Read Online Absent (Katie Williams) by Katie Williams - Free Book Online Page A

squeaky boots. I am Usha. I have to act like Usha.
    The biblicals have stopped hovering and have taken a seat on either side of me. Usha and I used to make fun of these girls, calling them by saints’ names, which she’d pulled from an app on her phone: Agnes and Humbeline and Bertilia. But their real names are perfectly normal: Jenny, Erin, and Rachel.
    I peel a strip off my orange and decide that I’m ready to try talking.
    “Hey,” I say. It works. The voice that comes out is Usha’s. “I need to ask you something. As friends,” I add for good measure.
    “Of course you can,” Jenny says.
    “You’ve heard the rumors about Paige’s death, right?” I ask. My question is accompanied by a faint stirring, a jostling inside me. Is that you, Usha? I wonder, setting my palms flat on the table. I’m sorry, but I need you right now, just for a minute. Please don’t push me out. The stirring comes again. It’s not nearly as strong as yesterday’sshove, so I push back against it, focusing on being solid and still and here. It’s sort of like hovering, like holding yourself in place.
    The biblicals share a look, their bangs clean lines across their foreheads.
    “Have you? Heard them?” I prod.
    “No, I don’t think so,” one says in a tone that makes it clear she has.
    “Really? You haven’t heard that Paige committed—”
    “We try not to gossip,” Rachel cuts in.
    “Okay, fine. But you have ears. People say she jumped. You heard that, right?”
    “We heard it,” Erin admits grimly. “Everyone’s heard it.”
    “Well, I just want you to know—as a friend—that it’s not true.” Again comes the stirring feeling; this time, I ignore it.
    The girls look at each other, then back at me.
    “We hope it’s not true,” Rachel says.
    “It’s not,” I say. “I was there. She fell.”
    “We hope so,” Rachel repeats. “We pray for her.”
    I stare at her. She blinks back at me placidly.
    “You what?”
    “Pray for her,” Rachel says uncertainly. She’s heard something in my voice, something sharp-nailed, quick-tempered, and trapped in a small space. She continues, “If she killed herself, she can’t go to heaven.”
    “What if there is no heaven?” I say.
    “Pardon?”
    “You know: tra-la-la heaven? What if it doesn’t exist?”
    The biblicals’ smiles disappear, then reappear like cards in a magic trick.
    “It’s all right if you don’t believe right now,” Jenny says. “It takes time to—”
    Enough of this. As if it isn’t painful enough to be stuck here, stuck here forever, without having to hear this. I cut Jenny’s sentence clean in half: “I don’t believe or not believe. I know. I know, and I’ll tell you so that you can know, too. Heaven doesn’t exist. It’s a story you’ve made up so that you can feel better about dying. But you know what? You die, and it’s not better. It’s just like it was before. Except worse because you’re dead.”
    Suddenly I’m standing, with all of them staring up at me. The orange is squeezed in my palm, its sticky juice running down all the way to my wrist.
    “It can be hard to understand His reasons—” Erin begins.
    “You’re not listening to me. There are no reasons. There is no Him, no pillows stuffed with fluffy clouds, no free harps at the door. No door. There isn’t a heaven for you or for me. There’s just this.”
    Their Chapsticked lips part in surprise. As I turn away from the table, I realize that half the cafeteria is staring at me. I stride past them and almost run smack into Kelsey Pope, who stands gawking at the recycling station with her empty tray. Her eyes widen, and she shuffles back, bumping into the bin.
    “By the way,” I say, “we never would have been friends.” I drop the deflated orange at her feet and storm out of the cafeteria, my boots squeaking in anger with each step.
    I end up in Brooke’s bathroom, washing juice off my hand and arm. My anger has left as quickly as it came, and now I just