Page 8 of Sweet Oblivion

Poor Aya. Her dad had basically replaced her because he couldn’t stand her mom. Ugly. Yeah, that word held a world of fights, silences, and heartbreak.

Grownups could be such petty shits. I told Aya so but got no response. She’d probably started climbing down the freaking Himalayas.

Oh, and I want to see your view, I typed. Do one of those real-time panos so I get the sound of wind and the birds and all that.

I’d catch her in a lie if she didn’t send it, and then I could ignore her. No one would believe her if she decided to share my story. I’d say I’d been hacked.

But if she was telling the truth…well, then this Aya chick was badass. And sweet.

I dug the sweetness in her replies for some reason, maybe because she reminded me of my mom before Lev’s death. I missed her—that mom, the one who told me often how much she cared, who showed it in her hugs and by carving out time for me every single day.

As bad as my situation was, I knew my parents still cared about my well-being. My dad brought me into the studio off of Sixth Street for jam sessions, and my mom hugged me when she came home, which was less and less frequent the more she and Dad fought.

So, the problem wasn’t me. Like Lev said, there’d long been an unequal balance of success in our family. And it was the heavy blanket of grief and my parents’ inability to communicate with each other. This caused tension between them and left me emotionally raw and unsure.

That’s what the therapist I saw every Wednesday said, anyway, and my parents had both agreed with her when we visited together again for the second time last month. Mom and Dad were just overwhelmed. Tired.

The situation wasn’t my fault.

But it was—at least some of it. Maybe if I’d written that song Dad wanted, he and Mom wouldn’t have been fighting that night, and Lev would still be alive.

I locked my jaw, wishing I’d been able to compose something—even a shit jingle Dad could have screwed around with—to save my family.

Much as I wanted to believe the shrinks and my parents, Lev’s death still felt like my fault.

I wanted to tell Aya that, too, but I wouldn’t. Sharing those secrets was foolhardy.

Because email was too slow, I clicked on the number she’d listed in her signature and exited the school email account. I brought up my text app. I sent her a message, and she replied.

Yes, this is me. Hang on. I’m trying to do the panorama.

A moment later, my text app chimed again, and I opened a slow video of the most rugged, beautiful country I’d ever seen. My jaw dropped.

It’s beautiful. Why would you want to leave that?

My mother said we’ll leave when Clean Water wraps up the sanitation project.

Show me those handholds and how you get down, I wrote.

She sent the picture, and once again, my jaw dropped. I squinted, trying to make out any place to grip.

This girl was definitely badass.

What time is it there? I asked.

It’s about seven in the morning. I have to get back down to help feed the sheep.

I laughed. I was talking to freaking Heidi, the sheepherder. Except this girl’s parents were wealthy enough to stay at the same exclusive bungalows in Turks and Caicos that my family had stayed in, and her dad was some kind of British lord or something. At least, that’s what Ms. Gates had said during English class.

I went downstairs, unsurprised to find Steve in the living room. He was former Army and told me he’d seen some serious action during his multiple tours in Iraq and then Afghanistan. Even when he was still, he gave off this air of faint menace. Or it could’ve been his light eyes that never remained still. They were always narrowed enough to make me think he could actually see my evil thoughts. He was taller than my dad by a good three or four inches and thicker through the shoulders, chest, and arms. He got up every morning at five a.m. and ran seven to ten miles, which was probably why he looked twenty years younger than my dad, even though he was in his early thirties to my dad’s forties.

“What’s up?” Steve asked, looking up from a crossword puzzle. His pale eyes assessed me. His blond hair had grown out from the buzz to a conservative cut, and his face was cleanly shaven, showing off a deep chin dimple.

“Apparently we’re going to get a new kid at school. I’ve been wondering about her.”

He raised his eyebrows. “And?”

“I’m sure you know about her. I want to, too.”

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