You Were Here

by Cori McCarthy

  Natalie had definitely done something bad enough to shake up her whole personality. Maybe whatever it was would be her secret, and they’d match one another even better than before…

  Crueler thoughts snuck into his head, but he smacked at his ears, pulled his hair, and told himself that that was impossible. Natalie loathed Tyler. Loathed. That’s the word she always used, like her hatred of his brother was so advanced that she needed an SAT word for it.

  He pissed and then looked around at the towering trees. Unlike The Ridges, this place didn’t scare him. Not one bit. This was just like some of his longer treks into Wayne National Forest, and he often went by himself, finding his peace out in nature.

  Another dark thought revved up as he took off his shoes and put his sweaty feet in the cool water. Why did this have to be the only place—outside of his basement—that he was comfortable? And why wasn’t there a damn major in geocaching?

  “Fuck me!” he yelled at the night sky.

  “What’s got your hackles up?”

  He jerked and nearly fell in the creek. Jaycee was above him, crouching on the cement block of the missing train trestle. A hot gargoyle in a black tank top. He was going to have nightmares about this.

  “What’re hackles?” he asked.

  “That bit of fur at the back of a dog’s neck that swells up when it’s angry.”

  “I don’t look like that.”

  Jaycee placed a purposeful elbow on her knee and rested her chin in her palm. The gesture would have driven Natalie mad, and Zach could kind of imagine how they had grown up together, egging each other on left and right.

  “What’re you majoring in?” he asked finally, sounding angrier than he thought he would.

  “Nothing. I didn’t apply to college.”

  Zach’s mouth fell open. “How is that allowed?”

  “I’ll get to college when I get to college. I’m not interested yet,” she said.

  “Well, that is…fascinating.” A muscle jumped in Zach’s jaw and made him want to bite something. “I wish my parents were as cool as yours.”

  “My parents have very low hopes for me. They want me to stay alive.” Jaycee dropped down from the piling, landing at the edge of the creek. “You’re telling me that Natalie hasn’t told you what to major in yet? She’ll happily pick out the rest of your life for you.”

  “She has to get in line for that job.” Zach glanced up toward the road, hoping that Natalie couldn’t hear him. “Besides, the only subject I’m interested in, everyone has dismissed.”

  Jaycee scooped her hands in the water and spread cool drops along her arms. “Which is?”

  “This. Hiking. I like to geocache. Apparently there’s no major for that.”

  “That’s not true. You could go into natural sciences or park management. Become a ranger.”

  “That’s not a stable career choice in today’s economy,” he said automatically.

  “God, Natalie’s mom has mad talent.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Jaycee stood and faced the moon, and he realized she was crying. Epically silent tears left shiny streaks down her face.

  “What’re you…you okay?”

  “This?” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Sometimes I leak. Not a real problem.”

  He toed the water’s edge, reaching for something else to say. “So…what were you and Mik doing with that journal?”

  “Looking for my brother.”

  “Did you find him?”

  Before she could respond, footsteps crunched behind him, and he swung around. Mik was watching, and he was spookily close. He had his keys in his hand.

  “You leaving?” Zach asked. Mik nodded and then looked at Jaycee. “Are you going too?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I’ll ride back with you guys. I still haven’t found Jake’s marker.”

  “What if it’s painted over?” Zach said. Jaycee and Mik exchanged pained looks, and Zach realized that he was smack in the middle of a conversation that had nothing to do with him. “You know what? I’m going to go rub elbows with the Brakeman’s ghost. Have a blast, kids.”

  Zach disrupted a nest of small creatures that scurried over his bare feet. He climbed the incline and grumbled, “Just talk to her, dude,” when he passed Mik.

  He could have sworn that the guy muttered, “Not ready,” but when Zach swung around, Mik was already halfway across the river rocks, heading toward his car.

  Zach left it alone. He wasn’t going to push them like Natalie was probably already planning. And oh man, if she somehow succeeded to hook Jaycee up with Mik, it would mean a summer of doubling with Athens’ misfit couple. Then again, Mik and Jaycee would be better than all those double dates with Bishop and Marrakesh. Damn make-out monsters.

