History Is All You Left Me

by Adam Silvera

  The warmth inside feels good. I don’t recognize the young woman behind the counter, and I would definitely remember someone with blue-streaked hair and yellow contacts: a demon vibe. It’s really cool. But I shouldn’t be surprised about new faces. I haven’t been here since earlier this summer, and even that visit wasn’t for very long.

  “They have a lot of Game Boy stuff,” Jackson muses. He picks up a couple of bargain games from a bucket, dropping them back in a second later.

  “Yeah, it’s great.”

  There’s nothing I want to buy, so I just follow Jackson around as he tours the store—my favorite, not yours—for the first time. At least I think he’s never been here before. I don’t know why you would’ve walked with Jackson over here in the winter unless you were trying to bump into me and mess with my head or make me miss you more. Let me shut up or you’ll think I’m back to my old paranoid self. I swear I’ve improved. I swear I have a better grip on reality these days.

  Jackson spends a lot of time with the Xbox games. He checks out a racing game, a fighting game, and a spy game before moving on.

  I stop him. “Anything else here catching your eye?”

  “Not really.”

  “I was counting the games you looked at and you stopped at three . . .”

  “Okay.” He’s confused.

  “I have this thing with numbers. I prefer things to be done in evens.”

  “I didn’t even hear you counting.”

  “I was counting in my head. I’m always counting in my head. Sometimes I don’t even realize it, but I know I am.” I know how this sounds, and I want to be able to tell him and the rest of the world that it’s okay, that we don’t have to get caught up on odd occurrences like this, but I know it won’t be okay—if I can control something for my sanity, I want to give myself that relief. “Three makes me really anxious in ways that one doesn’t because things often come in ones, so three marks the first odd number where I’m always anticipating a fourth whatever. I can’t focus otherwise.”

  Jackson nods and picks up some discounted Halo sequel. It doesn’t feel as natural as the first three games he reviewed so I’m tempted to ask him to check out two more games. That way I’ll have two sets of three, and I can clock out of this moment with a glowing six, but I accept it and move on.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  If he’s judging me, I can’t read it on him. I don’t believe he has that ugliness inside of him, truthfully, unlike some of my classmates these past few months—you know nothing about this—as my compulsions worsened.

  “Anytime,” Jackson says. He continues cruising the aisles, and every now and again I catch him glancing at me; it’s possible I’ve ruined his browsing experience by making him extra conscious of doing everything in even numbers. But maybe not. He seems relaxed here, like he’s ditched his grief at the door, unaware it will continue stalking him the moment we leave. His peace reminds me of you on the floor in front of a puzzle.

  We wander over to a display of classics. Your weight pins me down even more when I see those cartridges lined up. I never owned any of these consoles, but you were obsessed: the first PlayStation and Nintendo, Sega Genesis, the short-lived Dreamcast, and a bulky Game Boy that couldn’t possibly fit in anyone’s pocket. I smile in spite of myself at the dusty glass shelves, remembering times I played some of them with you or watched you kick ass while I did homework: Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Earthworm Jim, Sonic, Mortal Kombat, Batman, on and on.

  “It’s like a flea market,” Jackson says.

  “Except not.” I point to a not for sale sign. “I like that it’s just a shrine.”

  “Bonus points for it not being in a museum.”

  I spot a cartridge on a lower shelf. Tetris. I sit on my knees. Jackson crouches and joins me.

  “His favorite,” Jackson says.

  The comment doesn’t bother me the way others have because you playing Tetris isn’t a very intimate detail. Hell, even your teachers knew about your Tetris addiction from all the times they confiscated your phone during class. Jackson presses his hand against the case. Maybe he’s forgotten I’m there, here, right next to him.

  I have a story for Jackson.

  “Did Theo ever tell you about Mac: The Family Curse?”

  “No.”

  “He hated it so much. I mean most people would hate it. But he thought it would be perfect because it was this game where you get around doing physics-based puzzles. But there were so many glitches that Theo charged himself with going back to the store to buy out all the copies so no one else had to suffer through it. I bet him two dollars he wouldn’t do it. I lost.”

