Only If You’re Lucky

I wake up on Christmas morning to a text from Mr. Jefferson.

Merry Christmas, sweetie. Saw your car drive by last week.

I lie in bed, staring at the message, my own cursor taunting me to come up with something to say. Before I can make up my mind, it pings again.

Would love to see you today.

I sigh, my head sinking deep into my pillow, thinking about the last time I’d seen Eliza’s parents. It was the summer she died, the night of her funeral. Even then, I had been avoiding them, the guilt I felt over Eliza’s death rearing up like a storm surge every time I drove by their house.

I’ll never forget their faces that day, the makeup smudged heavily beneath Mrs. Jefferson’s eyes as Mr. Jefferson pushed her around the room by the small of her back. Shaking hands, glumly nodding. Accepting condolences on her behalf.

“I just wish you had been there,” he said to me that night, a haggardness in his face I had never seen in him before. We were sitting on the back porch together, tie loosened around his neck, and I could smell the bourbon on his breath, warm and stale. I knew, whatever came next, he’d probably regret in the morning. “You kept her safe.”

I stayed silent, wondering if Eliza ever told him about our argument; the things we said to each other that were so hard to take back. I doubted it. She had died with her parents still thinking I was a good person, and I watched as he continued to sip, picturing myself in bed that night, staring at my phone.

“Whenever it happens, don’t call me.”

“You talked sense into her,” he continued. “She listened to you.”

“Not always,” I said, looking down at my lap. “Sometimes I think she did things specifically because I told her not to.”

“Welcome to my life.” He smiled into the distance, then turned toward me. “Was anything bothering her?” he asked at last. “Any reason you can think of why she might’ve—?”

He trailed off, like the rest of the sentence was too painful to say.

“Mr. Jefferson, you don’t think—?” I stopped, tried to wrap my mind around what he was insinuating. Finally, I spit it out. “She didn’t jump.”

“No,” he said after too long a pause. “No, of course not. But she never mentioned anything to you? Nothing seemed … wrong?”

I stayed quiet, our final conversation running through my mind. The tears in her eyes and that quiver in her voice. The betrayal leaking out of us both for reasons related, but also entirely apart.

“No,” I said at last. “I can’t think of anything.”

“And you never saw anyone giving her a hard time? Someone who might have gotten under her skin?”

“Mr. Jefferson, it was just an accident. She fell—”

“Humor me, Margot.”

I couldn’t keep looking into his eyes anymore, inflamed and unblinking, so I turned to stare into the backyard, the long dock stretching out into a darkness so dark, I couldn’t even see the end of it.

“Nobody disliked Eliza,” I said at last. “She was friends with everybody.”

He sighed, squeezing the lids of his eyes with his fingers, probably realizing how desperate he was starting to sound. How deranged. I looked at him and felt a pang of pity flare up in my chest because I knew what he was doing, what he had been doing ever since he got the call that night. Ever since he was startled awake at two in the morning, looked down at his phone, and saw Eliza’s number on the screen but heard someone else’s voice on the other end. That heavy silence, a long exhale. The sound of sirens in the distance and the words no parent is ever equipped to hear.

He was grasping at straws, blindly searching for anything and anyone to blame other than Eliza’s own recklessness. Her own stupidity.

I knew, because I was doing it, too.

“There were bruises,” he said at last, and I jerked my head toward him, a hitch in my throat that made it hard to breathe. I watched as he opened his eyes, stared into his glass. Inspecting something invisible at the bottom.

“What do you mean?” I asked slowly.

“On her wrist,” he said. “Like fingers. The coroner said they were … fresh.”

I glanced over to Levi’s house, the little pinprick of light coming from his bedroom. He had been at the funeral, too, keeping his distance. Sitting silently in the corner before standing up and walking away as soon as it was over. He had been interviewed by the police that night, then later on the news. Skin pale and eyes haunted after leaning over the edge, seeing the way her body looked after falling fifty feet in the dark. We later learned that her bones had broken immediately upon impact. Her neck snapped in half like a raw noodle.

The small mercy, I supposed, was that she was dead as soon as she even realized what was happening.

“Of course, she was all banged up,” Mr. Jefferson continued, his eyes glistening with fresh tears. “She was covered in them. Bruises. But I don’t know … I guess I was just wondering—”

“She was with Levi,” I interrupted, still staring at his window. “They went to the party together.”

“I know,” he said. “I know that. They were dating?”

“I don’t know what they were, but he was always around.”

“How did you feel about that?”

“Honestly?” I said, turning to face him. “I hated it.”

“Why?”

“He’s just a bad influence, a bad guy.”

“How so?”

“He just is,” I said. “Things got so different once he showed up. Eliza told me—”

I stopped, my chest flushing as Mr. Jefferson snapped his head in my direction. Even though she was dead, I still felt a strange sense of allegiance toward her. A deep-seated obligation to keep my best friend’s secrets.

“Eliza told you what?” he pushed.

“She told me Levi used to watch her at night. Through her window,” I said at last, the admission making me uncomfortable. “That he used to follow her around.”

“She told you that?”

I nodded, shame creeping into my cheeks.

“Why wouldn’t she—?”

“She didn’t want you to be upset,” I continued, talking fast. “She thought it was cute, I guess. That he was that interested.”

I watched as he sighed, took another long sip of his drink, more resigned than anything. We both stayed quiet, listening to the sounds of the cicadas in the distance. The occasional thrash in the water, the gentle waves.

“You know, you try to instill a sense of right and wrong in your kids—”

“This isn’t your fault,” I started, but he held his hand up.

“But as a parent, you usually get it wrong more often than you get it right.” He was quiet, twirling the melting ice in his glass. “It’s hard to be mad at her.”

I stared at the side of his face, new lines etched deep into his skin like he had aged years instead of days. He was right: it was hard to be mad at her, but I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t tell him about the awful things we had said to each other, all the terrible things we had done.

I couldn’t tell him that I blamed myself, too, in so many different ways. So instead, I just sat there silently, staring into the distance. My eyes trained on the Butler house until Levi’s light finally switched off.