This is Not the End

by Chandler Baker

  He’s the same year as me at St. Theresa’s. It’s common knowledge that he’s had a crush on me since the second I set foot on campus and that I think he’s a sexist pig. As far as I know, this in no way makes him think we are any less compatible. So there’s a better than 80 percent chance that Harrison has made up the whole thing because he hopes that Will’s death will leave a vacancy…in my pants.

  But then again, that would be pretty dark, even for Harrison.

  I decide to stop by the public beach on the way home, where I know Harrison lifeguards full-time during the summer. When I reach the public beach, the late afternoon has just begun to melt into the evening hours. The sun has gone orange and smolder-y, its outer edge gently kissing the horizon where it will slowly continue to melt into the world’s largest puddle. European tourists with their tight Speedos and sunscreen-painted noses are collapsing their umbrellas and preparing to drag them up to the parking lot, which won’t be bearable to walk on without sandals for another hour.

  I kick my shoes into the thick reeds growing near the boardwalk and cross the beach toward the blue lifeguard stand near the shore. A green flag flutters in the breeze, letting beachgoers know that the water is calm and there have been no signs of aggressive sea life. But as a local, I never swim at dusk on account of the fact that it’s dinnertime for sharks.

  “Harrison!” I yell through cupped hands as I get closer. “Harrison!” The surfboard and orange rescue buoys are buried halfway in the sand, so I know the guards are still on duty. “Harrison Vines!”

  A head pops over the railing of the stand—a small hutch on stilts that is painted blue. The boy lifts his reflective sunglasses and nestles them into a thick crop of dirty-blond hair. “Lake?”

  “I’m coming up,” I say, and scale the sandy steps of the ladder, my palms scratching against sun-baked wood on the way up. Harrison is waiting for me, wearing a tank top and a pair of white shorts with a red cross on the side. A whistle dangles over his chest.

  “Is everything okay?” he asks in a way that sounds like he’s genuinely concerned.

  “No, everything is not okay.”

  “Right.” He puts his hands on his hips and nods, understanding. “I heard.”

  “I know you heard,” I say.

  He pinches his chin between his thumb and forefinger until it dimples. “Listen, I’m on duty for another ten minutes. Until then I’m not supposed to have visitors on the stand. Would you mind, like, waiting inside the hutch?”

  I roll my eyes. “Seriously?”

  “Believe what you want, but I’m good at my job, okay? So in or down, pick your poison.”

  I huff. I don’t like Harrison, but I’m also remembering how I haven’t really talked to him much in the past four years. In fact, I haven’t talked much to anyone other than Penny and Will, and that’s exactly the way I’ve wanted it.

  I move past Harrison into the hutch. He stands in the doorway, looking out at the ocean. There are a few swimmers still paddling in the shallows. He drums the wood with his fingers. “We keep a cooler,” he says. “Not for while we’re working or anything.” He meets my eyes as if to make clear that he means it. “But there are a few beers in there and wine coolers. You can help yourself.”

  I start to object. I don’t drink. Here and there a few sips, maybe a glass, but then I remember that my only two friends are dead, my brother hates me, and my life blows like a category five hurricane, so I fish in the ice until my fingers freeze and I come up with the slender neck of a tangerine wine cooler. I borrow the bottle opener from on top of a stack of crates that doubles as a desk and settle into an open lawn chair to wait.

  The taste of fruit and alcohol is tangy and delicious on my tongue. I notice that I’m halfway through the bottle and that the fizz is already traveling to my head before I remember I have to drive and force myself to stash the remainder underneath my chair, out of sight.

  At last Harrison blows his whistle. He takes the flag out from its holder on the railing, gives it a ceremonial wave, and then lays it horizontally on the wooden landing outside.

  He ducks into the hutch and we stare at each other like we’re each from some alternate universe and are recognizing alien life for the first time. Harrison removes the whistle from his neck and hangs it on a nail.

