by Jeff Zentner
“What?” I smile in spite of myself. It still makes me happy to see her laugh.
“Nothing.” Delaney tries to collect herself. “It’s not that funny.”
“Tell me.”
She pauses. “So, this was a little while after your mama’s funeral, and we were at the Dollar General. This guy comes up to us, and he says, ‘Hey, are you Cassie Pruitt’s kid?’ And you go, ‘Yeah,’ and he’s like, ‘How is she?’ And you go, ‘She died.’ And he’s like, ‘Uhhhhhh,’ all awkward, trying to think of something to say, and finally he lands on, ‘Well, she was hot.’ And then you go, ‘Yeah, well not anymore because she’s dead.’ And then he gave you a card for a free class at his karate studio and told you to stay in school. And as he’s walking away, he turns back and tells you he’ll teach you how to make a pair of nunchucks from stuff at the hardware store. You remember any of this?”
I laugh a little with her. “That whole period was a fog, but yeah, kinda.”
“We just sat there for a while, you holding that card for a free karate class. And finally, you go, ‘Con: my mama died. Pro: I got a free karate class out of it.’ And I remember thinking how strong you were.”
“I was faking to impress you.”
“What’s the difference between faking being strong and being strong?”
I don’t have an answer.
“You ever take the karate class?” Delaney asks.
“No.”
“Shoulda.”
“Wasn’t feeling up to it and then I lost the card.”
We look at each other for a few moments. A snowflake meanders earthward and alights in Delaney’s hair. Then another. And another. The sky relinquishes its grasp, and they fall thicker and faster, swirling all around us. One falls on her eyelashes and melts.
She’s slowly leaving me behind in my mourning. Not intentionally, but still. I can’t tell you how exactly I know that—I just sense it. We journeyed together through the wasteland for a time and it was a small comfort, but that couldn’t last.
Nothing does, really.
And I don’t know how I’ll manage to stay here alone in this.
One night, it overwhelms me—the sorrow and loneliness like staring through black glass.
I know she’s working, but I call Mamaw anyway.
“Little Caesars,” a bored young woman’s voice answers after several rings.
“Um. Hi. Is—can I talk to the manager?”
“Something wrong?”
“No. Just needed to tell her something.”
“Miss Donna,” the voice yells. “Phone. Someone wants to talk to you. Won’t say why.”
After a few moments, Mamaw picks up. “Good evening, Little Caesars. How may I help you?”
“Mamaw? It’s me. I don’t want you to get in trouble for taking personal calls at work, so just talk like I’m calling about pizza. I needed to hear your voice.”
“Now, you say these are for your grandson’s birthday party? He sounds like an incredible young man.”
“Mamaw, they’ll know I don’t have a grandson. I don’t want to make problems for you.”
“I have a grandson too. He’s my pride and joy. Loves pizza.”
“I miss Papaw really bad tonight.”
“I was thinking about him not five minutes ago.”
“Mamaw, don’t—”
“Sweetie, I’m the manager. Every one of my employees is texting as we speak. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. I love you.”
“I love you too, Cash.”
“You doing all right?”
“No. You?”
“Not really.”
“The other night I came home and I wanted to tell him something so badly. Someone who came in reminded me of someone he and I knew, and he’s the only one who would understand. But he’s gone and I couldn’t.”
“I realized the other day, he’s never once going to see one of my crew meets. I mean, it’s not like he’d have gotten to see many of them anyway. But I thought he’d get to see at least one.”
“He wanted so badly to. He talked all the time about going up there to visit you. We both knew it was idle talk, but it was fun. He was so proud of you. He’d always bring up that poem you let him read. Out of nowhere. ‘How about that poem of Mickey Mouse’s?’ he’d say, while we were eating supper or something.”
I breathe down tears but my voice cracks anyway. “I’m tired of losing people I love.”
“Me too, sweetie.”
“I’ll be your new jigsaw puzzle buddy when I come back home.”
