Alex Richards - When We Were Strangers

Also by Alex Richards

Accidental

BLOOMSBURY YA

Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018

This electronic edition published in 2021 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in the United States of America in July 2021 by Bloomsbury YA

Copyright 2021 by Alex Richards

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Richards, Alex, author.

Title: When we were strangers / by Alex Richards.

Description: New York : Bloomsbury Childrens Books, 2021.

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Evie, devastated by her fathers death and the knowledge that he had planned to leave their family for another woman pregnant with his child, finds a way forward through a prestigious photography class and handsome classmate Declan.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020044416 (print) | LCCN 2020044417 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-1-5476-0364-0 (HB)
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0365-7 (eBook)

Subjects: CYAC: GriefFiction. | Mothers and daughtersFiction. | PhotographyFiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.R3783 Whe 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.R3783 (e-book) | DDC [Fic]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044416

LC e-book record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044417

Book design by John Candell

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For Harvey, my ninja in training

T he house aches with silence.

All I can do is stand there until I remember to lock the front door behind me, dropping my keys on the console table and inching through the darkness. Numbly, I climb the stairs, fingers tickling plaster walls to remind me that I still have nerve endings. That I can still feel.

Mom stayed behind at the hospital. She needed to deal with insurance and morgue and cremation stuff. Things you wish could be put off but cant. While she handled it, she insisted that I come home. To rest, to shower, to get the hospital stench off my skin. Maybe Ill burn my clothes too, but when I walk past my parents bedroom door, I completely lose track of all purpose.

A thousand seconds tick by.

Because I guess this is it. This is what the rest of my life is going to be, walking into a house with no wisecracking, slipper-wearing, grunge rockloving dad. No. Dad. But their bedroom is still full of his smell, his things, and right now I need to be close to whats left of him. I push the door open and tiptoe across the carpet and into my parents bed. Which is weird, maybe? Hiding under their covers at seventeen? I curl up on a dead mans pillow anyway. The memory foam still smells of him. Still remembers him. Cedar and sunblock. It spins my heart into a long, thin thread.

For a while I lie here, sobs avalanching off me in the darkness. Cryings never been my thing, and now I remember why. Its brutal to convulse like this, ache like this, all while Im trying to catalog the past fifteen hours. The fact that I woke up with a dad. Said goodbye to him from behind the Pop-Tart between my teeth. Drove to school thinking about how it was T-minus five days till summer vacation. Physics, calculus. My English teacher doling out summer reading syllabi. Right around seventh period, that is when a pain so sharp and vicious crept up my fathers left arm. Blue eyes bulging while his chest cramped. Keeling over. An unexpected heart attack called in by a terrified receptionist.

Mom was in hysterics when I got to the hospital, dousing me in our new misery like a bucket of water. Together we sat in the waiting room for three hours. Hands intertwined, forming a closeness we hadnt had for years. We didnt talk or move or breathe. But in the end, it was the end. Just like on TV, the way weary surgeons slink into the waiting room to deliver bad news, the doctors eyes apologizing before their lips. Because not even miracle hands could save him.

My tears soak clean through Dads pillow.

I shudder and stretch, feet banging against something hard and unexpected at the foot of the bed. When I sit up, my head throbs, dehydration tugging at my temples. The lights are still off but my eyes have adjusted, aided by a waning moon through the skylight. Dads suitcase, thats what I kicked. Which is weird because he didnt say anything about a trip, although his accounting firm would occasionally send him to regional conferences.

I force myself off the bed, reaching for the lamp on Dads nightstand, click-click-clicking the switch till light stings my eyes and the room feels real. I want to cry all over again but I force a swallow, hauling the suitcase toward me. Ive barely unzipped it when I spot an even bigger suitcase on the floor. And then a garment bag and a box by the door.

Hold on, what?

With skinny breath and weak fingers, I reach for Dads dresser, sliding open the drawers, one by one. Empty, empty, empty. My eyes ping-pong around the room. His bathrobe missing from the hook behind the door; no bird-watching books or laundry pile or mounds of electronics. The room wobbles as I soak in its lopsidedness. Moms late-for-work clutter, rumpled clothes and coffee mugs and stacks of half-read novels. The only traces left are of her, nothing of him. I choke on my own spit when it hits me.

Holy shitwas my dad moving out?

Im still gasping, rubbing swollen eyes, trying to steady my breath while my brain tornadoes inside my head. Because, I know youre not supposed to jump to conclusions, especially when youre in the throes of grief or whatever... but give me a break. He packed everything. My dad was leaving us. There is no other explanation.

And Im finding out now. Like this.

I start to pace around the room, sorting more than a days worth of memories. The evolution of their silence, occasional fights. Mom whisper-shouting behind closed doors about another womans perfume on his clothes. I mean, there was a time I thought divorce... but it kept not happening. As if a scab formed over their discontent. Whichokay, fineI rallied around. With half the kids in Santa Fe bouncing from moms to dads and back again, Ill admit to wanting them to work through it. Parents dont always stay married but mine were supposed to. At least, thats what I wanted. Maybe its what Mom wanted too, and now shes devastated and filling out paperwork at the hospital, crying into a nurses arms, thinking she just lost the love of her life, but...