hello anne: book one

7:13 p.m.

Janie decided to come home with me today. It's Friday, and since I'm bringing her to the party, she thought it would be more convenient to just come with me since I'm bringing her tonight to Amanda's. Kevin went with Amanda to her house to help her set up. She said she needed help cleaning the house, but I think she really wanted someone to talk to. She's been pretty lonely since her and Joey Brandon broke up.
Janie's yellow sweater made my car look very bright, considering my mothers van was blue and chipped. She had plugged in her phone and was playing a song by someone named Cass Mccombs. It sounded nice, and even better when she would hum along. Annie used to do that to One Direction, except sometimes that would get irritating. She would be so invested in those boys she would barely talk to me in the car. But Janie seems like she doesn't care who sings it, it just needs to sound good.
"Do you like the song?" She asks me, looking out the window. I tap my fingers on the wheel and stop the car due to the red light.
"Yeah. I like the kind of music that isn't too sappy, but is still lovey dovey, you know?"
"Mhm. So, indie?" She laughs. I shrug my shoulders and smile at the windshield.
"Yeah. Indie, I guess." She looks down at her knees and runs her finger over a scrape.
"What's that from?" I ask her. She quickly looks up, then back at her knee.
"Oh, it's nothing. Just a scrape." She says. I stop talking about, knowing that she doesn't want to talk about it. Maybe it was another one of those "girl things".
I park in the driveway and we both get out of the car. She follows me into the house and I being her into the kitchen. Her eyes scan all the walls, looking at all the pictures. They were everywhere. A couple years ago my mother thought it would be a good idea to put out all the pictures that we had taken over the years. They are now overflowing our house, and they look tacky and like we are really into family bonding. We're not.
"So many pictures. Wow." She says, chuckling a bit. I scratch the back of my neck and look at the picture she was looking at. One of my mother and my father and me a couple years ago at a family barbecue. We were all sitting at a picnic bench eating watermelon and cheeseburgers, and we were all laughing. I miss that day. It was so simple yet so fun and relaxing.
"Would you like anything to drink?" I ask her, watching her sway back in forth. She shakes her head and smiles.
I stand next to her and point to a picture of me with a rabbit on Easter.
"My aunt had surprised me with a rabbit one Easter. My mom made me bring it back to the lets hop though. She told me that rabbits were rodents, and that they should not live in the house." I chuckle. She nods and pivots.
"Where's your room?" She asks. I motion to her to follow me, and she walks behind me up the stairs. We walk into my room, and she stops at the doorway.
"You remind me of Danny." She says. I tilt my head to the left a bit.
"Who's Danny?" I ask her. She crosses her arms and looks down at her shoes.
"Danny was my brother. He died in a car crash last year." She wipes her nose and leans on the wall.
Shit. Danny Walker. I remember reading about that in the paper, watching them replay his car crash on the news and on the Internet for weeks. A drunk driver had hit him, and his car tumbled down the hill. He banged his head on the steering wheel and lost consciousness. He was in a coma for a good three months, until he suddenly passed away. That was all the talk last year. How could I forget?
"I'm sorry about your brother." I tell her, sitting on the bed. She slowly walks around the room, running her fingers over empty picture frames and old trophies I had won as a kid. Soccer, t-ball, flag football. You name it.
"Don't be sorry. Everyone says sorry. You can't be sorry for someone you don't know, that's just not how things work in life." She says. She sits next to me and continues to look around the room.
"Danny was a Yankees fan, too. He gave me his hat a couple days before the accident." She chuckles, playing with her fingers. I can imagine her remembering the moment that that had happened. She had probably replayed that memory a million times since his death, it had become something like song lyrics.
"Enough about Danny. If I talk about it anymore I think I'll cry. And I don't want to cry anymore." She says, rubbing her eye. I place my hand on her back and watch her eyes flick down to her knees. "Why him?" She asks. "He was such an amazing brother. He got good grades. He played sports. He didn't drink. Was healthy, was kind. But the universe had to rip him away from me, as if he didn't want me to have him anymore. Like no one was supposed to have Danny Walker in there lives anymore. Well, I want him in my life." She cries, as I rub my hand in circles on her back.
"It should've been me." She whispers.
"Don't say that.."
"No. I know my mother and father think that, too. I know it." She says.
"No they don't. They love you." I say, hoping that she would calm.
"You've never met them. They throw fake smiles at me left and right, acting as if everything is normal and okay. But it's not. It's not okay." She rests her head on my shoulder, and I watch as the tears roll off of her cheek and land onto my blue shirt. Her sobs got quieter and quieter until there were no more, and she had finally calmed down.
"Thank you." She says, grabbing my hand.
"For what?"
"For listening."