The End, page 13
Stina steps out of the car and I shake my head. Tilda didn’t want to talk to me when she was alive. Why would she answer now, even if she could?
“You don’t want to come in?” Stina says, leaning in.
I shake my head again, and she sighs before slamming the car door. But when I see her pass the hood of the car, she’s donned a welcoming smile and is waving happily to someone who greets her.
3 WEEKS, 1 DAY LEFT
SIMON
Emma and I are lying in her bed watching a movie on her laptop, but I’m struggling to focus on the action hero’s thrilling chase through a crowded railroad station. All I can think about is that the actors and every extra in the background will soon be dead; the station, the desert landscape, the city streets the car chase goes through will soon be gone.
Judette has gone with Stina to the church. Besides Boomer, we’re home alone. We’ve made popcorn, and Emma has sprinkled butter, pepper, and shredded Parmesan over hers. Her hand moves between the bowl and her mouth in time with the upbeat music.
“God, it’s really kicking!” she says between mouthfuls. “I think it likes popcorn.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No.” She laughs. “Can you believe I have tiny feet in my stomach? How weird is that?”
“Extremely weird.”
“Do you want to feel it?”
I shake my head. She turns back to the computer as another explosion turns the room a flaming orange.
“I just wish Micke was here,” she says.
I hesitate. “When did you last talk to him?”
“Today. You’ve got to see the pictures he sent me.”
She wipes her fingers on a paper towel and gets out her phone, pulls up a photo and shows it to me. Micke is wearing something that resembles a windbreaker made of mosquito netting. The thin mesh covers his face, too, but when I zoom in, I can tell that he’s smiling.
“His brother basically lives in a mosquito-filled marsh outside Överkalix.”
“Cozy. No wonder he likes it up there.”
“Right? Look at this one.”
The next picture shows the inside of the house. Micke and his family are sitting by the kitchen window. With their backs to the light, they’re dark silhouettes. Through the window I can glimpse a smoking grill on the lawn.
“They can’t sit outside because of the mosquitoes, so they rush out to turn the meat.”
“Gross.”
I suddenly get the feeling that tiny insects are crawling up my legs and across my face. My nose and ears start itching.
“I’m not heartbroken about not being there,” Emma says. “I like his parents. I actually do. His brother, on the other hand . . . a world of eww.”
She lowers her phone. I notice that the photos were sent this morning. At least Micke is still in touch. She’s not imagining that, too.
I scratch the phantom feeling of mosquitoes from my calves.
“Your popcorn stinks. I can’t believe you’re eating that stuff.”
“It isn’t me, it’s the baby.”
“Yeah, right.”
Emma scrapes the final kernels out of the bowl and pours them into her mouth. They crunch between her teeth as she chews.
“I hope Micke comes home soon,” she says. “But there are so many people to say goodbye to. His whole family is up there. And you know how much he loves nature.”
Machine-gun fire throws pulsing lights across the room. Emma wipes her mouth with her paper towel.
“He can’t wait too long, can he?” she says, placing a hand on her stomach. “We haven’t even childproofed the apartment.”
She turns back to the computer. Again, I struggle to understand how she can make sense of this whole mess. I have the sneaking suspicion that trying to understand her will make my head hurt, too.
And I can’t ask her about it. I promised Judette.
I take out my phone, checking to see if I’ve missed a message from Johannes. He still hasn’t contacted me.
“Who was that guy again?” Emma asks, pointing at the computer screen.
“No idea.”
My attention’s been caught by the image on my phone screen. It’s from Ali’s apartment. Hampus and Amanda are on the living room sofa, curled up between two girls I’ve never seen before. Candles glow on the low table. There are pink and violet dahlias that must’ve come from someone’s garden. They’ve printed out Tilda’s profile picture and framed it.
I took that picture of her. We were on a walk in the forest with Boomer. She’d gotten ahead of me on the broad path, and I’d called her name, snapping the photo just as she turned around.
I scroll down. More pictures. Hampus calls it a memorial service. When I try to click on Amanda’s and Elin’s profiles, I notice that they’ve both blocked me.
Emma reaches toward my popcorn bowl, then stops herself. From the corner of my eye, I spot her looking at my phone.
When I get out of bed, it’s not actually a conscious decision. My body just walks itself into the hallway. I take my old Adidas out of the closet, the ones I can just step into.
“Where are you going?” Emma asks, following me into the hall.
“There’s something I have to do.”
Boomer comes barreling out of the living room, wagging his tail hopefully.
“You’re staying here,” I inform him.
He yawns and stretches his back, then looks up at me and starts wagging his tail again.
“Don’t go,” Emma says.
I don’t respond. I lift my red track jacket off the hook.
“Simon. It’s late.”
“I’ll be back before the moms are.”
“It’s not that. I’m just worried that . . .” She falls silent.
“What?”
“People want someone to blame. It sucks that they chose you. But . . . I’m just worried.”
I shake my head.
“I’m sick of hiding.”
NAME: LUCINDA
TELLUS #0392811002
POST 0018
Ilook at the pictures from the “memorial thing” Amanda invited me to. There’s no sign of Simon. Some of the guys from his class are there, a few people from the swim team, but most of them are strangers to me.