  Jackson laughs a little, which is awesome because this was basically a forty-dollar joke on you—well, thirty-eight-dollar joke, since you made two bucks back.

  “He ranted about the game for days. Sometimes I would wake up to a text about something else he hated about it or found illogical.” I’m smiling again, and this time I’m smiling with him, which is a nice little recess from confusion and heartache and guilt and unhappiness. It’s the kind of relief I felt whenever I was stuck home sick, missing your face and voice, and then you would call me the second school was over and I would feel whole again. I would give everything to be able to play Tetris with you right now. Knowing I can’t rips away the moment and banishes me back to this empty universe.

  “I’ll wait for you outside,” I tell Jackson.

  I get up and leave so quickly I’m sure the blue-haired cashier thinks I probably pocketed a Yoshi key chain or something. The cold air bites my face, a useless zombie kiss. Jackson joins me a few seconds later, empty-handed. If he was planning on shopping—shitty timing to buy a game, if so—I totally ruined that for him.

  “I’m sorry I made you talk about him,” he says. “I didn’t know that story. It’s weird, but it’s cool to learn something new about him instead of remembering all our good times, you know?”

  “It’s good to talk about him,” I agree. “It always is.” But it sucks that I’m talking about you, and to you, and that you can’t talk back—something Jackson will be going back to California not ever knowing. “I know talking about Theo keeps him alive. But that doesn’t make it any less hard that he isn’t walking around here, keeping himself alive.”

  Jackson nods and pockets his hands, shivering. That’s all. He’s staring at me the same way that I’m staring at him—in misery. I won’t lie to him about how I’m sure this will get better, and he doesn’t try consoling me with any of that nonsense, either. I move to his left and lead us back toward your house.

  “Here we are.”

  He stands in front of the door, waiting to be buzzed in without having even looked at the intercom. So I guess he was used to getting let in when he stayed here in February. I press 2B for him while he bounces up and down. He’s either warming himself up or really has to pee, not that he would’ve said so during our completely silent walk over here.

  “Who is it?” Ellen calls down through the speaker.

  Jackson answers for himself and adds my name. Ellen buzzes us in.

  “I wasn’t actually planning on going up,” I tell Jackson. “I just wanted to walk you back.”

  “Don’t you want to see everyone?”

  “Of course I do, especially Denise. But, I don’t know, I want to respect their grieving period too and not move in on their space.” I’ve thought about this a lot, but I never planned on telling Jackson, the ghost who’s haunting your home right now. “I didn’t mean that as a shot against you. I know your options were pretty limited, especially with your friends back home this week.”

  “Can I be honest with you?” Jackson says. He moves deeper into the lobby, avoiding the chill that keeps creeping in through the front door. “It’d be nice to have you up there with me, even just for a few minutes.”

  He’s a puzzle piece that does
n’t fit. And he knows it.

  I can only imagine your face if I said no to Jackson right now; I’m sure it would look a lot like the face you made the last time I saw you. But I don’t want to think about that; forget I brought it up. That’s taboo.

  “Let’s go up,” I tell Jackson.

  I barely register Jackson thanking me. Up the staircase we go toward your apartment, and I don’t want to be here; it’s too soon. It will always be too soon. Time doesn’t heal all wounds. We both know that’s bullshit; it comes from people who have nothing comforting or original to say. But I wonder if others keep up with this lie because they don’t want to speak the harsh truth. The wound never closes and the pain remains, always piercing, always burning, always suffocating, always bleeding.

  Ellen greets us at the door. She isn’t waving with her fingers like usual. It might have something to do with how it isn’t you and me returning from a movie, but instead two boys who love you. “Good morning.”

  “Morning,” Jackson says, slipping past her.

