I clenched my teeth together, and gave him a look I hoped he would remember, and regret.
So we would not be like him and that girl on the ski slopes, meeting up, kissing cheeks, laughing at time gone by.
I turned around, keeping my eyes on the steps, so sure this would be the last time I descended this stairway.
“By the way, Jessa,” he said, his voice falling in an unfamiliar cadence. “I know.”
I paused, my steps faltering. And then I kept moving. I kept going.
—
The memory has me on a mission. Because I realize there are parts to Caleb’s life I didn’t know at all.
After an awkwardly silent lunch, where Hailey talked about classes, and I nodded in reply, both of us pretending I was okay, I take a detour, swinging by the school library and logging onto a computer before heading back to class. I think about that town name in Pennsylvania, the tickets behind Caleb’s clock, and I remember the girl in the ski gear. Caleb didn’t believe in social media accounts. (Lame, he said, for people who don’t have better things to do.) I cringed when he said that, because he was of course implying that I did not have better things to do. Still, I’m glad I have accounts set up now. It makes the search easier. I type in Ashlyn Patterson, and there are suddenly more Ashlyn Pattersons than I thought possible.
Scanning through the images and locations, I see one that could possibly be her. Her profile is set to private, but her school is listed. She’s a senior at a big public high school in northern New Jersey. It doesn’t account for the ticket to Pennsylvania, but it’s possible, I think, that they were using this location as a common meeting spot for some reason. Though it’s not exactly the most central location.
I send her a message. I cut right to the point: When was the last time you saw Caleb Evers?
Hailey’s with me when I see Max by the lockers Monday after school. I’m not sure whether it’s because he’s been looking for me, but we end up walking stride for stride on the way to the parking lot.
“I wanted to talk to you. About yesterday. I wanted to apologize,” he says.
He’s walking backward, and Hailey and I keep moving. Hailey wants to know if I’m driving home—now that cross-country season is over, she’s ready to leave right after school as well. I don’t answer Max, and Hailey doesn’t acknowledge him, in a show of solidarity, I’m guessing. She doesn’t even know what cause she’s supporting, but Hailey’s like that, and I’ve always loved her for it.
“I have to go to Caleb’s house,” I tell Hailey, letting that be a response for Max as well.
“Will you let me help you at least?” Max asks, still keeping stride with us in reverse.
“Eve doesn’t want that,” I say. I don’t want that. It’s a delicate balance, me in that room. If he’s there, tearing things apart with his own motivation, I might miss something. I might lose something. I feel like Caleb is a mirage, and every time I think I have him, that I can track the path of him—his motives, his journey—he flickers and fades, and I was wrong.
Someone calls to Hailey, and she looks at me. “That’s my ride. Or, it was supposed to be my ride.”
“I’ll call you tonight?” I say. It’s a question. I’m asking her.
“Later,” she says. She squeezes my arm, gives Max a look, and spins around.
I focus on Max, really looking at him, and I say it point-blank. “Was he cheating on me?” I ask. He knew Caleb better than anyone. Better than me, I’m realizing now. This, at least, would be an answer that would give things more shape.
He looks surprised by the question. “No.” Then he opens his mouth and closes it again. “I don’t think so.”
My stomach falls. “You don’t think so?”
“He didn’t tell me everything.” I see his throat moving. He lowers his voice. “I didn’t tell him everything.”
But I remember Caleb’s words that last day, as I walked down the stairs. “Are you sure? Because he knew, Max. He knew.”
He looks up at the sky, as if it will absolve him. “Not from me, Jessa. Besides, there was nothing to know.”
“For you, maybe.”
He shakes his head. “It was the moment. It wasn’t you.”
It feels like a line, and I wonder who else could possibly be blamed for it. “You’re the one who stopped me,” I say, “if I’m recalling correctly. So I think you get a pass.”
“I didn’t at first. Not fast enough.”
“You did.” I remember the embarrassment. I remember thinking to myself, Oh, so this is mortification. Yes, now the word makes sense.
