“I’ve had worse,” I said, as if he didn’t already know. He was there the day I broke my wrist jumping over a fence in his backyard. And the time I gashed my thigh climbing over another fence around the corner from where we stood. Me and fences.
Nick and I started the walk back to Albany. His pace was slow and calculated. I had to drag my feet to keep from breaking ahead.
“I’m going to say it before you stop me. And because you need to know,” he said.
To protest seemed futile.
“I didn’t abandon you. I came to your house. A few times. Aidy told me you didn’t want to see me again.”
Aidy, Aidy, Aidy. Conversations about Nick post-Marley never went well. But in the early days, I’d cried to her, wondering where he was, wondering why he didn’t try to talk to me. She said nothing of Nick coming over.
“I didn’t believe her,” he continued. “I came back when I knew you were home from camp. I could never seem to catch you. It was always Aidy telling me the same thing. And you didn’t try to find me or anything. After a while, I decided she must’ve been right.”
Aidy listened. She supported.
She built me a titanium backbone made of lies.
“It wasn’t like anyone was really trying to talk to me after it happened anyway.” His feet kicked harder into the ground. “Especially not the kids at my new school. My story was too hardcore even for the alternative school.” He tried out a laugh that sounded more like a cough. “Not that I didn’t earn my way into that place with the other stuff I did. Guess I felt like nothing could ever be worse than what I’d already done.”
I’d spent the first week of school still away at camp. Ruby told me stories of what happened. Nick was starting fights in the hallways over nothing. Standing up in the middle of tests and screaming. They determined early on he wouldn’t be tried for what happened, so first they’d put him into extensive counseling. He was just a kid, after all. But with the outbursts and mayhem, they decided a different environment would be better, so they sent him several miles away to a small school for kids with various behavioral and adjustment challenges. He rode a bus that picked him up at six thirty in the morning and dropped him off at five thirty every night.
He started there the very day I came back to Cadence.
“I went to your house once,” I admitted. I’d never said it aloud before. Even without knowing what Aidy had done, I recognized that telling her would only disappoint her. “You weren’t home either. No one was. I sat in your backyard, waiting.”
“I think this is why cell phones were invented,” he said.
“I still had to share one with Aidy, then,” I reminded him. Who knows how many times he’d tried to send me messages that she’d intercepted.
The years of silence between Nick and me had come from believing the people who didn’t work the way we did, which felt like the cruelest hand of all. We had friends and family hiding us from one another. Therapists and counselors who made us interact with other traumatized kids. Kids who’d been through different bad things. We could understand their sadness, but we couldn’t share it. It wasn’t ours. We were the only two people who knew what it was like, and we didn’t have each other.
Of all the things I thought I’d find in the fifth year, Nick was never on the list. But there he was, turning left when we needed to go right, buying more time to hang onto my every word.
“If she made me do this,” he started, his voice shaking.
“Don’t go there.”
“Isn’t that where we’re going anyway?”
It felt funny to teach him a lesson he should already know. The first lesson I learned when the bullet hit Marley. The one I’d taught Aidy only hours before. “You know what I do when I’m stuck in a room with no exit? I rearrange the furniture,” I told him.
“Well then, I think I’ll take this chair,” he said, not a second’s worth of hesitation, miming one in front of him, “and smash it through the wall.”
“I promise you the wall won’t budge.”
Nick stopped us. He turned to look at me. A heavy seriousness spread out over his face. “I promise you it will.”
What was there to say? Nothing. There were no words to fix my heart hammering into my chest, shaking and shifting, spray-painting Nick’s name over every internal piece of me, my whole body now leaning into his, frenzied by his face. His heart. His words. His promise. If I let him really see me, he would find all the falsities I leaned on to help me wobble through my life. And since he was the only person I shouldn’t lie to, I lied to him the most. “I don’t know about that,” I said, fighting so hard, calling out for Marley, asking her to stop what I knew was going to happen next.
She didn’t.
She couldn’t.
Nick’s lips touched mine: an answer, a silence, a stop to the start of everything. Mine pressed back: a question, a loudness, a start to stopping everything I’d done. I pulled him closer to me, felt as he became weightless in my arms, surrendered to this. To us.
This was why the battle had started. For everything to clatter and clang around us as we came together. “Shit,” I said as I pulled back, my eyes on his shirt, not his face, knowing if I looked again, even for a second, he would see. And he would leave.
“What?” He tilted his head down so he was again at eye level. His mouth pressed into a sideways crescent moon. We kissed again.
And I didn’t mind.
I had no mind.
“I promise,” he whispered, our mouths still touching.
When I got home, I locked myself up in my room, pulling out Bigs’s letter to distract myself from the impossibility of what had just happened.
XANDER CAMPBELL
Welcome to the Adventure. Eyes on your own paper, please.
Hi, Bigs! Hi, hi, hi! How are you? You’re standing there, saying nothing, aren’t you? Answer me! Not in your head. Out loud.
Did you feel weird doing that? What did you say? I bet you went, “C’mon,” and you shrugged a little. But you smiled that beautiful smile, because you’re a beautiful person. That’s right. I called you beautiful. Now you’re really blushing, aren’t you?
