What You Left Me

by Bridget Morrissey

  “Turrey’s right,” Brooke says. “And so are you. It’s not okay.” Her finger circles Martin’s last name printed on the back of his hoodie. “I’ve been so wrong.”

  A closet comprises the whole left wall. Its mirrored doors double the size of the space until I step into view and disrupt the illusion. “That’s not what I meant.” I almost reach for her but decide better of it, instead standing stiff-armed in the center of the room.

  “I ruined everything.” She puts the hoodie down but doesn’t let it go. “I knew it too, but it seemed like something I could fix later. Like I’d have time. I know it’s too late, but I’m trying to fix it now.”

  “I don’t think it’s too late,” I say, but she’s not listening.

  “I never should’ve kissed him at Winter Formal. He was just being so nice to me. Why was he doing that? Boys don’t do that. He let me talk about all this stuff going on in my life for, like, hours.”

  Hoping nonchalance keeps her spout pouring, I walk over to Martin’s closet and slide one door back, finding rows of sneakers sitting atop their respective boxes on the ground. There aren’t many clothes hanging up. The space is filled by a hamper and a bookcase crammed full of movies, old CDs, and tons and tons of books. Fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, sports photo books. A big enough selection to be Dewey-decimaled.

  “We should’ve just stayed friends. He kept trying to go back to that, but I wouldn’t let it happen. I guess I, like, wanted to break him for some reason. Make him like everyone else.”

  I freeze, locked in tight on her words, turning them over and over like a coin. The absolute truth of it all takes my breath away. We do this to each other. We form mismatched pairs when there’s nothing better around, then we poke and prod at every flaw, worming into hairline fractures until they become deeper. We dance on the destruction until the cracks cave in.

  I force myself into movement, but it’s taxing. I want to hug my knees to my chest and squeeze into a ball so small no one can ever get in again. Make myself unbreakable.

  “I couldn’t though,” Brooke says. She comes over to the closet. “Even when I hooked up with one of his best friends. It didn’t hurt him. It hurt me.” She squats to look inside the shoe boxes on the ground. “I just want to tell him that I’m sorry.”

  I know I must speak now. Affirm that I’ve been here, hanging on every word, weaving together the final touches on my version of their relationship. “You’ll get to,” I say.

  “I hope so.” She reaches for more boxes in the corner of the closet. “Was he really in your dream?”

  My breath hitches. “He really was,” I say, as certain as Cameron. More certain than ever. In fact, this is just about the only thing in my life that I can tag with the word certainty and mean it.

  Brooke looks up at me. “I like that you’re here,” she says. A moment passes. “Now did he say what shoe box it was in?”

  I transport myself back to the airplane to hear his words again, feeling the weight of his hands atop my shoulders. Looking into his eyes. “Top shelf. Foamposites box?”

  Brooke stands up on her tiptoes, looking right. I look left. It’s so easy to spot it may as well be glowing. I step behind the door and grab it, pressing my back against the inside part of the closet, happy to be cloaked in darkness.

  DO NOT OPEN. MARTIN’S EYES ONLY.

  The sides are taped shut. My fingers work as gentle scissors to break the seal. When the lid lifts up, there is a sheet of loose-leaf paper taped over the box top.

  I MEAN IT. DO NOT LOOK AT THIS.

  I remove the paper. There’s another piece beneath it.

  PUT THIS BACK, KATIE!

  The inside of the box is visible now. Against the perimeter, swollen with something beneath the surface, lies a rectangular envelope. I blink once, twice, making sure my eyes are focused. When I look again, I pick it up.

  PROPERTY OF MARTIN MCGEE AND SPENCER KUSPITS

  TOP SECRET

  ONLY OPEN WHEN DEAD

  My back slides down the door, falling, falling, falling, until the ground finds me.

