Page 19 of Dead to Me

And of course at that point I hesitated and told him that I’dcome in remembrance of a friend.That it was weird but kind of nice.I told him about Tanya and asked if he’d known her.

I watched him tense, looking awkward.

‘That’s… I’m so sorry.I heard about that.Min was on the second team then.’He shook his head.‘This fucking place, huh?’

It was said with a dark ferocity to it, but no matter how gently I tried I couldn’t get any more out of him.And though I tried to wait and speak to some of the players and the coach at the end of the game they were too much caught up in victory.Too elated to reach right then.

And so I slunk away once again, dizzy with anxiety and also furious with myself for failing.

The truth is that I can’t stop looking, Reid.And I’ve never understood how you could.It’s one of so many things I wanted to say after you told me I was a terrible person and then cut me off.

There were other things, too.Things about how grief can twist you up and make everything seem bitter and wrong.About how there’s a massive difference between wanting thetruthand wanting astory.

About how I was grieving, too, and didn’t handle it perfectly.

And that you aren’t fucking perfect either, Reid.

I thought for a long time about what I wanted to say.I rehearsed and wrote out most of it.But the tide of need to tell you rose and eventually fell.I accepted that I wouldn’t get to say most of it.But after that tide receded I was left with an aching anger that you thought I never loved your sister.

And that was so very unfair.

I know it’s not the same as how you felt.Of course Tanya could never mean as much to me as she did to you.She was your sister.The buddy you’d grown up with, with whom you’d sighed over your good-natured, impractical parents.She wasthe one who’d always organised you all, even as a small girl, and made everything more fun.I know this.

But I loved her too, Reid.From pretty much the first time I met her.

There are some things about you and me that are weirdly similar.Our sense of humour.Our taste in movies.Our love of a puzzle.

But the one thing that will always divide us is your solid, loving family unit.The cluster of relatives that’s always been happy to see you.

That’s never how it’s been for me.Even when my mom was still with Dad, there was an undercurrent of anger in the house, which means my youngest memories are of trying to make everyone happy.And once we left, I have memories of Mom looking at me like she’d made a mistake taking me with her.Like she couldn’t stand the sight of me.

This isn’t supposed to be a pity party.All I mean is, when I walked into your family home and Tanya wrapped me in a hug that smelled like violets– all that blonde fringe of hers falling onto my forehead in a tickly mass– it did something profound.And as much as I loved meeting your parents, too, it was Tanya who started making me tea and ushering me into the nicest chair.Tanya who gave me laughing asides about the things you and your parents said.

She made me feel one hundred per cent like I belonged.And honestly, it was the first time I’d ever felt that.

I can’t think about her without remembering how much constant energy she had for fixing things.For fixing people.And whenever I think about her, everything in me rebels against the idea that she could ever, ever have taken that overdose.Not just because she was always so in control of things like timings and medication, but also because I can’t imagine a world where Tanya wasn’t on top of her work.

You know that time we went to see her in Cambridge?A few weeks after I first got to meet her?That would have been, what, Lent term the year before she died?Do you remember that?

I do.I remember all of it.Because it felt all of a sudden like I had a sister of my own.

We’d only managed to spend an hour having lunch with her at Bill’s when you got called away.One of those situations when you could have done with being more selfish about your free time.

I could see Tanya giving you a resigned smile as you ducked out onto the street to answer the phone.I now know that the street outside is called Green Street, and isn’t all that far from my Cambridge house.It’s a weird thought.

‘That’s him out for the rest of the day,’ Tanya said once you were gone, and then she leaned forwards and pulled a piece of fluff out of my hair.It was one of those things she did so easily and instinctively that it never made me feel embarrassed, despite the fact that she was younger and I was supposed to be the Professional Working Woman.

‘It had better not be,’ I told her, feeling a drop of real disappointment.‘I’m having fun.’

‘Oh, you don’t have to go if he does, do you?’she asked, blue eyes a little pleading and voice its usual husky tone.‘We can hang out until he’s back.I’ll even spill the tea on how annoying he was as a teenager.’

‘That’s pretty hard to say no to…’

‘Good,’ she said, smiling at me.‘I’ll show you my room if you’re down.’

‘Definitely down.’

And so after you came to tell us that you were needed back in London for a few hours– which I know you must remember, as you looked genuinely upset about it– Tanya and Iwent back to her square little room at Selwyn College.It was nothing like the rooms I’ve seen more recently.No expensive sound systems.No huge drinks cabinets.A tiny floor space, and limited natural light.But it was also absolutely organised, something I later realised was a feature of Tanya.There was no mess, and all her work was in orderly, labelled files.She had a scheduler on her wall, with a to-do list on the side.

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