  Zach came face-to-face with Bishop’s graffiti art at the entrance of the tunnel. He’d left his phone in Natalie’s bag, but the moonlight illuminated the whole thing: a glorious-looking woman as well as a very stupid question.

  “Togetherness,” Zach answered, but that wasn’t really true, was it? You could be with a bunch of people and still feel lonely. Sometimes Natalie would be having sex with him, and she’d have that look like she couldn’t wait to get back to studying, and he’d feel so damn lonely that he couldn’t see straight. Of course, this poem wasn’t about Natalie. It was about Marrakesh. To Bishop, everything was about Marrakesh, which was why Zach had been so surprised by Bishop’s interest in urban exploring. Zach had tried everything to get Bishop out of the funk from that horrible British girl—concerts, camping, college visits. His attempts had only weakened their already strained friendship.

  Zach returned to the river, wondering if he’d find Jaycee lip-locked with Mik, but she was hunched on a distant piling, and Mik’s car was gone. Zach stripped down to his boxers and jumped in the little pond. The cool water hit his balls like a punch, but it was kind of refreshing. He splashed around until his feet slipped on decades of mucky leaves at the bottom, and he started to worry about snapping turtles.

  The opposite of loneliness had to be something inside you. He thought about lying in his bed at night, his mind tortured by the nonstop syndication of his worst memories. Sometimes—sometimes—his own voice would rise up and tell the images to fuck off. Those were the only times he really fell asleep.

  Chapter 20

  Natalie

  Bishop and Natalie climbed a winding hill that never seemed to stop. The incline was good though. It burned her calves and kept both of them huffing too much too talk. Natalie knew that, at some point, Bishop was going to ask what happened last night, and she didn’t have an excuse ready yet.

  Then again, maybe he wouldn’t ask. Maybe he’d leave it alone, and she could go on feeling like she’d glued herself back together after such a monumental screwup.

  At the top of the hill, they came to a clearing, a small plateau of graves. The moon lit up a few broken headstones.

  “Wow, look at that!” Natalie whispered. Someone had been drinking out here, and shot glasses were arranged in the grass along with an empty collection of liquor bottles. When were those people here? An hour ago? Last night? Last year?

  “There’re only a handful of graves,” Bishop said. “Where are the rest?”

  “You’re looking past them. We’re so used to headstones, but in poorer places, people just used rocks.” She pointed Bishop’s flashlight arm toward the mounds of stones that told the sad history of the people who once lived here. “We’re surrounded.”

  “Wicked.” Bishop’s grin was beautiful in the dark. “You’re pretty chill tonight, you know that?”

  Natalie managed a smile. This was one of those sideways compliments that she hated. “Oh, you look hot,” someone might say, but what they really meant was, “You don’t usually look hot.” Her hands clenched and went limp. At Cornell, n
o one will say that because no one will know what I used to be like.

  Bishop popped his knuckles. “Natalie, Zach told me you were out last night after The Ridges and—”

  “I saw your portrait of Marrakesh in the tunnel. Striking.”

  “I hate it when you say her name like that,” he said, turning away.

  “Like what?”

  “Like she’s a circus act.”

  Natalie took a deep breath. “Bishop, come on. She wasn’t that great, especially to Zach and me. At some point, you’re going to have to accept that fact. Besides, I’m sure you’ll find a new goddess the week you start in Michigan.” Holy God, Jaycee’s honest streak was already rubbing off on her.

  Bishop’s shoulders hunched. “Guess I spoke too soon about you being chill.”

  “I’m going to be how I’m going to be,” she said, and she was shockingly proud of herself. She tucked her hair behind her ears just as Zach’s phone beeped loudly in her bag, making both of them jump.

  “I take it by your sudden interest in Marrakesh that you don’t want to tell me what happened last night, so can I ask you a different question? Why did you get back together with Zach? I thought we talked about you giving him some space so he can process our leaving.”

