Notes to Self

by Avery Sawyer

  “She thought we weren’t good enough to hang out with you, that we were too trashy. She wanted to be better; she wanted to be you.”

  “I…I don’t understand. I live in a gross condo with my mom. She’s a waitress. My dad left. He’s a drunk.” It was like Josie was speaking in gibberish. I stared at her. My entire life since the fall had been totally bizarro, but this conversation took the cake.

  She made a sound that was halfway between a scoff and a laugh. “Yeah, but everyone knows you’re smart. And you look kind of like that chick from that one show.”

  “What? What one show?”

  She laughed then, but it was a harsh laugh. I hugged my knees again. “That one. With all the rich kids? Anyway, it wasn’t really because of that. It was because you were good. It doesn’t matter where you live. People just know.” She said the last words slowly, like the final score of a game that people really, really cared about.

  “And you’re not, um, good?” I wasn’t sure what Josie meant, but I was starting to get an idea. Being back in high school for two weeks was enough time to understand how labels worked. Some kids were good, others were not, end of story. Even the teachers played into it. Like, if a good kid was late to class, they’d let it slide, but if a fuck-up dashed in after the bell, detention. It wasn’t fair, and even with a piece-of-shit memory, I was willing to bet it had started a long time ago. I wondered about the kids who everyone had decided were bad. The lost ones, the problems. What became of them when they were adults? Did people ever change their minds?

  “No, I’m not.” Josie said.

  People accepted their labels and grew into them, eventually taking them on with pride. I wondered if it was too late to convince Josie she was wrong. I knew Emily didn’t think Josie was bad. Emily was just one of those people who could only be best friends with one person at a time. She wasn’t perfect. None of us were.

  “How can you tell?” I prayed I wouldn’t say something wrong. She’d probably punch me and my mild TBI would become major.

  “Jesus Christ…you know.” She mimicked sucking on a joint.

  “I, um, see. And Emily didn’t?” It was a stupid question. I knew Emily was straight edge.

  “Not when she started hanging out with you. Her parents probably threw a party after they met you the first time.” Josie laughed.

  “I doubt it.” I didn’t remember talking much when I met Emily’s parents the first time. I think they’d been in the middle of giving each other the silent treatment.

  We sat quietly for a few moments as I considered what to say next. I didn’t feel especially happy to hear that I fell under the category of “good,” even if it was probably the most important fact about my identity. I supposed it was convenient—certainly useful—but it felt so meaningless, and the whole system made Josie, and probably everyone else, miserable.

  “Look, it’s all stupid, okay. I’m not good. I’m not even particularly nice.” Josie was guilty of the same thing as everyone else: thinking the quiet people were sweet.

  “Yes, you are. You ring the Salvation Army bell with your mom at Christmas,” Josie said. “I saw you.” My mom volunteered as a bell ringer every December and I went with her and stood by the little red bucket. Our station was outside Target, and I tried not to die of embarrassment when I saw people I knew. But the truth was, I liked doing it. People who usually wouldn’t even look at you wished you Merry Christmas. When I was littler, they always told me that Santa was going to put me on his “nice” list.

  Our eyes met, then skittered away from each other. Fun Towne was a carnival again, getting louder by the second. Any moment some carnie was going to notice us sitting under the maintenance ladder and hustle us out of there.

  Josie sighed and threw a pebble at the steel support digging into the ground ten yards away. “I’m sure it was her idea to climb up this piece of shit, anyway.” Josie took a slow-motion swing at the base of the Sling Shot.

  “You think so? Why?”

  “That girl loved a good view. She had, like, this collection of pictures she’d cut out from magazines of good views. Her dream is to own a penthouse apartment somewhere on the eightieth floor.”

  “I…I didn’t know that. Cool.”

  “Yeah. She was going to be an airline pilot, but then she started reading about how that job sucks balls now.”

  I knew what I had to do. I turned away from Josie and began climbing.

  “Stop it,” she growled. Her words weren’t clear, but I still heard her. I looked back over my shoulder and saw Josie’s face. She looked both surprised and horrified. She started climbing, berating me all the way. “This is stupid, Robin. You don’t have to do this. Emily would kick my ass if she knew I let you do this. Stop.”