  “Am I supposed to guess the reason you’re here, Lake? I’m sorry about Will and about Penny. The team’s planning on doing a memorial or something for Will, but, well, they’re waiting to see what happens.” Harrison and Will are on the school’s lacrosse team. They don’t hang out much, but it’s impossible not to like Will, so I know the two get along and I believe Harrison when he says that he is sorry.

  “Why did you say I won’t choose Will?” I ask, and to my surprise I don’t sound that pissed, more like curious. Like Please, tell me the answer, tell me why I choose Penny instead. As if Harrison Vines is some kind of oracle.

  “What are you talking about?” But Harrison angles his muscular shoulders away from me.

  “On ChatterJaw. Why did you make that post? Trouble in paradise?” I repeat and let my hands fall in exasperation to my bare tan thighs.

  His brow line twitches down for a split second. “ChatterJaw is anonymous.”

  “Not, it turns out, if you know the right people.” It feels good to be in control of the situation, even if it’s one step in a completely crazy out-of-control process. “So don’t bother messing with me, okay? We both know I’m on a short timeframe here.”

  Harrison sighs and leans against the crate. He has pale sunglasses-shaped tan lines around his eyes. “Why do you think?”

  “I don’t know, you have some crazy, weirdo stalker crush on me? You’re mean? You like to torture small animals and dance on headstones?”

  He lets his head droop and stares at me, deadpan. “I’ve been dating Maya for a year, Lake.”

  “Oh.” I press my lips together. “I didn’t know. Congratulations. Maya’s nice.”

  He lets out an irritated laugh. “Yeah, she is.” Then he runs his hands through his hair and it stays put from all the air’s sea salt. “I shouldn’t have posted it. I’d take it down if I could. It was stupid.” ChatterJaw posts are permanent. Whatever goes on the virtual bulletin board stays there. Period. One of the reasons the drunken Saturday night threads are so good to peruse on Sunday morning.

  “But you did,” I press.

  “I—look, I don’t know what I saw. Maybe it was nothing. Maya thought it was nothing. She kept saying that I was butting in where I didn’t belong. But, I don’t know, it was just this one day, I was in the locker room, running late for practice because I had to tape up my knee. Will must have just set his phone down on the bench because the screen was still on and all these messages started coming through. From ChatterJaw. His phone was blowing up. I wanted to know what was going on because I figured, I don’t know, maybe it was something big. I couldn’t help it—okay, fine, maybe I could have—but you know it alerts you when there’s a response to a thread you posted on. Well, I checked the thread and there were only two people responding to this one. I read through some of the messages and they just seemed—well, it’s hard to say, I guess.”

  “They seemed what?”

  He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know, Lake. Will was a good guy, one of the best, so I’m not saying there was anything, like, scandalous. I figured you probably knew, honestly, but then—look, you can read the thread for yourself. Check in the ‘Spilled’ forum, about a month back. The title of it was Love is for Fakers.” The title alone makes me sit up straight in the chair. “I think they went private,” he says.

  “Who?” I ask.

  “How should I know? It’s anonymous.”

  My lips purse. I don’t know what to say. Love is for Fakers? Will Bryan wouldn’t be caught dead in a thread like that. Unless he was joking or arguing or I don’t know. Harrison Vines didn’t know Will. I did.

  I stand to leave. “Thanks for the drink,” I say.r />
  “Lake?” He stops me as I’m about to take the first step down the ladder and onto the beach. “If it helps, my uncle, he was resurrected. You could talk to him, if you need to. About it.”

  I swallow. “Right, I…appreciate that, Harrison.”

  The sand prickles my bare feet against the wood.

  “People can grow up, you know,” Harrison says to the back of my head. “If you give them a chance.”

  I shrug, knowing what he means but not being sure what I can do about it now. I take the long way back to my car, walking along the lapping water where the day’s sandcastles are disappearing into the sand as the tide pulls them apart—either that or it’s putting the beach back together. It’s still hard to tell.

