Look Closer

by Stewart Lewis

  “Thanks,” I say, drinking the whole glass.

  “You were thirsty, huh?” my mother says.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  I wait for her to leave, trying to make my face look normal. When she does, I turn to my laptop and check Google Earth. He’s right on the other side of Dupont Circle, above an old Irish pub. I find a Facebook page for him. In his profile picture, he looks my age, maybe a little older. His last post was four months ago. His Instagram is private.

  What do I have to lose? I’m either crazy or I’m not. I dress and sneak out of the house, managing to avoid Larry and my mother (an advantage of the master bedroom being on the third floor). I have no idea what I’m doing, but I feel magnetized, as if some force is pulling me. When I arrive at Tom’s, I wait outside his house for the better part of an hour, avoiding eye contact with some randoms who seem to appear out of nowhere: a woman carrying a teddy bear and a golf club, and an old man with a paper bag covering a large bottle of beer.

  When the person I recognize as Tom Elliot finally comes out, he takes a left and walks, head down. It looks like he’s on a mission. I follow him, maintaining a short distance between us. He’s dressed like a California dude—curly blond hair, cut-off jean shorts, and red Converse sneakers. The weird thing is, he’s wearing a scarf in this heat. It’s a light cotton scarf, but still.

  He takes another left down an alley. At the end, there’s a small park with what looks like old seats from a movie theater. There’s trash scattered around, soda cans and candy wrappers, and a large tree with a tiny tree house that looks half-built. He stops in front of the tree house and places something on the top step. Then he turns to go back the way he came, by where I’m standing. I duck out of the way so he can’t see me. My breath quickens and sweat beads on my temple, which I wipe with the sleeve of my T-shirt. I pretend I’m on my phone, facing away, but when he reenters the street from the alley, I catch a glimpse of him up close. It seems like his whole face is trembling.

  When his back is to me, I run into the alley to see what he placed on the top step of the tree house. It’s a rock. On it in red marker, it says:

  E—

  I’m sorry.

  —T

  I pick it up. It’s warm, as if it had been in his pocket for a while. I put it back and run to catch up to him. At first I don’t see him and think about going home and forgetting all this nonsense. But when I look down the street, I see his scarf in a cluster of people waiting for the light to change on Pennsylvania. I make it to the corner and wait. I look at my hands. They’re shaking. Like the moment before a bomb goes off, or the second before a giant wave flattens a village. I know it’s coming. But what?

  When the walk sign comes on, Tom picks up his pace and so do I. Eventually he hops onto the escalator at the mouth of the Dupont Circle Metro station. I take a different escalator and stay about ten steps behind.

  There are about twenty people on the platform, all waiting patiently for the train, some on their phones, some reading the newspaper, some staring into space. Everyone is pretty much stationary. Except Tom Elliot.

  As I hear the train approaching, he breaks into a run and jumps off the platform right as the train pulls in.

  You could almost call it graceful. His body unfurls in the air as he leaps off the edge, seemingly in slow motion, his scarf waving behind him in an arc. There’s a strange, elongated second of beauty before impact. I watch in complete horror. A collective gasp echoes through the station, like when an athlete shoots but misses at a sports game. The train’s brakes are high-pitched and piercing. It pulls to a stop, and for a second, it’s completely silent. Then a child starts to cry.

  It hits me like a punch in the gut.

  I could have done something.

  Was I supposed to do something?

  I am too late.

  The child wails louder, and people are making a commotion, dialing 911. There is blood on the platform and on the tracks. Many people start to flee the scene, as if they don’t want their lives touched by such atrocities. But others walk closer, peering over the edge at what death and destruction look like.

  I stand there, unable to move, until what must be a while later when the EMTs carry the body away in a green bag.

  When Tom walked out of his building, he was focused. At the tree house, he seemed afraid, maybe sad or angry. But weren’t most people? Is that how wafer-thin the line is between living and not living? A line that one can cross in a split second? The two people whose names I saw died on the same day. Should I tell Jenna or my mother? They’d think I was seriously losing it. Maybe I am.