  I didn’t answer her. I didn’t pay attention to her at all. I just kept climbing, hoping in some nonsense way that I’d find Em if I kept going, higher and higher to the perch she liked. I reached the platform from which—I think—we fell that night, and stopped. I wasn’t afraid.

  The world looked gray and reflective. All the lights of the Highway 192 strip shined on the soaking wet pavement, dancing on the glassy blacktop and showering the dim scene with a touch of timelessness. I gazed to the west and then looked directly down, willing myself to remember the night of our fall. Emily had been slightly above; I’d started climbing down when she wasn’t done talking.

  “You think you’re pretty tough, don’t you?” Josie finally reached me and pulled on my soaked jeans leg.

  “I don’t think I’m anything,” I said. “I just want to figure out what happened.”

  We clung to the maintenance ladder in silence for a while, until I saw Josie risk moving off of it, onto the surrounding steel scaffolding of the structure itself. I bit my lip as I watched her trying to get to eye level with me. Her movements were graceful and sure; my heart was in my throat and my mind played tricks on me for a moment as she reminded me of Emily. There was less wind, however. The air had calmed down until it was still and heavy.

  “Climb down,” Josie said, getting in my face. “Now.”

  “What? What difference does it make to you?” I jerked my eyes away from hers. I hadn’t come up here to have another showdown.

  “Look, I’m trying to fucking apologize. I’m sorry I blamed you for what happened. Stop, like, punishing yourself.” She looked off into the distance.

  I didn’t say anything for a long time.

  “Alright,” I whispered in Josie’s direction. I wasn’t ready to forgive her, but I was glad she’d said what she’d said.

  We looked at each other and didn’t look away right away.

  “God, I wish I could remember what happened that night.” I hated to break the peace that had settled between us, but until Emily was safe, I couldn’t relax. I’d made a promise.

  “Oh shit, this bar is loose. Like, really loose. Jesus, so is this one.” Josie said, jiggling one of the steel girders. “We need to get off this death trap.”

  Time stopped.

  I stared at Josie and she looked at me funny, as my mouth dropped open and I gasped for breath.

  I remember.

  It was just like this.

  As the entire night came back to me, I couldn’t breathe. I started to hyperventilate and Josie said something, as if from miles away. My vision telescoped and I threw up, right there, clinging to the steel ladder. I counted the streetlights below us: one, two, three, four, five, wishing I was driving past them instead of perched above them.

  “It’s freezing,” Emily said. Her voice was a little off. I looked at her and hoped she was okay. It was definitely colder than either of us expected, and I wished I’d thought to bring a coat or something on our little adventure. I shivered and tried to appreciate the almost-full moon. It had been so warm all day; only now, in the middle of the night, did the air carry with it the suggestion of autumn—and something else, maybe the ocean. I tilted my chin, searching for a ribbon of salt water in the sky.

 
“Yeah, whose idea was this? At least the lights are pretty.” I risked freeing one of my hands to point toward the Loop, which was lit up like Christmas even though it was just after Halloween.

  “Mmm.” Em murmured, resting her head on her forearm. She shut her eyes, which startled me. This wasn’t a place you could exactly nod off. We’d climbed up the maintenance ladder of the huge Sling Shot thrill ride in Fun Towne and had to be at least five stories above Highway 192. “I like it up here.”

  “Emily!”

  “What?”

  “Maybe we should head back.” It made me nervous that Em seemed ready to camp out up here. I waited, hoping her mood would land somewhere solid so I could figure out what to say and get us the hell off this thing.

  “No, I want to stay. I can see everything.” She paused, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “Did you know this all used to be a huge swamp? Bog. Ha. Bog.”

  “What is wrong with you?” I laughed to let her know I wasn’t serious, but the truth was, I really wanted to know. Emily had always had a goofy streak, but tonight her voice sounded a little hysterical.

  “Nothing. Relax.” She was quiet for a long time. I wanted to go home; heights weren’t my favorite thing. But I could tell she needed me to stay with her. For a long time, possibly even all night if that’s what it took.

