“May. Jesus Christ. You scared the shit out of me the other day. Please—you can’t do that again.” Her voice cracks in a way I’ve never heard. I finally relent and roll to face her, just in time to see her face crumple. It stabs me right in the middle of my heart, because Lucy does not cry. “I can’t take it—I already lost one of you. We already lost him.” She sniffles and then takes a deep breath and lets out a sigh. “I’m sorry. I should have been there for you—at the jail, after the jail. Those letters…it wasn’t fair of me to judge you for hiding them. I can’t imagine what I’d do in your place. I was trying to protect you. I was worried. This whole year, you’ve been looking for a way to blame yourself for what happened…and then to have that asshole tell you that…” She shakes her head.

“I know things between you and Jordan weren’t great…at the end.” She puckers her lips and squints at my wall before continuing, “Look, Jordan told me something a couple weeks before the shooting that…I don’t know…I never shared with you. You were always so shut down whenever I tried talking about him, and I never wanted to push it….” She coughs. “Jordan was planning to apply to college, but not one of the ones that your parents wanted him to go to. Not some Ivy League or Stanford. He wanted to study guitar at Berklee in Boston. He was trying to create the life he wanted—not the one your dad kept trying to push on him.” She laughs—a little, sad laugh. A laugh that contains multitudes.

She lapses into silence, staring at the wall above my immobile form. I can’t bring myself to move—to speak. I’m pinned under the weight of her words.

Finally, Lucy breaks the heavy silence. “May, please know it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t say anything that any normal person wouldn’t say. You didn’t pull the trigger. You didn’t kill your brother. You aren’t culpable because you stayed in that closet. You aren’t to blame. Your parents didn’t handle shit right, for so long. Your dad—acting like Jordan’s future was some status symbol that he could flaunt—ignoring you…It was fucking toxic.” Her mouth dips into a frown. When she speaks again, her voice is low. “Do you know how many nights I’ve thanked the universe for the fact that you’re still here?”

Tears run down my nose. I’m frozen in place on my bed. I want to scream and yell and hug her and disappear, all at once.