The Bridge

by Bill Konigsberg

  It doesn’t seem like a lot to ask for, but it’s not here.

  He looks around the room as kids start to enter. He likes Darby and her radical feminist poetry a whole lot. He enjoys ogling Dax and his outrageously long legs—who doesn’t?—but if he has to listen to one more story about how popular Dax was back in Fayetteville, he might have to slay someone.

  No. It’s like there’s a missing boy. Someone who would truly get him. Someone to be his first. Someone to hold him at night.

  Because the holding, or the lack thereof: That’s the hard part. Not being held is creating this void, and he’s not really sure how much longer he can take it.

  “You okay, Hally?” It’s Darby, her head newly shaven. She looks awesome, of course.

  He forces a smile so she won’t know. No one can know how alone he really feels.

  “Of course!” he says. “I’m fine.”

  He keeps looking.

  CHAPTER 5C: APRIL 17, TEN YEARS AFTER

  Michael Boroff groans as the alarm goes off in his empty bedroom in Brooklyn, a sense of dread flooding through his veins. It’s the tenth anniversary of Aaron’s suicide, and he’s as prepared for the feelings as he can be, yet his chest still feels heavy and a palpable lack trembles his limbs. Despite all the work he’s done and the constant support of his ever-present warrior brothers, he still can’t quite believe this is his life. That Aaron is gone.

  Winnie takes Britt for a Monday-morning breakfast at Cushman’s.

  It was a popular visiting weekend at UMass Amherst, and Winnie and Frank came separately. Frank left last night. Winnie stayed the extra day.

  Unspoken but understood was the fact that today is the tenth anniversary of Tillie.

  “I just thought it would be nice to be here,” Winnie says, taking a sip of coffee.

  Britt instinctively grabs for her phone. She stops herself. Dr. Roberts would be proud. It’s taken a while, but she can finally feel her feelings, as the great doctor would say.

  It sucks.

  “Yeah,” Britt says, and she twirls her fork around the plate of pancakes.

  “Let’s each say three things. Three things we are grateful for. Memories of Tillie, I guess I mean. Okay?”

  Britt closes her eyes, and for a moment she hates Tillie. Hates her and the fact that this is never, ever going away. Feelings are shit. And then she realizes, no. She doesn’t. She can’t hate, ever. That’s her Tillie Bear.

  When Britt’s eyes open, her mother is smiling at her sadly. “I just … I want to celebrate her,” Winnie says, sighing.

  Britt nods. She gets that. She really does. It’s just hard to jump to that from what she’s really feeling.

  She doesn’t have the words to express that. She never will.

  When the ship docks in Finland, Amir grabs Devon’s hand. He can’t help it at each new port. It’s all so romantic, and he wants to memorialize every feeling.

  He can feel Devon smirking next to him. He can hear his voice: “We’re going e-biking in Helsinki, not hiking to the top of Mount Everest, sweetheart.”

  But to Amir, it’s freedom from all the chains he once had. He’s married! To a guy! His mom even came to the wedding. Now he’s on his honeymoon!

  He turns and looks at his husband and he is so overcome with love that the straight couple behind him have to clear their throats to remind Amir they’re in a moving line.

  It’s not that he’s forgotten Tillie. He’s just stopped living there. The first five years were the worst. Feeling responsible. Wishing he could turn back time. And then, over time, less focus there. Still sadness when he thinks of the coolest girl he ever met. And how stupid he was to not just tell her the truth.

  Molly is in a meeting when her phone buzzes. It’s an anniversary reminder. Years ago she set it for 3:30 p.m. instead of all day, and she’s never fixed it. So once a year, when she’s busy doing something else, she’s reminded.

  She needs it to be that way.

  She excuses herself to go into the bathroom, where she can have a few minutes to think about her once friend. About where Tillie would be today.

  Molly runs her hands through her hair as she sits in the stall, thinking the same thought for the millionth time: What if she’d been more true to herself? If she’d just dumped Gretchen and Isabella when she realized they were truly nothing like her. If she’d reached out to Tillie, who was so clearly struggling, instead of being part of the problem. A big part, obviously.

