He was in the middle of a chapter, no rhyme or reason. Except it isn’t a bookmark, but an envelope folded in half. I unfold it, see the jagged top, the black script that had once been out of focus, that he didn’t want me to see. His name is written on the front. Just his name.
I pull the notebook paper from inside, read the words he wanted to keep hidden:
C—I miss you. I miss you so much. But I’m scared that if I send you this and you don’t show up, it will be even worse.
There’s nothing else. This big envelope for three sentences. Three sentences, to break my heart.
I’m holding a secret. Something I don’t understand. Someone he was talking to months before we broke up. Someone who missed him, whom he cared for enough to hide from me.
It was no secret that Kylie Vann once had a crush on Caleb. It was no secret that she asked him to help her with homework in the back room of the school library, and then kissed him when he wasn’t expecting it. He told me right away. That’s how we operated. That’s how I thought we operated.
I feel dizzy with the words. With the truth. With the memories. While I had been so frantic trying to hold together the pieces of us, had he already let us go, and just neglected to tell me?
Secrets. He knew how to reel them out, how to hook you with them. And so he must have known how to hold them.
What I thought I knew about Caleb: the books he read and loved. The things he didn’t want me to see, and why he didn’t want me to see them (college letters, an uncertain future between us). What he really didn’t want me to see: something deeper, darker, more personal. The simmering of a betrayal.
Max had already uncovered the spot between the mattress and the box spring. I’d gone through his drawers, his closet, the books knocked off the shelves. But now I find myself on my hands and knees, my face pressed close to the carpet, the manufactured fibers scratching at my cheek, looking for more. Looking for what else Caleb wanted to keep hidden.
There’s an indentation in the carpet, about ten inches from the foot of the bed, as if the entire bed has been shifted just slightly to the left recently. It could be from Max tearing through Caleb’s things, or before. Impossible to tell now, with the room out of order, the perspective shifted.
The first thing I do is check for any other place he might have stashed money, thinking this might be where he’d hidden Max’s, if he’d truly taken it. My hands brush against the base of the box spring, the metal bed frame, but there’s nothing else. No taped envelope, no packet of cash. Now that he was eighteen, maybe he finally opened that bank account after all.
There’s a duffel bag, big and bulky, taking up most of the floor beneath his bed. I angle it out, dragging the bag across the carpet, and it snags on a metal foot of the bed. This is his gym bag, for his lacrosse gear; he’d swing it up and over his back, wearing the strap across his chest.
But unzipping the bag, the first thing I see are the long, slender ski poles, the goggles, the hard immobile boots that he’d attach to his skis. As if he stored all his off-season gear in one location. Anything worth something, all stashed under the bed until winter.
I leave the ski poles inside, as they span the length of the bag, giving it shape, along with his lacrosse stick. The goggles, I hold up to the window, though, watch as they color everything red, dulling the glare.
I slip them over my eyes and stare at my hands. They look like they belong to someone else, in another time and place.
—
Caleb let me borrow these once, during a group outing back in January, seasons before our hiking trip. There had been a picture of this day on the wall as well. A snowy background, the group of us bundled up, all smiles.
My parents made Julian come with us. Not that I’d asked if I could go. Not that I thought I needed to. I’d told them about the trip, and they’d said, “Who else will be there?”
I said, “Hailey, Sophie, Max, Caleb.”
I know now I should’ve led with Caleb. By listing him last, it made it seem like I had something to hide. Something that I was keeping from them, that they should not trust.
“If your brother goes,” was their response. A freaking double standard if I’d ever heard one. Julian had gone skiing with his friends the year before. But Julian, of course, was trustworthy. And I’d just been caught with Caleb in my room when Caleb was not supposed to be in my room. We were only doing homework. And okay, his hand was on the small of my back, under my shirt, but still. Homework. The mortification still burned. The lack of trust burned even more. Apparently, I was the only one who required a chaperone.
