Last Seen Leaving

by Caleb Roehrig

  My name hadn’t been released to the media, but rumors had made their inevitable progress around the halls of Riverside anyway, and when I walked through the doors that morning with an incredibly obvious cast consuming half of my right arm, I instantly became something of a celebrity. Madison Reinbeck came up to me immediately and asked if it was true that I had also been shot while fighting for control of the gun; Lucas Navarro told me he’d heard that I’d been working for the cops and wearing a wire the whole time I was in Cedric’s apartment; and Ashley Sobol told me that she’d heard from Mason Collier that if he were really, really drunk, he might be willing to let me perform a certain sexual favor for him. I told Ashley to tell Mason I was flattered, but that he’d missed his chance.

  And then, much to my surprise, Micah came up to me, materializing at my locker right after the first bell rang. I was so startled that I couldn’t think of anything to say. I stood there, afraid to move, like when a bee lands on your arm. After a moment of staring down at his shoes, he finally grunted, “Hey.”

  “Hey. I thought—” I’d been going to say, I thought you weren’t talking to me, but it seemed an ungracious way to start what I hoped was a détente, so I shut up.

  Micah sighed. “Listen, dude. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about how I’ve been acting. I guess—”

  “It’s okay,” I blurted out, so relieved that he finally wanted to put things behind us that I didn’t even need to hear an excuse.

  “No, you gotta let me finish,” he argued glumly, adding, “Ti’s gonna cut off my taint if I don’t share my feelings or whatever.” Another sigh. “When you told me that … you know, that you were gay, I freaked out. It was dumb, and I said a bunch of stupid stuff because I was freaked out, and I shouldn’t have. You know I don’t have a problem with gay people, dude, I mean my aunt’s a lesbian, for fuck’s sake.”

  “Right.” I’d actually forgotten about that.

  “It’s just that, like, I kinda tell you everything, and I guess…” He rolled his eyes at Tiana in absentia, gritted his teeth, and continued, “I guess it hurt my feelings that you kept this from me for so long.”

  “It wasn’t because I didn’t trust you, or anything,” I said, which was mostly true, but not entirely. I’d kept the truth to myself for so long in part because I didn’t trust anyone with it. I was terrified of what it would do if I set it loose in the world.

  “I know. I see that. Honestly, what really got to me was, like, we’ve known each other since forever, right? I remember when you were afraid of water and we were in Guppies together, and I had to promise not to let you drown.” He was talking about the swimming classes our parents made us take when we were in kindergarten—an epic nightmare for me, where each lesson felt like the last thirty minutes of Titanic. Micah, of course, was smiling at the memory. “We’ve had the same teachers, the same bullies, the same clothes—everything, man. I know everything about you, because we went through everything together. You really are like my brother, okay? And for fifteen years, it’s like you’re the only thing that’s just steady, the only thing I know, sometimes even better than I know myself.” His mouth flipped sideways and another sigh shuddered out of him, and I said a silent prayer to God that Micah Feldman was not about to start crying. “What I’m trying to say is, this is the first thing about you—ever—that I can’t … you know, relate to. I can’t go through it, I can’t be a part of it, and it feels … it feels like there’s this gap suddenly between us and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  He was silent after that, and there was such an air of humiliated desolation about him that I almost wanted to hug him. I almost did, too, just to make him writhe in discomfort. “Dude. You still know me better than anyone else. And how do you think I felt all those summers you went away to Hebrew camp and came back with stories about stuff I wasn’t a part of? I’m not going anywhere, Micah. I still want you to be my best friend.”

  “Me too,” he admitted, and he finally looked up at me with a furtive glance. Then, struggling to sound as if he were only barely interested, he asked, “So … that guy with the car, the one who was hoovering your face the other night. Is he, like, your boyfriend, or whatever?”

  Innocently, I responded, “What guy? You mean Kaz?”

  “Kaz?” Micah repeated with a shriek-gasp. “You mean Kaz as in Fucking Kaz? Kaz from the toy store, who was always trying to bone down with January?”

