“Cheers!” he says.
We chug them back in one gulp.
Don’t know where I’m going next, but I like the way everything looks right now. A little too bright and way too hot, but exactly the way I want it to be. High school took my sobriety and most of my dignity, so Spits and I break our whiskey bottles on the bleacher mud to honor all we gave to this sacred ground.
“You look nice,” Spits says, tugging on the part of my tie he can see above my robe. “Now give me my ten bucks.”
“Take it and use it for the greater good,” I tell him, shaking off the nagging feeling that I’ve left behind something essential. “Beer would be very appreciated at the McGee residence tonight,” I say as Spits lifts up his robe and crams my ten-dollar bill down his pants. “You’re sick, you know that?”
“Shut up. Let’s go for one last joy ride before this thing ends. I promise we’ll be back in time for your mom to give me a big kiss, and you know she will.” He tries to click his heels together but gets tripped up on his robe. “Shut up!” he yells, but I’m already laughing.
Spitty and I arrive at his parking spot. I usually keep my crying reserved for baseball games and videos of pets being reunited with owners, but I’d be lying if I said the sight of his raggedy Dodge Caravan didn’t choke me up. “I thought you were driving with your dad.”
“Did you want me to bring him to the liquor store? Hold on, Pop. Grabbing some whiskey for me and Fly. He drove himself. I rode solo in the White Whale.”
I climb in. The passenger seat is pushed and leaned back to my exact preference, covered in stains and nostalgia. I am the co-king of the White Whale. This is my throne.
Spits takes out two more baby whiskeys. We chug, so fast I get a bubble caught in my throat, then toss the little bottles out the White Whale’s manual windows, cranking the handles as fast as we can to let in the fresh air. Spitty takes a hard left out of the school lot. Not a car in sight.
“By the way,” I say, grabbing at the warm summer air as it flies through my fingers. “That girl’s coming tonight.” I smile at the thought of Petra, imagining her walking through my front door, eyes shooting left to right, scanning for me.
Me.
Accelerating speed pulls my cheeks back. I can almost taste the future’s possibilities in the wind whooshing through my mouth.
• • •
No one cares about Martin’s empty seat. No one checks. Rules are gone, because for 867 other people, high school is officially over.
I could throw up.
Without him here, I remember the reason for my initial dread. Every reason, actually. Every twelve-hour school day. Every agonizing assignment. Every painstaking triumph and hard-earned grade. My years of work all erased, obsolete, rendered irrelevant. Because of one misstep, none of it matters. None of it pays off.
At some point, the ceremony ends, and I hear, “Congratulations, graduates!” At some point, I switch over my tassel and rise up to toss my cap into the air. Doing what Dad’s always asked of me. Faking it until I make it, even though I know it’s not that simple.
At some point, families crowd the football field.
At some point, Cameron finds me. “We did it!” she squeals, as if there were ever a question in her mind that we would.
If only she knew…
“We’re going to a party tonight,” I tell her. A surprised look smushes her freckles into the wrinkled creases on her nose.
Martin McGee, I will find you again.
2
If there’s a light switch to be found, I can’t reach it.
I can’t do anything at all.
It isn’t darkness, but it isn’t light. It’s gray without being gray because you can see gray, and this can’t be seen. Or felt. Or tasted or smelled or heard.
It just is.
• • •
My entire uncelebratory dinner at Olive Garden, while Caroline and Jessica reminisced about their high school days and my parents listened with wistful fondness, I tried to remember the last party I attended. Cameron and I did a campus visit together last fall. We had different hosts inside the same dorm, and they invited us to an off-campus thing. We stayed for all of twenty minutes before we were over it.
I trudged back further into the recesses of my memory—the darker places—and I came up with something more relevant. Summer before junior year, I went to a bonfire. I had two sips of lukewarm beer from a red cup and left before eleven. That had to be carefully excavated out of a pile of much more substantial memories with Ryan Hales. Just above the first time we met and below the first time we held hands. And even those I strained to recall, mostly because I get a vinegar taste in my mouth whenever I think of him.
Martin’s party stands for something different. It’s the end of an era while managing to be the beginning too. It’s the last shred of high school cocktailed with whatever we’re heading into now.
• • •
This sounds so impossible, but I know I have my brain. I’m thinking these thoughts right now; I must have my brain. It’s just that I can’t find my body.
It’s not freaking me out. It should be, but it’s not. There’s nowhere to process the freaking out of things.
There is nowhere.
• • •
“Wear shoes you can walk in,” Cameron reminds Aminah as she peruses my closet for a pair that matches her tank top.
“It might surprise you, but I can figure that out on my own,” Aminah claws back.
Cameron opens my backpack and pulls out my yearbook. “All right, Martin McGee, let’s see who you are.” She turns one page back and forth repeatedly, her face twisted into a confused snarl. “He should be right before you.”
“Check the Not Pictured section,” Aminah chimes in, all the while settling on a pair of white sandals identical to ones she already owns. She catches me giving her an odd look. “Yours are in better condition,” she tells me, as if confessing.
