“Have you even studied?” Cameron exclaims. Her face is flushed with urgency. She just put this part of the puzzle together.
“No.” I look down at my shoes. My oldest sneakers. They’re caked with dirt. I guess they’ve been this way for a while, but it’s now I choose to care. I grab a napkin from the pile of random things underneath my feet and start to scrub. White reveals itself as the color underneath the chalky brown side panel. The dirt shakes off into the random assortment of junk in Daniel’s car.
“Petra Margaret!” she shrieks.
“Cameron Catherine Elizabeth,” I parrot back. She doesn’t keep going, so I look up from my shoes and find her misty-eyed. Her face is so filled with regret that I whisper, “It’s okay,” because I hate to see her like this. As I say it, I remember it’s the same empty nothing Brooke told me just hours before.
“No.” Cameron replies the same way I did. “It’s really not.”
“Here’s an idea,” Aminah says. I perk up, praying for respite. “Why don’t we go inside like we planned? I’m sure we can find study guides online. And there’s definitely ice cream in his freezer. And comfy clothes. I’ve spent twenty-four hours in a string bikini under a romper. It’s time for the injustice to end.”
“I second this motion,” Daniel says. “Let’s take a little breather before we immerse ourselves in the world of hospitals again. That lighting wounds my soul.”
My eyes swell with tears again, but not for the same reason as before. Maybe my friends don’t say all the things they should. And we all let secrets and problems go unnoticed for too long. But we always find a way to push away the swaying pendulum of despair. The truth is a wobble not just for me, but for everyone who hears it. When steadier ground is offered, no matter how temporary, we will always sprint toward it full speed.
• • •
• • •
Aminah packed a lot of things into my backpack. Unfortunately, the sum of those parts does not equal a full outfit, so Daniel’s sleepwear fills in the gaps. It is marvelous to be out of jean shorts and in sweatpants. We pile onto his downstairs sectional, lights off, legs tossed over thighs, heads in laps, and bowls of ice cream around us. Aminah and Daniel were right. We needed a break so desperately that the relief is almost too good. Inappropriately good, considering the events that led us here. Cameron has Daniel’s laptop out, scouring the internet for Honors Algebra II study guides. Daniel starts up our yearbook DVD to provide some background noise.
The menu screen is a collection of discarded yearbook photos on rotation. A girl huffing past the finish line at a track meet. Brooke mid-dance number at a school assembly. A group of people huddled around a locker. Three guys in football uniforms kneeling in prayer. A wide shot of a parade. Two actors on stage. Daniel presses play.
Cameron puts the laptop down. Legs shift off thighs. Heads scoot from laps. Even Daniel, usually ripe for commentary and quick asides, watches in silent introspection. As each picture fades out and another pops up, I hold my breath. A crowd shot from the homecoming game appears. It’s a sea of faces. So many people. So far away.
“Wait! Pause it.” I fall inside the frozen image on the screen. There he is: far corner of the picture, in profile. Just the right side of his face. Undamaged. The TV screen is so large that the image distorts as I get closer.
Martin becomes pixels. Then he becomes nothing.
“Sorry,” Daniel says. “I hit Stop on accident.”
• • •
• • •
“What’s going to happen to him?” Cameron asks.
“I’ve heard stories of people coming back from this before,” Aminah offers.
“Me too,” Daniel adds.
Cameron nods. “It’s very possible.”
Martin has become a kind of mythical entity. Untouchable. Impossible. Every new piece of the puzzle only elevates his presence in my life. It’s spiraling me into madness. I can hear it in my friends’ voices. The way they’re coddling me, as if I’m fragile. As if I need this miracle to be realized. “I’m going to lie down for a bit,” I tell them.
They can think what they want. I’ve had a long day.
I need to see Martin.
27
“There you are,” Ms. Hornsby says when Petra walks into the classroom.
The overhead lights buzz like a thousand flies caught inside a jar. The room is sterile and small, without posters or desks. It is a box with a teacher and a test. Drawn blinds and forgotten memories. A clock that ticks down wasted seconds with piercing clicks.
Petra rubs her palms against her legs. The sweat won’t cool. Her hands stay moist, and the lights stay unrelenting, exposing her to this moment with such unflappability that no shadow dare cross her.
Ms. Hornsby hands over the Honors Algebra II exam and promptly disappears, leaving Petra without a place to sit or a pencil to use. Panic, like a dry storm of heat and sand, rises up inside her, gritty and sharp and incapable of being tamped down by desperate swallows of saliva. The entire test seems to be written in a different language.
She looks around for something: a pencil, a person, a way out. There is nothing but the clock on the wall and the blinds over the window. There isn’t even a door. She goes to the window and peeks through the horizontal slats. Outside, beyond the thick pane of glass, Martin stands atop a grassy knoll. He is distant and small. Unreachable. Petra alternates between pounding on the glass and waving her arms. She shouts his name over and over. He does not look to her.
“Martin!” she screams, willing herself to be loud enough to be heard. “I wanted to see you! To talk to you!”
She watches him hear her, the way his breath stops then speeds up, like an engine revving for a big push. She keeps screaming and pounding, and when he looks, the glass changes. It becomes the window of Ryan Hales’s Jeep.
