Kennedy looks up.
“Wait, fifteen weeks?
That’s a really long time.”
Kennedy doesn’t go anywhere,
but it’s like her body is cycling
around the room.
“You didn’t tell me for
four whole months
that your stepmother
was pregnant?
“Were you ever going to tell me?
“Was I supposed to just show up here
one day and hear a baby crying
and, like, ask you how it got here?
“I can’t believe I didn’t even notice.
I’m going through all the times
I saw Maribel and didn’t say anything.”
Kennedy waves the sonogram at me.
“Seriously, Row. What the hell?”
Ariana
“Why are you hanging out with her again?” Row said
while lying on the couch, tossing a soccer ball in the air.
“I thought you didn’t even like her,” Row continued.
“I never said that. What gave you that impression?”
“Uh. You actually did say that. Last week.
I said you should invite your new friend
to hang out over here, and you said,
‘We’re not really friends.’ ”
“I said that?” I was surprised I admitted it
out loud to Row. The question had been there,
but it wasn’t something I wanted anyone to know.
That the more we hung out,
the less of a friend I felt like to Alex.
Row balances the ball on her feet,
outstretched in the air
as she lies on her back.
She’s trying to make it spin
without crashing on top of the coffee table.
I try to change the subject.
“Maribel doesn’t want you doing that.”
“Why do you spend so much time with her
if you’re not friends with her?
“Is it because she’s in a mildly famous band?”
“No,” I scoffed.
“Is it because her brother died?”
“Jesus, no.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if that were the reason,”
Row says quietly.
“No one understands us.”
Row
Kennedy’s face is tight with concern.
But I can’t. Look at her.
The image of our sister.
The only photo we will ever have.
She’s… What is the verb for “death via miscarriage”?
“Row.”
I slide open my phone.
“I’m busy.”
Kennedy glances at my screen.
“Row! What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“We need to talk.”
She points to my screen live streaming
the English Premier League.
“This isn’t talking.”
“It’s Liverpool versus Manchester City.”
“Yeah, I can see.”
“But Salah has the ball.”
The Liverpool forward
is in front of the goal.
He takes two touches
to get around the City defenders.
He drives one in
but can’t keep it under
the crossbar.
The ball sails behind the goal.
“Row, I need us to talk.”
And I need Ariana
to waltz into her room,
flop onto the bed,
and pull out her phone
like nothing ever happened.
I absolutely need
to sit here on the carpet
and watch Liverpool crush Manchester City
and not be worried about anything.
Ariana
“Where are you going?” Maribel asked again.
I rummaged through a pile of shoes by the front door,
trying to find a pair that would best go unnoticed.
I didn’t want my shoes or anything
to say too much about me.
“It’s just one county over. They’re playing a show.
I’ll be home by midnight.”
Maribel looked over at Dad, who was concentrating
hard on the player at bat on the screen.
“Dad said I could go.”
Maribel continued to look at Dad.
“He did, did he?”
Dad said nothing.
“Can I go?” Row perked up,
her head peeking over the back of the couch.
“No,” Maribel, Dad, and I all responded.
“Why not?”
“For starters, you’ve got a tournament
tomorrow morning.” Dad finally pulled his eyes
away from the screen and patted Row on the shoulder.
“Oh, right.” Row slouched further
into the couch cushions.
I went back to my room to find a pile of crap
I had thrown on my bed as provisions. Sunscreen.
Sunglasses. Cash. Lip balm. A phone charger.
A lighter I wasn’t intending to use because I had never
actually smoked anything, tucked into the
pocket of my purse, just in case,
you know, someone asked for a light.
Row followed me and plopped herself on top of
the pile of stuff. I tried to roll her body away.
“Should I quit soccer?”
“Why?” I stuffed the contents on the bed
into a small leather purse I found at Goodwill.
“Because I might be missing out
on quintessential moments of teenage life.”
“But don’t you love playing soccer?”
“Yeah, but what if I love other things too?
“Like you have all this time to explore
other things in life. To find out stuff
that you might love that you otherwise
would never have known.”
I didn’t know how to respond to Row,
because I wasn’t off finding out if I loved
soccer or swimming,
or pottery or poetry.
What my little sister didn’t realize
was that while she was off playing soccer,
I was doing nothing.
I had no hobbies.
No sports.
No extracurricular interests.
What was I doing?
I didn’t even know.
Maybe scrolling through socials
wondering what it was like to be living
some kind of best life?
Maybe wondering what it would be like
to be a girl with a mother.
Maybe wondering if I was someone
who could even sustain a friendship
with someone like Alex.
If I were actually her friend, there for the good times
and the bad, instead of just the bad.
“You’re just so good at soccer,”
I eventually said.
Row rolled her eyes and sat up on the bed.
“Yeah, that’s not helpful.
Of course I’m good at soccer.
I’ve practiced every day for, like, nine years.
Anyone who devotes that much time to something
is going to be good.
I just wanted you to, like, give me
some wise sisterly advice, or something.”
I tried to act like I did just give her
some wise sisterly advice.
That her words didn’t get to me.
I tried to smile and shrug and quickly grab
the purse and the car keys and tell her
I had to run.
But I couldn’t shake the question
from my head. How could Row continue
to wake up and go to practice ev
ery single day,
how could Alex continue to get up on a stage
that she once shared with her brother,
when I had spent, not days or months,
but years doing nothing?
How could I be so different?
Row
“How are you unfazed by all of this?
Your sister is gone.
Your house is in disarray,
and you just told me that your
stepmother has been pregnant
for months. Until now.