“I can’t bring myself to put up the one Pep and I were working on when he passed. You can help me finish.”
I start to tell her how much I want to come home now, but I already know what she’ll say. “I better let you get back to work. I’m glad I got to hear your voice. I love you. I miss you.” I want to see her so badly it almost levels me.
“I love you and miss you too, Cash.”
But we don’t hang up immediately. We’re quiet for a while, listening to each other breathe. There’s relief in hearing someone you love still breathing.
I hold every memory of him like a match I let burn down to the end, singeing my fingers until it hurts too much to hold.
I try to write my way through it, like Dr. Adkins said to. I sit by the lake, teeth chattering, waiting for some inspiration. Nothing. She does what she can to help me make something of my meager efforts, but there’s no beauty in me.
Delaney’s mostly back to normal now, it seems. I’m glad she’s not hurting too, but now I’m well and truly alone in bereavement.
So, on a Friday night in mid-March, at 5:32 p.m., I decide I’m done with this whole Middleford thing. Time to cut my losses. I know because I check the time—that’s how tangibly it occurs to me that I’m finished: 5:32.
I’m sitting with Delaney and Vi and Alex, and we’re eating dinner, and I just decide I can’t be here alone anymore. I can’t be strong anymore. And I don’t have to be. Billions of people live and die without going to Middleford Academy at all, much less finishing high school there. I can be one of them.
There’s no particular catalyzing event that spurs this decision. No special conversation. There’s only the slow trickle of grief eroding me down to nothing. At 5:32 that night, the last of me crumbles.
I watch each of them talk. I study their faces to burn onto my memory. Maybe we’ll see each other again after I go home. Maybe not. No doubt I’ll miss them so badly that when they visit me in my memory, it’ll double me over, knocking the wind out of me.
And yet I’m done. I won’t miss Papaw any less when I leave and go home. I just need to acknowledge the surrender of my spirit, the failure of my courage. The grief’s won. If I’m going to hurt all the time, I’m going to do it around my river and Mamaw. I’m going to withdraw into myself.
I’m not going to show up for class on Monday morning. Instead, I’ll go to the administration building and ask to meet with Dr. Archampong. Then I’ll tell him thanks for everything, but it all got to be too much.
I’m not going to tell Alex or Vi, and especially not Delaney. I can’t look them in the eyes and admit sorrow’s victory over me. I don’t want to be talked out of my decision. They’re going to show up for dinner on Monday, and I just won’t be there. They’ll be angry and hurt when they find out, but.
I’m not going to tell Dr. Adkins. Maybe I’ll send her one last poem—one I wrote for her. I’ll send her a note with it, telling her what a solace poetry has been to me, that it brought Papaw some comfort in his last hours, and that I’ll always make it part of my inconsequential life. You don’t need to be at Middleford Academy to write poetry.
I’m not going to tell Mamaw. She’ll try to persuade me to stay. No, she’s going to come home from work, and I’ll be s
itting on the porch, scratching Punkin behind the ear, ready to help her finish that puzzle. She’ll try to talk me into returning, but my sorrow is enough to grind down both our wills.
Maybe I’ll complete the school year at Sawyer High. Maybe not. In fact, maybe I won’t go back to school at all. No one who’s hired me to mow their lawn has ever asked me if I’m a high school graduate. I could work nights at Little Caesars helping Mamaw. If I work enough, I won’t have time or energy to feel anything but exhaustion. And I can drown that in sleep. Do it all over again the next day. Repeat until I die.
We finish dinner and we walk slowly back to Delaney and Vi’s residence hall, where they’re having a Stranger Things watch party.
I lag behind the group a bit.
Vi joins me. “You’re brooding, Bucky Barnes.”
I smile. “Good job remembering brooding.”
“I have to use new words as much as I can so I remember them.”
“Am I brooding, or are you just using the word to hang on to it?”
“Really brooding.”
“I’m just thinking about stuff.”
