Manhattan

by Steiner, Kandi

  Mikey blew out a hard breath. “I mean it, Kylie. I don’t want to hang out.”

  “Well, that’s just too damn bad for you,” I said, reaching over him for the extra controller on the edge of his desk. I hit the power button, snatching the large bag of Butterfinger minis I’d brought out of the basket and dropping it in his lap.

  He sighed, finally pausing his game to look at me. “What do you want?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  “Neither do I.”

  He huffed. “Why are you here, Kylie? I just want to be alone.”

  “Well, you can be alone tomorrow, if you still feel that way. Because tomorrow is June tenth. But today is June ninth, and I’m your best friend. And in case you forgot, best friends don’t let best friends be alone on the anniversary of their parent’s death.”

  Mikey swallowed, his nose flaring a bit before he turned back to the TV.

  “You’ve ignored me all week, and I gave you space because I knew you didn’t want to talk about what happened on the drive home from the lake. I gave you time. I left you alone. But you don’t get space or time today, Mikey. You get your stubborn ass best friend in your bed playing video games with you. And it’s fine if you don’t want to talk, but you’re not going to be alone. Not tonight.”

  My heart squeezed painfully in my chest when those last words came out, that familiar ache of loss making itself known inside me. I knew exactly how Mikey felt right now — how he wanted so desperately to skip this day, to not think about how long it’d been since his dad left the Earth, to not consider how much of his life has passed without his father being there to witness it all. It was the deepest, loneliest, most severe pain I’d ever known in my life.

  And the only thing that ever made me feel better was knowing I wasn’t alone.

  It was knowing that every year on July twelfth, my best friend would be there with me in my misery, silently promising me that everything would be alright.

  The muscle in Mikey’s jaw flexed under the skin, nose flaring again, a long, hard swallow rocking his Adam’s apple. For a long moment, he just stared at the TV, his breaths long and heavy, and though I’d never tell him, I saw how his eyes welled up with the threat of spilling over, but he held those tears back as if it was his only job in life.

  After a long sixty seconds, he took a breath like it was his first, like he hadn’t been breathing at all that entire time.

  Then, he grabbed a Butterfinger from the bag, clicked a few buttons on his controller, and ended the game he’d been playing, changing it to two-player mode.

  Michael

  Kylie sat in my bed, silent as promised, and played video games with me for the next hour.

  After that, she brought me a plate of lasagna and a glass of water, and even though the last thing I wanted to do was eat, she convinced me to take at least one bite. One bite lead to two, two to three, and before I knew it, I’d devoured it all.

  Once she’d taken my plate to the kitchen, she came back and convinced me to take a shower.

  “We can play more games when you’re out,” she’d said. “But you smell, and I know you don’t want to go to bed like that.”

  So, here I was, standing in the shower, numb as I always was on June ninth.

  The water was neither hot, nor was it exactly cold. It felt almost the same temperature as the room, like the air had liquified and was surrounding me in every way possible. I went through the motions — washing my hair, scrubbing my body — before I just stood there and let the water run down my back, thinking about the day.

  Every year, my family and I knew this day would come.

  We knew that January would turn to February, and then to March, and so on and so forth until June ninth popped up. Noah, Logan, and I knew that Patrick Scooter — Mallory’s dad and the current owner of the distillery — would make an announcement on the loud speaker at work and ask for a moment of silence for our dead father. We knew he would pretend like he was sorry, pretend like he cared, pretend like it was all an unfortunate accident, even though something deep in our guts told us otherwise.

  Jordan knew his football team would show up to summer training with something to commemorate the loss — sometimes a framed photo with their signatures, sometimes a football with Dad’s name on it — to show them he wasn’t alone. This year, they made a jersey with Dad’s name on it, and they issued him the number ten.

  Mom knew she’d get a slew of phone calls and drop-by visits, most of which she ignored, since she hardly left her bed and definitely never changed out of her pajamas on this day. And we also knew that this Sunday at church, the pastor would huddle us all together after service, and he’d whisper his sincere apologies and remind us that he was always there for us should we ever need him.

  We knew all of that.

  And still, it never made the day any less difficult to endure.

  I scrubbed my hands over my face once I shut the faucet off, reaching for my towel hooked just outside the curtain. I was thankful my body knew what to do to get me dry and in clothes again, because if it was up to me, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.

  Every year on this day, I was numb.

  But there was something worse this time.

  Because today marked ten years.

  Ten years without my father sitting at the dining room table, laughing and asking about our days as he held Mom’s hand under the table. Ten trips around the sun without him taking me and my brothers out to our old treehouse to repair it or add to it, without trips to the lake, without trips anywhere with him. An entire decade without my dad’s advice, without his jokes, without his hands holding Mama as they danced in the living room.

  Somehow, for some reason, the ten-year mark made everything hurt even more than usual.

  What made it even worse, I imagined, was that I’d been in my head about Bailey all week — ever since I heard her stupid song on the stupid radio. What pissed me off the most was that it wasn’t a stupid song… it was a brilliant one.