  Emily had been super strange lately. Sad. She hardly ever put disgusting pink Sno Balls in my locker anymore to try to win our ongoing gross food contest, and didn’t crack any jokes in class when we were supposed to be reading Mark Twain. She just, like, read Mark Twain. I was worried I’d said or done something to upset her. When she’d suggested sneaking out tonight, I was relieved—it seemed like there was something she wanted to tell me. I wished, not for the first time, that I could read her mind.

  “What do you think will happen to us, Robin?” She asked in a faraway voice, definitely sounding tired. I started to climb down to a lower part of the gigantic rainbow-colored ride. Thankfully, she followed, her flip-flops on the rungs of the ladder above me.

  “Happen to us? When?” My hair was whipping around in the wind. I could feel my ponytail loosening, but I didn’t want to stop to fix it. I kept climbing down. Directly below us was the roof of a Waffle House. I could smell sweet cooking grease and the disgustingly full dumpster.

  “I don’t know. Tomorrow. Next year. After that…” The moon or the view or the salted air had clearly made my best friend philosophical. I had no idea what to say. I just kept climbing steadily down, one step at a time, hoping that the adventure could be over now. I wanted to be a good friend, but now that we’d seen the view, I wanted to be a good friend on the ground.

  “Um…we’ll be forced to suffer through another two dozen Kowboy pep rallies. We’ll forget to wear sunscreen and turn as red as Jaden when he’s trying to talk to Dee.” I paused, kind of getting into it. “Maybe you’ll get taken to the Cove.” The Cove was where people went to hook up.

  “That sounds nice. Pep rallies aren’t really that bad, Rob,” she said, ignoring my Cove comment. We stopped at a little platform. I could feel the whole ride swaying, but maybe I was just imagining it. I read somewhere once that Florida got more lightning strikes per square mile than any other state. What if it started to storm before Emily got her head straight?

  “You’re on drugs,” I said. Pep rallies were terrible. I’d literally rather go to Trig for a whole block—ninety minutes—than sit through another one. Some genius had decided the Orange Grove High mascot should be the Kowboys-with-a-K (shoot me) and a few teachers and cheerleaders thought it was adorable to spell as many words that way as they possibly could, on signs around school. KONCENTRATION! KONFIDENCE! KONSTRUCTIVE KRITICISM KORNER. Do I really have to explain why I loathe pep rallies?

  “Will we be fascinating?” she asked.

  “Always.” It was a big deal to Emily to be fascinating. I waited, watching to make sure she didn’t try to shut her eyes again.

  “My mom moved out.”

  Finally.

  The reason we’d come all the way up here. Up here, it was all twinkling signs and pretty, glowing headlights. Even the purple-painted street lights were theme park-y. They went as far as you could see if you weren’t too afraid to look, but I was afraid. Down there, things were messy.

  “When?” I asked, almost whispering. She turned away from me, wiping at her face with the sleeve of her tiny sweater. Emily unleashed her light blonde, lemonade hair, letting it swirl around her head. I was surprised, but not shocked. The thing I always noticed about Em’s mom was she couldn’t stop fidgeting, which was weird because Emily herself was usually freakishly calm. Mrs. Sampson always seemed, like, uncomfortable. Leaving her husband, children, and home was almost like one more fidget. A giant one.

  “A week ago. I wanted to tell you, but I kept thinking she’d realize it was a mistake and take the train back from WTF-ville. Leo’s a mess. I don’t even know where she went.” Em spoke in a rush. She’d been holding it in too long.

  Leo was Em’s father…I hadn’t known they were on a first-name basis. I wanted to hug her, but I couldn’t. Not up here, when the wind was getting fiercer by the second and staying steady required both hands. My breathing sped up and I tried to push the fear away, tried to keep it from taking me over completely.

  “I’m so sorry, E.”

  “Yeah,” she spit out. “Everyone’s sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

  She was shaking a little. We had to get down; she was seriously losing her shit. I could feel this strange pressure on my chest, a tightening. I didn’t want to talk about parents splitting up—people leaving—this far above the ground. I didn’t want to talk about it ever.

