The Truth About Fragile Things (43 page)

I was still too full from dinner for food, but Braden filled two glasses of water and found a table in a quiet corner hidden by some leafy branches. After a couple of minutes of talking about our third grade field trips to the museum Braden changed the subject. “Can I say something stupid?”

I laughed as I adjusted my coat on the back of my chair. “I don’t know why you’d want to.”

“Good point.” He turned his cup in a circle, red spots peeking over the collar of his shirt.

“I was kidding,” I reassured him. “If you say it, I’m sure it’s not stupid.” The spots kept marching up his neck, growing brighter. I envied him that—a tell-tale sign that announced to the world how he felt. Maybe I wouldn’t hide so much if I knew my body would betray the secret.

“Actually, first,” he said, clearing his throat, “I have to ask you something.” He scooted his chair closer and lowered his voice, his eyes found mine and refused to turn away. “All these years, have you really blamed yourself?”

I blinked fast and faced the fountain where the water rose and fell in a bright dance. I pictured Charlotte jumping into the clear river and heard Phil’s voice,
You’re alive!
I imagined baby Megan toddling past me onto the carved, brass discs on the floor decorated with every sign of the zodiac. She lost her balance and put one chubby hand on Capricorn’s back to steady herself. When she looked up, she met my eyes. She seemed to be waiting for me to do something.

“Megan?” Braden prodded, the silence stretched out too long for even him.

“I don’t know how to answer. Even if I didn’t do it purpose, I did it.” I kept looking at the same spot, entranced by how real she seemed to me—and how fragile. I turned from her and studied the nearest branch and its symmetrical, slim leaves. Just as I was ready to speak again I noticed a white moth, smaller than a fingernail and wearing tattered wings, stepping up the trunk. I watched its slow progress, the painful way it opened only one broken wing before walking on. “I never told you that I am scared of butterflies.” Every other table, every person and voice grew dim as I looked down at my hand he was stroking. The touch rippled all the way to my lips, made me wish he would stop the stilted words with one soft kiss.

“That’s a new one,” he said carefully, and I knew he didn’t want to move too fast, say too much—the way Lauren used to stand still and wait for a butterfly to land beside her instead of chasing it.

“Everyone thinks it’s so funny. But I’ve never told anyone why—not even my parents.” Nearby, a couple stood; their chairs scraped the stone floor and echoed against every wall. I flinched.

Braden scanned the room and tugged on my hand. “Do you want to go back to the car?”

I swept my eyes over the majestic columns and brilliant lights and smiling groups of people and felt more tired than I ever remembered. The soft and quiet car sounded perfect. I nodded, wishing we were there already.

He led me to the back doors and into the cold night. The wind whipped my coat open and slipped an icy tail around my neck. I wrapped my scarf over my mouth to catch my warm breath and followed him down the white steps, lit against the night until they nearly glowed. At the bottom of the steps Rodin’s Thinker sat naked and frozen, his chin propped on his fist as he peered endlessly over the stretching lawn and distant streetlights. I wanted to slip a blanket over his shoulders and tuck him in for the night. I paused at his feet and looked at his face where his eyes appeared to gaze outward, but I knew they searched something inside his own mind. I’d made that face since preschool. I wondered what The Thinker would think if I spread the copy of Bryon’s list out on his lap—the one I carried in my purse, folded and fuzzy with wear around the edges. The one that might as well say
wake up in the morning and breathe
because some days that felt like the greatest feat of all.

“I killed Bryon for a bug.” I kept my gaze up like I was confessing the truth to the statue and not Braden. “There was a little orange butterfly with white spots and I followed it. And that’s why I was in the street and that’s why Bryon never finished his own list.” Something built in my chest as I spoke—a hatred for that insect. To my shock, my hand shot out and smacked the marble pedestal as if the butterfly were there and I could crush it under my angry fingers. It made a thin sound, small for the force of the strike, but stung my palm, the pain pricking like needles across my skin. I looked down at my pink hand, surprised at my outburst, surprised by the tears that were rising, not like a gentle rain but like a tidal wave. I turned from Braden and retreated to the privacy of the woods that sheltered the walking path, waiting until I was completely hidden before I stopped and circled my arms around the white bark of a tree, like it was a person, like it could save me. Braden was there in a moment, his touch on my back tentative and scared. I didn’t blame him; I didn’t know how to react to myself. For the first time in my life there was no voice in my head—just an empty, primal cry.

