, but it’s bothering me, how Alexis described the scene to me in detail…but Sylvie’s memory isn’t complete about that night.
“Alexis said that you saw him when you woke up and called 911.”
Sylvie doesn’t laugh this time.
“That’s what they tell me, but I don’t remember making the call.” She shakes her head. “I remember telling a paramedic that I knew Finn was dead because of his face. But later at the hospital, when the police tried to get a statement from me, I couldn’t remember waking up or his face. They did all the brain scans, and it’s a regular concussion. Apparently, when I’m ready, I’ll remember.”
“Oh,” I say. “Can you choose to never be ready?” I’m being sincere, but she laughs again, and this time, it’s real.
“I’ll have to ask my new therapist,” she says.
“What happened to the guy Finn liked?”
She sighs. “Dr. Giles always hated Finn.”
The idea of anyone hating Finn silences me.
In the distance, Angelina and Autumn’s mom are walking to the limo together, their arms around each other’s waists. Soon, Sylvie and I will be the only ones here: us, Finn, and all the other dead people like him.
“Maybe ‘hate’ is too strong of a word,” Sylvie continues, “but Dr. Giles didn’t trust Finn. Plus he said Finn seemed codependent. That was part of the reason he thought I should go away for the summer. To give me space to take care of myself.” Sylvie shrugs. “Dr. Giles and I agreed that after all the progress I’d made dealing with…other things, perhaps it would be best for me to start fresh with someone who didn’t have preconceived notions about Finn, since he’s going to be the focus of my appointments for a long time.”
“Huh,” I say.
Sylvie looks down the slope. Together we watch the limo drive off.
What a betrayal it is that Alexis told me that stuff about Sylvie and some teacher from her old school. I’d only half been listening, and part of me had wondered why she was telling me all that, but mostly I had been thinking about Alexis’s body and not about whether she was a good friend.
Sylvie starts walking down the hill, away from Finn’s grave, into the older parts of the cemetery, and I follow.
“It’s funny,” I say, simply to say something. “I was thinking about how no one could hate Finn, and you say your doctor at least hypothetically disliked him.”
“Oh, I hate Finn,” Sylvie assures me. She smiles softly at my shock. “Don’t get me wrong. I love him too. If I had the power to stop loving him, I would have long ago. So I love him, and I hate him.”
“I guess.” I want to defend Finn, but this time, I can’t. “I guess that’s fair.”
Sylvie smiles again and shakes her head. She stops walking.
“Jack, if you really are my friend, can you do something for me?”
“I mean,” I say, “if I really am your friend, can you stop questioning it like that?”
“That’s fair,” Sylvie says, and I’m not sure she notices I was joking. “If I stop questioning our friendship, will you stop falling for Alexis’s bullshit?”
“I–I thought Alexis was your friend?”
“Yes,” Sylvie says. “But she has a lot of growing up to do.”
I know Sylvie well enough to know that there’s no point in reminding her that Alexis is two weeks older than her. Besides, she’s right; Alexis hasn’t matured much in the past four years. It’s such a simple thing, but it explains so much about Alexis, not to mention my relationship with her, that I’m too stunned to say more than, “Yeah.”
“I mean,” Sylvie continues, “you’d outgrown her before junior year had even started.”