The Leaving Season

by Cat Jordan

  Huh? “How will you . . . ?”

  But he was already disappearing among the trees.

  God. He was so strange. Maybe I would never truly know what Nate saw in him.

  I stretched my legs on the stump, readying myself for the run home. I popped the buds in my ears and started my iPod—and then stopped. No music for the run home, I decided. I wanted to listen to the trees and the birds and the leaves falling on the road.

  And maybe I wouldn’t go to school. Not today. Maybe today I would give myself a break.

  CHAPTER nine

  Never in my life had I skipped school. Never. But no one in admin batted an eye when I came in the next day. Principal McMahon gently shooed me out of her office.

  “You can take some more time if you want.”

  I shook my head and left, relieved but also a bit bewildered. That’s it? Not even a slap on the wrist or a wag of her finger?

  My friends noticed, naturally, but they too didn’t seem to care. At lunch I joined Haley, who was saving me a seat at our table in the back of the cafeteria, one of the small round ones out of the way of salad bar traffic but close enough to keep tabs on everyone’s comings and goings.

  I slid my tray down beside her. I had circled the salad bar a half dozen times before settling on a banana and a bottled water. I felt Haley’s eyes on my lunch. She opened her mouth and then quickly closed it again. Her tray contained her usual carb-fueled, protein-packed meal, along with two cartons of skim milk—an athlete’s lunch.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call you after the service—”

  She placed a hand on my arm and her eyes smiled warmly. “No worries.”

  A minute later, Katrina and Debra arrived, eagerly taking seats at the table.

  “Middie, you were so perfect at the memorial,” Katrina said as she arranged her salad and soda in front of her.

  “And that dress,” Debra added. “Where’d you get that? Twenty-One?”

  “Huh? No, that’s Allison’s.”

  “Oh. Did she get it at Twenty-One?”

  “Debra, Middie doesn’t want to talk about clothing,” Haley said.

  Oh yes, she does, I thought. I wanted to talk about clothes and lunch and whether it was better to be taking history with Mr. Quinn before or after he’d had his second latte. I wanted a break—or a fucking break, as Lee so eloquently put it.

  “You know, I heard that Nate’s mom is in total denial,” Debra said.

  “You’d feel the same if it were your son,” Haley said.

  “Yeah, I guess.” Debra shrugged. “But she didn’t even come home for the funeral.”

  “It wasn’t a funeral,” I told them, a little too fiercely. “Mrs. Bingham will be back. She’s just . . . making sure there’s, you know, no chance he’s . . .” My voice petered out. No chance he’s still alive . . . Maybe I wasn’t ready to say it either.

  My friends nodded sympathetically.

  “Well, I thought what you said at the service was just right,” Katrina said to me. “It was short and sweet and really . . . just really perfect.” She tossed her salad with a plastic spoon and fork. A slippery tomato flew off her plate and skittered away, landing in the center of the table. All of our eyes followed it as it rolled to a stop, leaving a snail trail of Italian dressing. Haley plucked it off the table and tossed it back at Katrina.

  “I’m kind of glad you didn’t tell a story about Nate,” Katrina said as she wiped the tomato off with her napkin and returned it to her salad. “TMI, you know?”

  “What do you mean?” Debra asked her. “I like stories.”

  “Yeah, but it’s better to be mysterious,” Katrina said. “Nate and Middie were, like, the best couple—”

  “Oh yeah, you would have been voted Best Couple if you and Nate were in the same class,” Debra interrupted.

  “And you don’t want to spoil the image, you know.” Katrina spun a limp leaf of romaine around her fork as she talked. “I want to remember them at the prom and at homecoming and holding hands in the hall . . .”

  I could feel my heart sink as Katrina went on. Each time she mentioned a party or dance or event Nate and I had attended, I had a flash of an image in my mind. A snapshot of us together, smiling, happy, perfect.

  “What inspired you, Middie?” Katrina wanted to know.

  “Excuse me?” I looked up to find my friends smiling sweetly at me.

  “The service. What you said. What inspired you?”

