“What?” Daniel asks.
Brooke keeps grinning.
“Ugh, yes, we’re officially dating now, if you must know,” he tells her.
“I didn’t say anything!” she protests.
“Your face said everything.”
“I’m happy for you.” She sets her plate on her lap. “And it’s nice to feel happy for people right now.”
Everyone starts eating. “You were right. Your abuela is an amazing cook,” Daniel admits to Brooke.
My mouth waters at the sight of the empanadas. They look flaky and melty and perfect. I excuse myself to get up and get one after all. I walk around the back of the couch, stopping in the place where we last spoke.
You and I stood right here. There was some cake on the tip of your nose. I never told you that. It made you seem young and happy. I liked it that way.
Everyone else has updated me on you since then. Turrey texted yesterday to tell me you and him went to a diner and ate ham steaks together. Katie said you guys threw out the first pitch at a Cubs game together. Even Cameron has seen you. She said she was five again, and you were there watching her piano recital. When she finished, you convinced everyone to give her a standing ovation for her rendition of “Hot Cross Buns.”
I’m trying not to take it personally, but it does seem strange. For three days, I couldn’t close my eyes without running into you, and at that time, I had the luxury of being able to open them and see you in real life too. Now I don’t have either. And if I’m being honest, it sucks. A lot. But I have to rally. Your mom said no tears were to be shed today. I gave her your letter at the funeral. She turned around and planned this party. It’s supposed to be a celebration of your life, like you wanted. So if you’re looking at me right now, look away for a second. I’m going to wipe my eyes, then I’ll sit back down and enjoy this moment. Make a good reason and all that. I know that’s what you’d want. I literally know, since you said it to me.
When I walked in today, I overheard your friend Chris telling a group of people that Katie waxed your eyebrows in seventh grade. That made everyone laugh.
We’re all doing it for you. We’re trying to smile and be happy and remember the good.
For a long time, I thought of myself as falling, but because of you, I realized I’ve been climbing. White-knuckle clinging to the edge of myself, working my way up to the light, inch by inch, finding joy where it seems there is none. Trying to stay focused on that instead of staring at the dark of my past. It’s hard, but it’s worth it. I’ve even learned to do it in my dreams. Ryan doesn’t show up anymore.
Then again, neither do you.
“Petra?” Aminah turns to look at me. “What are you doing?”
God. I’m standing here staring like I’m in a trance. I don’t explain myself to her. I get my empanada and come back to the couch. When I sit down, she hugs me. I love these people for holding me up as I, in unpredictable patterns, laugh and cry and sigh my way through this life.
We catch one another up on what’s going on for the rest of summer. We all have official plans now. Even Aminah. You gave her the courage to talk to her parents. She lives with them again. She’s going to take the year off then reevaluate the possibility of school. I’m trying to convince her to go to Notre Dame with me. Isn’t it weird you did that? You never even met her, and because of what happened to you, she made a change for the better.
I’m talking to my parents too. I found the courage to tell them what really happened to me. What Ryan did. They believe me, which means more than I knew it would. And they’re encouraging me to speak up, so that he never does this to another girl again. I’m working on being brave enough to do just that. We’re starting counseling next week. But now’s not the time for that whole story.
This day is about you.
“What’s up?” Turrey asks as he walks down the stairs, cool and confident as ever. Without hesitation, he takes the spot between Daniel and me. He gives Daniel a kiss and grabs his hand.
After a moment, he grabs my hand too.
This gesture, as small as it is, feels bigger than us. We are forever linked by what we’ve been through. One weekend that lasted longer than all of high school. I grab for Aminah. An unspoken ripple effect begins, and she grabs for Brooke, who grabs for Cameron, who moves herself off the couch to close this little circle. Once united, we stand up and bow forward, leaning in so our foreheads touch, a prayer for you pulsing through our fingertips.
“To Fly,” Turrey says.
“To Fly,” we repeat.
It falls silent again, our prayers continuing on in squeezes and breaths, memories spoken only in the mind, just for you to hear. As I look at the heads dropped down in this imperfect huddle, I realize you live inside our circle now, Martin. Forever you’re the space between. The voice that floats into our heads when we need it most. The air that fills our lungs when it feels like breathing is too much. The ground that steadies us when our legs want to give out. Our best companion on the other side of waking life.
You’re not stuck anymore, Martin.
You’re free.
40
It’s a hot day in mid-June, humid and unforgiving. Yellow sunlight beams down on hundreds of heads haloed in yellow caps. What a powerful color yellow can be in mass quantity. It screams to be noticed. It begs for a smile. Petra obliges because she made it to the finish line. The diploma’s in the mail. She passed the Honors Algebra II exam. She’s graduating high school.