  I walk to Coach’s apartment in a daze, but he’s not there. I text him that I need to see him, and he texts back that he’s in Virginia visiting his mother, but he’ll see me on Saturday.

  I go home and try my best to avoid Larry and my mother, although they can tell something’s up. My body is still shaking.

  “How was your day?” my mom asks.

  I can see the jump replaying in my mind, and feel the powerlessness, like when you drop something and you see the impact coming, knowing it’s going to break.

  “Fine,” I say. As I turn to leave, I knock over Larry’s coffee mug, and it shatters on the floor. “I’m sorry!” I start to pick up the shards, and cut my finger.

  “Whoa, whoa, hold on,” Larry says, wrapping my finger in a paper towel. “I’ll clean that up.”

  “Honey, is everything all right? What’s going on?” My mother has that super concerned look on her face, like the time I had chicken pox. I’d looked in the mirror and was so scared. I was covered in pox. She took me to the doctor, and when we got home, she lay with me that whole first night, never leaving my bed.

  “I’m not feeling well,” I manage to say.

  Larry methodically picks up the pieces, holding my finger. “It’s okay,” he says. “When I was in college, I’d walk into the bar and everyone would grab their drinks.”

  My mother laughs, and it feels off, as if she’s only trying to please him.

  My mom hands him a Band-Aid, and Larry wraps it around my finger. It’s the first thing I’ve ever seen him do that’s useful.

  I excuse myself and head upstairs to my room and lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Is this really happening to me? What on earth made Tom do that? And what about the rock he left at the tree house? Who was E?

  I remember when I found out my dad died. It was as if the earth beneath me was no longer solid, like my knees could buckle and I could melt into a puddle, like everything was sucked out of me. I had nothing. But even then, suicide was never an option. I didn’t want my life without my dad, but I didn’t want to die. I didn’t think I had the courage. I wonder now if it is courage or cowardice?

  My mother comes in to check my finger. I don’t let her look at it, saying it’s fine. She flips through the college brochures on my desk. I can tell she wants to say something, but am grateful she doesn’t.

  When she leaves, I’m too exhausted to think about anything. I fall asleep in my clothes.

  I never remember my dreams, but ever since the helicopter one with my father, I’m starting to. Tonight, I’m on the escalator at the Dupont Circle Metro, and Tom is behind me instead of running ahead. I get off first, ready to block him. I try to get his attention when he reaches the platform. He has the same expression as in the alley. That trembling face. I start yelling, but he doesn’t hear me. I hold out my arms. The train is speeding into the station. A child is laughing. He runs right through me.

  He leaps, and I reach for him. I grab his scarf. Tom gets squashed by the train, and I am left holding his scarf.

  * * *

  The next day I swim most of the morning, still not able to get the image out of my head. Tom’s body unraveling in slow motion, the undulating scarf, the blood on the platform. The dream in which I couldn’t save him.

>   I’m grateful for the water. It’s all-consuming. I lose myself in my focus, quelling the boiling pot of questions in my head. I use my legs to kick, my arms to slap, push, and pull. I duck fast to flip, savoring the escape of being fully submerged. The pool always gave me purpose. But now it feels bigger than that, bigger than improving my times, bigger than me.

  After I finish, dry off, and change, I decide to walk back to Tom’s apartment building. I don’t have a plan, so I sit on the shaded stoop, waiting for a sign. A random comes up and asks me for change. She has on a GWU sweatshirt with holes in it and carries a greasy bag of old french fries. I shake my head.

  Then a man leaps up the stairs, paying no attention to me, and rings the doorbell. He’s clearly distraught. He must know what happened. What if it’s Tom’s father? I will myself to stay put. If I can find something out about Tom, maybe it would explain why I was chosen to see his name. Chosen. It sounds so hocus-pocus, as my mother would say.