  “Oh, um, they weren’t really my words,” I demurred. “I, um, someone else suggested them.”

  Haley smiled. “Was it Allison? She’s so cool.”

  “Uh-uh.” I shook my head. “Lee? Ryan?”

  “Lee Ryan . . . you mean . . .”

  “Nate’s friend. His best friend,” I clarified. Katrina and Debra had blank looks on their faces. Since Nate was in the class ahead of us, they didn’t really know his friends very well. But Haley did. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise.

  “When were you talking to Lee?”

  “Oh, um, remember when I ran out of gas? And I called you?”

  Haley nodded. “Lee helped you?”

  “Yeah. He gave me a lift to get some gas.” I could feel Haley’s cluck of disapproval, even if she didn’t actually make the sound, and I hastened to add, “He was the only person who had a car.”

  Vespa. Whatever.

  “He’s really . . . nice.” Well, “nice” might not have been the best word to describe Lee, but it was the simplest.

  “I think I remember him,” Debra said. “Tall, kind of gawky.”

  “Stoner,” Katrina said, as if she suddenly remembered Lee. “Oh my god, he was so wasted at his own graduation!”

  Napping, I thought. He was only napping, he’d said.

  “Did he play basketball or something?” Debra wanted to know.

  “No . . . ,” I heard myself say. “But he and Nate were best friends.”

  “I don’t get that at all,” Haley said. “They were so different.”

  “Well, he came and helped me. When no one else could.”

  “I get it.” Haley sounded chastened, as if I were blaming her.

  “And he’s got a girlfriend,” I added. “She’s pretty.”

  “So he’s not a total loser,” Katrina said with a light laugh.

  “Listen, I’m glad he was nice,” Haley said. “But we can help you too, you know?”

  “She’s right,” Katrina said. “You need anything at all, you just call us, okay? Any time of day or night. We’re here for you.” She and Debra both reached for me, but because of the size of the table, their arms couldn’t really reach mine. All that touched were the slightest tips of our fingers.

  “And next time you want to play hooky, call me,” Haley said, grinning. “You don’t need to get Allison to come all the way from college.”

  I laughed. “Oh, I didn’t hang with—” I stopped. The girls all looked at me quizzically. “I mean, right, you’re right. I won’t call Allison.”

  I watched Haley, waited for her to say something to me, to ask another question about my day off and who I really spent it with, but she turned instead to Debra. “Do you have anything but fashion on your mind?”

  Debra made a face. “Do you have anything but sports on your mind?”

  Haley paused and held her gaze. “Yeah. Boys!” When she cracked up, the rest of us did too. I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until I felt my shoulders relax. As the talk turned to boys and music and television, I quietly slipped away from the table, but Haley jumped up to follow. I tensed, wondering if she was going to say something else about my day of hooky, to flat-out ask me who I’d spent the day with, but she merely leaned into me and whispered, “You okay, Middie?”

  I almost growled at her—did everyone have to ask that question ten times a day? But I knew she was only asking because she was concerned. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Just have to get ready for class, that’s all.”

  “Well, like I said, we’re
one hundred percent here for you. All of us.”

  “I know. Thank you.” I loved Haley, truly. She was an amazing friend with only my best interest at heart. It wasn’t her fault she could only come up with trite phrases like We’re here for you; after all, she couldn’t understand.

  “I totally understand,” she said solemnly. “This is a rough time, but we’re gonna get through it together, okay?”

  I let her hug me and told her how much I appreciated her friendship and then slid out of her grasp as politely as I could. Aside from Nate’s family, there was only one person who truly understood what I was going through: Lee.

  I’ll call you when you need me.

  But he didn’t call that night, not even when I sent him a text: call me?

  In fact, two more days passed and I heard nothing from him, no call or text. Was I wrong about Lee? Did I put my trust in him too quickly? My gut wanted to say no, but my heart sank a little as the days went by.

  Three in the morning had to be the loneliest time of the night when your only companion was the wild thought in your brain. Crazy thoughts, thoughts like, Was Nate sleeping when they attacked the village? Was he frightened or calm? How many people did he try to save?

