He sighed. “Tell me what happened.”

“I already told the other guy all of this.”

“Now tell me,” he said.

I went through it again, and as I described finding Brandon’s body, it seemed unreal, like I was making it up. Why was I talking about any of this stuff, when we were right there in front of Brandon’s house and I ought to go in and sit on the couch and him and me and Audrey could smoke a bowl and talk and go to the movies like we planned. It was so absurd to be out here on the bench instead that I started to laugh. But the laughter sounded wrong, like fucked-up coughing, and I stopped.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For what?”

“I don’t know.”

I figured something must be my fault. Before I came into these people’s lives they were fine, they were okay. I bit down, imagined my teeth cracking from the pressure. My thoughts were heavy objects falling from a great height. They hit the ground without bouncing; they sank and disappeared. I had a vision in which my eyes retreated deep into their sockets and vanished, and I never had to see again. I seemed to be crying.

Ash was talking. “Looks like he overdosed, Charlotte.”

“Why did he do it? How did it happen?”

“They’ll do tests. We found ketamine in the house. We see that sometimes, with club drugs. Especially injecting, it’s hard to gauge the dose.”

“Injecting? He used needles?”

“Apparently we’re waiting on forensics. We’ll find out more. When did you last talk to him?”

“A few days ago. Before I saw you last.”

“How did he seem?”

“Sad. He was sad.”

Ash nodded.

“I saw a dead person before,” I said. “My mom. I found her, too.”

“That’s hard,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

The front door opened and the ambulance guys were bringing a stretcher through. It had Brandon on it, covered up. Ash went to talk to them and I was alone on the bench. After a few minutes, I walked down the street through the neighborhood, away from Brandon’s house and his body and all the police cars. I passed tidy houses flickering with television. People washed dishes, their cats perched on their front steps, the coals in their grills burned themselves out. It was a toy world, unreal. On North Main the traffic streamed by in rivulets of light. I turned and walked past gas stations and closed shops until I found a bar.

I opened the door onto neon and stools, a glowing cigarette machine and a window unit diligently laboring. I ordered whiskey from the bartender, a frayed girl with sloping shoulders. I took the drink to a booth in the corner where the wrinkles in the leather seat looked like veins.

I called Audrey and left a message, then I called her again, then I sent her a text. I sipped my drink and listened to songs on the jukebox. I listened to them carefully, as though music was a source of information, divorced from aesthetics or pleasure. I finished my bourbon. I tried Audrey again and hung up when the voice mail answered. I asked the bartender for the number of a cab and smoked cigarettes outside while I waited for it. I sat on a bench in front of the bar, studying the dandelions and sparkles of broken glass at my feet.