Michelle Falkoff - Playlist for the Dead

So far.

I ran into her in the cafeteria the other day; we still have the same lunch period sometimes. Often I’ll see her across the room and she’ll give me a little wave. Almost like a question that I’m never sure how to answer. That day, for the first time, I waved back.

My sister graduated last spring, and so did the bully trifecta. Rachel stuck with Jimmy until they both got into different colleges. He was my favorite of all the guys she ever dated; I’m hoping she gets back together with him someday. As for the bullies, Jason never came out, and he used his church scholarship to go to a little liberal arts college in Oregon. I’m sure he won’t be back. Trevor healed surprisingly well, and he’s at the state college, hoping to walk on to the hockey team. Ryan surprised me and didn’t follow Trevor there; he went to a school back east, where I heard he wasn’t playing football. I hoped it was because he’d chosen soccer. He never did come over to look at Hayden’s shirts, but I hadn’t really thought he would. They were all pretty quiet for the rest of the year, and word of all the things that had happened got out quickly, which seemed to make a difference. The lines between the social groups got pretty blurry; Eric started an LGBTQ/PFLAG group and more people joined than I would have thought. For most of the past year, Libertyville High has been at peace.

I’m hoping to get there myself someday. It took a while for me to feel comfortable using my computer again; I wasn’t sure I wanted ArchmageGed to come back. Eventually, though, I got back on; in talking to Mr. Beaumont I’ve come to realize that ArchmageGed wasn’t real. He was just something I made up to help me deal with everything. After all, he never really told me anything I didn’t already know, whether I wanted to admit it or not. And given that getting regular sleep has made me feel like a different person, I have a better understanding of what not sleeping can do to someone. There had been something comforting about the idea that it was really Hayden, that he was still with me, creepy as it might be, but I think that was just something I needed for a little while. I’ve put the wizard figurine in a box for now, too. I’m glad I bought it, but I’ve stopped worrying about needing something to remind me of Hayden. He’s here with me all the time.

These days I spend most of my time on the computer listening to music. I decided to retire Hayden’s playlist. It never really solved the big mysteries for me, and I’ll never be able to hear any of those songs again without going back to last year. But if it did anything for me, it was to actually get me to start talking to people. Or, rather, start listening to them. If there’s one thing I learned from the playlist, it’s how important listening to people can be. I like to think I’m getting better at it.

Hayden’s playlist did make me feel connected to him, and it also opened me up to a lot of stuff I hadn’t heard before, and I started looking for new bands, things I liked that I’d found on my own, not through Hayden or Rachel. I’ve even started making a new playlist myself, one more upbeat than the one Hayden sent me but maybe not as overly ecstatic as the ones he and Jess shared, one filled with songs that are bright and hopeful. Songs Astrid might like.

Maybe someday I’ll give it to her.

TK

MICHELLE FALKOFF’s fiction and reviews have been published in ZYZZYVA, DoubleTake , and the Harvard Review , among other places. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and currently serves as director of communication and legal reasoning at Northwestern University School of Law. Playlist for the Dead is her first novel.

HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

PLAYLIST FOR THE DEAD. Copyright © 2015 by Spilled Ink Productions. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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ISBN 978-0-06-231050-7

EPub Edition July 2014 ISBN 9780062361479

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