Nothing Else Occurs To Me

Chapter 15

Elizabeth's wrists throbbed. Burned. Like she'd been tied up with ropes.

Her things – the notebook, the book, the water bottle – were scattered on the ground. Money, too. Her wallet had popped open and a few dollars, a few coins lay on the ground like someone had scattered them there in front of her. As if she were a beggar and someone had just come by, trying to help.

But nothing like that had happened and Elizabeth felt beyond help, beyond even anything that was alive. Across the lake, the tent flaps snapped in the wind, flags and pennants waved, people went places, looked at things, said hello and good-bye. She could barely see them, and she couldn't hear them at all.

She tried to pick up a quarter. She tried, but even that made her wince. Her wrists were bright red, pinched and swelling up. Elizabeth thought of home, and it seemed very far away. Earlier, Kevin had said he would get her there, after everything was done.

Branches snapped behind her, leaves rustled. She sat up straight and carefully picked up the book and opened it randomly, trying to look as if she meant to be there, like it was the perfect spot to read on a warm Saturday in August. Which it was.

A skirt, bright with pinks and blues and surging with swirls stitched in silver, floated beside her. Elizabeth wanted to reach out and touch it – not grab it, but just brush it, to make sure it was real, because she had thought, she had really thought Michaela was a person she wasn't ever going to see again. The relief she felt, sitting there, surprised her. But not enough to reach out. She carefully – very carefully – let her hands slip under the open book on her lap, and looked up.

"Hey – I thought you'd moved away or something."

Michaela flopped down on the ground beside Elizabeth, her skirt billowing out like a parachute letting her down easy. Her top didn't exactly match her skirt – it was a bright red t-shirt that said MILLER FAMILY REUNION – ATLANTA. But everything else was the same, including her khaki shoulder bag full of notebooks.

"Why'd you think that? Hey – are you okay? Have you been crying?"

"Um, no – allergies. They're driving me crazy. But Father O'Malley said that when you dropped off the book – " she nodded, pointing with her chin, not wanting to expose her wrists – "you said to say good-bye. So I thought – "

"Oh, no. I said that because Mamaw and I were getting ready to go to this," she pointed at the shirt. "I didn't know when you'd be back and I for sure didn't know when we'd be back."

"Did you drive?"

"Uh-huh. All the way to Georgia and back. And we both survived. Yay us. Yay me."

The book was weighing on her wrists, but Michaela was right there, watching her closely, the way Michaela liked to do, like she was a sponge, soaking. She shifted a little bit. "So, what was the reunion like?"

"Oh, it was great. I didn't want to go because I didn't know any of these people – once my mom moved to Seattle, she just kind of stayed there, and I just didn't think it was my thing, you know. But it was cool. I have a second cousin who works for NBC in New York. Editing or something. And Atlanta's pretty awesome. Not like Seattle, but that's okay."

Elizabeth nodded. She studied the lake in front of them, the shore a couple hundred feet away. The water looked cool. Her hands, her arms, needed the cool water. Michaela was asking her about camp, and she said it was fine, it was fun. That she got lots of good ideas.