  “Well, I am,” I replied, ever-so-slightly irritated. I was doing everything I could for her…right?

  “I’m fine. I mean, like, no one’s parents are together. Yours aren’t.” She turned back to me and I saw toughness in her eyes, around her mouth. I recognized it. Sometimes, even when people smiled, their expressions shifted for a microsecond and you saw the truth: pain. The worst was when people laughed to cover up how angry they were. I could always hear the harsh.

  I flinched and forced myself to breathe more slowly. In. Out. In. Out. Everything is going to be okay. This isn’t about me. In. Out. In. Out. “You’re right; they’re not. And I’m totally fine.”

  “Exactly. Anyway, I have to tell you something else.”

  “Okay.” I bit my lip as Emily leaned over the platform’s railing. Her eyes looked a little wild and unfocused, like she wouldn’t mind one bit if the wind simply carried her away with the jet stream. I held my breath, wondering if I should do something, if I should scream or try to grab her arm, but she pulled herself back toward me. The darkness of the night seemed to close in on us as her eyes snapped to mine. They looked so strange, like miniature Magic 8 Balls, whirling and whirling to find an answer to a particularly difficult question.

  “What?”

  “Just a sec.” Emily reached into her pocket and opened up a mini plastic pill bottle. She popped two and swallowed, not even needing water. I couldn’t do that. “Cramps. I swear I’m on the rag every three weeks. Yesterday, I took like twenty extra-strength Tylenol and all it did was make me want to vom.”

  “Anyway…” I prompted.

  “Anyway, I kissed Reno and I…I’m sorry, Robin, I like him…I...” Her voice was barely above a whisper. I had to lean toward her to hear, and when I did, the steel we were both on let out a small groan. “I don’t understand,” I said, trying to get closer to her.

  “Please, please, please promise me you’re not mad?” Emily was clutching my arm, her eyes wide. She looked afraid.

  “What do you mean?” Nothing was making any sense. I didn’t feel good at all. I wanted off of this thing. It all suddenly felt so stupid, coming up here. I felt trapped.

  “Robin—” Emily didn’t have the chance to finish what she was trying to say. I heard a loud clanging sound and Emily cried out. She slip
ped first as the shrieking bar under our feet violently gave way. She grabbed for me but I was so stunned I didn’t—couldn’t—catch her, or myself. The ground had already fallen out from under me (Reno and Em?), and now it seemed to matter little that it was happening for real. Emily screamed as she plummeted down to the earth, and I screamed as I slipped, too, falling, falling, falling after her.

  Emily had stepped on one of the loose bars that night. I saw the place, now, where a crossbeam hung down, limp, not two feet from where we clung.

  “ROBIN! ROBIN!” Josie yelled, two inches from my face. I blinked and heaved again, panicking. My whole body shook and my breathing had shortened into panting. This time, nothing came out. I jerked when I realized where I was. “WHAT THE FUCK! Don’t black out. Robin, Jesus, calm down so we can get off of this thing. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I…I…” I gasped, trying to get control. I could barely whisper, “I don’t know, I don’t know...”

  “Okay. Okay. I’ve got you, you crazy bitch. Jesus. Climb down. One step. Jesus.” Josie’s hand was closed around my waist in a vise grip. We climbed down like that, one step at a time. I kept stopping and Josie had to literally tell me what to do with my legs. It took forever, but she was strong. It took so long I thought we’d never reach the ground. I was whimpering, not forming any words. When we tumbled to the ground, I started sobbing.

  Josie had saved my life. I knew that.

  She must’ve known it too. She sat there with me, holding her head in her hands, clutching a cigarette like it was a life raft in an ocean full of sharks.

  “I don’t know what the shit just happened,” Josie said, when she finished her smoke. “But we have to get to the hospital.”

  “Tylenol,” I said.

  “What?” Josie stood up.

  I repeated myself, louder this time. “Tylenol. Emily said she took twenty Tylenol the day before we climbed the Sling Shot.”

  “So?”

  “So, it’s bad if you do that. Like, really bad. I saw a thing on TV….” I trailed off, shaking.