  One that she’d played for me the first time we finished writing it.

  One that I’d mostly written.

  One that the entire country would fall in love with now that it was on the radio, just like I did when she played it for me.

  And it was proof of what I’d feared most.

  She was making it happen. She was in Nashville writing songs and recording in the studio and playing on stage for hundreds of intoxicated tourists. She was moving on without me, and she was doing just fine.

  And then, there was me.

  Unfollowing her on social media had been such a huge step for me, and I’d thought in that way, it would at least be a few years before I had to see her or hear her. That song on the radio had proven me wrong.

  So, there was Dad, and there was Bailey, and those two pains merged into one inside my heart over the past week.

  But there was something warm there, too… something that perhaps had me more tied up than anything.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Kylie.

  I couldn’t stop replaying that day at the lake — watching her laugh as we swung off the rope swing, seeing her palling around with my brothers, listening as she spoke with my mom like they were just as close of friends as we were. I could still feel the tenseness of my body when Parker came over to talk to her, and I could still hear the dizzying thoughts that assaulted me on the drive home that night — before Bailey’s song played on the radio.

  It was confusing, why I was so aware of her that day, why suddenly things that she’d always done stood out to me and gave me pause.

  But I hadn’t had time to process it, not with everything else taking up space inside me. So, with a sigh, I put it to rest for the night.

  My room was clean when I pushed back through the door, scrubbing my hair dry with my towel. I scanned the now-clear floor, all my dirty clothes put in the laundry basket, and my now-clean desk, all the clutter and junk and garbage gone. My be
d was made, and Kylie sat on top of the comforter, leaning against the wall with her laptop in her lap.

  She clicked away on the keys, only looking up at me for a brief second before her eyes were on the screen again. “Feel better?”

  “A little,” I said, and it wasn’t completely a lie. A shower might not have been able to bring my dad back, but it at least washed the stink off.

  I hung my towel around my shoulders, watching Kylie and wondering what she was made of. Whatever it was, I knew it was stronger than the material that made me. And more thoughtful, too.

  She’d come over even when she knew I’d be an asshole.

  She’d fixed dinner for me and my mom.

  She’d cleaned my room and forced me into the shower.

  My stomach ached, because I knew not everyone in the world who felt like me had someone like her looking out for them.

  And I also knew that I should appreciate it more.

  I tossed my towel in the laundry basket, hopping up on the bed next to her and leaning back against the wall. She had my father’s hard drive plugged into the side of her laptop, and the password screen up, as well as a list of randomized passwords she’d curated based on questions she’d asked me.

  What’s his middle name?

  What town was he born in?

  Did you have any pets? What were their names?

  Hundreds and hundreds of passwords were on that list of hers — some with lines through them, some yet to be tried. I watched as she tried a few more, scratched lines through them, and then waited, because we’d learned that if we tried too many too quickly, we’d get locked out for a day.

  “Kylie,” I said as she typed up a few more possible passwords on the list.

  “Mmm?”

  “Thank you.”

  Her fingers paused over the keys, hovering, and her big brown eyes slowly lifted until they met my gaze. When she looked at me like that, I found myself flashing back to Saturday, to seeing her at the lake, as if I’d seen her for the first time in years.

  So much about her had changed in the two years I’d been tied up in Bailey, and even when we reconnected, it was like I was blind to it all.

  But I’d seen her on Saturday, and I saw her now — for all that she was. I saw how her cheeks had hollowed out, how her hair was longer now than it ever had been, how her body had changed, morphed, from bones and skin to curves and muscle. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, and I wasn’t a little boy, and through all the shit that had happened in my life, she was the one and only constant.

  How long had I taken that for granted?

  “You don’t need to thank me,” she said after a moment, her eyes still locked on mine. “You’re my best friend. Where else would I be today?”

  “I don’t always act like it,” I confessed. “Your best friend. Sometimes, I don’t act like a friend at all. And I’m sorry for that.”

  She smirked then, punching my arm. “Don’t go getting soft on me, Becker.”

  I bit back a smile of my own, lifting my fist with the middle knuckle protruding. Kylie’s eyes doubled in size, all traces of a smile gone, and she shook her head, glaring at me in warning. “Don’t even think about giving me a noogie, Michael Andrew.”

  I lunged for her, and she squealed, worming her way out of my grasp just before I could land my knuckle to her scalp and rub it in. Still, I was stronger than her, and I pinned her easily, her long hair splaying over my pillows like a curtain, laptop sliding off her lap and to the side.

  “You’re going to break it!” she warned, but I closed the screen and set it on my desk before pinning her again.

  “There. It’s safe.” I grinned wider. “But you, my friend, are not.”

  She squealed as I tickled her, her familiar deep-belly laugh filling my ears and conjuring up the first real smile I’d had since we were at the lake that Saturday. And then, from the living room, a familiar melody found its way into my room, stopping us both in our tracks.

  Eric Clapton’s voice filled the house, a little louder than usual, the song my parents danced to at their wedding filling every empty space.