  • • •

  I’m sorry for letting Brooke kiss me at Winter Formal. She’s an amazing girl. Any guy would be lucky to have the chance to date her. But her and me, we didn’t quite fit. I knew it. She knew it. I guess you get to a certain point in high school where you run out of people in your circle, and you go for the unexpected. She’s the most incredible girl I’ve ever been with, that’s for sure, but we ended up being more like friends who sometimes did stuff then boyfriend and girlfriend. The whole reason she started hanging with me and the boys more was to get away from her other friends. Then word got out, and our “relationship” gave her a good excuse to stay away from them, so she ran with it. So did I. The whole thing got so complicated it seemed easier to just accept it. We played the parts well, but it never really felt as natural as it should.

  Now I finally understand all the times she used to say, “I don’t know. Buy me something random one day or something. I just want to know you’re thinking of me.”

  Knowing Petra is thinking of me—that she’s dreaming of me, over and over—it’s enough to make a guy in a placeless place feel very much like he has a place.

  But I can’t seem to find a good way to tell her that.

  • • •

  I believed myself. I did. Martin was there in my dream. But this is different than believing. This is reality.

  “Top secret! Only open when dead!” Aminah screams. She throws the envelope down as if it’s contaminated.

  Turrey picks it up by one corner. “Do we open it?” he asks, looking at me.

  Like it was made just for this occasion, the McGees’ dining room table seats six. I sit at one end, Turrey the other, and the rest in the seats along the sides, as if they’re our children waiting for us to reach our executive decision. “Why do I have to make the call?” I shout.

  “You’re the psychic!” Turrey shouts back. He slides the envelope across the table. It collides with my folded arms.

  “I’m not psychic! I’m just the only one who’s been able to sleep!”

  “Not true,” Turrey says. “In my truck yester—” Disbelief strikes him in the face. “Fly was in my dream. Remember? I told you about it! Was it really him?” he asks, as if I’m an expert on this now.

  “I don’t know!” Yelling helps mask the quiver that vibrates through my whole body. I figured no one believed Cameron earlier, and I was right, because if anyone had, even just one, the force of that person’s entire belief system being thrown into chaos would’ve crushed me. I feel it now, and air is so precious in my lungs I keep holding it in for fear that when it escapes, I’ll never get anything back.

  • • •

  I guess what I’m figuring out is that I’m sorry for the ways I’ve hurt the people I care about. Maybe all we have is ourselves, but it’s the people around us who lift us up and make us better.

  Before Dad messed up his back, we did a cross-country road trip every summer. I used to press my face against the glass and watch how, depending on how I looked at it, the outside world moved really fast or seemed to stay totally still. It blew me away. No matter what I picked, everything had to change eventually. Day melted into night. Flatlands grew into mountains. I liked it better when I took my time, staring at green grass until it morphed into sand or disappeared into concrete or something.

  I don’t remember when I started watching the blur. I stopped asking questions. Hated answering them too. They are tests I decided I’d rather not take. Brooke and her constant “Why are you being like this?” My dad and his “When will you ever do what you’re capable of in school?” Spitty and his “What are you so afraid of, Fly?”

  I danced across the graduation stage. I drank the whiskey. I got in the White Whale. And this is what I get. Just me, alone and filled to the goddamn brim
with questions I can’t seem to answer.

  19

  The doors swing out into a dark, expansive gym, skylights projecting moonlit shadows onto the squeaking lacquered floor. Basketball hoops hang from the ceiling, and banners decorate the whitewashed walls, detailing a select few of the tens of thousands that have laughed, cried, cheated, and lied their way through the many activities forced upon them in this space. Still the kids come back day after day, year after year. Even on nights like these—where laser lights cut across the floor in jagged patterns, x-ing over bodies swaying near the beat that booms from the speakers—they come by choice.

  It’s the Winter Formal.

  Brooke searches the crowd for her date. She can’t remember where she left him or why they’ve separated. Then again, he hasn’t been much of a date at all. Not that she’d expected much. Though she did expect more than a wilted corsage from the grocery store and one obligatory slow dance at the start of the night.

