Rooms by Lauren Oliver Page A

him—not that she ever really looked at him—had gone with Minna and Amy to do something involving his dad’s body, which Trenton did not really want to think about. He didn’t like the idea of cremation, although he disliked the idea of burial more. Stuck forever in a box.
    He guessed his body would probably be burned. He wondered whether his mom would try and get a two-for-one deal. His dad wanted his ashes buried on the property. Trenton couldn’t think of a single place he’d like to be buried. Not Eastchester, Long Island, for sure.
    Maybe up here, in Coral River. He had only been six when his parents separated and Caroline moved downstate, but in some ways he’d always thought of it as home. Even though his dad never invited them up to Coral River—even though Trenton had forgotten where the cups were kept, and whether the downstairs bathroom was the first or second door on the right of the hallway, and that the study was painted a deep hunter green—other memories remained, totally vivid.
    He remembered struggling behind Minna through deep snow, and breaking up ice on the creek with the blunt end of a blackened stick. He remembered summer days when he went screaming through the fields to startle the birds, and how Minna showed him how to catch toads by making a cup with his hands. He remembered: the kitchen warm and smelling like rosemary; his mother’s favorite tablecloth spotted with red wine; early spring evenings on the back porch, bundled in a blanket, raw wind on his face, and candles dancing in small conical holders.
    So. Definitely here. With his dad.
    He was having trouble getting the rope to knot. He’d looked this up online, too, but most of the instructions seemed to be written for people who already knew a lot about ropes. Like mariners, or people in the army. His hands were shaking a little, which wasn’t helping.
    Finally he got it. Now he just had to tie off the rope to one of the pipes overhead. The back of his neck had started to sweat. He could practically feel another pimple growing there. He wondered how long it would be before Minna and his mom came back—they’d been gone at least an hour and a half. He’d heard the phone ring at some point. Maybe they were trying to reach him on the house line.
    A small part of him was stalling. He thought that if he were interrupted or miraculously discovered, maybe it would be a sign that he shouldn’t do it.
    But nobody came.
    He found a dirty stepstool crammed in among the clutter of boxes, old trunks, and discarded furniture; he positioned it directly under one of the sturdier-looking pipes. It took him a while to maneuver onto its seat. He’d never been athletic—he’d been practically forced off his Little League team in fifth grade—and the accident had fucked with his balance. Something to do with damage to his inner ear because of all the shards of glass. He was lucky, his doctor had told him, that he wasn’t deaf.
    “I’ll bet . . . won’t go through with it . . .” He heard suddenly, the words fading in and out, like a bad radio frequency.
    He removed the note from his back pocket, which he had written out carefully before thinking he should have typed it, since no one could ever read his handwriting.
    The voice came in again, sharp and clear, as if it was speaking directly into his mind: “He wrote a note! Little Shakespeare. Let’s hope he has better luck than . . . ” It faded out again.
    “Shut up,” he said. Then again, a little louder. “Shut up.”
    His heart was beating dry and frantic, high in his throat, like a moth’s wings.
    It was weird. He had hardly felt anything in six months, except for a brief, gut-tearing desire to puke when his mom had come into the basement, where he’d been playing World of Warcraft, and announced that his father was dead. Since the accident he could barely even jerk off—although he did anyway, approaching it with grim determination, like a soldier in front of the firing