  The man rings the bell, but no one answers.

  “Excuse me,” I say, but it doesn’t sound like my voice. I never talk to people I don’t know. But then again, I never get advance notice someone’s going to die. “Are you here about Tom?”

  The man looks ragged, but his nice clothes create an illusion of togetherness. “He is…was my nephew. Did you know him?”

  “No. Yes. Well, sort of.”

  “Were you his girlfriend?”

  “No.” I don’t tell him I’ve never been anyone’s girlfriend, or that two of the boys I kissed in middle school are now gay.

  “Well, what are you doing here?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. I can’t tell him about seeing Tom’s name on my windowsill; it would sound too weird. “I guess I’d like to pay my respects, you know…”

  “Of course,” the man says, handing me his phone. “Put your number in my contacts. I’ll let you know when the service is. I just flew in from Charleston. I think it’s on Friday. I don’t know where my sister is. We’re all in shock.”

  “I know,” I tell him, “I’m so sorry.” My fingers tremble as I type my number into his phone. When I hand it back, he looks at the screen and says, “Tegan.”

  “Yeah. What’s your name?”

  “People call me Rex.” His eyes flick around, and he makes a weird groaning sound. “You can’t trust anything anymore.”

  “I know.”

  “I need to find my sister,” he says quickly. His voice catches. “We had no idea. There was no explanation…”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “What?”

  “My…my father was in the military. He was killed in Syria.” Again, my voice sounds like someone else’s. I can feel blood rushing to my head. I grab onto the railing to steady myself.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  “I don’t know why I said that. I’m sorry. I mean, I’m sorry for you. For Tom.”

  I stand up straighter, and Rex hugs me. I am not a hugger, but it feels good to share my grief with this stranger. When we separate, I think he’s going to ask who the hell I really am. But he closes his eyes and sighs. It’s not a sad sigh. It’s a world-weary sigh, and it reminds me of my father. I look up at the clouds. I try to feel him. I think I do.

  Rex says a quick goodbye and takes off. I stay on the stoop for a little while, still not sure what I’m waiting for, until a woman comes. She has been crying. She’s alone. Her hair is frizzed out, and she’s carrying a bag of oranges.

  “Are you Tom’s mother?” I ask as she starts up the steps.

  She looks terrified for a second, then her face softens, but the fear doesn’t leave her eyes. “Yes, who are you?”

  “I knew Tom.” I know it’s a lie, but it feels like I’ve stepped on a moving walkway and it’s too late to get off.

  “Oh, oh, come in,” the woman says, handing me the bag of oranges and getting out her keys. “Please, come in.”

  I wonder if I should be doing this. What if she figures out I didn’t even know him? Should I tell her the truth? We go inside and sit on her couch. Before I can come clean, she starts sobbing, her head slumping forward. There is nothing I can do but comfort her.

  “It’s okay,” I say, knowing that’s a stupid thing people say. “Actually, it’s not okay. But it’s not your fault.”

  The woman stops crying and stares at me, as if trying to come up with some reason I’m sitting on her couch. I don’t have one, but I also know that I shouldn’t be anywhere else. That right now, my life is about being here. In this moment.

  “I was there,” I tell her. “It was quick. And this is going to sound weird, but it was kind of beautiful.”

  “What?”

  Her face twists into a grotesque shape. She starts crying harder, and it’s so heartbreaking that I do, too. After a while, we calm down and just sit together. Soon, some relatives come over, and they don’t even ask who I am. They barely say anything, simply take their turns comforting Tom’s mother.

  Then a girl comes over. She looks cold and sullen. She’s wearing a bikini top and shorts, and her hair is greasy. I hear one of them call her Sam, and my heart starts racing. Is she his girlfriend? She’ll blow my cover.

  I try to sneak out, but Sam blocks me in the hallway.

  “Who are you?”

  “No one,” I say.

  She looks at me with dead eyes, her expression blank. “What are you doing here, then?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  She snorts and says, “Do you go to Westville?”