“I didn’t want to, Jessa. I really didn’t.”
His words echo in my head the whole drive to Caleb’s. But even thinking about them now feels like betrayal.
—
Mia’s bus is letting out just as I arrive at Caleb’s. I watch, like a creeper, as she walks with her purple backpack hanging too low, and her dark hair swooped over her shoulder. Suddenly, she turns and stares directly at me, as if she knew I was here all along.
I quickly exit the car, to seize the chance to speak with her, but Eve opens the front door at the same moment and Mia skitters in behind her. Eve holds the door open until I’m inside as well.
It smells stale in here, like nobody’s cooked in ages. With the packing, I’m starting to get a whiff of the house itself, all plaster and wood polish and dust, like everyone’s been on a long vacation. I’m starting to notice things, now. Like the laminate peeling in the kitchen, and the grandfather clock that doesn’t chime, and the empty drawers, the sounds the house makes on its own.
I remember the police had been here that first day, when Caleb was just missing, before his fate was decided, and official. And how different his home had looked then, from a different angle, with too many people crowded into the doorway.
Thinking about it now, it seems obvious the police must’ve accessed his email somehow during that early investigation, and then changed the password. Maybe they even shut down the account.
I’m standing across from Eve in the entrance, staring into her green eyes. I realize I’m the same height as her, that her teeth are clenched together, that she lost her first husband, and a son. And I don’t know how to ask the question. I circle around it, stalling. “Did the police look through Caleb’s email? To see if they might know what he was doing?”
She shakes her head, looking at me funny. “No. He was eighteen. He accidentally drove off a bridge. There was no cause for the police to gain access, which would’ve taken a subpoena to the email company. Whatever emails he had sent or received did not matter. There was a flood. It was an accident.” She frowns, like she had also considered this and asked.
“Not even after…?” After he was declared dead. Say it, Jessa. But I don’t. Not to her. She fought against it, at first. Saying there was no proof, that there was always hope. Until weeks later, when the current shifted, and the larger pieces of his car began washing ashore. If the current could do that to steel, well—the rest was unspoken.
“Not even then. Not even with a death certificate. His account was with one of the services that won’t transfer access after death. It seems people are entitled to their privacy, even then.” Eve speaks the words I don’t, the word death coming out choked, a note higher than the rest. She says it when I will not, as if daring me to do so as well, or proving that she is stronger.
Then she leans closer, and I smell the sharp scent of her perfume, the coconut of her shampoo. “Why, do you know his password?”
I shake my head, the easiest explanation.
So it wasn’t the police. And it wasn’t his mother. And it wasn’t me. That left Max.
“What’s the matter, Jessa?”
I’m a terrible hider of secrets. Caleb must’ve been able to read them in my expression. Instead, I scramble for something else I can use. “I still can’t find his glasses. I’m just wondering where he was going, why he needed them.”
It’s like when I was at schoo
l, seeing all the empty places Caleb used to be. Seeing only what’s not there, what should still be there, if fate were fair.
But Eve gives a little sad shake of her head. “He was going to see you, Jessa. Like always.” Then she leans a little closer. “You never told me, what he last said to you. Don’t you think you owe me that?” As if reminding me why I am here. Why I am here.
He didn’t say anything that day. And it’s only then, when she asks, that I realize that I too am searching for those words. To go back and have him say something, so I will understand. So I will be absolved. Going to the library. Or I’m hungry, might grab a bite to eat. Or I’ve been seeing someone else, and I’m going to visit her. Even just I feel like taking a drive. Just something. The weight of the unsaid words presses down on me, and all I can tell his mother is the truth: “He didn’t say anything.” A hard, sad thing to admit. The last words spoken from him to me were in the stairway from his room, said to my back, in anger.
She waits a beat, as if the answer will suddenly change. But when I don’t flinch under her unrelenting stare, she steps aside, so I can ascend the steps.