Julian had had plenty of girlfriends, I had learned from being at the same school. I assumed he had just not been bold enough to sneak them into his room. Or to tell our parents about them.
Julian acted like being required to accompany us on our ski trip wasn’t a big deal. He even drove. Pretended he’d been meaning to hit the slopes that weekend anyway, and if he knew I was interested, he would’ve gone sooner with me. We picked up Hailey on the way, but Caleb drove Max and Sophie. The whole thing felt like a chaperoned date, one that cut both ways. Hailey’s crush on my brother had only grown over the years, and there were few thoughts that weirded me out more than the idea of Hailey and my brother together.
I had not banned her from her attempts, though I did beg her not to share any details. Ever. Ever, ever, ever.
Thankfully, Julian didn’t seem super interested. But I think it weirded him out even more, to realize that Hailey was my age, and I was dating someone he knew, was friends with some of his friends too, and suddenly our worlds were interlocked, overlapping, with no defined borders or protocols.
Later, at the resort, Max, Julian, and I picked up our rentals, and met up with Caleb, Hailey, and Sophie, who had their own gear, in the locker area. Caleb took one look at the goggles I was adjusting and frowned. “Those are crap. You’re going to break your nose if you can’t get them fitted right.”
“Unfortunate, since I can’t get them fitted right,” I said.
He slid his off his head, swapped with me. He used my crappy rentals, which fit to his head just fine.
“Thank you,” I said, kissing his cheek. I lowered his goggles over my eyes, and the world filtered to a duller red.
He grinned. “I happen to like your nose.”
—
Hailey and I were testing out the easier slopes first. Me, because I liked to work my way up, out of habit. Her, because she was terrible. But she was terrible in an adorable way. Sliding down on her butt while yelling a string of ohcrapohcrapohcrap. Getting up, making her way slowly over to the lift again. Her skis interlocking on the next try, sending her skidding. I thought she was beyond lucky that she had never seriously injured herself. I wished I could fail as spectacularly.
Even Julian seemed to watch quizzically. Captivated by the mess, and the wonder, that was Hailey Martinez.
I was waiting for Hailey at the bottom of a run, because she’d gotten knocked over near the start, and was currently working through the slow process of righting herself. Julian was watching her and not me; he had been accompanying us on our runs, like he’d been put in charge as babysitter by our parents.
I caught sight of Caleb making his way toward the lift from the other direction, and I raised my hand, about to shout his name—and then froze. A girl had pulled up beside him, and I could tell from his body language, even from the distance, that he knew her. That he liked her. And what wasn’t to like? She had a long blond braid trailing down her back, fitted white and red snow gear, a confidence in her stance. And it was obvious she could ski better than me.
I heard him laugh. I looked behind me to see if anyone else noticed, but Julian was still keeping his eye on Hailey. I turned back around just in time to see Caleb with his arms around the girl, her face pressed up against his, everything monochrome and buffered through the goggles.
But then I second-guessed myself. Because the world was the wrong color, and the edges du
lled, sunlight and ultraviolet rays filtered, and reality was skewed. I looked again, and he was skiing away. Like the last second hadn’t happened.
Later, back in the locker room, when I was taking off my gear and handed him back his goggles, he said, “Go ahead, Jessa. You can ask me.”
“Ask you what?”
He looked at me, widened his eyes. “What I know you’re wondering.”
Had he seen me there, watching them? Before, or after? He hadn’t acknowledged me standing there, one way or the other. “Okay,” I said. “Who was that?”
“Ashlyn Patterson. We went to sleepaway camp together a few years ago.”
“You went to sleepaway camp?”
He smiled, amused this was my biggest take-away.
“I did. And, before you ask, yes, she was my girlfriend.”
I remembered his laughter, the way her face was pressed against his as they hugged, and I felt something twist inside. “Is she confused about whether that position is still available?”
He laughed out loud this time, peeling off his boots. He leaned closer. “Not anymore,” he said. Then he kissed me quickly on the lips as we sat beside each other on the wooden bench.