  “Yeah, well, it turns out that was kind of a misunderstanding.”

  “Damn, I guess so.” Micah shook his head in amazement. “I cannot believe that Fucking Kaz is your boyfriend.”

  “It’s probably time we stopped calling him ‘Fucking Kaz.’”

  “I’m surprised you can call him anything, the way he eats your face like that,” Micah remarked casually. “Did they have to pump his stomach at the hospital to get your lips back?”

  “Fuck off,” I said, but I was laughing, because I finally realized that my best friend was back.

  * * *

  Despite my buoyant mood that morning, a weird malaise crept over me toward the end of the day. I couldn’t stop thinking about that hole in the top of Cedric’s head, like a yawning, pink-red mouth with fragments of bone for teeth. Something else was bothering me, too, but it wasn’t until after dinner, when my parents turned on the nightly news, that it started to dawn on me what it was.

  Cedric and Jonathan still shared the headlines, their stories irrevocably intertwined, and I watched the footage cutting back and forth between the two men in an artless attempt at emphasizing the poignancy of January’s and Reiko’s fates by highlighting Mr. Walker’s promising future. There were clips from the acceptance speech given by the senator-elect as the voting results became clear, the man gravely reminding his constituents about his plans for January’s Law while both his son and his campaign manager lurked smugly behind him, a terrible twosome—Tammy more conspicuous than ever by her absence; and there were repeated shots of him and Anson driving off together in a sleek open convertible, waving to the cameras with shit-eating grins on their faces.

  All this celebratory folderol gave way to footage of emergency lights flashing against the front of Cedric’s apartment building, wobbly, zoomed-in shots of the man’s balcony in daylight, and reports of “two unnamed young men” who witnessed the suicide. Revelations about the former teacher’s inglorious departure from the Hazelton School were presented in breathless tones, and some details about the investigation into the role he might have played in the disappearance of January McConville and the death of Reiko Matsuda were also disclosed.

  An organized search of the city dump had resulted in the triumphant discovery of January’s backpack, stained with more blood, which had apparently been found mixed in with other items that sanitation workers had collected from the Dumpsters behind Cedric’s apartment building the week after she vanished. It wasn’t immediately clear why he hadn’t simply left her bag in the meadow with her other things, but the popular speculation was that he had probably been forced to act quickly that night; the clothes had been misdirection, as Kaz had suggested, and he had brought her backpack home with him so he could take his time going through it and removing or destroying anything that might implicate him if it was ever found. Her cell phone, for instance, still remained unaccounted for.

  January’s bloody clothes silently testified to her having met the same violent and grisly end as her only friend at Dumas and, owing to where Cedric had disposed of Reiko’s body, authorities had resumed dragging the river, hoping that the still-missing girl might at last be found. The Huron wasn’t particularly deep, nor was it prone to strong currents that might have swept any remains an extraordinary distance from town, and most of those interviewed seemed pretty confident that it was only a matter of time. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that—whether I even wanted either the closure or the knowledge such a discovery would surely bring. Just the basic facts of what had been done to Reiko gave me nightmares, and I wasn’t
exactly anxious to receive confirmation that my ex-girlfriend had suffered the same horrors.

  And the truth of the matter was, for as long as January was still out there somewhere, her fate still technically unknown and unknowable, I could pretend. I could hold on to something deep inside me that desperately wanted to believe January was still alive, a survivor after everything she’d gone through, and not just another tragic figure. It was a precious and fragile dream, and I didn’t want it shattered—not now, and maybe not ever.

  The police, however, were relentless. They had found blood on the floor of the Dumas Academy theater’s workshop, inexpertly concealed by a thick layer of spilled paint; and a check of the tools belonging to the drama club turned up more traces of blood on both a screwdriver and the hilt of an X-Acto knife. Representatives of law and order were confident in saying that both weapons had figured in the death of Reiko Matsuda. Rohypnol had been found in the glove compartment of Cedric’s car, and duct tape of the type found with January McConville’s clothing had been recovered from his apartment. The brand was too common to stand as conclusive proof, but a series of “disturbing images” found on his computer put it beyond doubt that he had sexually assaulted the senator-elect’s stepdaughter.