“Weird. It says he’s not pictured. What’s that about? Let’s see if he was in any clubs,” Cameron says.
“Or sports,” Aminah adds.
“Right.”
I curl up next to Cameron for investigation, disappointed to discover that Martin McGee does not exist in photo form.
“Why aren’t we checking Instagram?” Aminah asks. “Petra’s talking about a boy. This is a first since—” She stops and picks up a lip gloss, pretending to be bored by her slipup.
Ryan is home from his first year of college, and it’s like everyone can feel it. He’s an invisible weight slipping into any crevice he can find, making even the smallest of talk seem heavy.
“I told Daniel to meet us there,” Aminah says as an answer to a question no one asked, moving the conversation away from her error.
We head toward my front door. My mom is half asleep on the couch.
“Have you looked at your study—” my mom starts to ask.
I close the door before Aminah and Cameron can hear the end of her sentence.
“Tomorrow,” I call out to her from the other side. “It’s nothing,” I say to my friends. “Just college stuff.”
The truth is an art form.
• • •
It’s like I’m stuck on the inside of a blink. The first one after a long night of sleep, when your eyes don’t really open. It’s just a flutter of moving grayness, but you know something is happening on the other side of your lids—the start of a new day.
Do I see this?
Am I feeling it?
What does something become when it’s all there seems to be?
• • •
We walk down dark side streets elbow to elbow.
“We graduated!” Aminah shouts.
I should tell them what’s going on with me. But I can’t.
I can’t.
; Cameron nudges me, seeking shared acknowledgment of Aminah’s flair for the dramatic. It used to be Aminah who led our smart-girl group. Cameron and I admired her, strived to be her, studied extra hours to reach her heights of intelligence. Then junior year came, and Aminah surrendered her title without explanation, swapping out impossible academic standards for personal liberation. All we knew was that she seemed happier. That was what mattered.
“What a perfect way to kick off our last summer together,” Aminah reflects, nuzzling Cameron and me in for a walking hug. “We are women now!”
Cameron lets out a single laugh, her patented indication to Aminah that she’s being ridiculous. “We’ve always been women.”
Cameron, being the thorough girl that she is, vacuumed up every bit of neuroses Aminah shed junior year. She wears it in her attitude, always selective with the moments she allows to get the best of her.
“No. Before, we were girls. Now, real life begins!”
They settle into quarreling without so much as a breath in my direction.
Aminah and Cameron have been the same since kindergarten. Aminah might be freer and Cameron might be more neurotic, but at their core, they’ve always been a perfectly complementary pair. I’ve always felt like the wild card when it comes to the three of us. Even in appearance. My skin tans easily but turns sallow in winter. My hair was blond when I was younger and has since browned. It used to be curly, now I have to do it with an iron. The rounded puff of my cheeks deflates with every passing year. Of course, the way we appear does not dictate all of who we are to one another, but it’s hard not to notice that while Aminah and Cameron look like someone digitally age-progressed their grade school photos—adding occasionally used glasses on Cameron around eighth grade and braces on Aminah from ninth to tenth—I’m unrecognizable most of the time.
Even to myself.
“I think we turn here,” I contribute in the midst of their arguing.
They pivot in unison.
In the center of a cul-de-sac, flanked by identical ranch houses, sits a two-level orange anomaly with a basketball hoop in front. The home is a statement piece straight from the 1970s, complete with a yellow security light casting eerie horror film shadows on the rusting clapboard.
“No lights on inside.”
“Probably because everyone’s in the basement.”
“Where’d they all park?”
“If they’re drinking, maybe they walked like we did?” Cameron guesses.
“Wow. Please never again assume that the rest of our graduating class is anywhere near as responsible as you are,” Aminah shoots back.
“Should I knock?” I ask.
Aminah takes her cell phone out of her bra. “Let me call Daniel.”
She brings the phone to her ear, and I peek in a window, looking for signs of life.
“Hey, are you here?” A long pause. “What do you mean?” She puts her hand over the phone and looks at me. “Does he go by Fly?”
“What?”
“This guy hosting the party. Is his nickname Fly?”
“I don’t know. He said his mom calls him Marty McFly.”
“Daniel’s saying he got in a car accident after graduation. No one knows anything for sure, but people are saying he could be dead.”
• • •
I know I graduated today.
I ate a sesame bagel with jalapeños and extra cream cheese this morning.
Drank three forties with Spits, Turrey, and Chris two nights ago.
Got in another fight with Brooke after prom.
Skipped my last final.
Bought two bags of Cheetos, a roll of toilet paper, and a case of Keystone Light at the end of last week.
During the ceremony, I swear I struggled for a second to remember Spits’s real name. He’s been Spits or Spitty as long as I’ve been Marty or Fly, which is as long as I can remember. Now I can come up with the first time I knew he was going to be my best friend. Second-grade recess kickball game. Third inning, bases loaded. He caught my kick then dropped it because he saw I was about to cry, letting my team win the game. He had on khaki shorts with a hole where the left pocket should’ve been. You could see his Batman underwear. Everyone made fun of him for it. They called him Spitman for like the next three years.