  “Morning, Ellen.” I step inside, hugging her once she closes the door. She hugs me back; it’s the first time we’ve held each other since losing you. In this one hug I no longer feel like she is disappointed in me for breaking up with you, that she still sees me as her other son. In that instant, I’m glad I let Jackson convince me to be here.

  Ellen takes me by the arm. “Let me make you boys some iced tea.”

  I’ll say it long after the zombie pirates have won: anyone who rejects your mother’s iced tea—even during winter—hates happiness. I follow her into the kitchen and everything looks the same, except for the addition of a round table by the window. Jackson sits first. I grab four glasses—an extra for Denise—to distract myself from trying to figure out what happened to the old (perfectly fine) table, and wondering if this new one has been here for so long that Ellen wouldn’t even consider it new anymore. I sit beside Jackson, and Ellen begins her routine, slicing fresh lemons for us.

  “Theo would’ve wanted all of this, right?” Ellen says quietly. “Did you have a good evening?”

  “It was good,” Jackson says.

  I don’t know what else to add. I hear the tinkle of piano keys off in the living room. “That Denise playing?”

  “Should be.” Ellen peeks into the next room while stirring the iced tea. “Good, Russell is with her. My sister forwarded some article to me on Wednesday or Tuesday . . . the days are scrambled; it doesn’t matter. She sent me an article about distracting children from their grief by forcing them to stick to their routines.” She pours us iced tea. “It’s worth a shot.”

  “Totally.” My routines calm me down when they’re not turning me inside out.

  Ellen checks her watch. “We’re taking her to her friend Mitali’s house in a little bit.” Without another word, she ducks out into the living room.

  I remember Mitali. She’s the fast-talker. Your parents hosted that detective birthday party for her, years ago. Mitali and Denise and a bunch of other girls whose names even I don’t remember insisted on being called “grown-up detectives” instead of “kid detectives” and took it way too seriously, but we played along. You were the murder victim in the living room, surrounded by “yellow crime scene tape”—cough, party streamers, cough—until you got up for a water break while they were investigating their latest clue in Denise’s bedroom. Big mistake. Mitali rushed out and said you were cheating. The best part: she accused me of being a bad doctor for being wrong about your being dead. I wish you were cheating at death this time, too.

  I down the iced tea and place my glass in the sink. Jackson and I follow Ellen into the living room. On the couch are folded blankets and a pillow. Maybe staying in your bed was too much, and Jackson camped out there. I don’t ask him.

  Ellen crouches beside Denise, who is sitting on the piano bench with Russell, and grabs her hand in both of hers. “We have to head out in a bit. Mitali’s father said he’s making the apple pie you love. Do you want help pick out something cute to wear?”

  “I can dress myself,” Denise says. Her voice is flat. She pulls her hands out of your mother’s, swings off the bench, sees me, turns away, and returns for a double take and her eyes widen. “Griffin!” She charges toward me and hugs me around my waist; I don’t think I fully registered at the funeral how freaking big she’s getting.

  “What’s up, Dee?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  The answer is awkward, but I owe it to your sister to tell the truth. “Jackson stayed over at my house last night, and I walked him back over here.”

  Denise’s face scrunches up, and she looks back and forth between Jackson and me. “I thought you two hated each other.”

  Something you said to me once: The world should stop lying to kids because they’re always brutally honest with us.

  “Denise!” Ellen scolds.

  “Denise, geez,” Russell says.

  Her cheeks flush. I hate that she’s embarrassed over this.

  “Griffin and I just haven’t had a chance to be friends yet,” Jackson says. I feel like he’s talking down to her a little bit; don’t you? I don’t think he means to, but maybe he hasn’t spent enough time around kids. More importantly, he doesn’t deny her claim. He really thinks I hate him, and even though I don’t want to set him on fire or curse him to die a thousand deaths, I’m not sure he’s wrong.

  “Yeah.” That’s the best I got.

  Then Ellen forces Denise to get ready for apple pie and playtime with her chatty friend, who is bound to go on and on about typical nine-year-old stuff that she can’t possibly care about anymore. Losing you is going to be her express ticket to adulthood, I bet.