“This is bad, Row.”
She waves at the room,
at ourselves.
“Sometimes,” Kennedy huffs,
“I hear the girls on the soccer team
talk about you.
Like you’re this superhero
because when you take a nasty tumble
on the turf, one bad enough
to solicit audible gasps
from the crowd,
you get up without so much
as a grimace.”
She shakes her head
and rolls her eyes.
“But I know
your badass-soccer-phenom persona
is just a front.
That there’s stuff
that truly
rattles you.”
She points to the image
of my former sister.
“You’re still the same person
who cried the first time
you spent the night at my house.
My mom had to drive
back to your house
in her pajamas
and pick up Ariana
because you wouldn’t sleep
at my house
without her.”
“I told you never
to tell anyone about that,” I say.
“I’m not.
I’m telling you.
Reminding you.
“I know that you have
this special bond
with your sister.
That she’s your emotional confidante.
But maybe it’s not healthy
to live with such extremes.”
I don’t respond.
I just sit on the carpet
picking at tufts.
Kennedy stands up.
“There are other people
you can share stuff with.”
I look up at her, standing by the door.
“Where are you going?”
Kennedy mutters,
“I’ve gotta pee.”
Row
On the screen of my phone,
City takes a shot on goal,
but it’s straight into the hands
of the Liverpool keeper.
The players on both teams
jog closer to the midfield,
as the goalie sets up a kick.
Kennedy returns
from the bathroom
and looks at my phone.
“Soccer. It’s always
soccer with you.”
She sits down
on the carpet
right in front of me,
pulls out her phone,
and turns the screen around
so it’s right next to mine.
So I can’t avoid
seeing her screen.
Kennedy:
Can I borrow your copy of the physics study guide?
Ariana:
Sure. It’s on the desk in my room.
“Tell me. Why is your sister
responding to me if
she’s supposed to be missing.”
“She’s not missing.
I told you she’s gone.”
Kennedy lowers her phone,
and I lower mine.
She speaks slowly,
like she’s trying to stay calm,
but her jaw is clenched,
facial muscles tight.
“Why haven’t you just called her?”
I don’t say anything.
“What the hell
have we been doing?”
Kennedy bursts.
“It was your idea.
This whole Nancy Drew thing.”
My voice is five octaves higher.
“Yeah, because I didn’t know
that ‘gone’ meant
you’re just not talking to her.
I thought ‘gone’ meant
maybe something bad.”
Kennedy took a breath.
I still don’t say anything.
Picking at the carpet.
Leaving my mark on the floor.
Kennedy studies me,
but I don’t know
what she can learn.
other than Ariana
can ever understand
the depth of your emotional pain.
But I see you. A lot of us
have been there.
Different circumstances,
same pain.”
Kennedy stands up.
She steps over a pile of socks
waiting to be laundered
and hangs at the edge of the door.
“Pain doesn’t always
make someone a sympathetic character.
Sometimes pain just turns you
into a bitch.”
Ariana
A late-summer storm rolled through that evening
and the rain left a layer of gloss on the road.
Eight of us piled into Alex’s Jeep,
heading to a show at a venue in a nearby town.
But she took a curve down the wooded back road
with too much speed, and I felt the car glide on two wheels
while those of us crammed in the back seat, in the trunk,
and unrestrained inside the Jeep
hovered momentarily above the leather interior,
holding our breaths.
No one screamed like we should have.
No one said a word as we drove on two wheels.
Life scraped the asphalt in that moment,
and when the Jeep landed with an uncomfortable thud,
we landed upright on the road in our lane, and alive.
When we pulled up to the venue, everyone scrambled out.
“Shit, we’re so late,” I heard someone say.
Alex threw me the keys and ran for the stage door.
“Can you unload the merch?”
The white lines on the asphalt had faded.
The corners of the cardboard box holding T-shirts had collapsed.
I stared into the trunk of the Jeep and caught my breath,
trying to focus on the steady beat of my heart.
Row
I hear the sound of Kennedy’s socks
shuffling down the hall.
I hear the sound of her pulling on boots,
the sound of a door opening,
but I can’t hear the sound
of the snow falling
and piling outside.
Kennedy leaves
and I watch Salah drive one in
on the screen. A shot that sails
into the upper-right corner
that no keeper could touch.
I see the Liverpool fans rise
and wave their scarves
as the weather in England
turns from
sleet into snow.
I don’t know why any of this
happened,
but it did.
I don’t know why
anyone dies.
But they do.
Ariana
I always imagined that having a great friend
would be like re-watching your favorite movie.
Where you could finish each other’s lines.
Know exactly what was going to happen
and still get to cry and laugh at all your favorite parts.
But it wasn’t like that with Alex.
The more I
hung out with her, the less I understood her.
It was like I could spend an infinite amount of hours
and still wouldn’t get what she was about to say
or know when our favorite parts would even happen.
She was ecstatic when I was annoyed.
She was oblivious when I was hurting inside.
She never seemed to have this looming sense of dread
about the next moment the way I did,
and the way life seemed to burst at the seams all around her,
I wanted to sew it all back up and hide.
As I watched Alex up there on the stage,
the way her body stood poised,
with a guitar in hand, the way she looked
so present with the audience and the music,
the way joy landed on her face
with every holler, every cheer,
every stomp of feet from the crowd,
even as she stood next to an empty space
once occupied by her brother,
it wasn’t an act.
This was her.
I found myself wondering why so much life
could exist within one person,
how her pain wasn’t hidden or buried—