I wish I had the guts to tell you this out loud, or even give you this letter, but I probably won’t. Still, I’m glad I wrote it. Putting it into words, on paper, helped me understand some things. I get it, now.

Don’t cry any more tears over me, Ash. I’m not worth it. But I want you to know, in case I ever do give you this letter and you read it first before you burn it or something, that for just a little while, you made me feel like I was really alive. Like I was special.

Thanks for that.

Thanks for picking me to be the one who got to stand in your sunshine for a while. I’ll carry that around with me for the rest of my life—that you saw enough good in me that you wanted to hold my hand and kiss me and smile at me like I was the only guy.

Be happy.

Love,

Ty

My chest feels like it’s in a vise, tightening, tightening. I brush my fingers over the words, Ty’s words in Ty’s messy print, and over the stains on the paper where Ashley’s tears must have dropped when she read it. I read the letter again. And again. I try to memorize every word.

I sit there for a long time.

The bell for second period rings. The library stirs as if, up till now, time has been stopped, but it’s going again. I find Ashley at the back table. When she looks up at me, her face wrinkles up like she’s going to cry, but she contains it.

I hand her back the letter.

“Thank you for letting me read this.”

“He was wrong, though.” Her voice breaks. “I’m not perfect. I have dark days, too.” She wipes a tear off her pale cheek. “I could have helped him, if he would have let me. If he’d just given me the letter himself.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She looks up with shining eyes. “No. Thank you, for giving it to me when you did.”

I can’t talk. I nod. She nods.

Then we both have to move on.

20 March

In the last photograph ever taken of Ty and Dad together, from back when we were still a family, they’re playing chess.

June 24 is the date my mom scrawled on the back of the photo. The summer I was 14 and Ty was 12. The year before Dad traded us for Megan.

I remember that day.

There was a tornado—an F4 on the Fujita scale, and if you speak the tornado lingo, which pretty much everybody in Nebraska does, you’ll know that’s not the most powerful tornado (the F5 is), but it’s still big enough to take out a town like Raymond. When the sirens started going off, the twister had formed 20 miles north of us. The sky turned green. Mom herded us all into the basement to wait out the storm.

We watched the news for a while on television, where a map of the area kept showing the tornado hovering above us, a swirling cartoon cyclone slowly moving in our direction.

Then Dad suggested a game of chess.

He’d been through his chess obsession a couple years before and hadn’t played since. But there in the basement den was the beautiful mahogany board he’d purchased back then, and the marble pieces, and what else was there to do while we waited?

I played first. I lost. Spectacularly, if I remember correctly. In spite of my math affinity I’m not much good at chess. I’m shortsighted; I can’t predict that far ahead, to the other player’s choices and moves. I only see the pieces in front of me and react.

I wasn’t surprised when I lost. I’d never won against Dad. He’s not the type to let his kids win just so they’ll feel good about themselves. In his chess phase I must have lost a hundred games to him, and every time he’d take my king, he’d say, “Well played, Lexie. You’re getting better. One of these days you’re going to beat me.”

But I never did.

So on June 24, when I was 14 and stuck in the basement with my family and a chessboard, I played, and I lost. I stuck out my tongue at Dad, and he chuckled at me, and then he said, “Tyler. You’re up.”

Ty took his place on his side of the board with the look of an excited puppy.

Oh boy, I remember thinking. This is going to be quick.

But almost right away he made a move that surprised Dad.

“Where’d you learn that?” Dad asked, squinting down at the board.

Ty shrugged. “Is it a bad move?”

“No,” Dad said distractedly. “No, that was an excellent move. There’s a name for it, even, if I can just remember it.”

Before long Ty made another excellent move. And another. And another.

Before long he was clearly winning the game.

Then we had to stop for a bit when the sky went black. The lights flicked out. We all went into the bathroom with candles, where the pipes would provide some extra protection if the wind ripped the top of the house away. Ty and I got into the empty bathtub with the emergency radio. Dad sat on the counter with his arm around Mom.

“The Caro-Kann Defense,” he said after a minute. “That’s it.”

Yep, we were possibly about to die, and Dad was still marveling at Ty’s chess moves.

I looked at Ty. He had a secret smile.

We didn’t have to stay in the bathroom long.

The tornado skimmed by Raymond and carried on to the east, where it took out a whole string of farms before it dissipated, and we could come out of the bathroom.

Ty and Dad went right back to their game. Mom and I sat on either side of them, holding up candles to light the board, and watched it all go down, a rapt audience as Ty moved around the board like a pro. The whole time Dad looked so confused. I mean, Ty was 12 years old. When Dad had gone through his chess phase before, Ty had been like 10. He hadn’t even really grasped the rules of chess.