  She swallows and blinks a few times. No. She can’t. Yes, she could have done something, and no, she didn’t. What’s done is done. And now she has a meeting to run.

  The George Washington Bridge shimmers at night, all these years later. So many glimmering stars along its north and south necklaces. We think of its majesty, we marvel at its beauty.

  What the throngs of drivers passing from upper Manhattan to Fort Lee, New Jersey, can’t see is the despair. They cannot feel it as they drive past the spot where, ten years earlier, two teens threw away their lives.

  CHAPTER 6C: SEPTEMBER 17, TEN YEARS AFTER

  Ryan’s always been a sucker for romance.

  Even back in high school, when he was goth. Underneath the black trench coat and the eyeliner beat the true heart of a softie.

  Senior year, he had to dress in camouflage in order to go see a revival of Pretty Woman at the Rialto. Alone.

  And now it’s the morning of his wedding—ta-da!—and he’s snuck out of bed before dawn to have a little meditation time down by the lake of the Stowe B & B that Askia’s family rented out for the occasion.

  He sits down in the dewy grass and stares out onto the foggy morning air, watching the slightly shimmering surface of the placid lake.

  He’s so lucky, he thinks, and a shiver rushes through his body, thinking of the way Askia snores, and her slightly crooked smile, and how she burns turkey bacon every time she cooks it.

  And then it’s like he sees Her. The other Her. Standing on the water. In a black peacoat with a pink knapsack.

  He shakes his head, willing the vision away.

  It’s his fucking wedding day. He’s not going to allow it to—

  But oh, those eyes.

  Black like perfect marble. Her long hair almost down to her waist. Her fine features, her eyebrows, ever-tilted up at the ends.

  He’s seen her sporadically, the last decade or so. She always just stands, looking at him with an expression as calm as this placid lake.

  He’s never told anyone. Who would believe him, anyway? An apparition of a girl who shows up five, maybe six times a year, to look at him? It was never that scary to him after the first time. And that first year, back when he was at Brown, once he accepted her as not super creepy, he saw her nearly every day. She was a person in his life, a secret, and the romantic side of him couldn’t help but play. This. This was the girl he was to marry. Someday he’d meet her in person, and it would be his little secret, that he’d seen her so often, and she wouldn’t even know. Or maybe she would? That idea gave him thrilling tingles up his spine.

  “I’m getting married,” he says softly to the apparition, his voice cutting into the silent Stowe morning air. When she first appeared, she was just about his age, with a face full of life. Diminutive and beautifully curved. She’s aged alongside him. Now she’s—stunning. Eyes that command attention, reverence.

  She does not speak back. She’s an apparition, after all. But perhaps for the first time in their experience together, he swears he sees her lips turn up.

  “I waited for you. I looked for you. But this is right. Askia is right.”

  Her cheeks puff out slightly in an approximation of a smile, and he’s transfixed. This is real. It has to be real. And yet it cannot be.

  He whispers, “Goodbye.”

  A tear rolls down her cheek, and she turns and walks across the lake, away from him forever.

  CHAPTER 7C: MAY 5, TWELVE YEARS AFTER

  Everybody’s just … wrong for the position.


  Wrong aesthetic.

  The thing about Hung’s first post-college venture is he has such strong opinions on exactly what kind of senior reviewer Downbeat needs.

  It’s snarky at times, yes, but never cynical.

  A person who isn’t above retro pop but who doesn’t live there. Certainly not someone who would put it down, and it seems like every applicant thinks their fucking music’s shit doesn’t stink.

  He dreams of a staff of music experts—perhaps with music backgrounds—but they have to be … is the word real?

  Hung was going to change music journalism forever. Bring the love back without sacrificing a truly critical lens.

  Can’t anyone write like that anymore?