“Hey,” he said, when we stood in our regular shoes, carrying the remaining gear back to the cars. “Thanks for not freaking out.”
I bristled, wondering what he really thought of me. Or if it was because he saw himself as older, somehow more mature. That he could kiss an ex-girlfriend on the cheek in greeting, calmly express his lack of availability, wish her well, see me watching and not saying anything—but know I’d be worried anyway. I told Hailey about it on the walk back to our car as they drove away, lingering on his comment.
“Thank God,” she said, “the spell is finally broken.” I remembered her holding an imaginary wand, asking for her friend back.
She cut off my look by circling her fingers around my wrist. “Look,” she said, “I’m just saying, it’s normal to see the good and the bad, you know? It’s not all sunshine forever.”
I nodded. Like I had finally removed the filter from my eyes. Seeing all the sides of Caleb, along with his past, and finding a way to work with it all together.
On the drive home, I kept replaying the image, filtered through red. The rush of snow and adrenaline. The curiosity making me pause and look again.
“Like, what do you even do at sleepaway camp?” I asked, staring out the window.
Hailey erupted in laughter. “Oh my God. You’re doing it. You’re totally freaking out.”
“About what?” Julian asked.
Hailey did not catch the look I gave her in the rearview mirror. The one that said My brother does not need to know any of this, oh God, please don’t. But Hailey was up for any sort of conversation with Julian, even one that included me and my boyfriend.
“Caleb ran into his ex on the slopes. Some girl from sleepaway camp.”
Julian frowned, cutting his eyes to me. “That so?” he asked.
“Oh my God,” I said. “Hailey, get with the eye-signal program already, huh?”
She smiled back at me. “Let’s see, sleepaway camp. They hike,” she said, holding up a finger. “And swim in lakes. And sleep in tents or cabins. And get generally filthy. And have subpar water pressure and soap. Everyone’s kind of gross. I’m surprised they were even able to recognize each other.”
I laughed, and even Julian smiled. “Do you want me to drop you home, or are you coming back to our place, Hailey?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes, and didn’t need to turn around to imagine the glow of her expression. The way he’d spoken just to her, using her name, smiling at her joke. “Your place, please,” she said, not even trying to mask the excitement in her voice.
—
Now, I think back to that letter I found in his book, wondering if it could’ve come from her. This Ashlyn Patterson. And if so, why Caleb kept it, if he truly didn’t care anymore.
Underneath the goggles and the ski poles is the helmet he wore for lacrosse in the spring. The thing I remember most is not his games, but the way he looked in the gear. With his face behind the helmet’s cage, it was hard to tell him apart from his teammates. They were all covered in shoulder pads, thick helmets, faces hidden behind masks. I could only recognize the different players when they faced away, catching a glimpse of the name printed on the jersey.
Buried deeper inside the bag are his shoulder pads and other pieces of protection, and then the lacrosse stick.
I pull it out, a trail of dust clinging to the base. The tape at the edge partly unwound, and still unwinding. The sticky part clinging to dirt.
—
It was early April, spring break, and I’d just gotten back from the Keys, five days with my parents and Julian and sun and snorkeling. Hailey was still in Puerto Rico, visiting her grandparents. Caleb had spent the whole time home, though.
The air felt crisp and welcoming back home. I could still feel the heat of the sun in my burnt shoulders, the fabric of my shirt rubbing at the raw skin underneath.
Mia answered the front door, still in her pajamas, even though it was noon. She hugged me around the waist, asked if I wanted to make necklaces. She had beads spread out all along the living room floor, organized into piles, by color.
I smiled, thinking she and Caleb shared the organization gene. “A little later,” I said. “Where’s Caleb?”
She pointed to the dark stairway, then led me up the steps, the way she liked to do it now. She threw open Caleb’s door without knocking, and announced, “Jessa’s here!”
Caleb was sitting on the edge of his bed without a shirt, like he’d just woken. He’d been staring out the window, his eyes narrowed from the light. His confusion turned to a smile, and he said, “You’re back.”