Just graduating.
Steve Taggart stands on the stage giving the valedictorian speech he’s prepared for his whole life. Something about birds taking flight. It doesn’t matter. Petra’s not really listening because Steve’s not really talking. He’s nothing but a golden flicker of a distant memory. The last part of the last time anything was ever the same. He may as well be a mirage. Some far-off goal that keeps moving out of reach when you try to get closer.
For now, for this, Petra’s content keeping her distance.
“You know, I’ve felt like a lot of things since this day, but never a bird. Sorry, Stevey.” Sitting next to Petra, elbow pressed gently into her rib cage, graduation gown crumpled underneath his plastic chair but cap still on his head, is Martin. “Hate the robe, but I can’t lie, I’m into the cap.” He tips it in her direction.
“You’re here,” Petra marvels.
Sunlight doesn’t wash out his face like it should. It holds back to let Petra see him. The yellow of her gown strengthens the deep amber around the rims of his pupils. So bright and alive he looks, all yellow himself, his huge smile beaming at her, reaching out like hands to pinch her cheeks back into her own version of uncensored happiness.
“Hope you don’t have anywhere to be,” he says. “I’d like to steal a tiny slice of your forever tonight. Today. You get it.”
“This is just a dream, isn’t it?” Petra realizes.
“Only if you want it to be.”
Petra nods. It doesn’t matter that she knows graduation happened ten days ago, and Martin died, and she went to his party today, and this is all in her mind. What happens in sleep can be as real as what happens when awake.
Her hand grazes Martin’s. He takes the cue and grabs on. Their fingers lace together so neatly, the promise of stories yet untold woven into a tight bundle between them. Martin’s pulse, so alive, beats into the top of her hand through his fingertips, thumping into her bloodstream.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment,” Petra says. “You didn’t make it easy.”
He squeezes her hand tighter. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“No. You did everything you could. More than you should have. I get the only apology.”
“Martin?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s not what I’m sorry for anymore. I’m sorry I never really got to know you.”
/> “Petra?”
“Yeah.”
“I like when you call me Martin.”
Flushed, Petra turns away. Endless rows of empty white chairs surround her. The rest of her class has disappeared, but she isn’t alone. She can still feel Martin’s pulse against her own, syncopated beats married through their hands. Still the yellow remains. Softer now. It’s not so hot. It’s weather that isn’t even weather anymore—a perfect, pleasant evenness that envelops everything.
“You’re funny,” Petra says.
Martin makes a fist with his free hand and pulls a victory arm pump into his chest. “I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear you say that.”
Petra rolls her eyes. “Too far.” Because he’s gone, she remembers again. It’s so easy to forget because it matters so little. Not at all actually. It doesn’t have to matter here. This can be anywhere. They can do anything. But they don’t want to. All they need is this very moment on their football field. The beginning of it all.
Petra’s been choosing to look away from Martin, an old nervous habit and a mistake she is quick to correct. When she turns to see him, nervousness is etched into his forehead: tiny taut wrinkles from where he holds tension.
“Sorry if my hand is sweaty,” he says.
“It’s perfect.” Her heart rate skyrockets. It’s her hand that’s sweaty. It’s she who is nervous. When he smiles, his scar, a little whiter than the rest, pulls wider. “How’d you get that?” she asks.
Martin knows what she means. “Wrestling in my backyard with Spitty.”
“Figures.”
“We were losers.”
“I know.”
“Then what are you sorry for? Sounds like you know all there is to know about me.”
Petra exhales. Her features pull downward, trying to see in Martin’s face how all of this ends. “What now?”
“Anything. Everything. Nothing. It’s all possible.”
“I mean when I wake up. You won’t be there. And it’s taken you so long to come here in the first place.”
“I know,” he says. “I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“You being mad at me.”
Petra has to laugh. “You were afraid I’d be mad at you…for dying?”
“I didn’t keep my end of the promise.”
“Do you really think you had control over what was going to happen to you? I mean, a car hit you,” she says softly. “There wasn’t a way for you to change the outcome of that, no matter what you were doing in people’s dreams.”
“Dammit you’re smart,” he says. He pauses to think. His mood changes. “Can you tell my family I’m sorry? And the family of that other driver?”
Petra puts her other hand atop his leg. “Your mom set up a memorial in his name.”
“Wow.” He takes it in. “I didn’t know that. When I visit them, it’s not like it is with you. We don’t talk about real stuff. It’s just happiness. Memories. Lots of hugging.” He fakes a shudder. “You can’t believe the amount of hugging.”