  He goes through the last of the applications. A girl named Tawny who wrote her dissertation at Wesleyan about how Wilson Phillips ruined music forever.

  No! They didn’t! Can’t anyone with a heart apply for this job? Can he get just one unironic-yet-refined piece about how Wilson Phillips SAVED music?

  He closes down the file and opens another browser window. He shakes his head. He was so sure he could, but without that missing ingredient, it really feels like he can’t.

  So he opens up the application for Browning. A part-time music teacher. It’s not his dream, but he’s gonna have to pay the bills, and his dream of Downbeat isn’t gonna do that.

  Probably ever.

  CHAPTER 8C: JUNE 16, SIXTEEN YEARS AFTER

  Backstage at her own wedding, the bride sobs.

  It’s just so hard.

  Two fathers. The one she had until everything in her world collapsed, more than fifteen years ago now, who hasn’t much been in her life since then, in and out of rehab, mostly out. And the other one. The one who was at her high school and college graduations.

  Andy checks all the boxes. Britt can see why her mom chose him. He’s such a solid guy. And that’s how she feels about him. She solidly likes him. That’s all.

  And then there’s Frank.

  She hates him so much.

  She loves him so much.

  It’s confusing. Just like it is with Sean, her future husband. She loves his strength. She hates his strength. She hates his inability to talk. Loves it, too. Lets her off the hook all the time.

  And now the feud.

  “Sweetheart, it’s your day,” her mom says. “I didn’t think he’d actually show up and demand to walk you down the aisle. You choose. Don’t let their drama become your drama, okay?”

  Britt smiles. She always smiles. Her mom knows her well enough to know what the smile means in this case: Too late. It’s already my drama.

  If Tillie were here.

  Shit. No. She’s already done her makeup. No. But if she were. If Tillie were here, she’d run interference. Tell Frank to fuck off. Her sister was so much better at bringing the real than Britt is. She knew that even back then. Even before—no.

  Can’t.

  She clears her throat. She looks at her mom, who looks so old these days. Way older than she really is.

  Britt says, “Will you tell Andy? Please?”

  She knows her mom so well by now. So she knows that the way she swallows means, You’re putting me in a terrible situation, but I’ll do it because it’s you.

  And Britt knows that, too. And she knows that Andy, not Frank, deserves to walk her down the aisle today. But just as sure as that is true, the other thing is true, too.

  She simply cannot say no to her dad.

  CHAPTER 9C: APRIL 16, TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AFTER

  The boy in the mirrored fleece wishes someone could see him.

  When he passes people, they only see themselves, and that’s by design, of course. He picked it out himself on Bork and clicked want. A new look for school that’s a little Max, even.

  But in practice, as he walks down Seventy-Fourth Street, he realizes that it may not have been the right choice.

  When people see you, he thinks as he passes the only original pre-Second-World-War brownstone, the one between the two connected towers, they see themselves. And that’s in the best of circumstances. In some ways, he bought the fleece to highlight that, thinking that by drawing attention to it, people might actually realize how little they see of other people. Of him.

  When he looks at people, he really sees them. On the inside. He wants so much for someone to see him that way, the way he sees others.

  But mostly they just fix their quaffs, check their makeup, smile at their reflections.

  He wants one adult to just peer in and say, “Hey there. You okay?”

  Because he’s not, really. Not too okay.

  This street. Seventy-Fourth Street. It’s a little different. It’s not a major thoroughfare like Seventy-Second or Seventy-Third, which they just revamped and elevated, or Seventy-Fifth or Seventy-Sixth, even, with its multilevels.

  It’s an old-timey street with concrete sidewalks, and walking down them, he feels it’s the most connect-ish place left in the Mid-UpWest Quadrangle. It’s the place where you’re most likely to catch someone’s eye, which is hard to do with all the holographics on the thoroughfares.

  Modern life is lonely, he thinks as he sits on the steps of the one brownstone. It’s beige and original-looking, and he thinks of people who might live inside. Maybe it’s a gay couple or throuple? Older, with wisdom. Like his dad probably has, he doesn’t know. His dad left.

