Back in the bedroom, Daniel’s covers wear my impression, waiting for me to fill the crinkled outline in with my weight. I oblige. My new clothes are a little damp from my hair dripping out from beneath my towel. The cool water on the warm pillow creates a perfect contrast.
I set an alarm on my phone.
I close my eyes.
One last moment of peace.
35
The soft pulse of distant music comes through first. The crunch of people eating chips and the shuffling of feet follow. Indecipherable pieces of conversations start floating by—chattering, static, like a TV that’s been left on without being turned to a proper channel. It’s all a restrained kind of loud. Sound that doesn’t carry far outside of itself.
Petra’s perspective sharpens. Now, she can smell detergent and cigarettes in the air, and she can see she’s in a basement she doesn’t know. At the same time, it’s the kind of place she knows well: a stock suburban hangout of the well-used variety. The ceiling is too low, and the carpet is worn thin, making obvious the poured concrete beneath it. In the center of the room, there is a gigantic beige sectional. It’s tufted and pillowy and designed for naps and for going days without seeing sunlight. The flat-screen TV in front of it is bigger than a TV has any right to be. There are two Mario Kart points of view on its screen. Petra looks from the game back to the couch and realizes Turrey and Spencer are on the sectional, side by side, remotes in hand. Their focus is impressive. The game rules them.
The other kids in the room are scattered about, talking and laughing and eating chips. A warm feeling floods Petra. It’s knowing that for this night, the dark will never be too dark. The late will never feel too late. It will just transform into early morning, which is even better. Because this is Martin’s party.
She finally made it.
Finding him isn’t hard. He’s in the back of the room, leaning into the space between walls, looking at Petra. She wants to meet him where he stands, but her legs are incapable of moving. The last time she saw him, they were dancing on the football field.
Things feel different now. They’re…more.
“This your idea of a party?” Martin calls out. He grins like he’s teasing her. “Everyone’s eating chips and drinking water.”
If she could, she’d breathe a sigh of relief. He always makes things feel easy. “Considering the events of the past week, I think they’re all being more than reasonable.” It’s awkward bringing it up, but it has to be said.
“I like that you expect the best from people!” Martin shouts. There’s no reason to be as loud as he is, but it helps lessen the tension all the same. He knows how to pivot a conversation. He also seems to know Petra can’t bring herself to move toward him, so he comes to join her in the open space between the back of his couch and the wall where he’d been standing.
“Shouldn’t we all expect the best from people?”
Across from her and Martin, next to the stairs, there’s an old pool table. It’s covered in folded laundry and random boxes, save for the center, which has been cleared out. In the open space, Cameron, Aminah, Daniel, and Brooke sit cross-legged in a circle of sorts, playing hot hands. Petra smiles at the sight of them. They look so happy.
“I’m impressed. This is almost exactly what my basement really looks like,” Martin says, pulling her attention back to him. “Our couch isn’t that big, but other than that, you’ve got it down. It even smells right. Like soap and stale tobacco.” He pauses to marvel. “I wouldn’t have known how to explain that before. With all my time away, I can really smell it now.”
Petra blushes. “I was in your house the other day. I didn’t see the basement, but I could figure out how it would be.”
“You were in my house?”
“Yeah. When we were looking for your letter.”
“Oh.” He sits down and folds his legs. He looks so young, hands resting in his lap, legs crossed. “A lot of life has happened since my accident, huh?”
She’d been so mad at him yesterday. She still is now. What he did was beyond reckless. Ignorant. Neglectful. There is no excusing it. Yet none of it matches up with the boy she knows in her dreams. Why didn’t he stop Spitty from drinking and driving? Someone is dead. She shudders at the thought.
Martin cocks his head to take in her reaction.
The battle between her anger and her sentimentality has to be settled, if temporarily. Martin’s life is too fragile right now. She joins him on the ground. “Nothing you can’t catch up on,” she says. Fighting is a bridge better crossed in person. He has to make it out of this alive first. Then she can yell. Oh, how she will yell.
Martin takes inventory of his friends scattered about the party. “That’s true. We seem to run with the same crowd these days.”
“You know good people.”
Martin points to Spencer, who is currently leaning into Turrey so that Turrey can’t see the game on the screen. “Even Spits?”
“To be honest, I don’t know why he’s here,” Petra admits. “I don’t have full control over all of this. Some of the people at this party are my best friends, and then some are members of my old Girl Scout troop. A couple of people from random extracurriculars I’ve done over the years. Some people I’ve never seen before in my life.” She points to a girl sitting on the coffee table, staring at her phone. “But that’s my sister Jessica’s best friend from day care. There’s a picture of her and Jess on our fridge. It’s like nineteen years old at this point. I couldn’t even tell you that girl’s name. No idea how she made the cut.”
They laugh. It’s all so absurd, yet somehow, right now, it makes perfect sense.
It occurs to her then that there’s one person who hasn’t snuck into the party. One person who’s chased her for a full year.
But not tonight.
She smiles to herself. Small victories.
“Let’s try something.” Martin stands up. “If I tell you what I was planning on wearing to this actual party, maybe you can make it so that I am wearing it. Because I’ve got to say, this look isn’t cutting it.” He’s in a hospital gown.
