When I try to think about it, instead I remember 17 days later.

Sorry Mom but I was below empty.

And then everything goes mercifully numb. Or I get the hole in my chest. One or the other.

Here’s what I do remember about December 3:

Steven came down from the concessions stand about 10 minutes in, said El and Beaker had it covered. He took my hand, and he held it for a while, and then he turned it over and ran his index finger up and down the length of my palm. All my nerves started firing. I shivered and laughed and told him to quit, but I liked it. He laced his fingers with mine, and we watched the game, but I was really watching Steven, the jerk of his Adam’s apple when he swallowed, the small freckle he had next to his right ear, the way he pushed his glasses up on his nose a bit awkwardly with his left hand, because his right hand was holding mine, the way his eyelashes were long enough to brush the lens if he pushed the glasses too close to his face.

I remember that at the beginning of halftime Beaker did an imitation of Principal Boone that was so funny that El snorted soda up her nose, and we were trying not to die laughing almost the entire 15 minutes of the break, as we counted out the people’s change and served their food, and they were looking at us strangely, because what could possibly be so hilarious, which made us laugh even harder.

I remember Mom showed up 20 minutes before the game was over. She looked tired but happy that she’d made it. She smelled like the hospital when she sat down next to me, like Clorox and burned plastic and antiseptic. She said hello to Steven, and he produced a Hershey bar with almonds (Mom’s favorite) from his jacket pocket and said he’d snagged one from the booth just for her. Oh, the smile she gave him, the approving-mother smile, like a ray of sunshine in that cold gym.

Steven knew how to bask in it.

“You’re a total kiss-up,” I told him, bumping my shoulder into his. “Where’s my candy bar?”

He shrugged, but his eyes said that there were things in this world better than candy.

Yes, there were.

I remember we stayed parked outside the house for longer than usual when he brought me home, until Mom flipped the porch light on and off, which was her way of saying, Enough necking. Time to come in. Good night, Steven.

“Mom. Please. You don’t have to do that,” I told her when I slipped inside the house. “I’m perfectly capable of deciding when I should call it a night.” My lips were swollen and my hair a total mess and my face felt flushed, probably red because I was embarrassed that I looked like I’d been making out. Which I had been. Excessively. And my mother was standing just inside the door like the chastity police.

“Are we going to have to revisit ‘the talk’?” she asked.

“God, no. Once was enough for this lifetime, thanks.”

“Okay. Do you want me to take you in and get a prescription for birth control pills?”

My mouth opened and then closed. I frowned. “No. Well, maybe. I don’t know.”

“Condoms break,” she informed me.

Now I knew for a fact that my face was fire-engine red. “I am aware of that. Good grief, Mom. Where’s Ty?” I asked, sure he was going to jump out from the hallway with a giant smirk. I did not want to be having this conversation in front of him.

“Ty’s not home yet,” Mom said.

“Ah. Maybe he needs ‘the talk.’” I started past her toward the safety of the hall and my bedroom, a full-scale retreat, and for once I was glad that Dad didn’t still live with us. One parent in this situation was bad enough. I didn’t need Dad and his shotgun.

“I just want you to be safe,” Mom called after me.

“I’m safe,” I answered, and then I went in my room and closed the door and took a deep breath. Because I was safe. Steven and I hadn’t been past, er (what were the bases, again?)—second base yet. But we were definitely on second, taking a few steps in the direction of third.

Maybe it was time for us to discuss it, I thought. Maybe it was time.

I wanted it to be Steven, the first time. I knew that much. I didn’t know when or how or where something like that could happen, but I did know who.

And sitting there in my bedroom, thinking about it, I blushed and I smiled.

December 3. I remember all that. In detail.

Steven. El and Beaker. Mom. Steven.

But I don’t remember Ty playing. I don’t remember him interacting with any of the cheerleaders.

I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy being the star of my own movie, while my brother might have been out there that night, in the dark somewhere, getting his heart broken. And 17 days later, he was dead.

13.

“SO, HOW’S THE WRITING COMING?” Dave asks from his comfortable chair.

“Swell,” I reply.

He waits for me to give him a straight answer.

I shrug. “I don’t think it’s doing me much good.”

I glance at the clock. God. Forty-two minutes to go.

“Why do you say that?” he asks.

“There’s no real point to it. No purpose.”

“We discussed this. The purpose is to release some of the pain, express it onto the paper so you don’t have to carry it around with you in your day-to-day life. It’s cathartic.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” I report.

I’m still carrying around plenty.

His eyebrows bunch together. Dave has very expressive eyebrows. “Are you writing about Tyler?”