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Chapter TWENTY-TWO

Tyler hasn't moved. I look up at him, and there is the worst expression on his face-regret, sorrow, agony. Lena puts her hand on his shoulder, then walks away.

Tyler sinks into a chair, drops his head into his hands.

An hour later he's in jail for breaking parole.

* * *

It's nearly nine o'clock that night when a knock comes at my door. I've been dozing on the couch for hours, exhausted from crying and so depressed I feel like a house has fallen on me.

Whoever it is will have to wait. I pull a pillow over my head.

The knock comes again. "Child, it's Electra. I have some news about your friend."

I fling the pillow away and rush to the door, only realizing as I yank it open that I don't know which friend she means. Tyler? Rick?

She takes in my appearance without a word. "What's up with you?"

I step back from the door and let her in, sinking down on the couch. "Long story. Long day."

Sitting beside me, she takes my hands, and I realize it's not going to be about Tyler or Rick. "I've been checking in on your friend Virginia since the first night, and I wanted to come tell you that she's gone. Passed away early this morning."

My brain rebels. "What? They said she was getting better?"

"She took a turn overnight. They couldn't save her. I'm sorry."

I'm not sure why this last bit of news should weigh so much, but I tilt forward, dissolving into my own lap, my arms around my knees. I feel hollowed out. "I lost my job today. Rick came in and started a fight, and I got fired. And the new guy? He's in jail because he broke parole. He did fourteen months for manslaughter and never said a word about it." I shiver. "I don't have the rent and I don't have a job and I have no idea what to do."

Her hand is still and steadying between my shoulder blades. "You'll figure it out. You're strong."

I raise my head. "Am I? I don't feel like it."

She pats my hands. "Have a good cry and wallow overnight, then pick yourself up and get moving again tomorrow." At the door, she pauses. "Sorry about your friend."

Wallowing sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I crawl into my bed and cry until I don't have any more tears left. I cry for Tyler, who seemed like a magic answer to all the things that were wrong in my life, cry for the illusion he presented to me.

I cry for the loss of a job that had real promise. I cry for Virginia, who died way too young, leaving two little boys, and would probably kill to be me right now, in a cozy house without a job. Just to be alive.

Then I sleep for fourteen hours in a row, only waking up when the sun blasts me in the face. I hear the words of Mary Oliver's poem in my head, as if she is standing beside my bed, reading them aloud to me.

"What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

I lie in my bed, and it suddenly seems both reckless and obvious what I have to do. Sitting up, hair falling around me like a curtain, I unplug my new iPad, which I've hardly even been able to play with, and I text my other dad.

I broke up with my boyfriend, my friend died, I lost my job, and I'm probably going to have to move back to my stepdad's house, and he's really nice, but I can't stand to live there. I don't know you and you don't know me, but if you meant it that I can come see you, this would be a really good time.