They upload clips of themselves raising their glasses to Tilda’s memory; they photograph themselves crying and holding each other; they call her the loveliest, the best—the same soppy things people said about me. I picture them posing for photos before wiping away mascara tears.
They haven’t earned their tears, but they probably don’t understand that.
People often thought they were closer to Tilda than they actually were. She talked so openly about herself, said things that could seem intimate, but she’d never tell you how she really felt. The stories were only ever superficial, and it fascinated me how rarely people realized that. Not that Tilda was fake or shallow. I understand if it sounds that way. It’s just that she was always on. If you were sad, she could comfort you; if you were angry, she wouldn’t hesitate to take your side; if you needed to laugh, she’d crack jokes until you did. She could be anything you wanted her to be, as long as you didn’t want her to be weak.
She barely even exposed that side of herself to me. I’ve known her since I was seven years old, and she could still be an enigma.
I miss her so much.
SIMON
Simon,” Ali says when he opens the door. “Shit.”
He glances over his shoulder. Muted music is playing inside. I hear sobs and low murmurs.
“Can I come in?”
My voice echoes through the stairwell. I notice the shoes strewn behind Ali and across the hallway floor.
“Bro,” he says. “I wanted to invite you. I just don’t know if this is the time.”
I stare at him. Apart from Johannes, he was the one I liked the most. I had no idea he was such a coward.
“So you’re not going to let me in?”
Elin peeks into the hallway and then vanishes when she sees that it’s me.
“Hi, Elin!” I shout. “Nice to see you!”
“This was a spontaneous thing,” Ali insists.
A few jackets fall to the floor as I push past him into the apartment.
Everyone is gathered in the living room. Everyone I chose over my moms this summer.
Their eyes are red rimmed. Their cheeks are flushed. I can almost smell the tears. There’s a sense of hysteria in the air.
And I realize how wrecked we all are—how much pressure we’re under. A little while ago, we had our whole lives ahead of us. Now we’re all going to die, and no one will arrange memorial services for us. This is bigger than Tilda. They’re mourning themselves and the loss of a future.
Elin begins sobbing loudly. Sait laughs nervously at something Moa whispers. She glares at me.
Not one of them wants me here. Johannes was right: It’s easier for them to imagine I did it.
The balcony door is open. Amanda is standing there smoking, her back to the room.
“Hey, man.” Hampus’s words are slurred. “You’re really fucking sweaty. Did you run all the way here?”
I take him in. The hooded eyes. The slack mouth.
“What are you even doing here?” Moa asks.
“What are you doing here?” I shoot back, lightning-fast. “You barely knew her.”
Moa’s eyes narrow, but she doesn’t respond. Sait puts his hand on her knee.
The room is perfectly quiet except for Elin’s soft whimpers and the cheesy song coming from the speakers. I’ve never heard it before, but I know Tilda would have hated it.
I walk up to the low table and pick up the photo of Tilda.
Why did you leave me here and let everyone think I murdered you? Who were you going to talk to? What was so fucking important that it couldn’t wait?
I can feel everyone’s eyes on me. The room is sweltering. My breaths seem too loud. The more aware of them I become, the more difficult I find it to breathe.
When I finally look up, black dots dance before my eyes. How does someone who isn’t a murderer act, and how do I mimic that accurately? I’m so afraid to seem guilty that I’m sure I must look it.
“You’d better leave.”
Amanda’s come in from the balcony.
“Can everyone just relax?” Hampus says.
Amanda silences him with a glare. He looks at the floor.
“We saw you,” she says, coming toward me, bringing with her the scents of cool night air and cigarette smoke.
Up close, I can tell she’s fighting back tears.
Don’t you get it, Amanda? We both miss her. And we miss Johannes. We need each other.
“Why would I have done it?” I say.
“Because she didn’t want you,” Elin sneers from the sofa. “And you didn’t want anyone else to have her either.”
I try to laugh, but it comes out as a gasp. A drop of sweat rolls down my back and into my underwear.
“You’ve watched too much bad television.”
“You know it happens in real life, too,” Amanda says. “Especially nowadays.”
“I loved her.”
“Maybe that’s why,” Elin says.
totally obsessed with her
My rage comes back full force when I spot Ali. “What about you? Do you think I did it?”
His eyes dart away. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
“You have to believe something.”
Ali slides a look at Hampus, who is still staring at the floor.
I put the photograph of Tilda back on the table. It falls over, face-first.
I’ve had enough.
“If I killed her, we all did,” I say.
“Simon, leave,” Amanda snaps.
“We knew what she was doing. You all knew she needed help. But we were too fucking scared.”
Elin shakes her head. “We tried.”
“Not hard enough. Not you, not me, no one in here did enough.”
“Get out!” Moa yells.
“You just talked about her behind her back. You spread rumors about her. Fucking hypocrites.”
Tilda’s word. It seems to sink in. I can feel the room shift. And now I can’t stop myself. Being angry is so gratifying.
“How can you be so sure it’s me?” I ask to Amanda. “Are you? Or is this to get back at me for Johannes?”