Having you around is the greatest gift. You are kind and patient. You never get too upset. Just the right amount. An amount that makes people listen to you and respect what you have to say. I used to do annoying things to see how long you’d let me get away with it. It always went so far that it wasn’t even fun for me anymore, because you never broke.
What was wrong with me? Why was that fun in the first place? And why did I want you to break anyway? I’m sorry. I hate that this is a world that wants to snap people in half and hide the pieces. I hate that I’m a part of that.
Say it out loud.
“I, Xander Bigs Campbell III, will not let the world take away what is so special about me, no matter how the world may try.”
Are you doing any of this? Or are you reading this and rolling your eyes? Maybe this is the one true time in your life you’ve been annoyed. Have I done it? Leave it to me. I never know when to let something be.
It’s because I love you so much. Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but you’ve always been the one everyone loves the biggest. Bigs the biggest. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Your gentle heart grounds us. We lean on you when we’re not strong enough to hold ourselves up. What I don’t think you know, or you’re afraid to see, is that you can lean back.
Together, we can hold you too.
Take a chance and let us try. Share something no one knows but you.
Love always,
Marley
July 11
Five Years Prior
Marley’s last words became a nursery rhyme that played against the tune of sirens in the distance. Pull the trigger. Nothing’s gonna happen. Over and over the songs battled as the sirens grew closer. Sirens mean
t police. Police meant questions. Questions meant answers. Answers were Nick’s to give.
The Brickets’ screen door had a slab of concrete in front of it with a path that led to the pool and a path that led to a barn-style toolshed. The shed was an excellent hide-and-seek spot if you weren’t worried about spiders, but Marley had declared it off limits the summer before with zero explanation. Like good soldiers, we didn’t question our leader.
Nick’s bloody footprints went toward the shed’s entrance. I followed until I met the heavy rusted doors, and I tugged with all my might. Hard ground bruised my bottom as the left door awoke.
Nick was balled up in the corner of the cobwebbed shed, arms hugging his legs as he rocked back and forth. He hadn’t been robbed of his When yet, even with spatters of blood decorating his bare skin and board shorts. “What did I do?” he asked, rising up and walking toward me as if we were going to hug.
“You killed her!” I screamed out. “You killed her!” I charged at him, shoving as hard as I could. Runt of the litter, but I made my mark. We fell together, breaking through a flimsy wooden crate to find solid ground.
The sirens laughed at us.
They’d start mocking Marley’s last words.
Nick’s eyes widened as he looked at me lying on top of him. He wiggled out from underneath and ran. By the time I stood again, he was out of sight, and I was helpless once more, his bloody imprint fossilized onto my skin.
14
With the melted peas held to my face, I sat atop a pile of clothes and stared at my bedroom wall. My eyes drifted to a soft focus that worked as a projector, letting my thoughts become what I actually saw. I rewound the kiss between Nick and me. I paused. Zoomed in. Sped up. I could do everything but rewrite it.
It was yet another turn on a path I once thought was straight.
Aidy came in every two hours to do our parental phone call song and dance. I did a song and dance for her too as I cradled the heavy secret of what she’d done to me. She performed right back. The two of us acted for our lives, struggling to one-up each other with subtext. I was too exhausted to figure out whatever she thought she knew about me. She, as always, was too scared to reveal it. Instead, we ate random snacks from the pantry and hatched a plan to get to the haunted house when our parents were asleep. She left me alone in our house as she snuck over to set up next door, taking with her the materials left in Marley’s box.
I worked on hatching my own plan. I played out every possible scenario of the night, determined for my ideas to actually mirror reality for once, instead of spiraling into another mess I couldn’t contain. Uncertainty thrummed against my bravado. I drowned it out with the movie I made about what could happen.
In it, all of the Albany kids were united. Bedsheets above us formed a tent we huddled under. String lights were our stars. We held flashlights to our faces and told stories to each other. As we spoke, sharing memories and hopes, each of us could see it. The true purpose of the Adventure.
It wasn’t to understand why Marley wanted to die. It was to drag us to the crooks and corners of Cadence and dust off the cobwebs. Find what made our town so wondrous. What made us so wondrous.
We would all see that we’d already done it. We’d taken all of these simple things—letters, boxes, journals, phrases—and we’d made them into something memorable. We’d ridden our bikes across town. Snuck out of our houses. Met up at Cadence Park and conversed with all the seriousness of CEOs at a board meeting. We’d found the ending, because we’d rediscovered the magic we’d let die alongside Marley.
My Marley.
She would be so proud of me. Finally, I’d reminded everyone that she was not an idea, or a symbol, or a lesson, or a bargaining chip. Marley Bricket was a prism of a person, glinting from every surface.
I needed her to help me make my plan a reality. All the times I’d called out to her to give me the strength to get through something, I’d meant it. In her way, she’d always delivered. She’d given me her personality to hide behind. She’d kept me calm when I wanted to scream. She’d taken me to her house on the night of the memorial and kick-started the Adventure.
I needed her to guide all of us to the appropriate finish.
For once, I needed to willingly share her.