How had she not noticed? Maybe he wasn’t before. The rules are blurry. Everything is on a constant tilt, forever shifting into different focuses.
“I was gonna find my dad’s old Van Halen shirt for you,” Martin continues. “I know he has one lying around somewhere. It’s the one with a smoking angel baby on it. Do you know it?”
“Kind of.” She tries to conjure the image, and it appears on Martin, along with a pair of well-fitted blue jeans.
Martin looks down and cheers. “Petty Margs for the win!” He considers the look. “I’d have topped this off with my usual Cubs hat though.”
She gives him the hat.
He takes it off his head to examine it. “Whoa. This is pretty damn close to correct. You’re good.” He pauses. “One more thing. Some Nikes on my feet?”
“Okay, I’m not your personal stylist here. Plain socks will have to do.”
“Can’t have it all,” Martin says with a grin.
“Shouldn’t we be trying to teleport or fly or something?”
Martin sits back down. Their knees are touching now. “I don’t know about you, but I’m a simple person. I don’t need much more than what’s in this room right now. Maybe my family. That’d be nice.”
Petra thinks of them, and they appear: Mama Dorothy, Mr. McGee, Katie, and her husband Rick. They walk through the door, laughing. Katie carries a cake with a lit candle. “Congratulations, graduate!” she cheers.
The entire party focuses on Martin as Katie brings him the cake. It reads CONGRATS, MARTY in blue icing. A little frosting Cubs hat is over the M.
The whole room erupts in applause. “Fly! Fly! Fly!” they chant.
Martin stands to look at the candle. He makes a wish, and a puff of smoke clouds his face, making the room
smell like a birthday. Like hope.
Mama Dorothy kisses Martin on the cheek and squeezes him. His dad gets in on the other side. While his parents hold him, Katie carries the cake over to the pool table. Plates and forks and napkins are there now. She starts cutting off a big piece. Just as Mama Dorothy and Mr. McGee let go of Martin, Katie takes the chunk of cake she’s cut and smashes it into his face.
“Love you, dummy,” she says. She gives him a hug. They’re both laughing hysterically.
Martin licks his lips. “Yeah. Love you too, loser.”
Rick waits behind her with a napkin. He hands it off to Martin once Katie lets him go.
“Always lookin’ out for me, Ricky,” Martin says as he wipes his face clean. Rick pats him on the back.
The family moves toward the pool table again. Mama Dorothy and Katie start cutting the cake up for the guests to enjoy. Jessica’s friend from day care is first to get to them, almost aggressive in her eagerness. The rest of the party forms a line behind her. It’s so pure, all these teenagers waiting for a slice of cake, Mama Dorothy and Katie diligently obliging, cutting squares and passing them out as fast as they can.
Only Petra and Martin are left behind.
“Don’t you dare ask what I wished for,” Martin jokes. His delivery lacks the usual sparkle. Tears are in his eyes.
“I know better than that.”
There’s a lot they aren’t saying. It’s too hard to speak about.
Martin closes the distance between them, pulling Petra in for a hug. It’s tight and personal, but it isn’t romantic. It’s more—sentimental maybe. It makes her want to cry. He’s right here, hugging her so tight she almost can’t breathe, and she misses him. She misses all the time they didn’t know each other. All the days she didn’t turn her head to the side or look around the lunchroom. How many times did she see him and not notice?
How many times did he see her?
She buries her head into his shoulder, trying to flatten out the aching feeling that’s ballooning inside her. He matches her for a moment, then lessens his grip. “I better go cross something off my checklist,” he says as he breaks the hug.
It’s good that he did it. She wasn’t sure she’d ever let go.
“What?” She doesn’t know where he’s going with this.
“C’mon, Petra. I can’t believe you don’t remember our first conversation. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.” He pretends to sound scorned. The tears that once filled his eyes have already fallen, tracing lines down his cheek. “I can’t check off ‘watch Back to the Future,’ because we haven’t watched it yet, but—”
Petra recalls the list he made:
1. Watch Back to the Future
2. Look in the yearbook
3. Understand what there is to love about this place.
He doesn’t say the third list item, but he quirks his face. His sentence stays unfinished. Petra hears it all the same.
“I’m sorry I’ve failed you,” she whispers.
Now he’s the one that doesn’t understand.
“I can’t figure out how to bring you back,” she finishes.
He checks around her neck for something. “Nope. Not here.” He continues looking, peeking in the pocket on her shirt, turning her from side to side. “Not here either.”
“What are you doing?”
“Checking for a stethoscope. Maybe a lab coat folded up into your pocket. Or one of those little prescription pads. Anything that would show me you’re a doctor. Because if you aren’t, I’m pretty sure you can’t actually bring me back.”
She almost rolls her eyes at him. Their conversations never hit true endings, just pauses. There’s always something more to talk about. “You keep asking me for help. And I’m not helping.”