  Cutting in and out of the bodies—there must be hundreds—she wonders how it is she managed to find people to befriend in a school so large the gym can barely be navigated. Sweat has become an unavoidable accessory.

  Frustrated, she frees herself of trying. Wherever her date went is somewhere he’d rather be. Why bother sharing the night with her? Apparently that’s not why you ask Brooke Delgado to a dance. You ask her to get nice pictures and a healthy pat on the back from your friends. You ask her for the story, not for the company.

  Apparently.

  It’s exhausting caring this much. Brooke pulls her shoes off her feet and holds them in her hands. Piece by piece, her expectations shift. If the only company she has is herself, she doesn’t need to wear six-inch heels and pretend to have perfect posture. Her shoulders round forward as her bare feet strike the linoleum. Careful tears trickle down her cheeks. She will not let this ruin her night. She will give herself a few minutes to be bothered, then go back and force herself to have fun.

  She wanders down a dark hallway, stopping and sitting when she finds a place far enough away that she can no longer hear the thrum of music pulsing from the gym. In this stillness a peace washes over her. She likes her own company.

  It’s his loss. And her friends’ loss. They haven’t even tried to find her. Or bothered to notice that she’s looked sour and miserable most of the night.

  “Brooke?”

  Marty appears from around the corner. His white dress shirt is half untucked and his hair’s a little longer than usual. The dance-hall body heat means the gel no longer holds it out of his face, so a strand flops on his forehead. He seems effortless and relaxed. Handsomer than she ever realized. She’s so used to seeing him in baggy T-shirts and Cubs hats. But maybe she hasn’t been seeing him at all.

  Has she been asleep on Martin McGee this whole time?

  Quickly, she brushes the tears from her cheeks. “Oh. Hey there. I couldn’t find my date, so I figured I’d come grab some air.” She pastes on a smile. “How are you? Having fun? Who did you come with tonight?”

  Marty positions himself against the locker alongside her. He mimics how she’s sitting, pulling his knees up for a place to rest his chin. “I hope you know how great you are,” he says.

  It’s not what she’s expecting to hear. In fact, she remembers it’s not what she’s supposed to hear. When they did this before, he told her he didn’t come with anyone and he wasn’t having much fun. They talked for hours.

  Stunned, Brooke finds the tears do not subside. They grow stronger. “Marty,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

  He places a cautious hand on her back. “Aw, man, please don’t cry over me. You don’t need to be sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “Of course I do. I took advantage of you.”

  “Are you kidding me? Brooke.” He grabs her by the shoulders, begging for her eyes to meet his. “I needed you this night just as much as you needed me. Do you know why I was out here? Because Chris was making fun of me for never having a date to the dance. Usually that shit rolled off my shoulders, but for whatever reason, I was believing him this night. I was, like, you know what? He’s right. Nobody likes me like that. Then I stumbled out here, and you were crying, and I sat down and talked to you. I was just listening to you, thinking how could anyone be this shitty to Brooke Delgado? You know? Not trying to make a move on you. Not even thinking that was a possibility. Then you kissed me. It was surreal. You made me realize that people could like me.”

  Brooke laughs a little.

  “I’m not even kidding,” Marty says. “You really did. I saw that I didn’t have to stop being me to get someone to care about me or whatever. Because I know I can be a lot. I’m loud and annoying and I try too hard to be funny sometimes. But this night, I was just being myself, and it turned out we were perfect for each other. For the night, at least.”

  “We really were,” Brooke says. She leans her head on his shoulder.

  “It was a lightning in a bottle kind of night.”

  “That we tried to make last for five months…”

  Marty laughs. Brooke laughs. They both know it’s true.

  “Yeah,” he says. “We really thought if we tried hard enough, we could make it happen again.”

  “But this night,” Brooke says. “We got it right this night.”