  Silly things too. What was he wearing? Did he have time to put on his shoes? Did he have bad breath or bed head or sleep drool on his chin?

  My gaze flitted from my textbook to my phone about twenty times before I realized that I’d been staring at the same page of chemistry homework for half an hour.

  3:05. Density equals mass over volume.

  3:09. Molarity. Wave relation. Atomic structure.

  My eyes began to close as my lashes grew heavier, my arms and legs sank into the mattress, light flickered behind my eyelids—

  —and the phone on my bedside table suddenly rattled, waking me with a start. My heart skipped a beat as my semiconscious mind thought, Nate! But of course it wasn’t.

  It was Lee. I resisted picking it up. He hadn’t responded to my text, so why should I answer his call?

  The muted phone buzzed and shook. I pulled the comforter over my head like a turtle retreating into its shell. It finally stopped ringing and then buzzed with a text.

  Sighing, I reached a hand up and swiped the phone from the bedside table, curling up with it under the blanket. I tapped the screen and read the illuminated text. He wanted to know where I was.

  Home. Bed. Asleep. Go away, I typed and sent.

  A second later, the phone rang in my hand. “What?” I asked him.

  “You’re not asleep.”

  “I was studying.”

  “Studying what?”

  What did he care? “Chemistry.”

  “Waste of time. No one uses chemistry in real life.”

  I could feel my temperature rise. I threw off the covers and savored the cool air against my skin. “What do you want, Lee?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Huh?”

  “You texted me. Why?”

  “That was two days ago.”

  “So? What do you want?”

  He can be so bullheaded, I thought and then reminded myself, He’s not Nate. He wasn’t Nate’s brother or his dog or even his shadow. He was a loner whose only friend was dead.

  I swallowed hard. Whose only friend was dead. Oh god. Heartless. I was heartless. I softened my tone. “I have to go. I need to finish studying.”

  Lee cleared his throat, and his voice sounded phlegmy and thick. “Come outside.”

  “What? Now?”

  “Yes. Now.”

  “It’s after three. I’m not going anywhere.” I pulled the comforter back up and snuggled under it. There was no chance of me leaving this bed tonight, not until I’d gotten at least three hours of sleep. I turned over and readjusted the comforter. I was oh-so-cozy.

  But oh-so-curious.

  “Why do you want me to come outside? I don’t smoke, you know,” I added.

  “Who said I wanted you to smoke anything?” He sighed as if he was disappointed in the world. Or at least me. “Maybe I have something you want to see.”

  “Doubt it.” I threaded a fraying nylon edge of my comforter through my fingers. “Just tell me.”

  “I can’t. I have to show you.”

  “Lee—”

  “It’s something Nate would want you to see.”

  I inhaled sharply and half sat up. “Don’t say that.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because you can’t know what Nate would want and what he wouldn’t want,” I heard myself blurt out. I could feel tears sting my eyes and I blinked hard against them.

  “And you can?”

  “Yes, I can.”

  He let the silence happen for a while.

  Damn. I was doing it again. Assuming things. Being selfish with Nate’s memory. “Fine, whatever,” I said. “Give me ten minutes.”

  “Five. I’m waiting outside.”

  I peered through the window and saw Lee standing in the middle of the yard. I tapped on the glass and pointed at him. “You look like a stalker!” I whispered into the phone. He slowly swiveled his head up toward me on the second floor; moonlight danced across his face. “Go wait down the street. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I watched as he strode across the front lawn. Even his walk was different from Nate’s—slow and loose. Did I really confuse him with Nate the other day? How was that even possible?

  Five minutes more and I was creeping down the back staircase of our house. Past the driveway, about halfway down the block, Lee leaned against his scooter. I shivered in the brisk air and crossed my arms over my chest as I approached him. He was wearing a lightweight Windbreaker and his hands were bare. “Okay, where is it?”

  In answer, he hopped on his scooter and waved me on.

  “Excuse me? No. You didn’t say anything about going anywhere.”