The movie in my mind turned to static when I heard our front door unbolt, followed by the unmistakable jangle of my mom’s keys as she hung them on the hook in the kitchen.
I hurried to the mirror beside my dresser, rummaging through my makeup bag for the necessary products. My mom moved through the house in a series of formidable squeaks, each seeming to dance around my door like a threat. The face I wore would disappoint her. It held too much unwanted truth in it. My swollen nose and bruised eyes could not be covered completely, but with the right amount of concealer, foundation, and eye makeup, I could downplay the damage enough to make her wonder if she’d misremembered my appearance all this time. Or if puberty was turning yet another swift trick, evolving me further into the adult I’d one day become.
As I worked, Aidy crept down the stairs for a greeting. Her placid tone drifted up through the vents. She sounded like the automated voice you heard when you dialed a number no longer in service. Her indistinguishable murmur of pleasantries bought me time to finish my face and move to my hair. I curled the tangled pieces into soft waves that pushed away from my face, pulling the attention back. Back, back, back. Curtains opening for my great presentation. I changed into a sky-blue Marley hand-me-down romper, gave myself a spritz of perfume, and nodded with satisfaction at my ruse.
“Good grief, baby girl, you look like a doll,” Mom said when I came downstairs. She kissed me on the forehead. “And you smell like a candy shop.”
“I was telling Mom about our day,” Aidy told me. She shifted her weight from side to side, unable to settle.
“Oh?” I questioned.
“I think donating some of your stuff is a great idea,” Mom interjected. “Maybe we’ll actually see your floor for once!”
I cut Aidy a sharp stare as I said, “Yeah.”
Mom smiled at us. “Not sure I’ll know what to do with myself when I see a clean bedroom in there.”
“You and me both,” I assured her.
“Should we do dinner?” Mom’s bliss had a way of making her soft all over. “I can throw in a pizza before Dad gets back.”
At the same time I said, “Perfect,” Aidy said, “We already ate,” so I had to add, “But I’m still hungry,” as a courtesy cover. Aidy, having none of it, told Mom, “Oh, she’s being dramatic. I fed her plenty.”
“I’ll throw one in, just in case.” Mom read the interaction between Aidy and me as classic sibling banter.
I tried to read it back to front, searching for the ending. Whatever Aidy thought she held over my head made her bolder than she’d ever been with me. I shuffled through all the things she might know, deciding she must’ve figured out that I’d broken into Marley’s the night of the memorial. That would make her upset. And she was likely waiting for the right time to confront me. Why it gave her such a sense of power over me, I wasn’t sure.
I decided to bet all my cards on this guess and told my mom, “Nah, don’t worry about it, Aidy’s probably right.”
“Oh, I am,” Aidy agreed.
My dad came home. He gave my mom a quick peck, and hugs to Aidy and me. “What’ve you girls been up to all day? Mom told me you made your calls like we asked.” There was a hint of accusation in his tone.
“They’re coming up with donation bags,” Mom told him. She tried to sound dry, suspicious even, to temper her obvious happiness, but it was clear she felt pride. So much of it that regret started churning in my gut.
Dad examined Aidy first, then me. I took an instinctive step back, afraid he’d see beneath the makeup on my face. “Be sure to put them out front.” The peculiar emphasis crawled out of his mouth as a threat.<
br />
“Hon, I was gonna throw a pizza in, if that works for you,” Mom said to him. She leaned her head on his shoulder to spread more warmth our way. She seemed to believe she’d somehow law-of-attractioned this harmony into her life. “Unless you wanted to get dinner together? We haven’t done that in a while.”
He gave us a curious look. “Without the girls?”
“I was thinking all four of us.”
“Let’s do a date night instead.” Dad turned to Aidy and me. “What’s a few more hours without Mom and me here?”
Mom smiled. It wasn’t belief. She saw all of this as proof that through sheer intention alone, all trouble within our family had been fixed. “Let me throw on something nicer!” she said as she flitted out of the kitchen.
Aidy and I moved to stand side by side. As plagued as we were by secrets, we still united against the unknown that was Dad’s mood, which added more regret to the flooding pool at the bottom of my stomach.
Once Mom was out of earshot, Dad spoke. “I found something in the backyard.” He stepped closer. “A bag of filthy clothes. Ring any bells?”
My jaw clenched so hard it felt like my teeth might break. I was waiting for Aidy to rat me out. This was my fault. Surely she wouldn’t let our dad believe anything different.
“The shirt had blood on it,” Dad continued. “Someone needs to explain to me why that is.”
It never took more than a few threatening sentences for Aidy to toss me under the bus. When I caught sight of her in my peripheral vision, she looked as tight-lipped as me.
“We’ll wash it,” I blurted out. Aidy’s solidarity surprised me so much I couldn’t stop myself from redirecting the whole conversation. There was no telling how long I had before she changed her mind and admitted everything.
“You’re not understanding me,” Dad said. “Is anyone hurt?”
Ah. Bloody clothes. Our stubborn resistance. As if another one of our friends had dropped dead, and we’d decided the first go-round was such a mess, it was better to keep it to ourselves this time.
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