  “Just so you know, I don’t need you to kiss me for listening to you,” he tells her. “I do it because I care about you. And I always will.”

  “Well, just so you know, I didn’t just kiss you for that reason. Not this night.”

  “Oh, I know. I was just saying, you know, for the other five months of it.”

  A weight lifts from Brooke’s shoulders. “But Petra?” she asks. She can feel his shoulders stiffen.

  “I don’t know—”

  “Martin McGee, are you embarrassed? I never thought I’d see the day!”

  “Cut it out.”

  “Hey, remember what you just told me,” she starts. “People can like you. People can love you. People do love you.” She presses her hands over his heart. “And we want you back.”

  20

  Back to the hospital again. Before this weekend, I’d been here once: when I was born. The same receptionist from earlier in the day sits behind the main entrance desk. “Here again?” she asks us. “At least it’s closer to visiting hours.”

  We travel as a pack toward the elevators, me at the helm, guiding us to Spencer’s floor.

  The envelope is in my hands. I grip it so tight that the sides start to fold over. Feeling the weight of it keeps me steady.

  It is real. This is real.

  We walk down a hallway lined with windows. Beyond the distraction of restaurants and stores packed along the roadside, the ground in the distance irons out, level and unblemished. It appears to be an edge, like if we headed toward it we would fall off. Maybe that’s where Martin is. The place where the round Earth turns into an edge. Somewhere impossibly possible.

  Not dead. Just stuck.

  Everyone stares out at nothing as they walk, tracing back through the last two nights of sleep and wondering how it’s possible that I know what I know.

  Brooke is especially off her guard. She fell asleep on the car ride over, and when she woke, she had a startled look on her face, like something happened she wanted to discuss but didn’t know how. She kept looking back at me, her lips slightly parted, words failing her.

  I understood anyway.

  She’d seen him too, but she’s not sure how to take that and carry it with her into waking life.

  I used to love the idea that in sleep, my mind could form a narrative around ideas from days, months, even years prior. Something as unsubstantial as dropping a piece of paper could get put away for later use. And the feeling, that punch-drunk, knee-buckling sensation of waking up from a great dream so complete and whole that you spend the rest of the day peeling imagina
tion off reality; that used to be my favorite escape from the madness that was school.

  But last year my dreams started to brown at the edges. Slowly they rotted all the way through, and every time my eyes closed, one single memory multiplied against itself. I taught myself not to pay too much attention to my dreams anymore. To wake up and purge them from memory without a second thought.

  It’s some unspoken human code that we are to be bored by dreams. We are to think they don’t matter. I’ve tried to believe that. I’ve never been able to, even with all the trying in the world. Now, for the first time in a long time, my dreams have done some good. I don’t know how or why, but the voice that lives in the deepest parts of me confirms it, nodding yes when everything feels like no.

  It’s the worst possible timing. A reroute at the end of a deadline I’ve been limping toward for a year. The final is tomorrow, and I’m holding an envelope instead of the thick study packet collecting dust on my desk. The anchor in my stomach shifts around, just to remind me that it’s there.

  But I need this, I say to the sharp pain that comes after the anchor settles. I need to help Martin. I need to feel like maybe can become yes.

  When we arrive where Spencer is, the nurse from earlier this morning approaches us. “He’s read every magazine we have,” she says. “He fell asleep a little while ago and woke up very upset. Won’t close his eyes again. Maybe you guys can help distract him.” She leads us to Spencer’s bedside then slips away.

  Spencer coughs in response to the sight of the six of us. It must be strange to see this group glued together by the accident he caused.

  “Didn’t think I’d see you here,” he chokes out, looking at Turrey. “Chris said you’ve been off doing your own thing.”

  “You don’t look too bad,” Turrey says. They clasp hands. Nothing about it is right. It’s just a formality. In some ways, it seems like it’s an insult. “Damn.” Turrey shakes his head. “I told you guys not to drink.”