Fall for Anything

by Courtney Summers

Page 22

  Milo gives me this look. This You like him look, but he doesn’t say it. But I think he’s close to saying it, and I so cannot hear him say that. I clear my throat.

  “I think we should go in,” I say loudly. “We should go in and see what we find. ”

  Culler makes his way over to us.

  “We’ll find him,” he says.

  He is so—I don’t know. Perfect. Everything about him is perfect. The shape of his mouth, which has kissed me. His hair, which looks unruly and unbrushed but on purpose. And then I remember all the dirty pavement sex I imagined us having after he kissed me and what is wrong with me? I feel completely bipolar.

  I step through the open door and into the schoolhouse—a one-room schoolhouse. Old. Light floods in through the open windows. Dust motes float in those rays of sunlight. It’s hard to take in so much decay; I’m not sure where to start. The walls are browning or water-stained or something and the plaster curls in on itself. In some places, there are holes in the wall.

  You can see the wall beneath the wall.

  There’s a scratched-up blackboard at the front of the room. It’s been spray-painted. Not my father’s handiwork, I don’t think, but it fits him somehow … someone spray-painted a stick figure staring up at birds overhead. It’s so disaffected looking, like a teenager tried really hard to make it look like a kid did it. The word DREAMS is on one side of the stick figure and someone else spray-painted the words FUCKING FAGGOT with an arrow pointing to the stick figure on the other side of it, which depresses me.

  On the floor beneath the old blackboard are planks of wood, another door off its hinges, and old wooden crates. Garbage is scattered everywhere, but there’s a suspiciously tidy-looking corner. I imagine people coming here to drink and smoke. It just seems like they would.

  There are no desks, though. At the back of the room, there are rusty hooks for coats and beneath that, a pile of old books and a cheap-looking skateboard with no wheels.

  “This is exactly how it was when I was here with him,” Culler says. “Not one thing has changed. Crazy…”

  “Where do you think we should look?” I ask.

  Culler shrugs and takes a photograph of the place.

  “I don’t know. ”

  “Where did you find the one in the barn?” Milo asks him.

  “It wasn’t in plain sight,” Culler says. “It was on the corner of one of the doors. ”

  We turn to the boarded-up side of the door. Milo gets there first, his eyes traveling over every inch of space. Culler turns to me and says, “We should each take a side. It’ll be faster. ”

  I nod and then I start combing through the left side of the room, running my hand over the jagged wooden windowsills and the chipping plaster. Milo stays at the boarded-up door and Culler takes the right side of the room. We search in silence for what feels like a long time and no one finds anything. I can’t stand the thought of ending up empty-handed. I have to leave this place with something. If I don’t, I’ll die.

  And then Milo sneezes and startles the fuck out of us.

  “Sorry. ” He sounds stuffed up. “I don’t think there’s anything over here. ”

  “Are you sure?” I ask.

  “Yes. ” He sounds irritated.

  Silence again. After a while, Culler makes his way over to me, smiling at me a little, and my stomach twinges. I wonder if he found something but then I think he wouldn’t be smiling at me if he did.

  “You scared me back there,” he tells me. “I was trying to keep cool. ”

  “You were cool,” I say. “I’m sorry about Milo. He doesn’t … he doesn’t get it, you know?” I force a laugh. “Like, your portfolio went right over his head. ”

  “You checked out my portfolio?” Culler asks.

  “Yeah. It was really intense. Uncomfortable. ”

  “That’s great. ”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, otherwise what’s the point?” He looks at his camera. “That makes my day, actually. I don’t want you to look at them and feel nothing. ”

  Were they all posed? I swallow the question. I don’t know why. Somehow, it seems too personal to ask that. To ask him to reveal what’s behind his photographs. Like, you don’t just ask a photographer to demystify his work. You either buy in or you don’t.

  “Some people don’t get it, though,” Culler adds, nodding at Milo. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to make him uncomfortable. Some people really hate the camera. It’s fair. ”

  “It’s how you process,” I echo.

  “It’s about all I’ve got to process with lately, since I’m so blocked on my work. Everything makes more sense to me when it’s a photograph,” Culler admits, and he actually shifts a little, awkward and open, and I want to hug him. “I hate telling people that because they think it’s a crutch that means I can’t deal, but things are honestly clearer to me. I can’t fathom being here, doing this, without my Nikon whether or not these pictures turn into art…”

  “I get it,” I say. I think I do.