  Hearing that, I supposed I was even more grateful in retrospect not to have figured out the man’s password that day.

  I found myself increasingly depressed as the coverage wore on, rehashing the same grotesque points again and again, and finally it hit me: It had been exactly two weeks since the day I’d come home from school to find a police cruiser sitting in my driveway. Two weeks since I’d first heard January was missing. It was crazy to think how much had occurred in such a short span of time, how drastically my life had changed—how little would ever be the same about Now that had been about Then.

  “I’m gonna go out for a little bit,” I announced to my parents, who were deep in a murmured conversation about nothing, and they both turned blank looks my way. “I mean, if that’s okay.”

  They didn’t speak, exchanging instead a wordless glance that meant they wanted to say no but couldn’t quite figure out how to justify it yet. Finally, my mom tried, “You know, it’s a school night—and with everything that’s happened…”

  “I won’t be gone long, I promise. There’s just something I want to do.”

  “What’s that?” My dad’s tone was suspicious, but when I explained where I intended to go, his mood changed considerably. “Do you want me to drive you?”

  “I thought I’d take my bike. I … kinda want to be alone.”

  My dad nodded understandingly. “Be back by nine, okay? I know it’s a little on the early side, but … just humor us? We almost lost our kid a couple days back.”

  “I’ll stay out of trouble,” I promised. And at the time, I’d meant it.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE NIGHT AIR was cold and bracing, streaming against my face like glacial runoff and biting through the tight knit of my beanie, but I pedaled harder and sucked it deep into my lungs. The sky was clear and the moon bright enough to see by, which was lucky—I was on a semirural road with no streetlights, no sidewalks, and no shoulders, and on either side of me rose whiplike trees and shrubs that jabbed out spiky fingers guaranteed to gouge an eye or pierce soft tissue. Three cars passed me, the drivers catching sight of my reflectors with enough time to correct their course and allow me an absurdly wide berth, and I offered silent gratitude to the universe for the lack of sight-limiting hills along this particular route.

  The distance I had to go was technically less than four miles, but still I felt like I’d left planet Earth when I hit this semi-desolate stretch of roadway, darkness and quiet settling around me with sudden totality as stars freckled the sky. It was the kind of peace that immediately precedes a werewolf attack in the movies, and I pedaled harder, building up speed until I felt canon-propelled, invincible, untouchable. I felt free. I had snagged myself a quality boyfriend, I had regained my best friend, I had survived not only a brush with death but also the strange, cleansing fire of coming out, and now I was finally going to say good-bye.

  The shrine to January’s memory had expanded considerably since the last time I’d seen it. The pile of teddy bears, drying flowers, candles, cards, trinkets, pictures, and other bric-a-brac spilled at the curve of the Walkers’ drive like pagan offerings at the dolmen of a Celtic princess. The eight-by-ten image of my ex-girlfriend towered above it all, propped on a small stand and backed now by white poster board promising WE WILL NEVER LOSE HOPE! I couldn’t help but wonder what January would have made of it. I could almost hear her: Teddy bears? What am I, eight?

  Hopping off my bike, I dug clumsily in my jacket pocket with my unencumbered left hand until I managed to pull out a small photo. In it, January and I sat at the edge of her pool in the glow of a lantern, our heads bent close together, our laughing faces gilded and magazine-perfect. Tiana had taken the picture the previous summer during one of the many parties at the mansion, and it had immediately become January’s favorite photo of the two of us. She’d insisted that Tiana print it out so I could put it up on my wall, just like those images of the night sky that papered her own. There was something important to her about converting it from the digital to the “real,” a ceremonial show of respect for what the image represented. At the time, I’d been humoring her, but now I finally got it.

  I tucked the snapshot beneath a glass-jarred candle, its flame casting orbital shadows on the detritus that surrounded it, and idly I wondered who had been by that night to light it. How many people had paid tribute to my ex-girlfriend? How many of them had she actually known and considered friends?

