Maybe you were laughing at how horrible the night was turning out.

I know where to go. I don’t need the map. I know exactly where the next star is, so I stand up to start walking.

The dent wasn’t bad. I mean, it wasn’t good, but you had to feel some relief. It could have been worse. It could have been much, much worse. For example…you could have hit something else.

She knows.

Something alive.

Whatever your initial thoughts, you stood up with a blank expression. Just standing there, staring at the dent, shaking your head.

Then you caught my eye. And I’m sure I saw a frown, even if it lasted only a split second. But that frown turned into a smile. Followed by a shrug.

And what were the first words you said when you got back in the car? “Well, that sucks.” Then you put your key in the ignition and…I stopped you. I couldn’t let you drive away.

At the intersection where Tony turned left, I take a right. It’s still two blocks away, but I know it’s there. The Stop sign.

You shut your eyes and said, “Hannah, I’m not drunk.”

Well, I didn’t accuse you of being drunk, Jenny. But I was wondering why the hell you couldn’t keep your car on the road.

“It’s raining,” you said.

And yes, true, it was. Barely.

I told you to park the car.

You told me to be reasonable. We both lived close by and you’d stick to the residential streets-as if that made it any better.

I see it. A metal pole holding up a Stop sign, its reflective letters visible even this far away. But on the night of the accident, it was a different sign. The letters weren’t reflective and the sign had been fastened to a wooden post.

“Hannah, don’t worry,” you said. Then you laughed. “Nobody obeys Stop signs anyway. They just roll on through. So now, because there isn’t one there, it’s legal. See? People will thank me.”

Again, I told you to park the car. We’d get a ride home from someone at the party. I’d pick you up first thing in the morning and drive you to your car.

But you tried again. “Hannah, listen.”

“Park it,” I said. “Please.”

And then you told me to get out. But I wouldn’t. I tried reasoning with you. You were lucky it was only a sign. Imagine what could happen if I let you drive us all the way home.

But again, “Get out.”

I sat for a long time with my eyes shut, listening to the rain and the wipers.

“Hannah! Get…out!”

So finally, I did. I opened the car door and stepped out. But I didn’t shut it. I looked back at you. And you stared through your windshield-through the wipers-gripping the wheel.

Still a block away, but the only thing I can focus on is the Stop sign straight ahead.

I asked if I could use your phone. I saw it sitting there right below the stereo.

“Why?” you asked.

I’m not sure why I told you the truth. I should have lied. “We need to at least tell someone about the sign,” I said.

You kept your eyes straight ahead. “They’ll trace it. They can trace phone calls, Hannah.” Then you started up the car and told me to shut the door.

I didn’t.

So you reversed the car, and I jumped back to keep the door from knocking me over.

You didn’t care that the metal sign was crushing-grating-the underside of your car. When you cleared it, the sign lay at my feet, warped and streaked with silver scratches.

You revved the engine and I took the hint, stepping back onto the curb. Then you peeled away, causing the door to slam shut, picking up speed the further you got…and you got away.

In fact, you got away with much more than knocking down a sign, Jenny.

And once again, I could have stopped it…somehow.

We all could have stopped it. We all could have stopped something. The rumors. The rape.

You.

There must have been something I could have said. At the very least, I could have taken your keys. Or at the very, very least, I could have reached in and stolen your phone to call the police.

Actually, that’s the only thing that would’ve mattered. Because you found your way home in once piece, Jenny. But that wasn’t the problem. The sign was knocked down, and that was the problem.

B-6 on your map. Two blocks from the party there’s a Stop sign. But on that night, for part of the night, there wasn’t. And it was raining. And someone was trying to deliver his pizzas on time. And someone else, headed in the opposite direction, was turning.

The old man.

There was no Stop sign on that corner. Not on that night. And one of them, one of the drivers, died.

No one knew who caused it. Not us. Not the police.

But Jenny knew. And Hannah. And maybe Jenny’s parents, because someone fixed her bumper real fast.

I never knew the guy in that car. He was a senior. And when I saw his picture in the newspaper, I didn’t recognize him. Just one of the many faces at school I never got to know…and never would.

I didn’t go to his funeral, either. Yes, maybe I should have, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. And now I’m sure it’s obvious why.

She didn’t know. Not about the man in the other car. She didn’t know it was the man from her house. Her old house. And I’m glad. Earlier, she watched him pull out of his garage. She watched him drive away without noticing her.

But some of you were there, at his funeral.

Driving to return a toothbrush. That’s what his wife told me as we waited on her couch for the police to bring him home. He was driving to the other end of town to return their granddaughter’s toothbrush. They’d been keeping an eye on her while her parents were on vacation, and she’d left it behind by accident. The girl’s parents said there was no need to drive across town just for that. They had plenty of extras. “But that’s what he does,” his wife told me. “That’s the kind of person he is.”

And then the police came.

For those of you who did go, let me describe what school was like on the day of his funeral. In a word…it was quiet. About a quarter of the school took the morning off. Mostly seniors, of course. But for those of us who did go to school, the teachers let us know that if we simply forgot to bring a note from home, they wouldn’t mark us absent if we wanted to attended the funeral.

Mr. Porter said funerals can be a part of the healing process. But I doubted that very much. Not for me. Because on that corner, there wasn’t a Stop sign that night. Someone had knocked it over. And someone else…yours truly…could’ve stopped it.

Two officers helped her husband inside, his body trembling. His wife got up and walked over to him. She wrapped him in her arms and they cried.

When I left, closing the door behind me, the last thing I saw was the two of them standing in the middle of the living room. Holding each other.

On the day of the funeral, so those of you who attended wouldn’t miss any work, the rest of us did nothing. In every class, the teachers gave us free time. Free to write. Free to read.

Free to think.

And what did I do? For the first time, I thought about my own funeral.

More and more, in very general terms, I’d been thinking about my own death. Just the fact of dying. But on that day, with all of you at a funeral, I began thinking of my own.

I reach the Stop sign. With the tips of my fingers, I reach forward and touch the cold metal pole.

I could picture life-school and everything else-continuing on without me. But I could not picture my funeral. Not at all. Mostly because I couldn’t imagine who would attend or what they would say.

I had…I have…no idea what you think of me.

I don’t know what people think of you either, Hannah. When we found out, and since your parents didn’t have a funeral in this town, no one said much about it at all.

I mean, it was there. We felt it. Your empty desk. The fact that you would not be coming back. But no one knew where to begin. No one knew how to start that conversation.