They’re parked outside her house, and she’s got three minutes before curfew. Something isn’t right. Ryan’s not right.
“I need to get inside,” Petra says, looking to where she knows her house should be and only seeing Martin standing on that hill, staring at her.
Ryan unbuckles his seat belt and leans across the way. His breath is hot on Petra’s cheek. “You have six minutes,” he says. He’s lying.
“This isn’t the place,” she tells him. She blinks.
Martin disappears.
It’s just darkness beyond the window now. Pitch black and infinite.
Ryan moves fast, bumping into the gear shift as he heaves himself atop Petra. She scoots left and right, up and down, trying to wiggle out. But he’s too heavy.
“No place is ever the place,” he says before kissing her neck. He tucks a leg underneath hers, securing his pin. “This is as good as any.”
“Not now.”
“It’s never going to be perfect, Petra.” He kisses her hard.
She holds her breath. “Please stop.”
He puts his hand where he shouldn’t, and he’s clawing around, ripping fabric, trying to do two things at once. He’s got his other hand over her mouth. “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” he begs her.
Petra bites down on the flesh of his palm as hard as she can.
He screams out in pain, scrambling off.
She bolts out of the car. It’s a full sail jump to the ground from the height of the passenger seat. A new feeling floods her. Freedom. What it smells like, sounds like, tastes like. Calm and chaos intersecting. Bitterness and relief. The worst headache of your life at the best party you’ve ever attended.
“You’re such a dumb bitch,” Ryan calls out after her. “Useless and dumb.”
Words stick on her. They have real weight. They are soundtracks that score her every move. His last words tattoo onto her every thought. She’s running now, but there is no destination. No matter how fast she tries to go, she makes no ground.
28<
br />
No.
I had a dream, but it turned into a nightmare. The same nightmare I’ve had for a year straight.
That’s not how this is supposed to work.
It’s supposed to go like this. I fall asleep. Martin appears. We talk, and everything’s better. I wake up with a swell in my chest. For a moment, I believe it’s all real. The high wears off, and I take from the dream any vital information that applies to the real world. But I went back to before, when my dreams meant nothing outside of reminding me what happened last year.
Just when I think I’m getting my head above water, I go back to drowning. Sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The anchor, fixed around my legs and heavy as concrete, is Ryan Hales. His positioning—head below my thighs, arms gripped around my kneecaps—prevents me from so much as a kick. I flail my arms to no avail, rapidly descending but looking up, watching as the world above me slips away.
When will he ever leave me alone? When will I ever stop remembering?
Cameron appears. “You all right?” she asks.
“I’m fine.”
“We made some food. And coffee.” She nestles onto the corner of Daniel’s mattress, expectant. Her eyes have a familiar redness. It’s the look of complete exhaustion she wore all junior year, through the slog of ACTs and SATs and APs and every other random assortment of letters meaning too much in the moment and not enough afterward.
“It didn’t work. I didn’t get to talk to Martin,” I tell her, needing her to be as crushed as I am. Wanting her to rip off her Art Garfunkel shirt and surrender hope.
“Skip the coffee then,” she says, tucking her hands underneath my armpits to lift me up and drag me down to the kitchen. For both her benefit and mine, I lean into her.
“You just missed my parents,” Daniel says as we appear, eyes as red as Cameron’s. “They send their love.”
“What time is it?” We’ve done so much today, and the sunlight still won’t relent. “I had to have slept for a few hours.”
Daniel places an omelet in front of me. “It’s time for second breakfast.” The plate is garnished with flower petals from the garden.
“It has to be later than that.”
“It’s never too late for breakfast.”
“Thanks.” I slice through my eggs, preparing to make absentminded conversation, disappointment still stirring in my head. “Heard anything?”
Aminah turns from the couch to look at Daniel. Daniel looks at Cameron. Cameron looks at me. “You should finish your food.”
“Do you want any coffee?”
“What is it?”
“Toast should be up in—”
“What is it?”
The three of them stalk me like I’m prey.
“The other car,” Aminah starts.
“Don’t,” Cameron interrupts.
“If not now, when?”
“The driver died,” Cameron says quickly.
They wait for my reaction, but I don’t have one. I don’t know what to do, who to be, what’s appropriate.
“We saw it on the news after you went upstairs to nap,” Cameron continues. “Daniel randomly turned the TV on. It’s the top story right now.”
Aminah rewinds the DVR for me. The voices of familiar newscasters drone on, hitting all the details I already know but speaking them with a clarity and perspective that makes my heart still. Two high school seniors taking a joy ride post graduation, alcohol in their system—Spencer above .08—blowing a red light and colliding with a man on his way back from the grocery store. Spencer’s senior picture is juxtaposed against the man, a retired widower who neighbors described as “friendly but quiet.” They use a photo of Martin from prom in that white tux with the orange vest. I recognize Brooke’s dark hair in the corner of the frame, her face cropped out. The newscaster says Martin’s in critical condition. And that’s that.
I’ve been neglecting my phone all weekend. I’ve missed this news as a result. Twitter is lit up with opinions. Most people don’t have kind things to say about Spencer. And why would they? What he did—
And Martin—
It’s all too much.
