And so I stand quietly in Finch’s black T-shirt, thinking. In all his words, the preacher doesn’t mention suicide. The family is calling his death an accident because they didn’t find a proper note, and so the preacher talks about the tragedy of someone dying so young, of a life ended too soon, of possibilities never realized. I stand, thinking how it wasn’t an accident at all and how “suicide victim” is an interesting term. The victim part of it implies they had no choice. And maybe Finch didn’t feel like he had a choice, or maybe he wasn’t trying to kill himself at all but just going in search of the bottom. But I’ll never really know, will I?
Then I think: You can’t do this to me. You were the one who lectured me about living. You were the one who said I had to get out and see what was right in front of me and make the most of it and not wish my time away and find my mountain because my mountain was waiting, and all that adds up to life. But then you leave. You can’t just do that. Especially when you know what I went through losing Eleanor.
I try to remember the last words I said to him, but I can’t. Only that they were angry and normal and unremarkable. What would I have said to him if I’d known I would never see him again?
As everyone begins to break apart and walk away, Ryan finds me to say, “I’ll call you later?” It’s a question, so I answer it with a nod. He nods back and then he’s gone.
Charlie mutters, “What a bunch of phonies,” and I’m not sure if he’s talking about our classmates or the Finch family or the entire congregation.
Bren’s voice is brittle. “Somewhere, Finch is watching this, all ‘What do you expect?’ I hope he’s flipping them off.”
Mr. Finch was the one to officially ID the body. The paper reported that, by the time Finch was found, he’d probably been dead several hours.
I say, “Do you really think he’s somewhere?” Brenda blinks at me. “Like anywhere? I mean, I like to think wherever he is, maybe he can’t see us because he’s alive and in some other world, better than this. The kind of world he would have designed if he could have. I’d like to live in a world designed by Theodore Finch.” I think: For a while, I did.
Before Brenda can answer, Finch’s mother is suddenly beside me, red eyes peering into my face. She sweeps me into a hug and holds on like she never plans to let go. “Oh, Violet,” she cries. “Oh, dear girl. Are you okay?”
I pat her like you would pat a child, and then Mr. Finch is there, and he is hugging me with his big arms, his chin on my head. I can’t breathe, and then I feel someone pulling me away, and my father says, “I think we’ll take her home.” His voice is curt and cold. I let myself be led to the car.
At home, I pick at my dinner and listen to my parents talk about the Finches in controlled, even voices that have been carefully chosen so as not to upset me.
Dad: I wish I could have given those people a piece of my mind today.
Mom: She had no right to ask Violet to do that.
She glances at me and says too brightly, “Do you need more vegetables, honey?”
Me: No, thank you.
Before they can start in on Finch, and the selfishness of suicide, and the fact that he took his life when Eleanor had hers taken from her, when she didn’t get a say in the matter—such a wasteful, hateful, stupid thing to do—I ask to be excused, even though I’ve barely touched my food. I don’t have to help with the dishes, so I go upstairs and sit in my closet. My calendar is shoved into a corner. I unfold it now, smoothing it out, and look at all the blank days, too many to count, that I didn’t mark off because these were days I had with Finch.
I think:
I hate you.
If only I’d known.
If only I’d been enough.
I let you down.
I wish I could have done something.
I should have done something. Was it my fault?
Why wasn’t I enough?
Come back.
I love you.
I’m sorry.
VIOLET
May—weeks 1, 2, and 3
At school, the entire student body seems to be in mourning. There is a lot of black being worn, and you can hear sniffling in every classroom. Someone has built a shrine to Finch in one of the large glass cases in the main hallway, near the principal’s office. His school picture has been blown up, and they have left the case open so that we can all post tributes around it—Dear Finch, they all begin. You are loved and missed. We love you. We miss you.
I want to tear them all down and shred them up and put them in the pile with the rest of the bad, false words, because that’s exactly where they belong.
Our teachers remind us there are just five more weeks of school, and I should be happy, but instead I feel nothing. I feel a lot of nothing these days. I’ve cried a few times, but mostly I’m empty, as if whatever makes me feel and hurt and laugh and love has been surgically removed, leaving me hollowed out like a shell.
I tell Ryan we can only ever be friends, and it’s just as well because he doesn’t want to touch me. No one does. It’s like they’re afraid I might be contagious. This is part of the suicideby-association phenomenon.
I sit with Brenda, Lara, and the Brianas at lunch until the Wednesday after Finch’s funeral, when Amanda walks over, sets her tray down, and, without looking at the other girls, says to me, “I’m sorry about Finch.”
For a minute, I think Brenda is going to hit her, and I kind of want her to, or at least I want to see what would happen if she did. But when Bren just sits there, I nod at Amanda. “Thanks.”
“I shouldn’t have called him a freak. And I want you to know I broke up with Roamer.”
“Too little, too late,” Brenda mutters. She stands suddenly, knocking into the table, making everything rattle. She grabs her tray, tells me she’ll see me later, and marches off.
On Thursday, I meet with Mr. Embry because Principal Wertz and the school board are requiring all friends and classmates of Theodore Finch to have at least one session with a counselor, even though The Parents, as my mother and father refer to Mr. Finch and Mrs. Finch, are insisting it was an accident, which, I guess, means we’re free to mourn him out in the open in a normal, healthy, unstigmatized way. No need to be ashamed or embarrassed since suicide isn’t involved.
I ask for Mr. Embry instead of Mrs. Kresney because he was Finch’s counselor. From behind his desk, he frowns at me, and I suddenly wonder if he’s going to blame me like I blame myself.