Gwendy's Button Box

23

Gwendy is sick for days afterward. Mr. and Mrs. Peterson believe grief is causing their daughter’s fever and upset stomach, but Gwendy knows better. It’s the box. It’s the price she has to pay for pushing the red button. She heard the rumble of the collapsing rocks, and had to run into the bathroom and vomit.

She manages to shower and change out of baggy sweatpants and a t-shirt long enough to attend Olive’s funeral on Monday morning, but only after her mother’s prompting. If it were up to Gwendy, she wouldn’t have left her bedroom. Maybe not until she was twenty-four or so.

The church is SRO. Most of Castle Rock High School is there—teachers and students alike; even Frankie Stone is there, smirking in the back pew—and Gwendy hates them all for showing up. None of them even liked Olive when she was alive. None of them even knew her.

Yeah, like I did, Gwendy thinks. But at least I did something about it. There’s that. No one else will jump from those stairs. Ever.

Walking from the gravesite back to her parents’ car after the service, someone calls out to her. She turns and sees Olive’s father.

Mr. Kepnes is a short man, barrel-chested, with rosy cheeks and kind eyes. Gwendy has always adored him and shared a special bond with Olive’s father, perhaps because they once shared the burden of being overweight, or perhaps because Mr. Kepnes is one of the sweetest people Gwendy has ever known.

She held it together pretty well during the funeral service, but now, with Olive’s father approaching, arms outstretched, Gwendy loses it and begins to sob.

“It’s okay, honey,” Mr. Kepnes says, wrapping her up in a bear hug. “It’s okay.”

Gwendy vehemently shakes her head. “It’s not…” Her face is a mess of tears and snot. She wipes it with her sleeve.

“Listen to me.” Mr. Kepnes leans down and makes sure Gwendy is looking at him. It’s wrong for the father to be comforting the friend—the ex-friend—but that is exactly what he’s doing. “It has to be okay. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but it has to be. Got it?”

Gwendy nods her head and whispers, “Got it.” She just wants to go home.

“You were her best friend in the world, Gwendy. Maybe in a couple weeks, you can come see us at the house. We can all sit down and have some lunch and talk. I think Olive would’ve liked that.”

It’s too much, and Gwendy can no longer bear it. She pulls away and flees for the car, her apologetic parents trailing behind her.

The final two days of school are canceled because of the tragedy. Gwendy spends most of the next week on the den sofa buried beneath a blanket. She has many bad dreams—the worst of them featuring a man in a black suit and black hat, shiny silver coins where his eyes should be—and often cries out in her sleep. She’s afraid of what she might say during these nightmares. She’s afraid her parents might overhear.

Eventually, the fever breaks and Gwendy reenters the world. She spends the majority of her summer vacation working as much as she can at the snack bar. When she’s not working, she’s jogging the sunbaked roads of Castle Rock or locked inside her bedroom listening to music. Anything to keep her mind busy.

The button box stays hidden in the back of the closet. Gwendy still thinks about it—boy, does she—but she wants nothing to do with it anymore. Not the chocolate treats, not the silver coins, and most of all, not the goddamn buttons. Most days, she hates the box and everything it reminds her of, and she fantasizes about getting rid of it. Crushing it with a sledgehammer or wrapping it up in a blanket and driving it out to the dump.

But she knows she can’t do that. What if someone else finds it? What if someone else pushes one of the buttons?

She leaves it there in the dark shadows of her closet, growing cobwebs and gathering dust. Let the damn thing rot for all I care, she thinks.