Amanda gives me a disgusted look.
“This is about Tilda. And she wouldn’t want you here, either.” She opens something on her phone and holds it up to my face. “Look what she wrote about you,” she says. “This is how she felt.”
I don’t want to see it, but Tilda’s message glows up at me:
WOULD LOVE TO CHILL BUT DON’T WANT TO COME IF SIMON IS THERE. HE’S MAKING ME PANIC RIGHT NOW. CAN’T HE GET THAT IT’S OVER? GOING TO DAD’S INSTEAD.
It was sent on the night we watched Armageddon together.
Every sentence is like a punch to the gut. I wonder if Tilda wrote similar messages to the others in this room. Some of them probably showed them to the police.
“It’s probably for the best if you leave,” Ali says.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s probably for the best.”
I’m going to show them. I don’t know how, but I’m going to find out who killed Tilda.
3 WEEKS LEFT
NAME: LUCINDA
TELLUS #0392811002
POST 0019
Iwent to see Tilda’s mom, Caroline, today. I walked along the neighborhood streets rather than cutting through the yards. In the past, I wouldn’t even knock before entering the house. Now, I wasn’t even sure I was welcome.
I rang the bell and hoped that no one would come to the door. Then at least I’d be able to tell myself (and you) that I’d tried. But I heard steps, quick and light, so similar to Tilda’s. Caroline opened the door, and I don’t know which one of us was more shocked.
It was like seeing a ghost. As if whoever killed Tilda had killed Caroline, too.
The Caroline I knew was gone. Caroline, with her clear eyes and shiny hair, who glowed from daily exercise, and chia pudding for breakfast, and freshly pressed vegetable juices. Whose bright smile was a living advertisement for the clinic where she worked as a dental hygienist, whose posture was still straight and supple after a short career as a figure skater when she was my age. Caroline, who had more energy than anyone I knew. Now, her eyes were dead. Her lips were peeling. A vein in her forehead pounded like it was trying to burst through the skin.
I thought I caught the scent of chlorine and wet towels when I stepped into the hallway—the scent of Tilda and my old life. Everything was as it used to be, and yet nothing was the same. How can I make you understand how unnerving it felt? It was as if the house, itself, were in mourning, as if the sunlight couldn’t penetrate the windows. It felt dead. We sat in the living room, on the sofa where Tilda and I used to lie watching shows after school, where we’d quizzed each other, fantasized about the future together. An entire family lived here back then. Caroline is alone in the house now.
She asked me how I was, and I answered her briefly. She was looking at me like she couldn’t quite believe I was there. Maybe she also felt as if she were seeing a ghost. I had put on my wig and tried to draw my eyebrows on with a pen I’d never used, but I know what I look like, how my clothes hang off my body. Caroline suddenly looked ashamed. I think she thought something like You were supposed to die, not Tilda.
Caroline asked me if I thought Simon had done it, and I said I didn’t know.
She talked about which flowers she was going to pick from the garden to decorate the coffin. We looked at the picture she’d chosen of Tilda. It had been in the local paper a few years ago, taken at the pool—Tilda is wearing her swimming cap. It was from that moment I’ve told you about, when Tilda qualified for the Swedish Youth Swimming Championship and had to comfort me afterward.
“I was always so proud of Tilda,” Caroline said. “But now I can’t help but wonder if I pushed her too hard.”
I promised her she hadn’t. That no one pushed Tilda as hard as she pushed herself.
“But maybe I made her that way,” Caroline said. “Maybe she thought she had to keep performing for my sake.”
I’ve thought a lot about what Amanda wrote in the chat. Where did Tilda’s winner mentality come from?
“I just wanted the best for her,” Caroline said.
Was there something to her fears? Caroline was, without a doubt, the parent who’d come to the most competitions and training camps. She’d screamed herself hoarse in the bleachers. Followed us into the changing rooms to talk strategy. Questioned Tommy’s plans in front of everyone with statements like “You know Amanda can’t take the pressure of the final stretch.” Once, Tilda was disqualified for making a mistake in a turn. Caroline had yelled at the judge until Tommy forced her to leave. Other parents complained about her sometimes.
It looks harsh when I write it down like this. I hardly even considered it at the time. It was just the way it was. Caroline cared. It was good and bad. She’d cheer us on, help us out, organize carpools, make hotel reservations, and raise money. Sometimes, I’d be jealous that Tilda had so much support from home. Dad supported me, too, of course; he came to meets when he could. But it didn’t come close to Caroline.
Tilda found it hard at times. But more than anything, she was proud of her mom.
She loved her.
I said everything I could think of to comfort Caroline, but no words would ever really be enough. If there were more time, she might learn to live with the grief, but we only have three weeks to go. And Klas isn’t any help. On the contrary, they disagree on everything about the funeral. He wants a Truther priest to lead the service. And he doesn’t want Tilda to be cremated. But the morgues are overcrowded. There is no guarantee that any of the the bodies will be buried before September 16.
“I refuse to let her lie in some freezer,” Caroline said.
She’s gotten her way. The body Tilda pushed so hard is going to be burned.
