I sat in the grass in a shocked silence. I could still feel where her hands had clasped mine. I was afraid to move. Afraid it would break the spell, and I wouldn’t be able to feel her hands squeezing mine again.

  I didn’t move when I heard the footsteps behind me.

  “Wow,” Jake said. He joined me on the ground.

  “Is this really happening?” Ava asked, more to herself than to us.

  Jake took off his cap and mussed his hair. “She wants us to kill him? How?”

  Once again, I wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation. My mind was swimming with all that Abigail had just told us. She said in order for us to get out, we had to wish ourselves out. Genuinely. And Tyler had been hesitant to say he even wanted to leave.

  I didn’t know how to ask what I needed to ask him. Should I build up to it with small talk? Or maybe I should just go for it.

  So, I cut through Jake and Ava’s conversation and asked: “Tyler, do you not want to go home?”

  That shut everyone up. All eyes were on Tyler. I felt kind of bad for putting him on the spot like that. But not really.

  “I do,” Tyler said but his eyes darted away from us.

  “Someone here wants to stay,” I said, slowly. “And you hesitated to say you wanted to go back home.”

  “So did you,” he shot back.

  My stomach twisted. Now he was trying to pin this on me? “I want to go home. Of course, I want to go home. Look, I’m not trying to accuse you of anything-”

  “Then stop,” Tyler said.

  I bit my lip. That had not gone well. I guess, that’s what I get for speaking up.

  Tyler took a deep breath, letting his shoulders rise and fall. He looked away from us as he spoke. “She also said, someone has to wish us back.”

  “Yeah.” Where was he going with this?

  Tyler picked at the grass next to his shoes. A charged silence fell over the rest of us. Ava made worried eye contact with me. Then Tyler said, “Did you know my older sister died?”

  We didn’t say anything. Of course, we’d known that. My mind flicked back to the portrait in his entryway. The happy girl smiling out of her frame was dead. It felt a little surreal.

  Tyler pulled a large clump of grass out of the ground, spraying bits of dirt around him. “She, uh. She, you know.”

  “Committed suicide,” Ava whispered from beside me, finishing Tyler’s thought.

  A pit opened up in my stomach. I remembered how sad and tired Mrs. Liu had looked.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. It felt like the most useless thing to say. How was me being sorry going to change anything or make anyone feel better. It was pointless and stupid. But what else could I say. There was nothing else. Someone ought to make more words for these situations.

  Tyler turned to face us again. “I’m sorry too.” He took another deep breath and pulled his hands away from the grass and into his lap. “There wasn’t a note or anything. She was just there one day and gone the next... I think my parents wish I’d’ve died instead.”

  He said it so simply, like it was fact.

  “Oh, don’t say that.” Ava said.

  “I think they’re right. If I’d died everything would be better and you guys wouldn’t even be here. Everything bad is because of me.”

  “That’s not true,” Ava insisted.

  I felt crummy. I knew I should say something, but I couldn’t think of what. A million “I’m sorry’s” floated around in my head but that just wasn’t good enough.

  “They hate me,” Tyler said and then he was crying. It scared me, the tears. I don’t know why but the tears scared me more than anything I’d seen all day. And still still I didn’t know what to say or how to say it.

  Meanwhile even Jake thought of something. “Nobody in their right mind would hate you,” he said. He was quiet but Tyler heard it and shook his head.

  “They hate me. I swear to God they do.”

  I thought back to the assembly we’d had in middle school for Tyler’s sister. Benjamin was small enough that news of the suicide had been a huge deal. Speakers had gotten up on stage and talked to everyone about seeing something and saying something and permanent solutions and temporary problems and everything sort of got mixed up in my head. I hadn’t really been listening anyway. I knew I wasn’t going to ever do anything like that, and I knew the speeches would be long forgotten in a few months by most everyone in the auditorium anyways.

  Really that whole time I’d been focused on Tyler, or the back of his head anyway. He was sitting in the front row with some of the counselors, so he looked more like a mop of black hair than anything else. The thing I remember most is how still he was. I could’ve sworn he wasn’t even breathing. I’d wanted someone to check on him, or for someone to say something to him more than “She’s in a better place” or things like that.

  And now here I was. Silent. I almost gagged on the irony. I had to say something.

  “Tyler,” I said.

  He didn’t acknowledge that I’d spoken but the others looked at me expectantly.

  I took a deep breath and decided to start with the most obvious point. “It’s not your fault we’re here. It was our choice to come out here with you.” In all actuality, I’d long suspected this whole thing was my fault entirely, but I kept that thought to myself.

  Jake nodded and Ava made an “mhm” sound.

  Tyler peered at me.

  “And I doubt your parents don’t love you. You seem like, well I’ve only just met you, but all this time you’ve been kind and understanding and helpful, and there’s no way your parents don’t see that.”

  He stared at me silently. I wondered what I’d said wrong. Or maybe I’d just talked too much. “I mean-” I said, trying to backtrack.

  Tyler wiped the tears from his eyes and stared up at the sky. When he looked back at me, there was something different in his eyes. “Thank you,” he said.

  I nodded. “No problem.” I offered him a little smile, and he returned it.

  “I do want to go back,” he said. “I think I always have. I just don’t think anyone is going to wish me back.”

  Jake cleared his throat. “What matters is we try on our end.”

  Tyler nodded.

  The rest of us kept quiet as Tyler kept sniffling.

  My head began to pound. It felt like I was getting a major migraine. I started to sweat. I shifted and wiped at my forehead; my thoughts still focused on Tyler and his family.

  “You okay?” Ava asked.

  I looked at Tyler at first before realizing she was talking to me. “Yeah, why?” But now there was no dismissing it. An overwhelming sense of exhaustion was flowing through me. All my strength felt like it was seeping away, and my vision swam.

  “Wait,” I muttered. “Something’s happepinnn...” My speech slurred and I fell over on my side, my head bouncing on impact. A warm feeling spread through my body and a blooming pain sprouted just behind my eyes.

  “Hannah?” Someone called from far-away.

  My vision blacked out.