All the Bright Places

If he really loves you, he’ll find a way
.
At home, my parents are in the family room watching TV. “You’re home
early,” Mom says. She gets up from the couch to make room for me.
“There’s something you need to know.” She sits back down in the exact
same spot and my father clicks the television off. I immediately feel bad
because before I walked in they were having a peaceful, happy evening, and
now they are worried because they can tell by my voice that whatever it is
isn’t going to be good.
“On the first day of school after Christmas break, I climbed up on the bell
tower ledge. That’s where I met Finch. He was up there too, but he was the
one who talked me down, because once I realized where I was, I was scared
and I couldn’t move. I might have fallen off if he wasn’t there. But I didn’t
fall off, and that’s thanks to him. Well, now he’s up on that ledge. Not
literally,” I say to my dad before he can jump for the phone. “And we need to
help him.”
Mom says, “So you’ve been seeing him?”
“Yes. And I’m sorry, and I know you’re mad and disappointed, but I love
him, and he saved me. You can tell me later how unhappy you are with me
and how I’ve let you down, but right now I need to do what I can to make
sure he’ll be okay.”
I tell them everything, and afterward my mom is on the telephone, calling
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Finch’s mom. She leaves a message, and when she hangs up, she says, “Your
dad and I will figure out what to do. There’s a psychiatrist at the college, a
friend of your father’s. He’s talking to him now. Yes, we’re disappointed in
you, but I’m glad you told us. You did the right thing by telling us.”
I lie awake in my bedroom for at least an hour, too upset to sleep. When I do
drift off, I toss and turn and my dreams are a twisted, unhappy jumble. At
some point I wake up. I roll over and drift off again, and in my dreams I hear
it—the faint, faraway sound of rocks hitting the window.
I don’t get out of bed, because it’s cold and I’m half asleep and anyway the
sound isn’t real. 
Not now, Finch
, I say in the dream. 
Go away
.
And then I wake up fully and think, 
What if he was really here? What if he
actually got out of the closet and drove to see me?
But when I look out the
window, the street is empty.
I spend the day with my parents, obsessively checking Facebook for a new
message when I’m not pretending to focus on homework and 
Germ
. The
contributor replies come in from all the girls—
yes, yes, yes
. They sit in my
inbox unanswered.
My mother is on the phone periodically, trying to reach Mrs. Finch. When
she hasn’t heard from her by noon, Mom and Dad head to Finch’s house. No
one answers the door and they’re forced to leave a note. The psychiatrist has
(somewhat) better luck. He is able to talk to Decca. She leaves the doctor on
the line while she checks Finch’s bedroom and closet, but she says he isn’t
there. I wonder if he’s hiding somewhere. I send him a text, telling him I’m
sorry. By midnight, he still hasn’t texted back.
On Monday, Ryan finds me in the hall and walks me to Russian literature.
“Have you heard from all your colleges yet?” he wants to know.
“Only a couple.”
“What about Finch? Do you think you’ll wind up at the same place?” He’s
trying to be nice, but there’s something else there—maybe the hope that I’ll
tell him no, Finch and I broke up.
“I’m not sure what he’s going to do. I don’t think he knows.”
He nods and shifts his books to the other hand so that his free hand is now
next to mine. Every now and then I feel the brush of his skin. For each step
we take, about five people call out to him or nod a what’s-up. Their eyes
move past him to me, and I wonder what they see.
Eli Cross is having a party. You should come with me
.
I wonder if he remembers that it was his brother’s party Eleanor and I were
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leaving when we had the accident. Then I wonder for a minute what it would
be like to be with him again, if a person could ever go back to someone like
good, steady Ryan after being with Theodore Finch. No one will ever call
Ryan Cross a freak or say mean things about him behind his back. He wears
the right clothes and says the right things and is going to the right college
after all of this is said and done.
When I get to U.S. Geography, Finch isn’t there, of course, because he’s been
expelled, and I can’t concentrate on anything Mr. Black is saying. Charlie and
Brenda haven’t heard from Finch in a couple of days, but they don’t seem
worried because this is how he is, this is what he does, this is the way he’s
always been.
Mr. Black starts calling on us, one by one, down the rows, asking for
progress reports on our projects. When he gets to me, I say, “Finch isn’t here.”
“I know very well … he’s not here and that he won’t … be coming back to
school.… How are you … coming along on … your work, Miss Markey?”
I think of all the things I could mention: Theodore Finch is living in his
closet. I think there’s something seriously wrong with him. We haven’t been
able to wander lately, and we still have four or five places left on our map.
I say, “We’re learning a lot about this state of ours. I’d never seen much of
Indiana before I started, but now I know it really well.”
Mr. Black seems happy with this, and then he’s on to the next person.
Under my desk, I text Finch: