This is What Goodbye Looks Like

by Olivia Rivers

  “Maddie’s convinced there’s a fair amount of crack that gets mixed with the flour,” Landon says. “And Hannah thinks it’s some sort of recipe sent back from the future that’s meant to establish world peace, because it’ll eventually spread to other restaurants, and the entire planet is going to end up too fat to hold a gun.”

  “Which is why we don’t tell many people about this place,” Seth says, nudging me gently with his elbow. “We can’t have other people swooping in and stealing the recipe to our heaven.”

  I look down and blush, not trusting myself to come up with a response that doesn’t sound entirely awkward. Seth smirks a little as he reaches for another breadstick, but when he realizes it’s the last one in the basket, he hands it to me.

  “Lea gets the last one,” he announces to the rest of the table. “We need to keep her well-fed if we’re going to convince her to put up with our conspiracy theories.”

  “Thanks for the bribery,” I say, taking it from him. My fingers brush against his, and the warmth of his skin makes my heart stutter, but I don’t think it’s purely from nervousness. I quickly snatch my hand back.

  No. I’m not going there, not with Seth. I’m not going within a hundred miles of there.

  Brie launches into a sudden discussion of the new British Lit teacher, saving me from having to explain my strange reaction to the others, who are giving me curious looks. I keep my eyes down and focus on chewing the breadstick, which suddenly tastes like cardboard.

  It doesn’t take long for Nathan to reemerge from the kitchen with a huge pizza balanced on his hand. He sets it on our table and rattles off some explanation of the ingredients, which includes feta cheese, basil leaves, bell peppers, and a bunch of other stuff I’d never think to use as pizza toppings. But as I take my first bite, I realize Brie’s admiration for his cooking isn’t pure exaggeration. Nathan’s recipe might sound weird, but it tastes pretty amazing.

  The conversation starts rolling again as people munch on their pizza, although I only understand about half the topics, since it’s all Harting gossip. Brie and Maddie both seem to be experts at flinging out new subjects and steering the entire conversation into a new direction in about half a second. Hannah and the guys keep rolling their eyes, but they’re smiling at their friends’ ADHD approach to talking.

  There’s something almost hypnotic about this group, and as they exchange laughter and jibes and inside jokes, I can’t help being pulled under by a sense of ease. I haven’t felt this relaxed in...months.

  I squeeze my hand into a fist under the table, searching for the familiar pain from my fractured pinky, but even the dull twinge of the healed injury doesn’t dampen my mood. Part of me wants to feel guilty for actually enjoying myself, but the other part is just too relieved to bother fighting it.

  As soon as the last slice of pizza is gone, Cameron jumps up and challenges Landon to a game of pinball, and Seth trails after them as they head toward the old-fashioned machines in the corner. As soon as they’re out of earshot, the girls start talking about the guys, launching into full-on gossip mode. I sit back and listen, trying not to look too interested when they talk about Seth.

  Most of what they say is stuff I’ve already heard, but I manage to gather a few new facts from their conversation: Seth’s determined to get into the same university Parker went to, although he plans on majoring in English and going into journalism. He’s one of only eight Hendrickson locals in the senior class, but he’s been going home on the weekends less than he used to. Also, he’s dated a couple girls over the years, but never anything serious, and no one since his brother died.

  That shouldn’t matter to me.

  That doesn’t matter to me.

  Their conversation eventually drifts away from Seth, and I start getting antsy, needing to get up and move. Now that I have new information rattling around my head, sitting quietly suddenly feels like an impossible task.

  “Is there a bathroom in here?” I ask Brie.

  She gestures toward the opposite end of the room, where a hallway bends around the corner. “Yeah, it’s in the back by the patio.”

  I nod my thanks and grab my cane from where I rested it at the end of the table, then head toward the hallway. The sound of their chatter falls away as I turn the corner that leads into the back of the restaurant. I can still hear the metallic pings of the pinball machines, and the sound of Cameron and Landon occasionally cursing at them, but it’s mostly quiet back here.

  The hall splits at the end, one door marked with a bathroom sign and the other swung open to reveal an outdoor patio. A gust of freezing wind whistles inside, surrounding me with the scent of fresh pines as it tangles in my hair. I brush my bangs out of my eyes, trying not to shiver. Everyone else at Harting seems practically immune to the cold, but I don’t think I’ll ever grow used to the bitter chill.

  Maybe I should try calling Jeremy again. My brother has always been just as wimpy as me when it comes to the cold, so he’d be a good person to complain to. Plus, he might even pick up his phone this time, since he can’t possibly be in class when it’s this late.

  I push the door open the rest of the way and step onto the small patio. The wind has settled to a whisper, but it’s still enough to chill the breath in my lungs and raise goosebumps along my arms. I consider darting back inside for warmth, but pull my phone out instead, figuring the patio is the best place around here for privacy.

  I dial Jeremy’s number, peering around the patio as I wait for him to pick up. Three lumps sit on the patio, each of them covered by blue tarps and snow. I’m guessing they’re tables and chairs that make for great outdoor seating in the summer, but for now, they just seem rather ominous lurking there in the gloom. It’s dark out here, with only a few frosted-over lights illuminating the area, but the glowing screen of my phone offers a bit more light.

  I jump as I see a tall form standing off in the far corner of the porch. I’m about to ask who’s there when I hear two voices at once. The first I immediately recognize as my brother’s, and I almost smile. Then I register what he’s saying:

  “Hey, you’ve reached the phone of Jeremy Alessio. I can’t pick up right now, but please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you soon.”

  The second voice is smooth and solemn and unmistakably Seth’s.

  “Isn’t it a little cold for you to be out here?”

  I end the call and tuck my phone back in my pocket before turning toward Seth. He’s in the far corner of the patio leaning against the wooden railing, looking relaxed despite the biting cold. He holds a steaming mug with the pizza parlor’s logo on it, and even from here, I can smell the citrus scent of the Earl Grey tea he seems to constantly drink.

  Koda snuffles around in the snow a few feet away, her tail wagging happily as she bats at chunks of ice and chases after them. Every few moments, she pauses in her play and glances toward her owner, checking up on him. Then she whacks at another snow chunk and dives after it, continuing on blissfully.

  “I know you’re there,” Seth says. One of the porch lights is right above him, and his hair shines like a dim halo. “So are you going to talk to me? Or are you going to be all shy again?”

  I clear my throat a little. “Sorry.”

  He shrugs. “You don’t have to apologize. But, I have to admit, you’re starting to give me a complex. I never really thought I was all that scary.”

  “You’re not scary.”

  I wish I could believe it enough to ask him the questions I’m dying to know. What miracle his family worked to stay so close-knit, how I can work the same miracle on my family. But his solemn expression wards off my questions, and I figure I gathered enough information tonight just from listening to Brie and her friends gossip. Now’s not the right time to push him for answers.

  “Then why do you act scared when you’re around me?” Seth asks. “You’re always so quiet.”

  He slowly rubs his thumb along the surface of the medal around his neck. A frown pulls at his l
ips, although the motion seems just as unconscious as the way he touches the medal, as if his sadness is so ingrained in him that it’s become muscle memory.

  Seeing his sadness chills me more than the freezing air. Every time I’ve been around Seth on campus, he’s seemed so cheerful and normal, and I’ve been asking myself how he could possibly be so functional after having his brother killed just months before. Now, as I watch the grief clouding his expression, I just want to know how I could have been so easily fooled by his mask.

  “What are you doing out here?” I ask hesitantly.

  “Breathing.”

  And even though he doesn’t elaborate, it makes perfect sense. The constant lying and pretending I’ve done since the accident is enough to make me feel like I’m suffocating, and I guess it must be the same for him.

  I step toward him until only a few feet separate us. This close, I can make out what’s on the medal if I peer closely: it’s an engraved image of a man striding across a river with a walking stick. Lettering surrounds the image, but the language is foreign and indecipherable.

  “Why do you wear that medal?”

  His thumb freezes, and he takes a half-step back, as if my words have knocked him off balance. “Is there a reason you’re questioning my fashion sense?”

  “You wanted me to not be quiet. So I’m talking.”

  He tilts his head as he considers me. Then he slowly says, “It was my brother’s eighteenth birthday present from our grandpa. Parker wanted to be a photojournalist, so my grandpa gave him a trust fund to pay for his college and this medal.” Seth taps it gently. “It’s a holy medal of Saint Christopher. He’s the patron saint of travelers, so my grandpa said Parker would stay safe during his career as long as he wore it.”

  I wince at the cruel irony, and Seth’s lips tighten in a pained grimace.

  “Didn’t quite work out that way,” he admits, the words low and hoarse.

  I swallow hard as I consider my response. Common sense says I should change the subject, but I get the feeling Seth doesn’t really want that. The sadness in his expression looks desperate to escape, and I think it’s bound to tumble out of him eventually, maybe in tears or punches or words. I figure words would be the least embarrassing option for him, so I gently prod him to continue.

  “Why do you keep wearing it, if you know it doesn’t work?”

  Seth considers my question for a long, silent moment. “Because Parker’s journey isn’t over,” he finally murmurs. “It wasn’t a random car accident he died in. A drunk driver killed him, and then she got away with it because of some faulty testimony. The bitch murdered my brother, and she didn’t even spend a single second behind bars for it.”

  He takes a shaky breath and scuffs his shoe against the ice-slicked patio. We both wince at the scraping sound, and for a single second, the shriek of braking tires pierces my skull. I shake my head to rid it of the noise, but the echoes of the memory cling to my mind as Seth keeps speaking, his voice closer to a growl now.

  “Someday, I’m going to figure out a way to make sure the driver gets the punishment she deserves. So that’s why I wear Parker’s medal. To remind myself that it failed him, and that I can’t let myself fail, too.”

  My words stay trapped in my throat, choking me. I reach up, wincing as my fingers press against the scar on my neck, and my voice is hoarse as I ask, “What are you going to do?”

  He gives a dark smirk. “Nothing illegal, so you don’t have to sound so worried. It’s not like I’m going to stoop to the level of the bitch who killed him. But the driver didn’t get away completely clean. It was a hung jury—they couldn’t decide if she was guilty or not guilty, so the trial just ended without a verdict.”

  “So there’s still a chance the case could be re-opened and the driver could have another trial with a new jury,” I say. I try to make it sound like a question, even though it’s a fact that has haunted me for months. All my lies during the trial might have been for nothing if the case gets re-tried and a different jury isn’t as easily fooled.

  Seth grits his teeth so his sharp jawline is even more pronounced. “Exactly. It’s a long shot, but there’s a still chance she could go to prison. I don’t know how I would ever convince the prosecutors to re-open her case and put her on trial again, since they failed the first time, but...”

  He scuffs his shoe against the patio again and shrugs. “I don’t know now, but I’ll figure it out eventually. I’ve always planned on being some sort of journalist. Parker and I used to talk about collaborating some day, him doing the photos, me doing the writing... Anyway, now I’m thinking I’ll become a lawyer instead. If no one in the court system is going to do their job right, I’ll just have to do it for them.”

  “My dad is a lawyer,” I murmur.

  Seth raises an eyebrow. “Is he one of the ones who gets the job done?”

  “Yeah,” I say, and the word tastes like a bitter confession. My dad knew his job right from the start of the trial: keep my mom out of prison. The prosecuting attorneys had a clean-cut case against my mom, but my dad had twenty years of experience at twisting evidence, confusing juries, and making guilty people look innocent. He never actually spoke in court, since even the dumbest jury would have realized how biased he was. But he orchestrated her entire defense behind the scenes and had his business partner make the appearances in the courtroom.

  It worked. My dad got his job done, my mom walked free, and I limped away with enough guilt to drown beneath for a lifetime.

  Seth lets out a deep sigh, breaking the silence around us. He slips off his sunglasses and rubs his palm over his face, and as he draws his hand away, I’m able to see his eyes for the first time. They’re nothing like his brother’s. His eyes are an intense hazel color, gold in the center that branches out to a deep green. His gaze stares at nothing, and his right eye drifts slightly out of alignment with his left, but it’s nearly impossible to tell there’s anything wrong with them.

  “Why do you wear sunglasses?” I ask. I bite my lip as soon as the question is out, realizing it’s probably rude. But I’m genuinely curious. I thought his eyes must have been disfigured if he hid them with glasses, so it’s kind of shocking to see how beautiful they are.

  He smirks a little as he slips the dark glasses back on. “You’re really quite skeptical of my fashion sense, aren’t you?”

  “Sorry,” I mutter.

  “Don’t be,” he says with a shrug. “I don’t mind. And I wear them because the light makes my eyes hurt. For me, being blind doesn’t mean everything is totally black, although I wish it did sometimes. All I can see is changes in light, but it stings. So the glasses help with that.”

  He leans back against the railing of the porch, and before I get a chance to respond, he waves a hand at me. “I’m answering all your questions, but you’re not answering mine,” he says. “Why do you act scared around me?”

  I stare at the ground, tracing a mindless pattern in the snow with the tip of my cane. “You know how you said I remind you of someone?”

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  I risk a glance up at him. “You remind me of someone, too.”

  He goes back to slowly rubbing at the medal. “So this person I remind you of. He’s not a good memory?”

  “No,” I admit. Parker might have been a good person, but he’s not a good memory. At least not to me.

  “So what sort of bad memories do I remind you of?” Seth asks. “Old bully? Ex boyfriend?”

  “Nothing like that.”

  “Hmm. Well, at least if you’re going to be scared of me, it won’t be for a mundane reason.”

  He tries to sound amused, but I can hear the hurt in his tone. I have the sudden urge to hug him, to take away the pain, to reassure him everything will be alright, even though it’s all so wrong.

  “It’s not you,” I say. “Really, it’s not. I’m sorry if I act weird around you. You just bring up some bad memories, and some things are better off being forgotten.” />
  Seth strides over to me, trailing his fingers along the patio railing as a guide. I realize for the first time how tall he is. Much taller than his brother, who was only five-ten, according to the coroner’s report. Seth is at least six-one, and he feels like some sort of monstrous lion towering over me, ready to pounce.

  But his voice is soft as he says, “But that’s not the case with this memory, is it? You don’t want to forget whoever I remind you of. Not really.”

  No. What I want is for Parker to not be a part of my memory at all. I want for him to never have been driving that night, for him to never have encountered us, for him to still be alive and breathing and safe.

  My gut twists as I realize Seth’s getting in my head again. “How’d you know?”

  “Because you brought him up, and you wouldn’t have done that if you thought he was better off being forgotten. So he’s not someone who hurt you, but he still makes you hurt. You miss him, maybe?”

  “You tell me,” I snap. “You’re apparently the all-knowing one when it comes to my private feelings.”

  “If you want your feelings to be private, don’t make them so obvious.”

  “I don’t. You’re just weirdly good at reading people.”

  “Everyone could read people as well as I do if they’d just shut up for two seconds and listen.”

  “You seem to have this all figured out,” I mutter.

  “Not at all.” His lips quirk into a hesitant smile. “That’s why I like you, I guess. You’re a puzzle, and I like puzzles.”

  “You like me?”

  “Of course. It’s hard not to.”

  For a single second, I want to tell him exactly who I am, so he’ll cuss me out like I deserve. But my mouth turns traitor and forms benign, worthless words. “Thank you.”

  His smile grows a little more. “You know, I changed my mind.”

  “You don’t like me?”

  He makes that little noise stuck between a scoff and a chuckle, although this time the sound is huskier and sounds a bit closer to a real laugh. “No, not about that. I mean I changed my mind about that project Brie mentioned the other day. The photo project I’m trying to do. You remember it?”