  “Bishop, I know you think you’re making it easier on Zach by being distant, but I think…I think you’re just mad at him. I think you two need to make up before you leave.”

  “Zach has a problem with Marrakesh, which means that he has a problem with me.”

  “Yes, that would be true if you and Marrakesh were the same person, but news flash, Bishop, you’re not.” Natalie had never spoken to anyone but Jaycee like this. It felt sort of brilliant. Briefly. “You’re his best friend,” she added quietly. “And you don’t really care about what he thinks. You haven’t since the day Marrakesh came around, and that’s eating him.”

  Zach’s phone beeped again. They jumped again.

  “You didn’t answer my question. Why did you take Zach back?”

  Natalie didn’t have an answer. Because she had no one else? Because he was there? The plan was to stay with Zach until she left for New York, and it was a good plan, wasn’t it?

  Another beep.

  “Christ,” Bishop said. “Turn that thing off. It’s freaking me out.”

  “It’s Zach’s stupid, old broken phone. It’s going to keep beeping until you clear the new text notification.” She turned her back to Bishop so that he could get the phone out. “I didn’t have any service down there. Zach must have a bar or two up on this hill.”

  Bishop pulled the phone out, and even though Natalie had her back turned, the eerie cemetery glowed from the screen’s light.

  “Oh, this is sick. Tyler texted a picture of one of his drunken conquests again.”

  “Just delete it,” Natalie said before processing the words. She whipped around and reached for the phone, but Bishop pulled it away.

  “Hey.” He looked at the image more closely. “That’s you.”

  “No.”

  “Hell, Natalie. This is you.” Bishop held out the screen. The girl in the picture had her face turned away, and the image was mostly bra and an open mouth.

  But it was definitely Natalie Cheng.

  “Delete it,” she whispered.

  “Oh, holy shit! Holy shit! You hooked up with Tyler last night?” He threw his hands in the air like he couldn’t believe it. “But you hate Tyler! Everyone hates Tyler!”

  “No, I didn’t!” Natalie’s voice was small but determined to stay in check. “Well, I don’t know exactly. I got drunk. I don’t remember if we actually did anything.”

  “Guess what, Natalie?” He held out the phone’s cruel image again. “You definitely did something. Did Tyler force you to—”

  “No! Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

  “Because he’s Tyler. Your boyfriend’s evil whore of a brother. Goddamn, Natalie! This is insane!”

  “I know!” She was screaming, and it suddenly felt like she’d been screaming since last night. “I know! FUCK! You don’t think I know how bad this is?” As fast as the truth had come out, it left her empty. She folded into herself on the grass, arms grasping her legs, head tucked between her knees. When the anxiety came on, it felt permanent. Not an attack, but a state of being. I am Natalie, and I am broken.

  Bishop sat in the grass beside her. “Hey,” he said calmly. “Hey, talk to me.”

  She peered at him through the tangle of her hair. “It was my idea, but I don’t know why I did it. I wasn’t even drinking. My brain felt sort of…fried, and I jumped him, and then I was in his bed, and I didn’t want to be there, so I grabbed this bottle and started chugging. Then I woke up at Jaycee’s.” She clenched her teeth and then forced the rest. “I don’t want to know if anything else happened.”

  Bishop was staring at the picture on the phone. “Zach thinks you made out with someone from our class. He says he isn’t upset, but I think he’s deluding himself.”

  “Zach doesn’t need to know. Delete it,” she whispered. “Please.”

  Silence stretched between them until Natalie couldn’t stand it. “It was just a mistake. I don’t know why I did it. It was a mistake!”

  “I’m only agreeing with you because Zach can’t see this. Ever,” Bishop said like he needed to justify his action. “He’d be destroyed.”

  Natalie watched him delete the picture like the world had slipped into slow motion.