“Here,” he said, guiding my arms from the trunk to him and sitting us both on the icy ground. He pulled me as close as I’d ever been to any boy and tightened his arms until I believed them. “You did what every kid does. You went to look at something. Something pretty worth looking at. You didn’t kill anyone that day. You just looked.”

I felt his words against my ribs and curling around my neck, the sound pressed everywhere, melting in with the tears. My breath fought the frozen air instead of inhaling it. “But he’s
dead
.”

And that was the moment I felt it. Every conversation with Charlotte, every instant where I thought I understood the pain and duration of death—that was only a rehearsal for this cold, dark spot in the shadow of the museum. It tore through me like I had swallowed the black night and it inked out everything except loss.

I knew why Phillip never told me I was alive. For almost fifteen years I thought death was a burden you could share. If I could be just a little dead for him, he could be a little alive for me. The futility of it stabbed a jagged hole into me. Now the truth came home—no matter what I did or how I lived, Bryon was all alone in his death. I couldn’t lift any of that burden—couldn’t ease it or help or thank him or give it back. Instead of crying harder, I went still, locked in place by a pain that didn’t know sound or movement. My eyes ran with unfamiliar tears—not drop by drop, but continuous like a seeping wound. I wished for my mother, someone who would know what to do with this new Megan.

“Megan, you sound like you think you invented death. Everybody will die from something. You were looking at a butterfly. He ran—not you.” Braden pressed my wet head into his neck. “He gave his life that day. You didn’t take it.”

I reached up trying to wipe my slick face. “What if he wants it back?”

Braden crushed my hand in his until my fingers almost hurt. “Time for that stupid thing I wanted to say.” The distant sound of people exiting the museum swept over us, the laughter strange and unwelcome to my ears. But when he spoke again, I heard nothing else. “I’m not good at big declarations, but you have to know that you make everything in that museum look…ridiculous. Every painting, every sculpture, everything. You are a thousand times more…” He paused, the words contorting the corners of his eyes. “
Better
than any of it. You should know that.”

I shook my head, but he pulled it close against him, wouldn’t let me disagree. “If he’s seen you, and I’m sure he has, I think he’s so glad he did what he did. I think he might be the one who brought you and Charlotte together. I think it might be your turn to save her.”

“She doesn’t need saving. She’s stronger than I am.” The words broke on my uneven breaths, each one like shards of glass in my chest.

“Sometimes you miss so much.” He whispered it over my head, as if half speaking to someone else, someone above us. “Megan, I took that stupid, awful drama class because you were in it.”

I pulled back until I could see his face, the memory of him tomato red every Friday, grimacing bravely through every performance. He looked so different now. So certain.

“Only because you were in it,” he promised. He searched my face for a moment before touching his lips to mine something simple and easy lingering there. After the dark, heavy wine of death and despair, he tasted like bright spring in the middle of winter. Like clear water.

I wondered if I could sleep there, in the hammock of Braden’s arms, under the December stars. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to walk back to the car. Instead of suggesting we go, he let the quiet fill us. The cold night rested on me like an icepack over an injury, numbing the ache. My mind opened to his words and accepted them. Inhale, exhale. Eyes raised and lowered. Like the wings of a butterfly testing the air before it flies.

For the first time in my life I let my imagination begin the scene where it usually ended. I followed the orange butterfly in my mind past the crowd and ambulance, coasting over the fountains and parks, dodging the apartment buildings, until it landed on the sweeping lawn of the art museum. It rested on the soft blades of grass, more lovely than any work of art inside. It was bright and shining and fragile and strong.

And it looked nothing like death.

THE ESSENTIAL FACTS:

My name is Megan Riddick.

I fell in love with a junior in high school.

A man died to save me when I was only two.

It all started with a stuffed monkey and a butterfly.

I have no idea how this all ends, but I think it will be good...

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