Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready

Logan’s body by the shoulders. The head lolled to the side on a rubbery neck.
    “How could you do this to us?” he shrieked. “How could you do this to Mom and Dad?”
    Logan’s ghost watched Mickey’s meltdown with wide round eyes. “I didn’t mean to. Swear to God. Please don’t—”
    “Stupid. Asshole!” Mickey’s mouth twisted in a silent howl. He pressed his forehead to his brother’s chest, then his arms snaked around the limp body until he clutched it in an embrace.
“Why?”
    Siobhan kept sobbing. Dylan kept staring. I just tried to keep breathing.
    Megan went to the railing and said, “Everybody go home. Now.”
    I felt four tight walls emerge within me, thick and soft as cotton, muting the noise and pain. Safe in my cocoon, and knowing it wouldn’t last, I turned to comfort Logan.
    But he was gone.
    The paramedics made everyone but Mickey sit downstairs in the living room, out of sight but not quite out of earshot.
    On the other side of the wide, empty space where an hour ago I had danced with Logan, Siobhan sat curled up in Connor’s arms, her tears staining his maroon T-shirt. Connor stroked her back and stared at the floor, which was still strewn with beer cups.
    Brian paced beneath the wide archway leading to the dining room, crumpling his baseball cap in his hands, then unfolding it and putting it back on his head.
    Instinct told me to keep my mouth shut instead of screaming at him. It felt like my fault, anyway, not Brian’s. If I hadn’t yelled at Logan for drinking the Liquid Stupid, he’d still be alive. Maybe passed out or puking up his guts, but definitely not lying on the carpet upstairs surrounded by EMTs murmuring words like “synergy” and “ventricular fibrillation.”
    “Synergy,” Megan scoffed as she rubbed my cold hands betweenhers. “I haven’t heard that word since fifth grade. What’s the point of teaching a bunch of ten-year-olds not to mix cocaine and alcohol? We forgot all about it by the time we turned eleven, much less seventeen.”
    “Oh God.” My own heart felt like it would twitch and halt. “Logan died on his birthday.”
    “No, no, no.” Her voice pitched up, like she was chiding a dog. “Look, it’s already Saturday.” She pointed at the grandfather clock in the corner.
    One fifteen.
    “Isn’t there a song about one fifteen on a Saturday night?” Megan asked, obviously trying to distract me.
    “Ten fifteen. By the Cure.” My lungs seized in a sob. Even music would hurt now without Logan. Music, food, texting, shopping, the Inner Harbor, the Ocean City boardwalk. I wanted to move far away, take someone else’s past and future. It would hurt too much to be me now.
    Megan crammed another tissue into my hands just as Aunt Gina walked through the front door.
    Gina looked up the stairs at the paramedics, police, and what used to be Logan. Her face remained still, like she had rehearsed this moment to stay calm. But the underside of her jaw twitched as she swallowed.
    Gina turned to the living room. “Oh, sweetheart.” She hurried over, and I realized she’d been waiting up for me. Her makeup was still on, and her short blond waves hadn’t been combed out.
    Somehow I managed to stand so she could hug me. “I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered. “You have no idea.”
    She held me tight for several seconds, murmuring words I couldn’t make out. I wanted to beg her to take me home, but she still had a job to do.
    Gina kissed my cheek. “I’ll be right back.” She strode into the foyer and hustled up the stairs. As if from a distance, I heard her ask in her lawyer voice, “Who’s the officer in charge?”
    “No, it’s not an emergency.” Sitting in the corner armchair, Dylan spit his words into the phone receiver. “I’m calling at one a.m. because I have a tummyache and I want my mommy.” He paused. “Well, you’re, like, the fourth person I’ve talked to, and everyone asks the same thing, so obviously I do need to get sarcastic.