  “Wonderful Tonight.”

  I still had Kylie half-pinned, and we exchanged a knowing, sad look before I released her, and we both sat on my bed for a moment, just listening to the song.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, and Kylie nodded without asking where I was going, because she already knew.

  I found Mom sitting on her knees in front of the stereo in the living room, her hands still on the buttons that made the song play, eyes glossed over and distant, as if she wasn’t looking at a stereo at all — but into a whole other life.

  One where she wasn’t alone.

  I ignored the stinging in my nose as I held a hand down to her, and it shook her from her daydream. She smiled up at me, letting me take her hand, and once she was on her feet, I took her right hand in my left, secured my other hand at her waist, and we danced.

  Mom didn’t cry when this song was on — ever. She smiled, and danced, and leaned her head on my shoulder and swayed to the rhythm. My brothers and I had a theory that this song was a time machine for her, that when it played, she went back in time, back to Dad.

  I leaned my cheek on the crown of her head, swaying in time with the music, maybe escaping to another time myself. I left my eyes closed until the end of the song, and when it was over, I kissed Mom’s forehead, and she squeezed me tight.

  “He would have been so proud of you,” she whispered, and my throat tightened with emotion I refused to let through.

  I nodded. “He’s still with us,” I assured her. “Always will be.”

  She returned my nod, burying her face in my chest with one last hug before she pulled back and gave me the best smile she could. “I think I’m going to make some hot tea and sit on the porch for a while before bed.”

  “That sounds nice. I’ll go get Kylie and we’ll join you.”

  Mom’s smile doubled at that, and she pinched my cheek before turning and heading for the kitchen.

  I took one step toward the hall, but when I made the full turn, I stopped before another step could be made. Kylie was there, shaded by the dark hallway but for the glow of her laptop screen that she held open in her arms. Her eyes were wide and fearful, like she’d seen a ghost, and her mouth hung open for the longest time as she watched me.

  “What?” I asked, not daring to take another step. “What is it?”

  She finally closed her mouth and swallowed, but the fear in her eyes didn’t ebb.

  “I got in.”

  Kylie

  I’d chewed all the plastic off the end of the string on my hoodie the next evening, sitting on Michael’s front porch with all of his brothers gathered around my laptop, gaping at the screen.

  Logan hadn’t stopped asking questions.

  What was the password?

  Answer: WonderfulTonight1985!

  What did you find?

  Answer: email archives, financial documents for the distillery, miscellaneous projects he’d been heading, minutes from the board meetings for the five years leading up to his death, and — most importantly — a daily journal log.

  What’s in the journal?

  That one didn’t have an answer yet.

  Noah was texting furiously to Ruby Grace, all the while nodding and listening, cataloging everything we told them.

  Jordan hadn’t moved, except to lift his Old Fashioned to his lips from time to time. He’d take a sip, swallow it down, and keep his eyes locked on the laptop screen.

  “It’s weird,” Mikey said, elbows propped on his knees as he tried to explain to his brothers what we’d discovered. “Most of the entries are boring, day-to-day stuff. We skimmed some of them, but I think there’s something we missed. Because all of a sudden, the entries go from being written in English to…” he paused, glancing at me as if he thought he was crazy for what he was about to say. I nodded to assure him. “Latin.”

  “Latin?” Noah and Logan
asked at the same time, the surprise and confusion evident in both of their voices.

  Mikey nodded. “Yeah. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. Hang on.” He pulled up one of the later entries in the document, showing the gibberish to his brothers.

  “Definitely Latin,” Jordan said, the first words he’d spoken since we’d sat down on the porch.

  “Wait… I think I remember something about that…” Logan said, rubbing the stubble on his jaw. “I remember Dad saying something about how he didn’t know any foreign languages, how he’d read an article in the paper about how Latin can prepare you to learn other languages, since it’s tied to so many of them.”

  “Oh, shit… I remember that now, too,” Noah said.

  I felt like a fly on the wall, a silent bystander, just there to answer questions when they were asked to me, but otherwise to sit back and listen. Truth be told, I was thankful — because I was still in shock.

  There was a very, very small part of me that was hopeful in the beginning, when Mikey and I first started trying to crack into the hard drive. I thought maybe one of the softwares I’d heard of would do the trick, or that we could guess it. But, as time wore on, I started seeing it less as a possibility, and using it more as an excuse to be around Mikey.

  Now that we’d actually gotten in, I had no idea what it would mean — for Michael, for his brothers, for his mom.

  For our entire town.

  Something stirred in my gut, low and rumbling, like a storm about to let hell loose.

  Whatever the reason was for his father writing his journal in Latin, I knew those gibberish words held secrets that would change everything.

  “Logan, what else did you guys find when you found Dad’s old laptop?” Noah asked.

  Logan pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t really remember all of it. I know that picture of us at the lake was in the box, in a frame, partially burned, partially water-damaged.” He paused, shaking his head. “That paperweight Mom got him for Christmas one year, with the Colin Powell quote. That’s all I remember before my focus was on the laptop.”