All the Bright Places

VIOLET
April 26
On Sunday, around ten thirty in the morning, Kate Finch shows up at our
door. She looks as if she hasn’t slept in weeks. When I invite her in, she
shakes her head. “Do you have any idea where Theo might be?”
“I don’t hear from him anymore.”
She starts nodding. “Okay.” She nods and nods. “Okay. Okay. It’s just that
he’s been checking in every Saturday with Mom or me, either by email or
voicemail when he knows he won’t get us live. I mean, every Saturday. We
didn’t hear from him yesterday, and then this morning we get this weird
email.”
I try not to feel jealous of the fact that he’s been checking in with them but
not me. After all, they’re his family. I’m only me, the most important person
in his life, for a while at least. But okay. I get it. He’s moved on. I’ve moved
on too.
She hands me a piece of paper. It’s the email, sent at 9:43 a.m. 
I’m
remembering the time we went to Indianapolis to eat at that pizza place,
the one with the organ that came up out of the floor. Kate must have been
eleven, I was ten, Decca was a baby. Mom was there. Dad too. When the
organ started playing—so loud the tables shook—the light show started.
Remember? It was like the aurora borealis. But what stays with me most
is all of you. We were happy. We were good. Each and every one of us.
The happy times went away for a while, but they’re coming back. Mom,
forty-one’s not old. Decca, sometimes there’s beauty in the tough words—
it’s all in how you read them. Kate, be careful with your own heart, and
remember that you’re better than some guy. You’re one of the best there
is. You all are.
“I thought you might know why he wrote this, or maybe you might have
heard from him.”
“I don’t, and I haven’t. I’m sorry.” I hand her the email and promise to let
her know if by some miracle he gets in touch with me, and then she goes
away, and I shut the door. I lean against it because for some reason I feel the
need to catch my breath.
My mom appears, the skin between her eyebrows pinched. “Are you
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okay?”
I almost say sure, yes, great, but I feel myself folding in two, and I just hug
her and rest my head on her shoulder and let her momness surround me for a
few minutes. Then I go upstairs and turn on the computer and sign onto
Facebook.
There’s a new message, as of 9:47 a.m., four minutes after he sent the email
to his family.