  Culler leans forward and brings his mouth close to my ear.

  “You get me. ”

  My legs feel weak. I want to melt.

  “I’m not finding anything,” Milo calls.

  “He actually makes a lot of sense through the lens,” Culler says, moving back. He smiles. “I think he likes you. He looks at you that way. ”

  And then my face turns about a thousand shades of red. I clear my throat and point to the camera, desperate to change the subject.

  “So you’re not working on anything right now? You’re still stuck?”

  “Yeah. It’s like I said, it doesn’t seem important. This is what is important. ” He gestures around the room and my heart aches for him because I know how much it sucks to have this thing consume every part of you. This question. To have it keep you from the thing you really love to do just makes it that much worse and I’m glad I don’t create. I’m just glad. He squeezes my arm. “It’s okay, Eddie. We’ll figure this out and it’ll be okay, I promise. ” I think, God, I hope so. “Anyway, we should keep looking. ”

  He moves past me to examine the far wall, the windowsills. I do a slow crawl around the room, worried I’m looking too hard or not hard enough. I’m worried that something is here and I’ll miss it. I’m worried nothing is here. I feel the slow passage of time as we look for a ghost, my father’s ghost. I think another hour must go by in total, focused silence.

  I’ve made my way to the blackboard, when something catches my eye on the wall beside it. Small little markings that, as I get closer, reveal themselves to be words.

  “Oh,” I say.

  Milo and Culler are next to me in a second.

  We stare at what I’ve found.

  ALL OF THESE THINGS

  GONE COLD AND NOW I’M

  S. R.

  Culler takes a photograph. To process it.

  I think Milo is in it, but he doesn’t protest. He’s totally shocked. His silence speaks such volumes. He thought this was a nothing trip, I know it. He didn’t believe in this and I’ll ask him about that later. I run my fingers over the letters again and again and again, hands shaking, until Culler finally suggests we go outside. I want to ask him if this is what it felt like for him, finding the first message. My heart is pumping pure adrenaline and I want to scream, but I can’t because no sound I make could be big enough for what I’m feeling.

  We sit on the grass and stare at the school.

  “What does that even mean?” Milo asks after a minute.

  “I don’t know,” Culler says.

  “What’s the next place?” I ask Culler. “We should go there. Like now. ”

  “The gazebo. ”

  “You know where that is?”

  “Yeah. I figured it out. It’s six hours from here,” Culler says. “It would be a trip. ”

  “But when can we go?”

&nbs
p; “Eddie,” Milo says, and I stare at him. He stares back at me and then he runs his hands through his hair. “It’s just—S. R. could be anyone…”

  “I don’t think so,” Culler says. “He did the same thing for—”

  “Secrets on City Walls,” I finish. “It can’t be a coincidence. ”

  Head rush. I feel every word of saying that so much, I have to close my eyes. Milo touches my shoulder and I force myself to open them and he moves his hand.

  “I mean, it’s him,” I say.

  “Yeah. ” Culler digs into his pocket and pulls out a tiny notepad and a pen. He scribbles down what we’ve found, even though he took a photograph. This feels weirdly absurd—like in the movies, this would be a high-stakes drama mystery. Letters from a dead man and the three of us playing detectives, seeking it out. Real life is always quieter and anticlimactic somehow.

  But devastating all the same.

  Culler hands me the notepad—he’s written both messages so we can get a look at them connected—and it slips through my fingers. Dead hands. I wonder if this is forever. I’ll go through life with my hands like this because it’s not something you can just cure, I don’t think. Only live with.

  “Maybe you should see a doctor about that,” Culler says, picking up the notebook. I rub my hands together. “Are they numb or what?”

  “She doesn’t need to see a doctor,” Milo says.

  “And you’d know that, because you’re one yourself. ”

  “No,” I say, and they both look at me. “I mean—Milo’s right. ”

  “Then why are they fucked up?”

  “I can’t tell you. Milo doesn’t like that story and I only know half of it. ”

  “Eddie, come on,” Milo says.

  “Tell me the half you know,” Culler says.

  “It’s none of your business,” Milo snaps.