  I sit on the couch, fighting away the memories, keeping my eyes off your closed door straight ahead. Russell is sitting on the edge of the piano bench, his face in his hands. I don’t know what to say, so I bring up the routines because talking about normalcy seems, well, normal.

  “Yeah. The routines,” Russell growls. “I’m sure Virginia will send El another psychobabble article on the drive over to Mitali’s, and we’ll drop everything to try that out.” He gets up and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his bathrobe pocket. “Could you let El know I’ll be outside by the car?”

  I’ve never seen Russell bounce so quickly. He doesn’t seem to remember or care he’s in a bathrobe.

  It’s only a couple of minutes before Ellen and Denise emerge from the bedroom, dressed in new clothes for the playdate. Ellen’s eyes dart around with the same intensity as on those mornings she would drive us to the arcade in New Rock and you were still in the shower. “Where’s Russell?”

  Jackson points with his thumb toward the front door. “Stepped out.”

  “He said he’ll be by the car,” I add.

  If Ellen is trying to mask her annoyance, she’s failing. She takes a deep breath and tosses a ring of keys onto the couch between Jackson and me. “You boys know where everything is. Griffin, you’re welcome to hang around, of course. Jackson, if you step out, don’t forget the keys. We should be back in a couple of hours.”

  Denise gives me a hug and Jackson a high five on her way out.

  “I won’t hang around long,” I tell Jackson once we’re alone.

  “I’m not kicking you out,” Jackson says.

  “I know.” I definitely don’t plan on being here when your parents and sister return; it’s just too much on them, you know. “It’s hard being here . . . I don’t know how the hell you’re doing it.”

  “Without choice,” Jackson answers.

  “Right. It’s good that you were here.” I mean that.

  “No way was I going to miss his funeral,” Jackson says.

  I get up and go toward your bedroom door. I’m pretty damn aware you won’t be on the other side, hunched over your desk, drafting a rough sketch of a universe you hope to
bring to life in an animation. I’m still tempted to knock anyway.

  “I haven’t gone inside,” Jackson says.

  I turn away from your door. “What? I thought you were sleeping there.”

  “Hell no. Would you have been able to?”

  I’ve imagined this scenario before and find myself in your bed, always. But I missed being in your room with you long before you died.

  “Have you seen his parents in there?”

  “Russell a couple times, yeah.”

  “Did anyone say they didn’t want you in there?”

  Jackson shakes his head.

  I turn back to the door and grab the doorknob. “I’m going in. You can do what you want, but I—”

  “I’ll go with you,” Jackson says. I feel his fast footsteps on the floor.

  He stands to my left, but instead of releasing the doorknob and switching sides, I close the space between me and the door so he’s no longer directly beside me. I’m even closer to you now. I turn the doorknob. Here we are, at the main exhibit of the McIntyre Museum.

  I want to tell you what it’s like being surrounded by these light-blue walls again. Our framed puzzles are still there: the astronaut waiting for the train, my favorite; the map of Brazil, which was brutal but fun to piece together; an open suitcase containing another suitcase piled high with Russian nesting dolls; and Pompeii, our very first. If I had to take a shot at describing what it’s like, I would call it my resurrection.

  But this wonder, this second life, is short-lived. All the air is squeezed out of me when I see photos of you and Jackson on the windowsill beside your bed. Right where our photos used to be. Your arm is wrapped around Jackson’s shoulder in one, and your smile is really wide; it’s an image I’m familiar with, of course, which is why it feels so out of place. I turn away from the window before the other photos stab me, before I flip out on Jackson, demanding to know if he made you take our pictures down. But I only find more foreign objects. Next to the graphic novels I gave you is a boxed set of four mass-market thrillers. I don’t know if it’s a gift from Jackson or completely unrelated. The dream catcher on the floor is new too, and I don’t know if it’s from some special event with Jackson, like the Batman figure I got designed with your face, which is still perched on top of your bookcase.