He steps back, pries my hands off his jacket, looks me over again—this crazed girl dripping wet, who has dragged herself from the river, like a memory.
He shakes his head, sadly.
“I know he’s alive,” I say.
“Sweetheart, you need to get out of here.” He looks over his shoulder, and I know he’s there somewhere. I know it.
“Caleb!” I call. “I made a mistake. Your mom followed me.”
The man freezes, and that’s when I know I’ve won. His grip tightens on my arm and he drags me farther back into the woods. But I don’t understand. The trees close around us, and there’s no one here but us.
“You don’t know what you’ve done,” he hisses. He has pulled me out of sight, and I think I should be afraid, but I’m not—I’m too close. I’m driven forward, to see it through.
“I do,” I say back. “I know exactly what I’ve done. That’s why I’m here. I’m telling him. To run.” I hiccup, and he lets go of my arm.
I step back, and he looks down at what’s in my hand. What I have grabbed from my pocket and held out in front of me, the only thing I have left. Caleb’s Swiss Army knife.
He frowns. “I’m not going to hurt you. You need to go back,” he says. “Now.”
“I can’t go back.” He looks down at me then, as if just finally understanding what I’ve done to reach them. He turns his back on me, and starts moving, but he doesn’t object when I follow him. We’re on a trail, leading to a clearing. In the clearing, the sound changes, to rain on a roof.
There’s a small circle of metal trailers, not attached to cars. They’re rentals, I see. The door to one creaks open, the light behind silhouetting a figure. It moves down the steps, to the darkened shadows of the trees. A hood over it, to protect from the rain.
Standing in the shadows is a shape. The shape becomes human. Becomes real.
He lifts his face, to both of us. “Dad,” he says.
And then I’m standing across from a ghost. Except I’m not sure whether the ghost is him or me, because he looks at me like he’s never seen me before. Like he has no idea who this person is before him.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
But all I can think is, I’ve done it. He is here, exactly as I believed, as I hoped.
“I found you.” That’s the only thing there is. The only thing to say. I found him. When no one else believed it, or no one else could do it, I was the one who fit together the clues he left behind, who traced the beginning and end, to here.
But I don’t step any closer.
We are standing across from each other, and I am suddenly afraid. I thought I knew him, but the pieces I’ve discovered do not line up to the person I thought I knew.
“How?” he asks. He also does not move to come closer. In fact, I’m scared he might turn and run at any moment. That I’m not understanding something, that this Caleb was never meant to be found. That he’s already gone, somehow.
“Your mom had me cleaning out your room. I figured it out. I know what happened in that room.”
He cuts his eyes to his father.
“We have to go,” his father says.
But Caleb doesn’t move. “We can’t yet. You know that.”
“I’m getting the tent, Caleb, and then we’re going.” And then his father disappears back into the night, and Caleb turns back to the trailer. I pocket the knife, trailing after him—always a few steps behind.
“Caleb,” I say, “whatever happened to Sean, it doesn’t have to be like this.”
Inside now, he turns to me, and I see the shadow of the boy I knew in his expression. “You know me,” he says. “You know I didn’t do that.”
I also thought he was dead. He let me believe that. He made me believe that.
“I thought I knew you. I don’t. You ran. You let us all think…”
He shakes his head, everything pouring back. “Sean was hurting me. He was choking me. I’d confronted him about these papers I found—”
“In the library,” I say. “I have them.”
“You have them,” he repeats. “I accused him of framing my father. Of putting him in jail for something he didn’t do. My dad swore he didn’t do it, that he was nowhere near that house that day. He thought it had to be my mother, but nobody believed him, because there was a witness. Only when I looked up the witness, you know what I found?”
“Yes,” I said. “I know.”
“They must’ve been having an affair. It must’ve been their plan together. She convinced Sean to lie. They both set my father up to take the fall.”
“Oh,” I say. I know some of this, because I’ve followed his footsteps. But I didn’t know he suspected his mother had been the one to put his life in danger. I’m starting to understand why he left, why he couldn’t stay.
“He was angry. He was so angry, Jessa. I thought he would kill me. My mom came upstairs, and she pushed him off. And I used that letter opener to take a swipe at him, and he stumbled back. I didn’t even hit him. He stumbled back. Near the window.” He takes a deep breath. I know what comes next. The window screen is gone. The concrete has been painted.
“But he was okay. I swear he was okay. Until he lunged for the letter opener in my hand, and she pushed him.”
His mother, then, coming to his aid. As a mother would.
“She was helping me, Jessa. It was because of me. He was so furious. I’d never seen him so mad. I don’t know what he would’ve done if he thought I was going to tell the police or something.”
The day comes back into focus. “I was there,” I say.
“All the evidence pointed to me, so she decided. We weren’t going to tell. We couldn’t do anything for him. She said, we’ll say he left. And it was just like that. We said he left.”
“You said she kicked him out.”
“You had showed up. You saw my face. What could I say? So I made something up, but my mom thinks you know. She thinks I told you.”
“Oh.” The reason for her keeping such close watch. All along, she thought I knew more than I let on. She didn’t know she was leading me right to it, just as I did for her.
