I didn’t mean it, of course. He knew I didn’t mean it.

But then he said, and this I will never forget: “Well. I’m getting you a present.”

“You are?”

“Yep,” he said. “Just as soon as I can train the dog to poop into a box.”

He was funny. Mom was up there talking about how kindhearted he was, and I was in the front row staring at my shoes, trying not to laugh at a joke he’d told two years ago and trying not to cry at the fact that I would never hear him tell another joke.

Dad didn’t speak at Ty’s funeral. He sat two rows behind us with Megan. He stayed out of the way.

I didn’t speak, either. Mom asked me to, but I was afraid that if I got up in front of everybody I would tell them about the promise I had made to Ty, that I would be there for him when he needed me, when he called. The promise I had broken.

Then it would have been me on trial.

Maybe I deserved that, but I couldn’t face it.

At the end of Ty’s funeral they played Elvis’s version of “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.” My mother’s favorite church song.

Ty would have freaked. Elvis at his funeral.

But it didn’t matter. Ty was dead. Mom was alive. In so many ways (the peach roses, the deep mahogany casket that matched our dining room table, the music, the scriptures, the food) she’d planned his funeral to be her own.

23.

AFTER PATRICK’S FUNERAL we drive to Wyuka Cemetery for the graveside part. It’s sleeting, a miserable combination of rain and slush, and we stand under black umbrellas around the grave. His father and sister cry brokenheartedly when the men lower the coffin into the ground.

Mom cries, too.

I don’t.

I didn’t then, either. I was all cried out by the time we got to the cemetery.

The priest says a few final words, and then we move like a herd of sheep into a room inside the funeral home for the wake. Mom brings along the green bean casserole to be heated and served.

It’s not as good as I remember.

They set up two poster-sized collages against the far wall. I slip away from Mom to look at them. It’s not like Ty’s collage, which was in a fancy frame. Patrick’s collages are two pieces of poster board, the kind you can buy at the supermarket, the pictures stuck on with tape.

Patrick had a lot of friends, like Ty.

He was on the swim team. He was an athlete, like Ty.

He was an Eagle Scout. Ty never made it that far. But still, a Boy Scout, like Ty.

He played video games.

He was a good kid.

Like Ty.

This is the worst kind of déjà vu.

In the second collage, I find a picture I recognize, a copy of the same photo Ty used in his collage: Patrick from middle school with Ty and Damian, the three amigos, arms around one another because they hadn’t learned yet it’s not cool for boys to hug. First Patrick, then Ty, then Damian. Damian looks the same, I think, wearing his gray hoodie and pale denim jeans, lanky and uncombed. He holds his left hand up with his two fingers making a peace sign. The three of them smile mischievously into the camera like they know something I don’t.

I swallow. I know something they don’t, too.

Then the sound system over my head starts playing “Stairway to Heaven.” I freeze. I look around and spot the funeral director—Jane, I remember—standing in a corner.

“Hey, Jane,” I say as I approach her. “Why are you playing this song?”

“Hello, Alexis.” She remembers me, too. “Patrick left a note requesting, among other things, a specific playlist to be played at the wake.”

I close my eyes as Robert Plant starts singing, “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven.”

“Alexis?” Jane murmurs. “Are you all right?”

I open my eyes. “What about the collages?”

“What about them?”

“Did someone make them, or did he?”

She gives me a somber smile. “He made them.”

He made them. Just like Ty. He planned all of this. Just like Ty.

Like he was using Ty’s death as a template for his own.

Ty helped this happen. By showing Patrick that it was some kind of acceptable, maybe even cool, thing to do. He led by example.

This is Ty’s fault.

All of a sudden, it becomes too much. I have to get out of here.

I search for Mom. It takes me awhile to locate her, and when I find her, I hold back, even though what I want to do is charge up to her and grab her by the hand and drag her out of here. But she’s sitting in a folding chair next to Patrick’s dad, looking into her lap as she talks. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but Patrick’s dad is nodding, nodding, tears slipping down his face.

She could be awhile.

The song is building in intensity, the way it does, and as it builds I feel less and less in control of myself. The hole is opening in my chest. The room is closing in.

I stumble back and knock a chair over. It clatters loudly to the floor.

I see Damian, not wearing his gray hoodie but a black button-down dress shirt. He combed his hair. His eyes are red. He steps forward like he wants to say something to me. Like he wants to hug me.

I take another step back. I see Ashley Davenport standing by the collage. She’s holding hands with Grayson, and they’re both staring at me.

Everybody’s staring.

I have to get out I have to get out I have to get out. I fight the urge to push people out of my way. I can’t breathe I can’t breathe.