Martin puts his hands on her shoulders. He locks eyes with her, staring with such intention that she’d never dare look away. “If you can only remember one thing about this dream when you wake up, I need it to be this.” He pauses, considering something. “Fair warning, I’m gonna go full cheesy because that’s the kind of guy I am. Okay? Stick with me.” He secures his stance. “You aren’t failing. Not at all. In fact, you helped me figure out something really important. You know how everybody says everything happens for a reason? I realized that’s not what it is. It’s that you have to make a good reason out of everything that happens. That’s the only control we have.” He lets her go. “You helped me know I’m never alone, even when I’m feeling pretty goddamn alone.”
Petra’s crying now. She can’t help it. “You listen to me too,” she says as she wipes tears from her cheeks. “You better be patient. We’re gonna get you to wake up.”
He sticks his pinkie out. “Deal?”
She locks her pinkie in his. “Deal.”
Another pact is made.
36
When I creep out of the bedroom after my alarm goes off, I see that Cameron, Aminah, and Daniel are awake, watching me descend the stairs. I feel like the main character of a movie in which I never asked to star. It’s the way their eyes track my every movement, expecting something important from me.
“Morning,” I say. “Hope you guys slept well.”
Aminah’s nursing a black coffee. “I was out cold. I haven’t slept like that since I was a kid.”
“Proud of you. You made it all the way to nine a.m.” I get a bigger laugh than I deserve.
“And I didn’t even need to break into my house and get clothes for the day. I’ve got yours to wear!” Aminah says.
Daniel places a cup of coffee in front of me. “We’ve all done more with our time in the last three days than we did with all of high school, what with trying to save someone’s life and all.”
It’s the wrong choice of words. It sits there, and I realize what they’re waiting for this time is the breakdown they think I’m still holding in. They don’t know that I’ve let so much of it go. To deflect, I explain that I need to leave. It’s time to correct my last lingering mistake. To make a good reason out of everything that happens. My latest dream comes flooding back to me. With it, a surge of new confidence. I made a promise to Martin. I have to hold up my end of the deal.
“Did you study?” Cameron asks.
“Whoops! Gotta go,” I say as I check an imaginary watch. I’m out the door before they can say another word.
• • •
I promised Petra I’d be patient. I will. I mean, I am. But there’s all this drive in me now and nowhere to put it. I’ve seen glimpses of the way life’s moving on without me. It’s happening. Petra’s friends have found my friends. A good reason is being made out of this.
What I’ve been missing is that it’s not about getting help. It’s about giving it. I was on the right track with the whole small changes thing. But now it’s time to go big or go home for the one person who needs to be free more than I do.
Spits.
• • •
I stare down the same front doors I’ve entered every Monday of what seems like my entire life. I am the last senior on Earth. Maybe the universe.
Missing this final has been nothing but an excuse. A way to keep myself safe from a world I wasn’t ready to understand. Avoid everything and never get hurt again. But the real world threw itself on me like paint. It covers my clothes. My thoughts. All of me. I am so much more than the white linoleum and the white brick walls and the buzzing white fluorescent lights. So much more than Ryan’s Jeep and the way he hurt me. So much more than I ever gave myself credit for.
The hallways shrink as I grow taller. I swear the top of my head grazes the ceiling outside of Ms. Hornsby’s classroom.
• • •
Paging Spitty Alan Kuspits Jr.
It’s me, your best friend, Martin Frederick McGee. I’d like to have a word with you. Please allow me the opportunity to enter your dream again
.
I know. You think dreams are pointless. You’ve never shared yours with me, except for one time—the most important time. You told me about the one where you saw your mom, and she told you everything would be okay. This is like that. Just like that.
Go to sleep. You have to be tired. Your head’s hit the airbag like a million times too many now, your nose ballooning up on the spot, gushing blood. Reminds me of eighth-grade gym when Chris kicked the soccer ball at Turrey’s face and tried to act like it wasn’t on purpose, even though we all knew it was totally on purpose. Turrey got so much blood all over his gym shirt and Mr. Healy made him get a new one the next week because he kept rewearing the bloody one to piss off Chris. Give Turrey a back pat from me for that, will you? That was classic.
But seriously, you were messed up. I promise this is the last time I’m going to let that happen to you. Promise on the pact. Speaking of, when this is all done, I do want you to double-check my body like we promised. There’s a chance I’m not understanding how all this works. I trust that you’ll make sure. And give that letter to my family. It was almost ten years ago that I wrote it, so the spelling’s probably pretty shoddy—I still get hung up on the word remember—but the idea of it is right. Be happy. Move on. Make a good reason out of everything that happens.
Spitty Kuspits, let’s go for one last joy ride in the White Whale.
• • •
“You’re early,” Ms. Hornsby says as I enter her classroom. I did so many things, and I’m still ahead of schedule.
“Is that okay?”
“I’m glad you’re here at all.” She pulls a timer out of her drawer and hands it to me. Then she hands me a Scantron and the exam questions. All business. “Set this for fifty minutes and turn in the final when it starts beeping.” She nods and returns to grading papers.
As I look at the exam on my way down the aisle, it really hits me. If I don’t succeed, I’m forever trapped in a place I don’t want to be anymore, giving power to a memory that doesn’t deserve that kind of control over me.
What You Left Me Page 17