“I have to go now, but I want you to know that. I want to know you believe that, Jessa.”
And I do, I realize. I wonder: can I take both sides? The parts I do know, and the parts I missed? This is what I know deep in my bones: he didn’t do it. I can tell because I’ve seen the different sides of him—the regret, the love, the fear, and the anger. I do know the sides of Caleb now. I know what a lie looks like, and he’s not lying.
“If you told the police it was self-defense, Caleb, your mom would’ve confirmed it. You didn’t have to disappear.”
He laughs then, and it’s pained. “Oh, no, Jessa, she would not. I wanted to tell. The guilt was too much. I thought we had done the wrong thing, and I couldn’t live with it, not in that house, in that room. And you know what she said? ‘All the evidence points to you, Caleb.’ She said she kept his pocket watch and wedding band, that they would have my blood. And we used my car to move him. Then we took his car when we left that week and sold it for cheap. I only realized after why she made us use my car, and not his. She said it was because we were selling it, but come on. It was to make sure I never said anything. And if Sean had helped set up my dad back then, then so did my mom, right? Jessa, who had I been living with?”
His voice drops, and he’s asking. He’s really asking.
“You could’ve left…,” I begin, but Caleb’s already shaking his head.
“She would’ve never given me permission to leave. Not even for college. She’s the guardian of my account, and as long as I was there, she could use part of the money to maintain our quality of life. But I have to be there. Leaving was not part of the picture for her. You know why she’s so determined to find me? It’s not because of me. It’s because the money is no longer hers. It goes to my dad, if I’m dead. It should’ve been his from the start. My grandparents left the money to me be
cause my dad was in jail. This was the only way.”
“It’s not,” I say. “There are still other options. It’s not too late. You have to tell the police.”
He shakes his head. “It’s my blood on his things. His DNA in my car. He was in my trunk. We were fighting. Mia knows it, everyone knows it. We’d fought before, even you would say that, if asked. I was the one driving Sean’s car when we went to sell it. When I told her the evidence could point to her instead, she said there were cameras on the gas stations we passed, the storefronts, every place I drove by, with her following. Evidence that it was me. She had me completely under her thumb. My money was in her hands until I turned twenty-five. Everything went through her.”
The cameras that he used, later, to fake his disappearance. This must’ve been how his mother was so sure he had done it. Destroying the car, a piece of evidence. Using the cameras, to prove it. Leaving.
“You put him in the river?” I ask, my hand on my stomach, the thought unbearable.
“No, not the river,” he says. “Not near us. Drove down at night, to the Pine Barrens.” He chokes on the horror of what he’s done, shakes his head, turns away, as if he can’t bear me looking at him, either. Endless miles of untouched forest area, where he might be. “I wouldn’t do it. Got sick on the side of the road at the entrance. She left me there. Came back an hour later. So, I don’t know exactly. It would be my word against hers.”
“How is this life any better? You still lose,” I say. We’ve all lost.
“The trust. On my death, it goes to my dad. We’re just waiting for the paperwork to clear. I’ve been staying in the tent, in case someone comes looking for him. But after that, then we can leave, and we’ll be fine. We’ll be gone. I’ll be someone new.”
“You won’t be fine. You won’t have college. Or family.” Or any of the people you’ve left behind, I think.
“She took years from my father. She took years away from me, too. It’s all I want now, to make up that time with my dad, to have the future years with him now.”
Of course Caleb had a plan. He always had a plan.
I believe Caleb is telling the truth, that he didn’t do it. But I also know I won’t trust him again, not in the same way, not ever. I step back.
“You left us all behind. Mia too.”
His face falls, and I know I’ve struck a nerve.
“I’ve been taking care of all of them for years. My mom can figure it out now.”
“Your mother had a plan, too. She was tracking my phone. I didn’t know. Until just before. Until it was too late. She’s coming, Caleb. She must be.”
His father barges through the trailer door, and I jump. He has returned with the tent, and his gear. “Caleb,” his father says, “we really need to move.”
“You led her here?” he asks. He’s angry, but I’m angrier.
“You don’t get to blame me for this. Did you know that everyone blames me for your death, Caleb?” He jerks back, and I see he didn’t expect that. I know he thought of no one but himself. “She’s been using me to find you, because you disappeared. I’ve been”—empty, guilty, no one—“grieving for you, for months.” I choke out the last word. Does he not realize the impact his actions have had on everyone?
He’s already backing inside the trailer. Throwing the rest of their things in a bag. “She has to find me before the money transfers. Before the bank releases the funds to my father. She needs proof I’m alive, and then she can claim I was kidnapped or something. Either way, I’m alive, and she’ll hold on to the funds again.”
I am nothing but a pawn. An ex-girlfriend. Just a person in relation to someone else. This cannot all be for nothing. Going through his life, piecing together the story, finding him—not just what happened, an absolution, but him. All the parts of me he took with him when he left, and I need them to be mine again. For this to mean something.
“Where will you go?” I ask.
“It’s better if you don’t know, Jessa.”
“Caleb, I can fix this.”
“This isn’t your life,” he says. “How could you possibly understand? You have the perfect life, with the perfect family. You don’t have to worry about anything.”