  He imagines a guy, maybe his dad’s age, coming down the steps. He lives there with his husband. They are both big into running and they read actual books, and they talk to each other. That’s not a thing at his house.

  He imagines the middle-aged guy stopping, sitting down next to him. Saying something like, “You look like you need to talk to someone. Do you notice that people don’t say hi to each other on the street anymore?”

  And he’d be, “Yes! Exactly. I long for the old days.”

  The guy would smirk. “The old days didn’t exist,” he’d say, or something like that, and it would be the start of a real connection, someone who would see him.

  The boy hears a door open and close behind him. His heart catches. Maybe it’s …

  “Nice fleece,” says a woman’s voice.

  She’s maybe just out of grad school. She has a mod appearance and her smile is warm. He smiles back.

  “Thanks,” he says, and she nods and gets on her hover and is gone, just like that, and it’s nice and all. But it’s not the experience he needed. It’s not the guy who would really, truly see him, who would understand that need, and understand how damn special this old block is …

  CHAPTER 10C: NOVEMBER 11, TWENTY-NINE YEARS AFTER

  What Enya Martinez needs, as she walks into the only remaining physical library in New York City, is a book that will tell her what to do.

  She presses her fingertips into the sensor and the doors hiss open and she is surrounded by that smell of old books. Part sawdust, part seaweed, part human history. It’s her favorite smell and momentarily she feels almost okay inside, like the darkness ebbs in her chest for a nanosecond.

  The virtual librarian greets her with a perfunctory “How do you do?” The old-fashioned phrase usually brings her joy and she usually says, “I do quite well, thanks,” but this time she just says, “Is there a book for teens about …” Then she glances around as if anyone might be listening and might judge her. It’s almost entirely empty save for street neighbors, which is not surprising since most normal people with homes just consult the World Wide Bibliotech in the comfort of their own pod. But she doesn’t like the WWB nearly as much as she loves this place with its old book smells and memories.

  “… online bullying and skinniness?”

  The virtual assistant clears her throat.

  “Not precisely,” she says. She’s one of the nicer virtual assistants; her tone is almost kind. “We have many, many books about online bullying. Would you be interested in online bullying and national origin? Online bullying and gender identity? Online bullying and class? These are the clos
est matches I can find at this time.”

  Enya sighs. Most feelings she has full training in. But being singled out for who she is? For not being able to keep meat on her bones? She was born this way. Her parents are both very thin, and she eats and eats and no weight stays. When she told her mother, all she got was a lecture about how in the days of old, she’d have been the one making fun of them for being large, and Enya was like, What? Why would anyone even do that?

  No. All she wants is a book, maybe in verse, like those old Ellen Hopkins classics, where a person like her writes about how it feels to be singled out for their physical appearance. So she can feel that she’s not the only one, because it actually hurts. It hurts a lot and no one seems to understand these feelings at all.

  Surely someone, somewhere, has felt this before? Where is the book she needs?

  Why hasn’t it been written?

  CHAPTER 11C: DECEMBER 24, THIRTY-ONE YEARS AFTER

  Ajax is transfixed by the image.

  Their mom left the hologram up on the dining room tablet. It’s a young person with Korean features and high cheekbones, and their eyes are deep, soulful. They are wearing retro clothing and something about them looks like they come from a different time.

  Sometimes Ajax fantasizes that some other adult is their mother. Not that their mom is the worst, exactly, but they have the feeling sometimes that even if she’d never admit it, if their mother could choose, she’d prefer Ajax to be cis. And that’s just not okay.

  What would this person be like as a mom? It’s a weird thing to think, but that’s what Ajax ponders, staring into their eyes.

  “Who is this?” Ajax asks when their mother comes through en route to the kitchen.

  Their mother stops and purses her lips. “Oh,” she says.

  “Who, Mom?”

  Britt sits down across from Ajax and offers them a patient smile. “That would be your aunt Tillie,” she says.