“Your papaw?”
“Among other things.” At least my pining for Vi has gradually eased with time and been put in its place by the enormity of my grief. I’m strangely grateful to her for shooting me down and making my decision easier.
I watch Delaney and Alex just ahead of us, chatting merrily about something Delaney just said. Without Papaw around, and in the face of my betrayal of my promise to stay, I’ll probably never see Delaney again. But that was going to happen sooner or later. She wasn’t also going to get me a scholarship to Yale or MIT or wherever life takes her. Our paths were going to diverge. Might as well rip off the Band-Aid.
I look at them, and for one brief, wild moment, the clouds part and the sun shines again and I think I could stay after all. I could choose that life. I think maybe my love for my friends and Dr. Adkins is enough, with the help of poetry, to lift me up and carry me to some temperate shore, to quell the insistent, grinding ache and let me continue here.
Then the clouds bury the sun again.
When I get back to my floor, about a half hour before curfew, there’s a raucous gathering of lacrosse players congesting the hall. I won’t miss this part of the Middleford experience.
I pass Atul. He sees the look on my face. “They beat Phillips Exeter.”
“Oh.”
“I guess they’re huge rivals?”
“Wow, who gives a shit.”
“Right?”
I’ll miss Atul. He’s a good guy.
I elbow through a clump of lacrosse players and their respective entourages to get to my room. “Excuse me,” I say, but they ignore me. I have to muscle past them.
I open my door. Tripp, wearing only a pair of shorts, is in bed, on top of a girl wearing only a bra and her skirt pushed up high, exposing her underwear. I avert my eyes in embarrassment. “Uh, y’all?”
Tripp jumps out of bed and strides over to me. “Get out.” He tries to turn me around and shove me back through the door. But I resist. I’ve had it. I’m not taking orders from him.
I sweep his hands off me. “Naw. Y’all go somewhere else. This is my room too, and I’m tired.” And also I don’t care about keeping the peace anymore.
“Dude, we’re in here. Get the fuck out now.”
Then I notice two things.
First, I recognize the girl in Tripp’s bed from my marine biology class. We only talked briefly a couple of times about class stuff. Her name’s Siobhan Byrne. She’s pretty, and her family in Ireland, where she’s from, is obviously wealthy.
The second thing I notice is that she appears to be completely unconscious. Her eyes are closed and she’s not moving, not acknowledging what’s happening a few feet away.
“She okay?”
Tripp moves to block my view. “Why? Wanna watch, cuck?”
I ignore Tripp and again parry his attempt to push me out. “Siobhan? You okay?”
“She’s fine. She doesn’t want your pervy ass watching us and busting in your pants. Go.”
“Siobhan?” Nothing. I meet Tripp’s eyes. “This ain’t right.”
“Leave.”
“Oh, I will.” I turn. My next stop is Cameron and Raheel’s room. I go for the door.
But Tripp catches my tone. He grabs me by the shoulder and turns me back to face him. “Dude, you better not be a little pussy-ass snitch and say I have a girl in here.”
“That ain’t all that’s going on here, and you know it.” I turn back and start to open the door.
Tripp kicks it shut. “Five hundred dollars to keep your mouth shut.”
“I’m not for sale.” I go to open the door again, and Tripp pulls me back.
“A thousand dollars.”
“Eat shit.”
Tripp grabs me again. I push him away, hard, and he stumbles backward a few steps.
I open the door and make it halfway out before Tripp tackles me from behind and takes me to the ground in a headlock. The crowd in front of my door scatters to let us tumble into the hall.
Tripp is on my back, pressing my forehead into the ground. He smells like a mixture of his deodorant, weed, alcohol, and Siobhan’s perfume. I struggle, but my position affords no leverage.
“Palmer! Vance!” Tripp yells to his two omnipresent minions as I writhe against his grasp.
I hear two sets of footfalls running up.
“Get her out,” Tripp hisses to Palmer and Vance.