And I think: He doesn’t know me at all. It makes me immeasurably sad, that he doesn’t even notice my own journey—all I’ve done to make it here. I’m standing right in front of him, and he doesn’t even see. How little each of us really knew about each other, underneath the facade.
“Let’s move,” his dad says. “Now.”
Caleb turns to me. “Come on. We’ll lead you out to the road this way. You can call for a ride from a restaurant or something.”
I look down at myself, wondering if he’s really serious. I’m freezing. I’m soaked. He wants to leave me at a restaurant. But I can’t go out with them, back to some access road in Pennsylvania. Not right now.
“Max is coming,” I say, and Caleb freezes. “I called him. He’s coming.”
“We’ll be gone by then,” he says, hauling his backpack onto his back. “We’re not waiting.”
I shake my head. “My things are on the other side of the river. If he finds them there, without me…” I try to imagine what Max might think. The raging river. The text, that I had tried to cross it. My phone and the backpack left behind. No sign of me.
“He’ll be fine, Jessa.”
But I jerk back. Is that what he really thought? That we had all been fine when we thought he died? And that we would all be fine without him again?
That’s when I realize, I am not who he thought, and he is not who I thought, and we are not alike in the ways that count. There are things I know about Max in my bones, too. That he is coming, and that he wouldn’t leave me—and you have to be willing to do the same for each other.
Caleb never seemed to realize the things we had to do for each other, to pull each other up.
“No,” I say. “I’m not going with you.”
He pauses for a moment, and I think he’s going to argue. But he doesn’t. There’s nothing left to say.
He has left me once more. I watch his back as he goes, walking down the steps of the trailer.
And then he pauses, turns around. “Did you find the necklace, Jessa?”
“What?”
“Your necklace. You asked me to keep it safe.”
And suddenly I can’t breathe.
“I left it for you,” he says. “On the floor, in my jeans. I hoped you would find it.”
“Yes,” I say. “I found it.”
He left me the necklace. On purpose. Because it was mine, and good luck, and he knew I had trouble doing anything other than the way I’d always done things.
“I tried to make things easier,” he says, and he turns, one last time.
The way we broke up, so public that it would leave no doubt. His expression that day on the steps outside his room. Impassive. Stone-faced.
An ugly, cruel breakup that crushed all hope of any reconciliation.
A gift, to soften the blow.
All these things he hoped would remain hidden.
The necklace hangs, twisted on the broken chain, from my dresser necklace holder. It should be at the bottom of the river. It should have been in his pants pocket, when he drove off the road.
The last piece of the puzzle slides into focus, the thing I’ve been chasing since that very first day. Why go home first?
He came back two days later for the camping gear. Let himself in with a house key. So why did he need to go home first before driving to that bridge, to leave his clothes on the floor, change—change everything?
It was supposed to be the start of his story. Going to Jessa’s race. Witnesses to see him there, who would notice he left, driving home in the rain. His car on the storefront cameras. An accident. But instead my eyes found his on the starting line, and there he was, a familiar face. Please hold this for me. Please be careful.
I had altered his plan, with a necklace in his pocket.
/> Could it be that simple, then? He went home to leave this behind for me? In a way that wouldn’t make anyone suspicious. He didn’t hand it to someone else to give back to me, or leave it in my room for me to find. He dropped it on his floor, where it could be found, should I come looking for it. Not in the hamper. On the floor.
I wish that was enough to cancel out all the rest. “Why come to my race that day? Why not something else, another story? Didn’t you realize people would think it was because of me? That everything happened because of me?”
He cringes. “I wasn’t thinking that, Jessa. I was thinking I just wanted to see you, one last time. That’s all.”
My stomach aches. My heart aches. He loved me once, too.
“Caleb?” I say. I want to tell him it mattered. It’s over, but I cared.
In the silence that follows, when I’m trying to find the words, the rain sounds relentless on the metal roof. “Jessa, I know.”
And then I am alone again.
I found him, and lost him again, but things are not the same.
I’m alone in the dark, but I feel the shape of his Swiss Army knife in my pocket, and it gives me comfort. I keep it in my hand as I walk; as I run.
—
I arrive back at the river. The light still shines, faintly in the distance. I’m almost numbed now, and I remember how I felt that day in the subway, at the ball game. I feel like that again. Like I am alone.
And, like then, I also know that someone is coming. Max will be here soon. And I can’t leave him alone, to find a backpack and a flashlight and my phone and a raging river. With no one showing up but Eve, to ask what he’s doing there. Eve, who might think he’s somehow involved in Caleb’s disappearance, if he suddenly shows up here looking for me.
I make it halfway across the river by momentum alone, my feet grappling below. And I’m just finding my footing on the other side of Nowhere, when I see her.
She’s standing beside the light, watching me.
She’s in jeans, a raincoat, sneakers. She must’ve found my car, and followed her gut, if nothing more. And now, she’s watching me. I stop moving for a moment, but the water keeps moving past me, and I have to keep going one way or the other, or it will eventually push me over. I keep walking toward her. What are my other options—swim away and run blind through the forest?
Fragments of the Lost Page 25