  Love is For Fakers

  I’m a mosaic made from sharp edges and broken things

  As long as no one looks too closely—not even me—none of the ugly bits show through

  Those parts that want to smash love and tear holes in hearts

  But I’m still made up of the broken things

  Even if nobody knows

  I still feel them

  Ripping into my soul

  Did you write that?

  A part of me did, yeah

  Is it true?

  I think so, a lot of the time anyway

  Well, when you said it, did the ugly parts show through?

  Yes

  Maybe they’re not as ugly as you think

  Or maybe they’re even uglier

  I feel like that sometimes too

  Feel like what?

  Like everything’s just an act. Like what’s the point?

  Like none of this stuff

  is who I am on the inside

  Like I’m constantly on stage performing

  The part of great guy

  Are you not a “Great Guy”?

  Maybe not a Great Guy

  But I’m a decent one I think

  I wanted to be a GG but

  I think maybe I’m just a phony instead

  It’s

  …..

  Exhausting?

  Kill me, I’m whining

  Stop. That’s the GG talking

  Just be the decent one today maybe

  The thing is

  I don’t know that I can start that now

  You kinda already are

  I’m hijacking your thread

  You’re the only one reading it

  Still.

  How long have you been writing poetry?

  Is it poetry? I think they’re just words.

  You’re lucky. You can write the true things

  On an anonymous message board…

  It helps I think. Even if nobody reads it

  I know I’m there somewhere on the page

  Where I can find me

  I’ll read it

  Do you write?

  No. I draw. Stupid cartoons mainly

  I’d like to see one someday

  If you’re lucky

  I thought we already established I am ^^

  “Fine, you win.” I stare down my nose at my brother, wheelchair parked in the corner of his room, eyes fixed on a made-up point beyond his window while listening to an audiobook in French. I click pause on the media player. “I want you to give me the clue. So tell me your terms.”

  I’ve given up. I’m exhausted. Last night, I managed two hours of sleep. The words in my head from the ChatterJaw thread would not stop whispering on and on and on until I would have pulled my hair out by the roots if it had made them go away.

  Matt puffs into the straw and spins to face me. He stares hard in that unflinching way he has that makes you feel as if he’s uncovering some inner part of you that you’d rather keep hidden. I wait for the shift, for the flash of my brother before the accident, the one who sometimes appears so vividly on his face that I half expect him to stand up and declare that his paralysis has been some elaborate game of make-believe. But that alternate-universe brother of mine isn’t there, not even for the most fleeting of instants. In a way, it makes all this easier. “You have to promise to take me with you,” he says and there’s no hard edge of laughter in his voice now.

  “Where?” I ask.

  “On each stop of the scavenger hunt.” He enunciates his words like a professor.

  “And why would you want to do that?”

  The only reason my brother leaves the house is for doctors’ appointments, and it’s an ordeal. There’s the loading of him into the car. The exhaustion that takes hold of him so easily, he’s hardly able to withstand a trip for more than ten minutes before he’s cursing with fatigue and irritation. Not to mention he hates the outside world.

  “Closure,” he says.

  “Closure,” I repeat. “For who?”

  “You.”

  “That makes it sound like this will be the end of Penny and Will for me.” I narrow my eyes to slits. “It won’t. But even so, what’s in it for you?”

  He blinks slowly, deliberately, refusing to rush even as he knows the minutes are barreling past me and my birthday is drawing closer and closer and closer. “I get the chance to make my case,” he says. “An audience, as they’d say in medieval times. To convince you that I am still the right choice.”

  I peel my glance away to stare out the window. Yeah, except I’m not sure Matt was ever the right choice.

