by Robin Reul
The thing is: he deserves to be celebrating with his friends at Raging Waters, getting sunburned and eating overpriced food that gives them stomachaches, enjoying being a kid.
“You wanna play some Super Smash Bros.?” I offer. He’ll totally kick my ass, and we both know it.
He bounds across the room to turn on the console and grabs the remotes.
“Challenge accepted. I’m Ike. And you’re not playing as Kirby again.”
“No fair. Kirby’s my jam,” I tell him as a grin spreads across his face. Kirby’s defense mechanism is jumping high in the air, which allows him to avoid all conflict. He’s like a metaphor for my life.
We spend the next hour playing and laughing, and it actually helps me forget about everything for a while. Then Mason, one of Dylan’s friends from up the street, calls and asks him if he wants to come over and try some new game he just got for his Xbox, and Dylan’s off.
I return to my closet and open the doors, half expecting to find that the suitcase is no longer there and is buried back in its original spot. But there it is, with its hot-pink wheels and handle and Hello Kitty’s giant face on the side in a sea of glittery, hot-pink polka dots begging to hit the open road.
Gingerly, I put the suitcase back on my bed, slightly scared of it and all it represents. I pull out the envelope I keep buried at the bottom of my sock drawer where I’ve been saving up money from work. My intention was to use it for a trip someday, but someday isn’t guaranteed, so I’m thinking that time is now. There’s enough to cover the last-minute bus fare and a ride to the station but not much else. I tear through the house, digging through drawers and bottoms of purses for spare change, piling the contents on my bed to assess how much cash I have on hand. I’m definitely short of where I need to be. Where else can I find money fast?
That’s when I remember the tin in my mom’s closet. A few months ago, I went looking in there for a sweater I wanted to borrow, and I discovered a small cookie tin tucked away on the top shelf behind a shoebox. The light layer of dust on the lid indicated it hadn’t been opened in some time, so I was curious. There was a wad of cash inside, at least five hundred dollars.
I reason it wouldn’t be stealing exactly—more like borrowing it for a spell. And I’d give it all back.
I carefully wrangle the tin out of the closet and pop open the lid. The cash is still curled inside. I should leave some there so it’s less noticeable that some of it is missing. I count off a hundred dollars, put the rest back in the tin, and restore it to its hiding place.
I immediately feel horrible for taking it, but I push the guilt aside as I add the money to the stash on my bed. I can’t exactly pay for a bus ticket online in rolled nickels, and I’ll only call attention to myself walking around with a giant pile of cash, so I opt to transform most of it into a Visa gift card at the 7-Eleven down the street.
There and back home in a flash, I log back on to the computer and buy the ticket.
In only a few hours, I’m leaving for Oregon to meet Owen and say goodbye.
Holy shiitake, I’m really doing this.
Chapter 3
Jack
Friday, June 4, 10:12 a.m.
Setting up six hundred chairs in the blazing sun is exactly as unpleasant as it sounds. Even more unpleasant when it’s spent listening to Natasha’s sermon on why she broke up with me.
She tells me she read an article online that said most high school relationships don’t survive the transition to college. “They make up thirty-two point five percent of long-distance relationships with minimal successful outcomes. There’s an actual phenomenon called the Turkey Drop where most of them, if they haven’t already, break up by Thanksgiving. I’m saving us from being an inevitable statistic.”
“Wait—are you being serious right now?” I ask. We joke around in fake statistics like that sometimes. The annoyed expression on her face tells me she is. “Well, if you read it online it must be true. Although how do you explain the point five, exactly?”
She reaches for another white wooden chair from the pallet and unfolds it next to the one where I’m standing frozen in disbelief. She rationalizes, “I’m serious. Why risk ruining our friendship or the holidays? We’re going to be so far apart anyway. It just makes sense.”
“Far?” My eyebrows knit together in confusion. “What are you talking about? New York is like a four-hour train ride from Boston, or around an hour and a half if you fly. You could spend that long going two exits on the 405. It’s totally doable.”
She sighs deeply, presses her lips together, and then lays it on me. “I’m not going to Tufts, Jack. I’m staying here and going to UCLA.”
“Come again?” Surely, I’ve misheard her. The plan was for us both to go to Columbia University, but then only I got in. Tufts University, just outside Boston, was her second choice. I knew she got into UCLA, but she never said one word about it being an option. In fact, she made a point of saying she wanted to get far away from her parents. For me, moving to New York seemed less overwhelming because I knew she’d be relatively nearby. “Are you seriously telling me this for the first time right now?”
“I decided I want to be in California.” She can’t even look me in the eye as she says it.
“You said you wanted to go as far away as humanly possible from California.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Apparently.” What the actual fuck? One of the teachers gives me a dirty look for standing here chatting, so I reach for another chair and unfold it with more force than I intend, completing the row. “So basically, you’ve been lying since April when we committed to schools.”
“I figured if I told you sooner, you’d freak out and make a whole big thing.”
“Well, to be fair, it is kind of a big thing.”
We each grab another chair and walk to place them behind the previous row. “I know, you’re right, and I’m sorry. You were a great boyfriend; you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just what I want.”
