We go to the edge of the drop-off and lay down the picnic blanket, as if we’re celebrating.
My palms are sweating. It feels alien against the breeze and I squirm.
“This doesn’t feel right,” I murmur.
She looks back, eyes flashing, challenging, belligerent.
“What?”
“Just saying,” I mutter.
The summer breeze is warm, and I am chilled.
She sprawls out along the blanket, wiggling her toes, her eyes closed. Her shoes are bright red. It’s dark outside, but they’re bright red.
“It smells good up here,” she says. I look past the edge into town. The lit windows are Christmas lights, some bulbs out; we can’t afford to get them fixed.
“The stars are really pretty too.” Her limbs shake when she stretches, fingers extending with her arms as she turns to lie on her back. “Really pretty.”
My mouth is dry.
“Would you lie down or something? Sit? You’re making me nervous, Christ.”
The picnic blanket is checkered, red and white. Red and white, over and over, rows of red and white.
I sit cross-legged, chilled.
“Isn’t it funny,” she says, “that those stars shine so brightly, even though they’re gone?”
I shift uncomfortable. Her eyes are trained on the sky and they shine.
“Seriously. They’re so pretty and bright and gone. They aren’t even there, really. They don’t burn and they’re so bright. How can something so bright not burn?”
I feel her eyes on me, shining, burning, then back on the sky.
“We’re looking at ghosts right now,” she says quietly. My palms are sweating. “We’re always looking at ghosts.”
There is a silence, and the summer breeze, and I am chilled.
“I told her.”
I can’t speak. My mouth is too dry.
“I told her I loved her.”
I should speak. I look away as she looks at the sky.
“I told her I was in love with her and she kissed me.” Her breath hitches. Her hand clenches and she wipes it on the tablecloth, red and white. “Jesse, I told her I loved her.”
There is nothing to say. I can’t breathe. My mouth is too dry.
“And she told me she knew. ‘I know’. And she kissed me, Jess. She kissed me and she jumped off a cliff.”
She’s laughing now. Laughing and crying, red and white.
“And I think that must’ve been it, you know. I think that maybe when she kissed me, I kissed her back and I took too much.”
“Maybe,” she grins, and it is wild, and tired, and wild, “maybe I kissed her and I breathed all of her in, and I took all of the air out from her lungs and she died right there and I didn’t even notice because she was still with me.”
She looks at me and she is breaking. She grins and it shakes, her hand shakes as it balls and rubs at her eye, and her grin is gone, and her eyebrows are slants, and she is weak, and shaking.
“You think, Jess?” she says, still shaking. “You think that’s it?”
And I breathe deeply, and shake in the summer air, and I wet my lips, because my mouth is too dry.
“Maybe she was just sad,” I say.
And I’m chilled.
