Free Trust Me, I'm Trouble by Mary Elizabeth Summer Page A

says.
    “Where’s Bryn?”
    “She’s meeting us in the bleachers.”
    “I’m not sure I’m up for this,” I say, bugs crawling the walls of my stomach.
    “No one would blame you for skipping it. You don’t have to go,” Murphy says, his tone supportive rather than sarcastic. Which feels weird, because that’s just not how we are with each other. In our line of work, we often witness people being awful. How we combat that is by never taking ourselves or each other too seriously. So it throws me when he tries to be earnest. I don’t want him to be, and yet I appreciate it at the same time.

    “Thanks, Murphy, but I need to be there.”
    When we arrive, the shiny, newly renovated gym is already packed, as expected. Tyler was beloved even when he was alive. And then he died young and a hero.
    The ambiance reflects the somberness of the event—dimmed lights, the guidance counselor’s office staff handing out electric candles to everyone. A podium stands resolute in the center of the portable dais the janitorial staff erects for special events. A poster-sized picture of Tyler mounted on a freestanding easel stares me down. The guilt deluge is about as overwhelming as I wanted it to be.
    Bryn waves at us from six rows up. We thread our way through the unusually subdued crowd. You’d never know it was nearly summer break with how dejected everyone looks. Bryn moves her bag to free up the spot she saved for Murphy. I squeeze in on her other side, counting on my damaged reputation to clear me a spot. Sure enough, two freshmen get up and move out of my way.
    “You okay?” Bryn asks grudgingly.
    “Yeah,” I lie.
    She sighs and loops an arm around me, pulling me in for a close side-hug. “It’s okay if you’re not.”
    Dani said something similar to me once, after finding me wandering around in the rain. “You con yourself into believing you’re fine, but it’s okay if you’re not.” I wish I could agree with them.

    “I’m a grifter,” I say. “I don’t have real feelings.”
    “I think you’re confusing grifters with sociopaths.”
    “Who says they’re different?”
    She rolls her eyes at me. “Whatever.”
    The lights dim further as the program starts. Sister Rasmussen takes the stage. She doesn’t wear a traditional nun’s habit, though she does wear the customary black polyester-blend vest and matching pants. Her gray hair reflects the lights directed at the makeshift stage. She’s the youngest president St. Agatha’s has ever had, but she’s still in her sixties. I sometimes forget her age when I talk to her, because she seems so in tune with everything happening around her. But today, when she seems to be shouldering the weight of the entire student body, I can see every day of her sixty-some years etched on her face.
    She clears her throat, and the low hum of dispirited conversation trickles to silence. My heart founders, lumbering lower in my rib cage than it should.
    “Seven months ago, we lost one of our brightest students. Tyler Richland was a brilliant pupil, an esteemed classmate, and a Christian example to all of us. He made the ultimate sacrifice to save the lives of friends, both old and new. And his memory will be forever synonymous with integrity, compassion, and valor.”
    Each word is a chiseled letter on a flat stone in a snowy graveyard. I haven’t been to Graceland Cemetery since I said good-bye to Tyler in December, but I will never forget the deep grooves of his name under my fingertips, the negative space of the lettering echoing the hole his absence left in my life. Leaves. And not just my life, if the sniffling and nose-blowing around me are any indication.

    “Before we ask Tyler’s family to perform the dedication ceremony, designating this gymnasium as the Tyler Richland Athletic Center, I would like to turn the podium over to you. You knew Tyler best. I can think of no more fitting way to honor him than to have those of you whose lives he touched share your