I nodded. “I called.”
He held up his phone on the bedside table, currently plugged into the wall. “Dead battery.” Then he looked at Mia beside me. “Hey, Mia, can you make Jessa a necklace? Her favorite color is blue.”
Mia took off down the steps, and he walked toward me, stepping over his lacrosse bag to close the door behind me.
“I missed you,” he said, pulling me toward him.
“Ow,” I said, his hands brushing over the sunburn on my back.
“Ow?”
“Turns out we were closer to the equator than I thought.”
He dropped his hands, pulled the edge of my collar aside. Shook his head. Instead he kissed my wrist, the inside of my elbow, where he knew I was ticklish, and I laughed, relenting. I let him fold me up in his arms and drop me onto the bed, both of us laughing. “Still hurt?” he asked.
“Nope.”
He lowered himself slowly, slowly, until his mouth brushed mine. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him closer.
He was easing my shirt over the sunburn when the door flew open, and he jumped back, like my skin could burn him.
I yanked my shirt back down. Mia stood in the entrance.
She blinked slowly between us. “Max is here,” she said, thumb jutting behind her at Max on the steps.
But Max was already cringing, looking away. “Yeah, I’ll just, um. Later, guys. Come on, Mia.” He took her by the hand, and she looked once over her shoulder, but Max kept moving.
Caleb laughed deep in his throat, sitting on the edge of his bed.
“Oh God,” I said.
“She’s eight. She doesn’t even know what she saw. But I’m going to put an end to her escorting people up the steps….”
“I was talking about Max,” I mumbled, standing up.
“Well, Max probably understands just fine. What we need,” he said, rummaging through his bag on the floor, “is a lock.”
He pulled out his lacrosse stick and wedged it across the door handle, jamming it between the dresser and the wall. He pulled the door handle, which opened an inch before getting jammed on the stick—not enough to see in. He turned around, smiling. “Good enough,” he said.
“Oh no
,” I said, hands held out in front of me. “No, no, no. In case you didn’t notice, the moment is totally ruined.”
I looked out the window. No Max.
Caleb followed my gaze. “Seriously, Jessa? You’re embarrassed about Max? We’ve been together for almost a year. I’m sure he assumes far, far more.”
It was the beginning of April. I scrunched up my face, doing the math. “Closer to half a year,” I said, dissecting the statement from all angles. “And assuming and seeing are two very different things.” Then I was thinking: Does he tell Max about me, about us? Confiding in him about the things we had done, and not done? I had always thought Caleb was like me, keeping those details to himself. But suddenly I wasn’t sure, and I couldn’t stand the thought—that I might be a secret, to be shared.
I gathered up my things, removed the lacrosse stick, and jogged down the steps, sure to make enough noise so they would know I was coming.
I passed Max sitting with Mia at the kitchen table. She had Max’s earbuds in, and he was playing something for her. When he saw me, he looked up at the ceiling, then closed his eyes. “I didn’t know you were in there. I swear. Mia neglected to mention that part.”
“You’re making it worse by refusing to look at me now.”
He laughed then, dipped his head, looked at me, smiled. Smiled too wide. “Better?” he asked.
“Nope. No. Definitely not.”
I spun out of the room, out the front door, and waited for Caleb to meet me there.
I heard Caleb and Max behind the closed door. “Sorry, man.”
“Whatever,” I heard Caleb say. “I don’t get why she’s making this into a whole thing.”
It was true, we’d been going out for the whole school year, more than seven months now. He was my boyfriend. We were clothed (mostly). Mia was one thing, but Max? I groaned out loud, covering my face with my hands.
Caleb met me on the porch steps. “I’ll come over when my mom gets home, okay? Anything going on at your place today?”
I shrugged. “I think Julian’s planning to watch game tapes or something. And my parents are still in vacation mode. You can come over whenever.”
Fragments of the Lost Page 9