  “Yeah,” I lie.

  “Well, Tom went to Dale Ridge. Nice try. I’ve never seen you before. Why are you here?”

  “Look, I can explain how I know Tom, but I’ll sound…”

  “You’ll sound…what?”

  “What’s going on out here?” It’s one of the women who has been comforting Tom’s mother. Maybe an aunt. She has bleached hair, and her mascara’s running.

  “Nothing, I was just leaving. Sorry again, for your loss.”

  “Sorry for yours,” Sam says, and lets me pass, but not without giving me an I’m on to you look.

  On my way home, I can’t get Sam’s face out of my head. I wonder how she knew Tom. The thing is, I feel the loss, too. I saw it happen. I could have done something. I could have talked to him in the alley, at the tree house, at the stoplight. Somehow, I could have changed his mind. I remember my father telling me that helping people is the best thing you can do in life. But it feels like I was given the chance and failed.

  I leave a short while later and stop at the alley by the tree house. It all seems different from before. I check the top step, and the rock is still there. When I touch it, it’s cold. I shiver, turning to head home.

  I run up the stairs to my room when I get there, and start working on college applications to get my mind off the whole thing. I get as far as filling in my name and address. Then I call Jenna, but I’m not really in the conversation. I want to confide in her, but it feels pointless.

  That night, I dream of Tom again. This time, I grab the scarf and pull, and his body comes with it. I’m able to drag him back onto the platform a millisecond before the train comes. We stare at each other as everyone gets on the train. Then Tom runs away, up the escalators. Again, I’m left holding his scarf.

  * * *

  In the morning, I swim laps, then go to my favorite museum. It’s quiet on the third floor with the impressionists. I sit on a bench for a while as people come and go, each with their own ambitions, hopes, and dreams. Some of them look bored, some wide-eyed and full of wonder. A woman in a sari, and older man in a bow tie, two Korean girls about my age: I notice all of them. Even though I feel lost, I’m grounded by the bench in this room. One of the security guards asks if I’m all right. He has blue-black skin and a big smile.

  “Not really,” I tell him.


  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I look at him closely. His brown eyes are kind. There’s a small scar on his cheek in the shape of a comma.

  “Can I tell you without you making judgments?”

  “Try me,” he says.

  “Do you ever feel like you’ve been chosen to do something? Something that’s beyond your control?”

  He looks confused, but then his face softens.

  “You mean like, doing what your heart tells you as opposed to what your logical brain tells you?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the human condition,” he says, like it’s the simplest concept in the world.

  “Hmm,” is all I can say.

  “Nine times out of ten, I’d go with your heart—but that’s just me.”

  “Life lessons from a security guard.”

  He laughs. “You take care, young lady, and be safe.”

  “I’ll try.”

  I watch him walk out of the room. At the doorway he turns back and smiles again, and so do I.

  Another name could come. I keep looking, but nothing happens. Maybe that was it. Maybe that was my only chance and I blew it. But I still have that feeling. Something is happening. This is only the beginning.

  * * *

  On Friday, I try to figure out what to wear to Tom’s service. I decide on one of my mother’s shift dresses, because it’s simple and not too flashy.

  On my way, I check the tree house at the end of the alley again. My jaw drops when I see the top step. The rock is gone. Whoever it was meant for must have picked it up.

  The church is packed with people, and I try not to make too much eye contact. After a couple hymns are played, a few family members get up and talk about what a nice boy Tom was. It’s unbearably sad to see everyone crying, but also strangely comforting. I feel like screaming, I know this feeling!

  Afterward, as we all file out, Tom’s mother hugs me like she’s always known me. I can see Sam in a black dress a few feet away, smoking and staring at me, shaking her head. I smile and wave at her, but her expression stays the same: hard, cold, almost calculating. She walks away by herself. Partway down the block, she turns again, and I look at my feet so she doesn’t catch me staring at her.