  Bishop dropped the phone on the ground and took her shoulders in both hands. Up close, he smelled like the high school art room, and his eyes were the sort of brown that seemed velvety. “I know why you did it, Natalie. You don’t want to be with Zach. Not really. So you snapped and sabotaged your relationship with him.”

  “No, I didn’t! I love him.”

  “Natalie, you hooked up with the only guy on the planet who Zach could never forgive you for hooking up with. And you can’t even tell me why you took him back because you don’t know. Admit it.”

  She didn’t know, but she couldn’t say those words.

  “I feel sorry for you,” he said, and then he hugged her tightly. “But not as sorry as I feel for Zach.”

  She pulled out of the hug, wiping back tears. “What?”

  “He deserves to know. You have to find out what happened and tell him.”

  “But then I’ll have to know what happened,” she whispered. The words terrified her more than the surrounding cemetery of expired souls. No matter what sect of Honesty to Death religion Jaycee believed in, Natalie knew deep down that the truth did not set you free.

  It just didn’t.

  She stared at where Zach’s phone was shining screen-up in the grass beside her brand-new sneakers with the black accents. The ones she’d hoped would make her look like a girl who sometimes hiked and sweated, a girl who knew how to let loose without completely devastating her carefully arranged life. Sabotage? Had she really sabotaged her four-year relationship with Zach? Why? He’d never been anything but nice to her. Was she even capable of that? Her thoughts skipped to how she’d avoided Jaycee after Jake’s death, and she put her hands over her face. She honestly didn’t know what she was capable of.

  “I can’t…I can’t tell him, Bishop. It would destroy him.”

  “Not as much as finding out about all this from Tyler. Don’t play games with his feelings, Natalie.” Bishop stood up, and although his nearness had felt strange, the sudden distance was bleak. “Figure out what happened. Then tell Zach,” he said. “Or I will.”

  He started to leave, and she ran after him. “Wait, I need time. I don’t know how to find out what happened. How to tell him!”

  Bishop nodded. “I’ll give you two weeks.”

  The Gates of Hell

  Chapter 21

  Jaycee

  Two weeks later.
Well, not really. Thirteen days.

  Was I actually counting the days since Moonville? Insane, but then, I was in the family session room at Stanwood Behavioral Hospital, a.k.a. The New Ridges. Maybe the crazy was rubbing off.

  “She nearly died,” my dad said.

  The walls were carpeted. Sound absorbing, maybe, or possibly just a little safer to smack your forehead against in frustration. I’d certainly thought about it in the past. Although this time I wasn’t thinking about rhino-ing the wall, and I certainly wasn’t considering my dad’s semihysterical words. I was picturing Jake’s map.

  Moonville had been a bust, but there were three more places where I might feel Jake alive in the air like his spirit is just hanging around, climbing stuff.

  “And the worst part? She doesn’t even seem to care.”

  I pulled myself away from the safety of the map, blinking back to my parents and my mom’s therapist, Dr. Donaldson. “Nearly died? Come on, Dad. My car skidded out in the little valley next to the highway. It didn’t roll or combust or do anything that would require Bruce Willis moves.”

  “This is a big deal, Jaycee. You’ve lost your license for reckless driving.” My dad was literally on the edge of his seat. I worried that he might topple over at any moment. “The cop said he clocked you at ninety-seven miles per hour!”

  I shrugged. “Not exactly my record.” Wrong move. My dad’s face got splotchy, exactly like it did every time he was trying not to cry.

  My mom touched my arm with the sort of calm that was prescription inspired. “I want to know how Jaycee got poison ivy all over herself.”

  “Oh, come on. That was weeks ago!”

  I flashed back to driving away from Moonville in Natalie’s aptly named Oldsmobile. Zach and Bishop had seemed so gung ho about going urban exploring with me again. Not Natalie. She stayed as silent and slumped as a wet blanket. I had no doubt that she was the reason no one had texted. My face burned like my dad’s, and I looked at my lap. Bishop and Zach might not know how important this was to me, but Natalie knew. I’d thought she was actually trying to be friends again. I’d even started to think that maybe I wanted that too.