Every You, Every Me by David Levithan Read Free Book Online Page A

much. Because he was the only one who knew.
    “I wasn’t sure I’d ever be in here again,” he said, staying in the perfect middle of the room, as if he didn’t want to touch anything. “It all feels so empty now, doesn’t it? It’s like her spirit’s gone. So it’s just a room. And that’s so completely surreal. I know you think I don’t care about it, but that’s not true. I’m just not as open as you, okay? That’s how I deal with it. But that doesn’t make this easier. I don’t want to be here, Evan—and I can’t help but feel that you do. It’s your way of keeping things going even after they’ve stopped.”
    “They haven’t stopped,” I told him. “Even with her gone, things don’t stop. As long as we’re around, they’ll keep going.”
    “Remember at the beginning, when we fought it? When we said we weren’t going to let go of her?”
    I studied you. You studied me. We lay there. I moved my hand gently onto your arm.
    I nodded. “Yeah, that didn’t work.”
    Finally, he touched something—a picture frame, with you and your parents safely inside. “I don’t think they’d be very happy to find us here,” he said.
    “It’s not your fault,” your mom had said that first night. But she never said it again.
    “I like to think Ariel knows we’re here,” I said. “That somehow she senses it. Wherever she is.”
    I moved my hand gently onto your arm.
    Jack put down the photo. “That’s assuming she’s forgiven us.”
    “Evan,” you said. “Don’t fall in love with me, okay?”
    “Yeah. I guess so.”
    “I’m not in love with you,” I said.
    I looked at your mirror, which was surrounded by more photos. Some of you and Jack. Some of you and me. A couple of Jack alone. One of me alone. Only one of Jack and me together, from Six Flags in May.
    You didn’t move your arm. You let me rest there. You didn’t pull away. You pulled closer. You were so good to me. You knew and pretended you didn’t.
    “Let’s always love each other, and never be in love with each other.”
    And I agreed.
    “Evan?” Jack said.
    I pointed to the picture from Six Flags. “That was a good day, wasn’t it?”
    And then …
    “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the picture next to it.
    Jack didn’t see it at first—it was small compared to the other snapshots, the same size as the first photo I’d received.
    “Look,” he said, taking it out of the mirror frame and handing it to me.

9F

9G
    “It has to be the same photographer,” he said.
    I looked at it closely.
    “Is that Ariel?” I asked.
    “I think so. I’m not sure, but I think it is.”
    “On the railway bridge.”
    “Walking on the tracks. Jesus.”
    “You don’t think she was—”
    “Trying to kill herself? Doesn’t look like it. And it would have to be one scary individual to take photos of a suicide attempt.”
    “It’s like she’s floating there. Like she’s already dead.”
    “Ariel the angel, huh?”
    That sounded dumb. “Not really,” I mumbled.
    “You see,” Jack said, taking the photo back from me, “I don’t think it looks like she’s floating at all. I think she’s teetering. Which is just about right. It’s shaky because she’s about to fall.”
    The train comes. If you stay on the tracks, you die. If you jump off the bridge, you die.
    “So who took it?” I asked.
    There’s always a train coming eventually.
    “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? If I remember correctly, we’re here to find that out.”
    “The journals,” I said.
    “Yeah, the journals.”
    I knew you kept them in a box under your bed. I knew that because I’d seen you take one out, write in it, then put it away. I’d never looked in the box, and had certainly never read anything you’d written. That would have been the worst kind of violation, to read your words uninvited. Now, though, it was like all those rules were off.
    I reached down for the box I’m sorry , and Jack said, “Wait.” I looked back up at