This is all stuff I forgot. Even what I ate this morning. It was erased, and now it’s here. It’s all here. Except my body. And things to taste or see or smell or touch.
What did I do?
I got in the White Whale. I grabbed at the air, thinking of Graduation Girl. Then something pushed me. Pushed and pushed until I folded inside of myself.
3
Spencer’s head hits the airbag over and over, the impact replaying on a loop. His thoughts repeat, too, locked on the first thing that comes to mind as another car barrels into the White Whale’s passenger side.
Crash. Smack.
I killed my best friend.
It’s the worst thought he’s ever had.
Crash. Smack.
I killed my best friend.
It’s the only thought he’ll ever have again.
Time jumps forward. Sirens flash red. Blood bleeds red. The world tangles into a knot that cannot be untied.
Time jumps backward. Fresh air, so pure, flows into the van. Spencer presses harder on the gas pedal. His heel digs into the car mat beneath.
Martin opens his mouth to speak, but words won’t form.
Time hiccups.
Crash. Smack.
I killed my best friend.
4
A huge chunk of our graduating class appears to be crowded into this waiting room, huddled in corners, draped over chairs, and banging on vending machines. Not a recognizable debate team, science club, ecology club, or honor society member in sight. I don’t know anyone. I don’t really know Martin either, but I’m here anyway, pulled in by fascination, regret, and avoidance in equal parts.
Everyone wears daytime formal attire, with some still in their yellow robes. Cameron, Aminah, and I look precisely casual. Bonfire chic. As if we need another way to stick out.
“We were texting this morning. It’s so unreal,” says a girl as she cries into her friend’s gown sleeve. She passes her phone around for others to see. “Can you believe he wrote that? You mean so much to me. It’s like he knew something bad would happen.”
The phone ends up in my hands. I scroll up.
Thank you for a great year
Brooke don’t do this
Why can’t I say that?
Whatever.
Happy graduation
See you at the ceremony
Maybe
Brooke come on
You know how I feel
You mean so much to me
But don’t ruin summer because of this
We can still be friends
Like before
“You’re bad!” Aminah says, scrolling up even farther to read more.
“Come on, you guys, have some respect!” Cameron whispers, curt.
“She’s the one passing it around!” Aminah whispers back.
Another person yanks the phone from Aminah, and we all cower a bit. Fear of reprimand. Nothing happens though. The girl who took the phone spends way more time looking it over than we did. She, like me, like everyone else, wants to know another side of Martin, Marty, Fly, whoever he is. Wants a good story to share years down the line, should it turn out that he really died on graduation day.
• • •
Whoa.
For a flicker, I was back in the White Whale with Spitty. It wasn’t like here, where I’m in a blink, but it wasn’t like real life either. Everything blurred and changed. Something crushed me, then rewound, then crushed again, then disappeared. Sound polluted my mind with buzzing and blaring and sobbing.
>
Then it was beautiful, sunny, and warm, and I grabbed at the air.
Then something crushed me again.
Every moment came and went as quick as a clap of hands. Too fast for me to process.
I know all of it happened to me, but it wasn’t quite mine somehow. It was like I lived my part in it through someone else’s—Spitty’s?—perspective.
• • •
A man enters the waiting area. He’s got a dad energy about him—the oversize polo tucked into shorts is the big giveaway—but he’s not sad enough to be Martin’s dad. Judging by the little I know of Martin, I imagine his dad would have to be like Jim Carrey when he did all those serious movies that my oldest sister Caroline loves so much. Downplaying his obvious quirks to honor the severity of the situation.
“Wow. There are a lot of you. I’m Spencer’s dad.” Don’t know who Spencer is, but I hear a few hushed gasps. “Here’s what we know. Spencer broke his nose on the airbag. He fractured a few ribs and has a concussion that they’re monitoring, but he’s conscious.” No one reacts to this news. “Martin,” he says, clearing his throat. “Martin’s been in surgery since he arrived. We don’t know much. His parents ask that you guys keep praying.” His facial tension untwists into solemnity, and lets out a giant exhale.
We clap. Not sure why, doesn’t seem very appropriate, but the room lights up with thunderous applause. “Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!” everyone chants.
The all-too familiar rumble of miscalculation disrupts my breathing. What am I doing here? I’ve included myself in this crowd because Martin and I sat next to each other at graduation. I don’t know him beyond some banter and a few hours of sweating together on the football field. If he hadn’t spoken to me, I would’ve read about this on my phone tonight and thought, Aw, that’s sad, perused his pictures, pretended to know who he was to anyone that asked, and left it at that.
But he did speak to me.
I can barely describe what he looks like. It was too hard for me to look. Tall and wide-grinned is all I’ve got, with a voice you’d hear above the clatter of any crowded room. But I know how he made me feel. Like it might be worth it to try.
What You Left Me Page 3