  “What I have to show you isn’t here. Get on. Or walk.” He shrugged.

  “It’s three in the morning!”

  Lee started the engine. “Hold on to my waist.”

  I glanced back over my shoulder at the house, dark and sleepy, all buttoned up for the night. I had come this far; I supposed I could go a little farther. Rather than sitting sidesaddle like I’d done before, this time I swung a leg over the back of the seat; the leather instantly chilled my jeans. I held on to the bottom of it with both hands, but as Lee revved up, it was hard to stay upright.

  He leaned back against me and said again over his shoulder, “Hold on to my waist.”

  Since it was the only way to avoid falling off, I did as he suggested, pressing my fingers into his sides and holding on with just my nails. He was soft beneath his jacket, and so thin I could feel his ribs.

  The wind was bracing, but as long as I kept my face turned and hidden behind Lee’s back, I didn’t feel its sharp sting against my cheeks.

  As we tooled along smoothly, I marveled at the road, so quiet and still. Not a soul stirred. It seemed like Lee and I were the only people alive in Roseburg. I tilted my head up toward the sky. Stars were sprinkled across the cloudless night like a necklace of sparkly jewels around the half-moon. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath; brittle, frosted air filled my lungs. I held it for as long as I could and then finally exhaled, releasing pent-up tension through the small O of my lips.

  We bounced along the path, with Lee carefully dodging water-filled ruts and tree roots. At last we came to a small cabin, as dark and closed up as the house I’d just left. Lee parked the scooter behind a garage nearly the same size as the cabin and led me to a side door. “Watch your step.”

  We went from dark to absolute pitch-black inside the garage and I kept my hand at the back of Lee’s waist, grabbing his jacket for a lifeline. I sensed we were next to something bulky like a boat or a car, and when Lee snapped the light switch, I gasped at the sight.

  A Mustang convertible, circa 1960-something. It was dark blue with a creamy white-colored ragtop, stained in a few places but ot
herwise in good condition. A convertible in the Pacific Northwest was a luxury item: we had some great summer weather in Roseburg, but we had lots of rain for the rest of the year.

  “You like it?” he asked me.

  I was speechless. I loved it. How could I not? It was the very essence of cool. I felt my chin nod.

  “It’s Nate’s.”

  I whipped my head around. “What?”

  “Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s Nate’s and mine. We put it together. Kind of. It’s not done, or maybe it is. I guess it is. Yeah, I think so.” The words tumbled out of his mouth in short bursts. Lee shoved his hands into his Windbreaker pockets and shrugged, as if doing so would stop him from rambling.

  I walked around the car, desperate to touch it, to embrace it—it was a piece of Nate right here in front of me! I ran my fingertips along the sharp edges of the hood, feeling the slickness of the new paint job. Even under the single bare bulb of the garage, I could tell Lee had recently touched it up. I peered through the passenger window.

  “She’s a ’66, V-8. Manual transmission,” Lee said.

  I nodded, soaking it all in. A car. Nate’s car.

  “Get in.”

  “Can I?” But even as I said that, I was opening the door eagerly and scooting my butt onto the leather-covered bench seat, a single long front seat rather than the side-by-side buckets of other models. The interior smelled musty and a little damp with a mask of pine. Hanging from the rearview mirror was a trio of tree-shaped air fresheners. I played with the knot of string that held them, batting them gently to release a little more of their scent.

  Lee slid into the driver’s side, shutting the door and the world out with a soft thud. Again, it felt like we were the only two people alive. I couldn’t hear anything but my own heartbeat thumping in my chest.

  “Wood trim,” Lee said, nodding toward the dashboard panel and steering wheel, which were covered in a shiny light brown. “Original radio.”

  “No iPod hookup?” I said with a laugh. “I love the color. Pretty blue.”

  “It’s called Nightmist Dark Blue,” Lee corrected me. “The interior is Palomino.”

  While Lee recited more details about the car, its engine, its options and add-ons, I sank back with my head on the padded headrest. “Why?” I asked him when he stopped to take a breath. “How can this be Nate’s?”