“You’re a pretty huggable guy.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
Petra leans her head onto his shoulder. She can hear Martin breathing, full and real, his thoughts turning, his tongue untwisting, so used to saying the wrong thing and so eager to find the right thing. “This right here,” he starts, “is what could have been in your world, and what is in mine. It’s the place where we exist, together, exactly as we want to be.”
Yes, she thinks to herself. It is.
Sunlight stretches their shadows onto the grass in front of them. There are no more chairs around. Smack-dab in the middle of the field with black outlines looming like giants, Petra and Martin continue talking. And laughing. And nudging each other. The fastest of friends in the brightest of lights, glowing for an imaginary amount of hours on a clock that does not move. Their shadow selves, like a mirror of yet another world, dance together.
This, Petra thinks, is the place where lost things are found. Where time doesn’t matter. Where all of us live as our truest selves, in infinite forms, in moldable shapes. Where we shed our skin and become reborn, over and over, night after night, preparing ourselves for the hours that wait on the other side.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, this book would not exist without my sister Rose. She’s read every draft, supported every good idea, and talked me out of every bad one. Rose, I owe so much to your fervor and your keen eye. You are truly the most essential piece of my writerly puzzle. Thank you.
Mom, thank you for always cheering me on with unapologetic favoritism and bias. Every time I fall down, your love makes a mighty soft cushion. Dad, thank you for the daily phone calls. They mean everything and more. Liz, thank you for always being like a second mom to me. I live a fulfilling life as an adult because you selflessly invested your time and money into my interests when I was young. John and Raina, thank you for showing me how to be strong and lead with love. My nieces and nephews: Deklin, Brielle, Caleb, Brannon, Lily, Emma, and Sophie, thank you for making me so excited for the next generation. You guys are going to change the world for the better.
My amazing agent and ultimate cheerleader, Taylor Haggerty, thank you for connecting to this story in a way I could only—pun intended—dream of. Your relentless efforts made every facet of that dream a reality. You are a serious rock star. All those who know you adore you as much I do.
Annie Berger, my incredible editor, thank you for nurturing my book until it grew into something so much greater than I ever could’ve imagined alone. Your insight, expertise, kindness, and enthusiasm made the editing process much more enjoyable than it had any right to be. Huge thank-yous to Sarah Kasman, Cassie Gutman, Sandra Ogle, Nicole Hower, Jillian Rahn, Alex Yeadon, Katy Lynch, the rest of the Sourcebooks team, and every other person who helped me make this book a reality. I would like to tackle hug and high-five all of you.
Ryan Salonen, thank you for your investment in my work and for making me believe all my ideas are worthy of exploration. Your encouragement has helped me overcome countless obstacles. Vince Rossi, thank you for always having an unending passion for the creative arts. Your fervor makes the stars seem reachable. Brian Batty, thank you for giving Martin his shoes and for giving me endless reasons to laugh. This book will always be Fist Bump to us, with music provided by Bottle Cap Effect. Ryan Everett, thank you for never ceasing to turn every morning into a perfect one. In so many ways, you make me brighter. Hollis Andrews, thank you for hyping me up every chance you get. Four hands on the wheel! To all the other friends who have hugged me, smiled with me, cried with me, distracted me, enlightened me, and supported me throughout this process: please know that you live inside every word I write. Our memories are magic.
All my gratitude to Oak Forest High School’s Cheryl Harris-Sumida and Victor Pazik, my former drama director and choir director, respectively. You both shaped my life’s path in ways too big to be qualified. You gave my hopes and ambitions a safe space to grow. You two are superheroes in my eyes.
Thank you to each and every one of the gymnasts I’ve worked with over the past decade. It’s an honor to share this amazing sport with all of you. To my LGA Xcel team especially, every day you girls show me there is no goal that can’t be reached if you love what you do and you’re willing to put in the work. Your determination and heart will take you far in life. I am so proud to be your coach.
To the Chicago Cubs, baseball team of my heart, thank you for finally winning it all. You changed so many lives for the better on November 2, 2016.
Finally, to all the YA lovers out there, thank you for celebrating books as you do. I carry a permanent swell of affection for each and every one of you, akin to the heart-hugging squeeze that comes along when I’m reading a really good book. You know the feeling.
About the Author
B
ridget Morrissey lives in Los Angeles, but proudly hails from Oak Forest, Illinois, a small yet mighty suburb just southwest of Chicago. When she’s not writing, she can be found coaching gymnastics, reading in the corner of a coffee shop, or headlining concerts in her living room. Visit her online at bridgetjmorrissey.com.
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What You Left Me Page 20