Were a great boyfriend. I’m already in the past.
So this is how it ends. I suppose I knew it would eventually. I just didn’t think it would be on my birthday while setting up chairs for graduation. She knows I won’t make a scene here by reacting. It’s obvious she’s been waiting to get this off her chest for a while.
“Look,” I say. “I know I haven’t exactly been the life of the party these last few months, but I’m working on it. And I’m sorry if I’ve put too much of my shit on you.”
She keeps two paces ahead of me back to the chairs. “Please don’t apologize. It’s not that. You are a wonderful guy, Jack, but—there are a million people we’re both about to meet. How can we be naive enough to think that there is no one else out there? Don’t we owe it to ourselves to make sure? To have all sorts of different experiences with different people? Allow for the unexpected? We’re only in high school. And you can’t honestly tell me you haven’t felt like we’ve been drifting apart.”
“Are these rhetorical questions, or are you expecting an answer?”
She stops, sighs, and turns to me, then squeezes my hand. “This is for the best. I think we should be real about this and end it before we let it go on too long like my parents did and we grow to hate and resent each other. I love you enough to let you go.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean? “Thank you?”
“It actually is a compliment. It’s just… I know you were—and still are—going through a lot, and I care about you. I didn’t want to add to anything. But I also know I can’t do this anymore.”
So I was right; she didn’t do it sooner because she’d felt sorry for me. Poor Jack with his dead father and his estranged, drug-addicted brother. I shouldn’t have to convince her to want to be with me. “Wow. I’m sorry it’s been such a chore for you.”
“That’s not what I mean. C’mon, Jack,” she s
ays. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. And I’m serious about wanting us to be friends. I mean—people say that, but I really mean it.”
“Maybe we should shake on it.” I’m being sarcastic, but she extends her hand and smiles.
And just like that, with a single shake, our five-year friendship and year-and-a-half-long relationship fizzles out like a 99 Cents Only Stores firework. We can pretend that our friendship will go back to being what it was before we dated, but I’m sure the odds are slim, and not just because we’ve seen each other naked. There’s undoubtedly some online statistic about that too.
Ajay comes bounding toward us, already finished helping set up. His eyes flick between both of us, reading the somber expressions on our faces.
“Uh-oh, you told him,” he says.
“I told him,” she replies.
“Wait—you mean—you knew?” I ask Ajay in disbelief, and my eyes shoot back to Natasha. “What the hell?”
“I needed someone to talk to, so I talked to Ajay,” she says matter-of-factly, as if Ajay is in any way the sort of person she’d normally choose as a confidante, let alone that he’s my best friend.
“Seriously? Because I think this seems like the sort of thing maybe we should have talked about instead.” The fact that Ajay has kept her secret is nothing short of incredible, given who he is. I turn my attention back to him. “You’re supposedly my best friend. Why wouldn’t you have dropped a hint or something?”
“She told me not to say anything, and frankly, she scares me a little.” He smiles sheepishly at Natasha and then says to me, “Hey, I played it completely Switzerland. I was merely a sounding board. Same as I’d be for you. I’m not taking sides. We’re all friends here.” He looks at us both. “We are all friends here, right?”
“Of course,” she says. “Right, Jack?”
“We shook on it,” I assure him, even though right now, honestly, I don’t know what to call what we are. We’re rebranding.
As we’re leaving, he elbows me and asks quietly, “You okay?”
I shrug it off. “Yeah, of course. Absolutely.”
“Cool. It’s probably for the best.”
I’m sure it probably is, but it only adds to the feeling that I’m slowly losing my grip on reality.
Back home, I take a second shower. As I stand there letting the hot water beat down on my sunburned neck, I think to myself that every decision I’ve ever made has led to this very minute. Changing a single variable might have changed the outcome, and my life could be completely different right now. Would I make all the same choices I’ve made if given the ability to go back and do it all over again? Definitely not.
Everything I’ve done in my life up until this point has been about trying to impress other people or make them happy: my family, my teachers, colleges, friends, Natasha. I needed their approval. But the truth is none of them know the first thing about what’s really going on inside my head. Not even my therapist, Carole. I’ve never felt comfortable being totally honest because I always worried she’d tell my Mom what I was saying, or she’d think less of me if she knew what I was really thinking.
When you’re smart, people put all these expectations on you. It’s a lot to live up to. What is my obligation to measure up to someone else’s definition of succeeding and reaching my potential? What does anyone truly owe anyone else?
While I’m getting dressed after my shower, I steal a glance at the two empty Costco standard-issue black rolling suitcases by the side of my desk waiting to be packed.
What would happen if I didn’t go?
Seriously though—would the world end? Or would it be more like Maps when I miss the turn and it automatically recalculates my route?
Would I be making the biggest mistake of my life or the best decision?
I start to feel slightly nauseous and light-headed. My heartbeat quickens, and beads of sweat sprout on my upper lip—the beginnings of a panic attack coming on.