I head back up the stairs, my eyes on my feet as they drag forward, each step heavier than the last.
29
A waltz, lilting and slow, booms from overhead speakers. Paired up in twos on a parquet floor in the middle of Petra’s living room, people dance along in synchronicity. Everyone wears masks. Most are gold with long, pointed noses. Some are silver and fitted to the face. Petra, in a mask of the latter fashion and an ornate lavender ball gown that tapers in at the waist then flairs out in dramatic fashion, dances her own flowing waltz, weaving in and out of the pairs, exhilarated by the mystery of it all. She is the only one without a partner.
A man abandons his companion to grab Petra. She does not stop dancing, not even for this rude interruption, and the music accelerates with her actions, building to a feverish tempo. The man has no choice but to accompany her, and though Petra does not need a partner, she allows it, so long as she has the lead. As she pivots the man, he uses his free hand to tug on the long snout of his mask. It can’t be removed.
“It’s me,” he says.
Petra doesn’t react. The man claws at his mask again, but it will not budge. Instead it changes, the long nose growing into autumn leaves.
“Who are you?” Petra asks, twirling the man with the morphing mask, feigning amusement.
He yanks on the leafy branch representing his nose, desperate to remove it. “Martin!” he cries. His mask morphs again, turning blue, almost melting into his skin.
Petra spins him in a constant, cruel circle. “You see, I’m having too much fun to be bothered by you,” she says. She speaks like she’s older than she is. Wiser and less afraid.
The man grabs her shoulders, trying to make his eyes meet hers. He digs his heels into the ground to stop the whirling.
“Fine,” Petra says. “But I already told your friend about your letter.”
The violins reach a shattering crescendo. The floor vibrates. Dancing pairs make frenzied figure eights around Petra and the masked man, who she knows to be Martin, though it isn’t a Martin she wants to know anymore.
“I know you did,” he says. His mask changes again, becoming almost animalistic, made of rotting flesh from unknown sources, looking less like a mask and more like excess skin on a feral beast. “Thank you.”
The ceiling disappears. A bolt of lightning strikes the floor between where the two stand.
“I didn’t know how to help you in your last dream, and then I disappeared,” he tells her.
The dancers around them continue. The quality of their movement sours with the music. Everything is minor chords and dissonance. Disjointed, ever-changing tempos. Rain begins to pour down.
“What do you mean?” she asks, feigning innocence.
“In your other dream. With that guy in the car. I wasn’t thinking right. I was trying to become nothingness to see if that would make me wake up.”
She turns from him. “I don’t need you to help me. I do fine on my own.”
“No, I know.” He shakes his head, rubbing his hands where his temples would be if there wasn’t a mask covering his face. “I didn’t mean it to come off like that. I don’t know what was going on, but the part I saw before I left didn’t look good.” He pauses. “I meant I’m sorry that happened.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“No, it isn’t. But if something happened to you, I’m still upset.”
She picks up her heavy skirt and runs. Her house no longer has any doors. It is one endless, ceilingless living room, the parquet floor expands, building to follow her every step. Unable to hold her dress up and run at the same time, she stumbles and falls, helplessly, soundlessly.
Martin catches up. The powerful spray
of rain has made his mask more heinous. He looks like a creature risen from deep beneath the ground.
“Don’t touch me!” Petra tries to say, but it’s as if she’s only mouthing it. The chaos is too loud. “Leave me alone!”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he tells her, and he means it. “I’m scared too. They say you shouldn’t fight quicksand, but then how do you escape? I’m running out of ideas.” He crumples. “I need help.”
Petra considers relenting. He’s understood her, even when she can’t be heard. She thinks better of it and continues cowering.
Martin is careful not to touch any part of her, even the trim of her puffed gown. “I’m stuck between living and dying. That’s what I’ve been trying to say to you all this time.”
“I already know that,” Petra says. Her head is buried in her arm, and the rain sneaks around her hair to form a puddle in the basin created from her elbow and forearm. “There are brain bleeds. We don’t know how bad it is.” The water tickles her nose as she speaks. She quite likes the feeling of the cool refreshing wetness underneath her own mask. It makes her feel safe. Close. Protected from the monster on Martin’s face.
“How long has it been since the accident?” Martin asks.
“Three days,” Petra tells him.
“That’s it? It’s been forever for me.” He gets quieter. “Please help. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
His words devastate her. Doesn’t he know how much she’s been trying? What more can she do? Rising from her puddle to face him, she focuses only the edges of his mask, where his normal skin is visible underneath. “Why did you do that?” she cries out. “Why did you leave early? What were you thinking?” With one hand on either corner, her fingers wrap around the mask. She tugs hard, putting all her weight into it. The force of the motion takes her to the ground. “People are dead!” she cries out. “People are dead! Why did you do that?”
In her hands, the mask changes again. It becomes the face of Ryan Hales, mangled and battered, but still moving. She looks back to the body beside her. A gaping, bloody wound is where the face should be, and the body reaches out desperately, arms like fishes flopping out of water.
What You Left Me Page 15