  My experience with bidding farewell to the departed being extremely limited, I had no idea what exactly I should say or do to honor the moment. What would she have wanted to hear from me? How do you say good-bye to someone when you’re still holding on to a pitiful remnant of hope that she might not actually be gone? In an awkward undertone, I started speaking to her out loud, apologizing for the secrets I’d kept and for the fact that I’d failed to see what she was going through; I also told her how I’d confronted Cedric, and how he would never hurt anyone again. It had been too late to help January or Reiko, but at least no one else would suffer at his hands. That’s something I was certain she’d have been glad to hear.

  When I had finished talking, I kept my finger on the picture’s edge for a few solemn moments, and finally whispered, “Good-bye, Jan.”

  My phone buzzed suddenly in my pocket, interrupting the hushed moment so unexpectedly that I jumped and almost turned January’s memorial into a pyre by knocking over the candle. Wrestling my cell free, I saw that I’d received a text, sent from a number I didn’t recognize; and as I took in the three-word message, my skin pebbled and my heart skidded to a halt in my chest.

  Behind the barn.

  TWENTY-NINE

  THREADS OF A low mist, thick as cotton candy, clung to the high grasses in back of the Walker mansion. It all but luminesced, undulating with the pale, otherworldly glow of moonlight, and looked exactly like a cheap dry-ice effect from some ridiculous black-and-white monster movie. At least a dozen times I stopped in my tracks, my heart slugging it out like a fighter on the ropes in the final round, wondering what kind of madness had made me even consider doing what I was doing, wondering just what in the hell I was thinking, heading for an abandoned barn in the middle of the night, based on a mysterious and ominous message.

  I’d sent four responses back to the unknown texter, each one the same demand—who are u???—and each time threatening to ignore the implied directive unless I was given an answer and told just what I was supposed to find “behind the barn.” It was clear I was not going to receive an explanation, though. My words simply repeated themselves in succession on the blank white screen of my phone, the lack of a reply quickly beginning to feel eerie and portentous, like the unmoving planchette on a Ouija board when the spirit has left the building.

&n
bsp; Only this spirit had a phone number with an area code that wasn’t local. This spirit knew about January’s secret hideout. And this spirit knew me well enough to know that of course I would follow the implied directive—where else would I go?

  Even as my pulse raced in anticipation, I tried to argue against the idea that wanted to take shape in my mind, tried to withhold oxygen from a pathetic wish that would consume me if I gave its tiny flame any room to breathe. The police had asked me numerous times if Cedric had directly taken responsibility for killing both girls, and even though in recounting our conversation word for word so many times, I’d been forced to concede that the man had technically only confessed—in so many plainspoken words—to stabbing Reiko … so what? Cedric Hoffman was a rapist and admitted murderer, a lunatic with the motive, means, and opportunity to eliminate both girls. The conclusion spoke for itself.

  It could easily have been that I was being led into a trap by some unknown partner of Cedric’s who wanted revenge. The deceased drama coach had known about January’s meadow, so why not her hideout as well? It could also have been that I was being directed to find her body—hidden all along behind the very barn that Kaz and I had searched the day her clothes were discovered. Was I really prepared to face that?

  Or it could be that it was a message from January herself, somehow having survived the traumatic blood loss that left her sweatshirt a gory mess, having lain low while recuperating and rebuilding her strength, and only now reaching out to me when she knew that it was safe—that Cedric was dead and gone for good.

  It was a theory so optimistic I’d have been embarrassed to speak it out loud, but I couldn’t help the way my nerves tingled with anxiety as I jumped across the stream and plunged through the border of pine trees. Only when the barn loomed before me like the Flying Dutchman, a gray and ghostly hulk that all but writhed with menace, did I stop and check my phone one more time for a response that still hadn’t come. It was like the temperature had dropped by about thirty or forty thousand degrees, flesh firming across my back and shoulders while my breath clouded the air, and the total silence that pressed down on me—heavy as endless fathoms of ocean water—left me unsure as to whether or not I had the courage to keep going.