From my awkward angle, I see them out of the corner of my eye running into my room. I muscle out of the headlock and make it to my feet. “WorldStar!” someone yells. Tripp tries to take me down again, but I throw a punch that catches him on the cheekbone. It sends him stumbling and breaks his momentum for a second. I hear a rush of disapproval from Tripp’s lacrosse teammates circling up to gawk.
Palmer and Vance emerge from my room carrying Siobhan—her shirt thrown on her—between them like they’re helping her walk, but her shoeless feet aren’t touching the floor. They head toward the stairs.
I go toward them. “Siobhan!” I barely finish shouting her name before Tripp hits me from behind and to the side, knocking the breath out of me. I catch my foot on the carpet and pitch sidelong. My forehead slams into the wall, and a bright flashbulb goes off in my skull, my mouth filling with a soapy, metallic taste. Red-black spots explode in my field of vision, blooming like blood spatter on a handkerchief. The crowd gasps—ohhhh shit. I try to stand but my legs won’t work and I fall back down, crawling.
“Cameron!” I shout.
“Hey, man,” someone says. “Don’t try to get up.”
“Cameron! Raheel!” My voice is weakening. I taste blood. It’s streaming from my nose. I’m dizzy and nauseous.
“Move! Lemme through!” I hear a familiar voice yelling. Cameron elbows through the lacrosse players encircling me. He kneels at my side. I see four of him.
“What happened?” he asks.
Tripp, hand to his now-swelling cheekbone, replies, “I was hanging out with my friends when he comes in and tells us all to leave the room. And when we wouldn’t, he attacked me.”
Cameron looks at me.
“He had Siobhan Byrne in bed. She was passed out or asleep or something,” I say groggily, my tongue thick and heavy. “He was messing with her.”
“He’s fucking lying,” Tripp yells.
“I hit my head really hard,” I murmur.
“Dude, your nose is bleeding,” Cameron says. “Someone go get Dr. Karpowitz and tell him we need the nurse and someone from admin. Cash probably needs to go to the hospital.”
My field of vision is narrowing.
“Hey, keep him awake. That’s what you do for head injuries,” one of the lacrosse players says.
“Anyone got an ice pack for my eye?” Tripp asks. “Can’t believe he just attacked me like that. Dude’s psycho.”
Cameron shakes me gently. “Hey. Cash. Don’t go to sleep, man, okay?”
“Okay,” I mutter. Everything is blurry around me, but I see Palmer and Vance have returned. “Where did you take her?” I ask thickly.
“Take who?” Vance says. “You’re not making sense.”
“You hit your head hard,” Palmer says.
“These guys are witnesses,” Tripp says. “Didn’t Cash attack me?”
“Yep,” Vance says.
“They carried Siobhan out,” I say to Cameron. “She couldn’t walk. You gotta have someone check on her.”
“Dude, that’s fucking fake news,” Tripp says. “Siobhan was hanging out earlier, but she left a while ago. I don’t know where she went.”
“Take it easy, man,” Cameron says to me. He helps me sit up against the wall. Someone hands him a wet paper towel to clean the blood from my nose and mouth. My head feels shattered.
“He punched me for no reason,” Tripp says to Cameron.
“You can tell your side later,” Cameron says.
“My parents are gonna sue his ass,” Tripp says. “For assaulting me and trying to destroy my reputation.”
“I didn’t attack him,” I mutter. “He had Siobhan.”
“Anyone know Siobhan Byrne? Will someone see if they can track her down?” Cameron calls to the crowd.
Some time passes, but it’s a fog. Dr. Karpowitz comes and talks to me.
I hear Tripp say, “Someone should call the cops. He attacked me, and now he’s lying and saying I was messing with Siobhan.”
I hear a familiar voice respond. “Bro, get out of my way now. Literally no chance that’s true.”
Tripp mutters something, and the voice responds, “Now, dude. Move. I’m not playing.”