I’ve got to talk to Max again. Now that I know it wasn’t Caleb’s mother or the police who went through his email. I think about calling him, but I know voices carry in this house. I think about texting him, but I don’t even know what to say. He’s been through this room. Maybe he’s been through his email, too. Did you hack into Caleb’s account? What were you looking for? Did you find it?
Can I see it?
I look out the window, but there’s no movement at his house. And anyway, Eve is downstairs. I can’t just leave with no explanation.
Instead, I start on what’s left on the shelves, boxing away the trophies (karate, youth soccer, math Olympiad, lacrosse championship). All gold figurines that look identical, frozen in time.
Caleb Evers, Captain is written on the bottom of the prep state championship trophy. My nail hooks and locks in the groove of his name.
—
Hailey and I had driven nearly an hour. Well, neither of us had our license back then yet, so Max drove. Except Max didn’t have a car yet (Still saving, he mumbled, anytime we teased him about it), so he borrowed Caleb’s, since Caleb was on the team bus.
“Sophie said you guys broke up,” Hailey said from the backseat, leaning between the center gap.
“Yep,” Max said, keeping his eyes on the road.
“Hmm.”
I spun in the passenger seat, gave her a look. One that said Stop. It had only supposedly happened the day before. Caleb would be thrilled, I thought. Though he seemed to have grown to like Sophie just fine. Or, he tolerated her, for Max’s benefit. Honestly, I didn’t get the animosity. She was perfectly unimposing, unassuming, un-everything.
“What happened?” Hailey asked.
“Hailey,” I said.
She gave me the What? look.
“Nothing,” Max said. It was the beginning of May then, and they’d been together longer than me and Caleb. It seemed like a long time to be together to call it off for no reason.
“There had to be something,” she said.
“Hailey,” I said.
What? There does, her look said.
“No, nothing happened.” He paused. “Nothing ever really happened.”
“Oh,” Hailey said.
“Oh,” I said. It seemed a long time to stay together without a reason, too. But then I thought, maybe it was easier to stay with the stream of momentum, no concrete cause to call it off. And I got this slight unease in the pit of my stomach.
“And if you repeat that, Hailey, I will throw your favorite shoes into the river,” Max said.
“Violent threats really aren’t necessary,” she said. “I’m already trusting you with my life right now. This car does not feel like the safest means of transportation, no offense to Caleb.”
The demarcations in the pavement sounded like a steady beat as we drove along the highway in silence for the next half hour, passing exits and town signs and strip malls.
Caleb called while we were still on the way. “Hey,” he said, “bus just arrived. How’s Max doing with my baby?”
“His hands are currently at ten and two, no worries.”
He laughed, dropping his voice. “I wasn’t talking about my car, Jessa.”
I warmed, picturing him tipping his head, speaking lower. All unease currently gone. I tucked myself into the corner of my seat, lowered my voice. “We’ll be there soon. Really soon.”
“Tell Max to drive faster.”
“Max,” I said. “Drive faster.”
“I need to see you before the game,” Caleb said.
“We’ll be there.”
I had felt so essential to his existence then. So important, as his teammates parted to let me through before the game. So needed as we snuck into the locker room to fool around in the ten minutes before their pregame warm-ups.
Until his phone buzzed in his pocket, and he groaned. He frowned at the display and said, “I’m so sorry, I have to take this.”
Then he walked away, leaving me in the corner of the guys’ locker room, to plan my own escape.
His voice echoed in the empty space. “Yeah. I’m here. Are you?” I assumed it was Eve, who was set to arrive later with Mia. He hooked around a corner, and I heard a door swinging open and shut.
And then I thought: Oh, crap. And then: What the hell?
I saw too many shadows passing the front door, and didn’t want to be caught exiting on my own. I looked for other escape routes, then heard a stampede of cleats as a group of guys entered the locker room. I hid in the closest stall, and texted Hailey: SOS. Stuck in boys locker room. Hiding in stall. Ideas??