  When I was younger, I used to pick my nail beds bloody, worrying about the day when my parents would stage an accident to help kill my brother. Even at fourteen I knew there’d be no coming back from that. Not as a family. Whether he drowned or fell from a balcony or they bludgeoned his head or he accidentally overdosed, they would willingly pull the last thread that held us together and they and my brother would no longer be the same people I loved. I was supposed to be a part of that.

  “I’ll take you,” I say. “On the scavenger hunt. Just give me the first clue so that I can get on with this thing.” Before I was worried that if I let Matt be involved, I’d be giving a piece of Penny and Will away. Now I worry that if I don’t, I won’t get any pieces of Will or Penny back. So I vow not to let it happen. He’ll be a passenger and that’s all.

  “Every stop of the way?”

  “Every stop of the way.” I can’t find a way, not without the first clue. And I need it now more than ever. Because of what Harrison told me. Because she—whoever she was—had known something about Will that I hadn’t. He’d shared something of himself with this anonymous girl—assuming it even was a girl—that he hadn’t shared with Penny or with me.

  After I spoke to Harrison and read the thread that turned everything upside down for me, I went back to Neville’s to see if Margaret could uncover the other user. I didn’t even care if I was overstepping my bounds and asking too much of a relative stranger or that the shop was twenty minutes out of my way back home. But Margaret and Ringo were both gone and I was left with a thousand questions and no answers.

  For now, I wanted to set the universe right. I wanted to find those wishes. To hear Will speak through the words written on the scraps of paper. To know that Will and I aren’t just an institution, we’re the real deal.

  I won’t lie, though. I feel guilty when I tell my mom that I’m taking Matt out. Only because she looks so damn hopeful and it makes me want to cry that I can’t make her heart whole and fix mine at the same time. We have to take her van because it’s the only vehicle we have that’s outfitted for Matt’s wheelchair. I’ve heard that there are quadriplegics that can drive by using hand controls, but unfortunately Matt’s not one of them, and I wonder sometimes when I catch myself still thinking about such things how just one small change to Matt’s condition like that, how a break in his spine just a single vertebra lower might have changed the quality of his life entirely.

  Mom asks a bunch of questions about where we’re going and what we’ll be doing and when we’ll be back. I guess Matt’s already thought it through, because he has answers for everything. We’re going to the libra
ry. There’s a speaker this afternoon. Something about the Civil War. Mom keeps looking at me all, You sure?

  She even interjects and says that I have a lot on my mind and maybe it’d be better for me to stay close to home, but I say that I’m fine and I need to get out of the house.

  I suppose it’s hope and the fact that I don’t have any friends left that make her believe I’d want to get out of the house with Matt.

  Matt won’t recite the first clue until we’ve finished the whole loading process and driven away from our street. I pull to the shoulder of the road, where the tires of Mom’s van crunch the broken seashells scattered there. The smell of rotting seaweed seeps in through the closed windows.

  “Well?” I push the gear into park. “You’d better not have forgotten a word.”

  “Do you want it or not?” Matt asks from the back.

  “Sorry,” I mutter.

  He clears his throat and then puts on a surfer-boy accent that I don’t appreciate: “‘Welcome to your great, big, epically magnificent, cowabunga awesome birthday scavenger hunt! First clue: Our inspiration was shaped like a type of shoe. I was nervous and so were you. Go to the place that welcomes tramps. Bring back a ball—quick!—before you lose your chance. Don’t screw this up, Devereaux. Love always, Will.’” Matt drops the imitation, which for the record sounds nothing like Will, who had a nice deep-but-not-too-deep voice and never sounded like an idiot. “Happy?”

  I close my eyes. “Repeat it.”

  He does. Word for word, exactly the same, so I know it’s real and that he hasn’t forgotten anything. But after that, my heart begins slipping down rib by rib until it winds up in the bottom of my stomach. “Crap,” I groan, and lower my forehead onto the steering wheel. “I don’t know. I don’t know what he meant.” I hadn’t expected this. I beat my fist against the dash. “Say the last half again,” I command.