Gwendy's Button Box

21

It’s my fault, Gwendy thinks for the hundredth time, as she pulls her car into the Castle View Recreational Park parking lot. It’s almost midnight and the gravel lot is empty. If I’d stayed her friend…

She’s told her parents that she’s sleeping over at Maggie Bean’s house with a bunch of girlfriends from school—all of them telling stories and reminiscing about Olive and supporting each other in their grief—and her parents believe her. They don’t understand that Gwendy stopped running with Olive’s crowd a long time ago. Most of the girls Gwendy hangs out with now wouldn’t recognize Olive if she were standing in front of them. Other than a quick “Hey” in the hallways at school or the occasional encounter at the supermarket, Gwendy hasn’t spoken to Olive in probably six or seven months. They eventually made up their fight in Gwendy’s bedroom, but nothing had been the same after that day. And the truth of the matter is that had been okay with Gwendy. Olive was getting to be too damn sensitive, too high maintenance, just… too Olive.

“It’s my fault,” Gwendy mutters as she gets out of the car. She’d like to believe that’s just adolescent angst—what her father calls Teenage It’s All About Me Complex—but she can’t quite get there. Can’t help realizing that if she and Olive had stayed tight, the girl would still be alive.

There’s no moon in the sky tonight and she forgot to bring along a flashlight, but that doesn’t matter to Gwendy. She strikes off in the dark at a brisk pace and heads for the Suicide Stairs, unsure of what she’s going to do once she gets there.

She’s halfway across the park before she realizes she doesn’t want to go to the Suicide Stairs at all. In fact, she never wants to see them again. Because—this is crazy, but in the dark it has the force of truth—what if she met Olive halfway up? Olive with her head half bashed in and one eye dangling on her cheek? What if Olive pushed her? Or talked her into jumping?

Gwendy turns around, climbs back into her cute little Fiesta, and drives home. It occurs to her that she can make damn sure no one jumps from those stairs again.