Two minutes later, I heard the door fling open, and Hailey’s voice booming through the room.
“Turn around, boys!” Hailey declared. “I need to use the bathroom, but the line’s too long next door.”
The shock must’ve gotten to them, because nobody said anything, and nobody stopped her. I opened the stall door when I heard her footsteps approach, and she raised an eyebrow. “Ready?” she asked. She held up her fingers, counting down from three, grabbed onto my arm, and then we bolted.
And because it was the opposing team, they didn’t know us by name. Could only guess as Hailey and I darted by in a blur.
Max was laughing from the bleachers when we returned, apparently in on the plan. “Never a dull moment with you two,” he said.
I saw Eve arriving, and Mia abandoned her mother to scramble up the bleachers toward us instead.
Max got up to make room for Mia to squeeze between us, and I leaned toward Hailey and asked, “Do you like Max?”
She grinned noncommittally, leaning over to check him out as he was engaged in conversation with a guy on the other side. “What’s not to like about Max?” Just then, his eyes shifted to mine—a wide smile that reached his brown eyes.
Tall, with dark hair and a lean, athletic build, and a way about him that felt effortlessly comfortable, that put others at ease. It was true: there wasn’t much to dislike about him. Not the way he looked, or smiled, or acted. He treated his friends well. He treated everyone well. I remembered the way he came back for me in the subway station, the way he gripped my hand and got me through.
“So?” I said, prompting her.
“So he just broke up with Sophie, who happens to be a friend of mine. That kind of makes him off-limits. It’s in the code. Like, if I were to hook up with Caleb one day.”
“Oh my God, don’t you dare,” I said.
She smiled, her eyes squinting. “See?” She leaned around me once more, to look. “Damn shame, though. Seriously.”
Behind the trophies, stuck against the wall, I see a white and brown seashell, spiral shaped, long and narrow. My heart plummets into my stomach. I can’t believe he kept this. I never knew he had it, tucked behind a stack of gold trophies, a row of achievements throughout his life.
—
&nbs
p; Valentine’s Day. Caleb wanted to take me to the beach. He said restaurants were overrated, and besides, everyone else would be doing that. Everything, according to Caleb, would be crowded and expensive and lame. And anyway, we could trace our beginning to the beach. That first picture on his wall. The moment he knew.
It counted for more, he said. It had meaning.
It fell on a weekend, and he picked me up at three, and we drove out to the beach, which was vast and abandoned—a cold beige, a deep blue. For as far as we could see, it was empty, and it was ours.
The wind whipped up off the water, and he took my hand, wrapped an arm around me on second thought.
But here’s the thing about the beach in winter: the sand scratches at your ankles in the wind, and it’s somehow more intimidating. It roars, cold saltwater spray stinging my eyes so tears formed at the corners.
“This is the least romantic thing ever. I was so wrong,” he said, laughing. He pulled me closer, and I buried my face in his chest.
“It’s terrible.”
“The worst.” I heard the words through his chest, alongside the howling wind.
I bent down, my fingers digging into the sand. “Here, have a shell. There was once a living creature inside it, but now it’s probably dead.”
“You shouldn’t have. Truly.” He held it to his face. “I will treasure this always. Just as soon as I get the stench of dead marine life out of it.”
He tipped my head up, and I wrinkled my nose. “I think there’s sand in my shoes.”
He smiled, his eyes shifting to the violent ocean behind us. “I thought candlelit dinners were cliché and lame, but I’m beginning to see the error of my ways.”
“All I want is heat,” I said, clinging to the front of his jacket dramatically.
“That can be arranged.”
“Not at your house.”
“Not at my house,” he agreed.
“And not at my house,” I said.
He seemed to think for a moment, two, and then said, “Okay.”
Ten minutes later we pulled up in front of the county library. “Um,” I said.
“Just trust me,” he said. He took my hand in the nearly empty parking lot, and made a big show of pressing the automatic door button, gesturing for me to enter.
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