When they first started happening after Dad passed away, I thought I was dying. Now I recognize the early symptoms and start to dial myself back. I take a deep breath like Carole showed me—hold it to the count of five and exhale slowly for five, then repeat the cycle four more times. Proper breathing technique is key to keeping calm and in control. Mindful meditative breathing has been proven to trigger physio-biological reactions throughout the body that affect every single cell.
And that’s not a bunch of spiritual crap from my mother’s New York Times bestselling self-help book Love Your Vagina, Love Yourself in which she discusses how a woman’s relationship with her vagina sets the tone for her self-worth; it’s actual science. That shit really helps.
When I’m ready, I grab the first suitcase and open it on my bed. It’s like a giant, cavernous pit waiting to be filled. I basically have to fit my life into two bags and a carry-on since I won’t be coming back here. I opt not to bring much of anything personal, mostly packing clothes. The posters on my walls and the pictures pinned to the corkboard above my desk already feel like they’re from a different life, a different version of me.
As I’m about to zip the first case closed, my eyes snag on the photo by my bed of my dad and me. We were at the beach when I was around eight or so. His eyes are hidden by aviator sunglasses and his navy Columbia University ball cap is askew on his head, damp with surf. He’s holding me in his arms, threatening to throw me in the ocean and feed me to the sharks, and we’re both laughing. I decide to bring it with me and carefully nestle it inside a sweatshirt.
Dad used to wear that cap all the time. What happened to it? My mother has long since given most of Dad’s clothing away, but for some reason, I can’t imagine she’d allow that to go. Suddenly, it becomes my mission to find it.
I head to my parents’ bedroom and burrow in their walk-in closet. I check drawers and look under the bed and even in the bathroom cabinets, but there’s barely any sign my dad was once here. Not even an old toothbrush.
There’s one other place it could be.
I wander down the hall to my dad’s home office. The door is shut tight like a tomb. Even now, after all this time, entering what was once his private, off-limits space makes me feel as if I’m trespassing. Inside, everything is exactly as he left it.
It makes me sad to come in here. I look around at all his books, framed degrees, and awards, my eyes settling on an ancient family photo propped on the credenza by the window. All four of us in the same place together, something impossible to recreate ever again. I run my finger over the edge of the frame, and a thin layer of gray dust coats the tip of my finger.
I sit down in his high-backed, black leather desk chair and spin around in it once like he used to tell me not to when I was a kid. I shut my eyes and breathe in deeply, hoping to find a hint of his aftershave trapped here after all this time, but it just smells stale, like a place that’s been undisturbed for a long while.
My dad will never sit at this desk again. It’s surreal. He’ll never know what I end up doing with my life, who I end up marrying, or meet his future grandkids. He won’t be there to give unsolicited life advice and slip me an extra twenty dollars when I need it or go on a hike with me or grab breakfast at some dive or visit me at college.
I pull open the drawer on the left, anxious to resume my search for the cap and get out of here. It’s filled with some pens and a jumble of receipts, the thermal paper so faded, it’s impossible to make out where they’re from or why he might have saved them. I tug on the drawer to the right, but it’s locked. I check the surface of the desk for the key but don’t find anything. I walk back to the built-in bookcase and run my hands over the tops of the book spines and then stumble upon it hidden underneath an oversize rook bookend.
I sit back down and hurriedly jam the key in the lock. It easily gives way. There, sitting right on top, is the faded navy-blue ball cap I’ve been looking for. I’m so
relieved to have found it.
As I place it on my head, a surge of grief courses through me, settling like a boulder on my chest. The cap fits perfectly, no adjustment required, almost as if it was waiting for me. I feel like he’d want me to have this, that had he been here, he might have even given it to me as a parting gift before I left.
I return my attention to the open drawer, discovering the rest of the contents are uneventful—more pens, a file folder filled with patient notes and assorted correspondence, a cheap pair of drugstore reading glasses. I reach down deeper toward the bottom, lifting the other papers out of the way until my hand grazes an envelope that catches my eye. I pull it out, and my stomach drops. It’s addressed to my brother, Alex, from dad, at a street address in San Francisco that I don’t recognize, stamped but unsent.
This means my father obviously lied to me when he said he didn’t know where Alex was. Which means there’s a strong probability that my mother knew too, and she probably made Alex aware of Dad’s death. She must not be aware of the letter though, because if she’d found it as I had, it definitely wouldn’t be sealed. Why would they lie to me? Why would he hide the letter from either of us? Dad’s the one who kicked Alex out. And why didn’t he mail it?
Seeing Alex’s name adds to the heaviness in my chest. I miss my brother. When he was around, everything was chaotic and messy and tense, but at least we were a family and I felt like part of something. The five-and-a-half-year age gap between us was like a chasm when I was younger. I didn’t understand all that he was going through. He was always real with me and spoke the truth with no filter. For all the horrible things that had happened, he was his own person, and that was something I admired and wished I could emulate.
When Alex left and cut off communication with me, I was angry at first, but then anger gave way to an emptiness I haven’t been able to remedy. Grieving someone who is still alive is more confusing than grieving someone who’s dead, but it’s no less intense. Most days I manage to block it out, but right now it’s as if a scab has been ripped off.