Come Back to Me (8 page)

I quickly
mumbled something about getting a jump on my college studies by learning
something valuable this summer, because with my dad, it was always about
following the approved path.

“Here’s some
money for a cab to the train station,” he said, passing me a couple of folded
bills.

I didn’t
take them.  “No thanks. I’ve got it covered.”

I waved, a
tight smile on my face.  I turned and my foot slid again in my sensible shoe. 
Then I crossed the street to the bus stop.  My dad was gone by the time I sat
on a bench.  I was wrong about him keeping an eagle eye on me.  Obviously, he
just needed to know I wouldn’t get in his way, like some sort of loose end.

I sat with
my back straight and my feet crossed at the ankles, not because it was how Felicia
Bennet taught it in Decorum for Young Ladies class, but because, inside, I felt
like jelly.  My resolve and esteem melted under my mistaken assumptions.  My
spine was the only thing left to keep me from slipping off the bench and into
the sewer grates below the curb.

I felt
stupid for screwing up my plans from the very start.  I had one thing left to
do in Bloom, and already, I’d messed it up.  I blamed myself.  I should’ve just
checked my e-mail that morning like I wanted, but instead, I gave in to my
chicken shit attitude.  I was still afraid to open my window shade, let alone
linger in my room any longer than necessary—unless I counted the floor of my
closet.  I was worse than Bug.  When I first brought her home from the shelter,
she pissed every time she saw her own shadow.  It was a wonder my own spine
could even hold me up.

A block
away, the bus brakes squealed, so I stood, stepping back into my shoes.  It was
hot.  The suit was ridiculous.  I shrugged off the jacket, the silky tank clinging
to my damp skin.  The bus squeaked to a stop in front of me, and the bus driver
threw open the door.  I felt a small whoosh of cool, air-conditioned air.  It was
the wrong bus, but I was hot, it was cool, and I had nowhere else to go.  The
thought of going home to an empty house felt depressing.  I got on.

Walking
toward the back of the bus, my hip bumped against the seats as the bus lumbered
into street traffic.  I caught my reflection in the darkened windows. My skirt
and top stuck to me, as if they had nowhere to go either.

The bus made
a loop from my dad’s office to the historic Old Towne district, then back
again.  I didn’t move, my forehead resting against the filmy window as the air
around me turned from cooling to stuffy—a combo of people and a subpar air
conditioner, but it was enough to turn my damp clothes to cold.

I had no
idea where I was going, but I felt oddly comforted by the air on the bus. It
hovered around me like a scratchy but warm blanket.

My mind
replayed the mishap with the intern stuff.  I didn’t want to do the team-building
thing.  It sounded like another version of Gosley, and I didn’t need or want
that.  All I needed was to finish my service hours, without zip lines or rock
walls.  I wasn’t a fan of heights, and the thought of being so high up reminded
me of one of the eighteen things we were supposed to do this summer.

Scream at
the top of your lungs
.

A few years
back, Katie found a book on the clearance table at the bookstore,
100 Things
to Do Before You Die
.  The book was a bucket list, and she highlighted all
the things she was interested in doing in blue, then handed me a yellow
highlighter to do the same.  She picked eighteen of the green ones (our colors
overlapped when we both chose the same one) and declared we would do them after
graduation. Katie would turn eighteen at the beginning of senior year, but I
would have to wait until August, after graduation.  That was why she picked the
summer—and because we both imagined the summer between high school and college
as some magical space of free time and fun.  Yeah.

I squeezed
my eyes and sunk lower in the bus seat.  My summer was so far from what we’d
imagined that the thoughts of our carefree plans felt—careless.  Almost like we
had complete disregard for the way the universe worked or something.  Screaming
took on a completely new connotation.

To further
the cosmic joke, I realized my rock climbing at Gosley was something from
Katie’s blue highlighted list.  Not that I made it to the top.  I didn’t want
to do it at all, but there was my counselor, Emily, egging me on at the bottom,
as they strapped me into that wedgie-inducing harness.  Emily went on and on
about the “importance of maintaining forward motion.”  She’d pointed to a
carabineer, one of those oval clip things, to illustrate how I could use it to
ground not only me but also my happy moments along my journey.  Except I was
too freaked to even consider a happy moment.  Once I slipped and felt myself
dangling from that tiny clip that was supposed to hold not only my weight but
also some heavy memory, I was done.

Now, on the
bus, I considered Emily’s clip metaphor.  What would I “clip” in place as my
anchor in order to move onwards and upwards?  I had more than enough memories
filling my head, but even the good ones eventually pried open a bad one.  Katie
was proof—all my memories of her now dangled over an empty, dark chasm.

When was the
last time I’d felt genuinely happy?

Not counting
glitter.  Because I couldn’t latch on to glitter forever.  Well, I
could
,
but then one day, I might be known as the Glitter Lady.  Instead of a
collection of cats, I’d surround myself with self-sparkled objects.

No, I needed
another happy, but the only thing remotely recent that stood out was that
moment of lightness and laughter in the Adler’s library on graduation night. 
The memory was fuzzy, fractured even, because of my drinking and blacking out,
but there were those random bits of me playing Scrabble with Kyle.  I could
still sense the laughter as if it were a leftover tickle in the back of my
throat.

Was that
really the last time I’d laughed?

I wasn’t
sure.  It still boggled my mind that Kyle was a part of that memory.  How could
Kyle, the guy who also played a part in the undoing of my friendship with
Katie, be part of a happy moment?  I didn’t think he could.  Besides, there was
so little of it I remembered.  Even if it stood out in the darkness, how could
I hang my clip on such a tiny bit of memory?

What if I
asked Kyle?

I sat up
straighter at the thought and pulled out my phone.  I stared at the screen. It
felt heavy in my palm.  The thought of asking Kyle to clue me in felt
uncomfortable.  No, inconceivable.  I hadn’t seen or talked to him since that
night.  We were only a few moments of conversation in the middle of more than
six months of nothing.

Because our
unspoken plan consisted of avoidance as an act of contrition.

But what was
the point of avoidance now?  It kind of didn’t make any sense.  Not when there
was the possibility that we could help each other.  After all, we both lost
Katie—twice.  Kyle was the only other person who could understand the guilt and
the grief we couldn’t claim.

I leaned my
head back on the seat.  I thought about Katie’s imprint on Kyle’s life.  What
sort of hole had her absence left behind for him?  Did he really feel the same
things as me?  Did he ever think about that Scrabble moment?  Was it a reminder
that happiness was possible despite the darkness for him, too?

Thinking
about that bubble of laughter made me feel like I could move forward. 
Remembering more could only be better.  Besides, Kyle and I had been friends
once, by circumstance, but it still counted.  At least, I knew he cared about
me as a friend, because he not only found me passed out by the ditch (after my
Katie hallucination) on graduation night, but I remembered him carrying me away
from it.  In a way, he saved my life.

I wanted to
move forward. I really did.  Maybe Emily was right.  Thinking about Kyle and
his part in Katie’s life and mine made me realize I needed my anchors, my happy
moments, and my
friends
.  Maybe I was wrong to forget about
friendships.  Maybe Kyle could help me move on more seamlessly.

In a flash,
my fingers moved across my phone, the action of texting a friend both familiar
and foreign.  Then I set my phone in my lap and waited.

Twenty
minutes later, there was no reply, and the bus rumbled around near my dad’s
office for a second time.  The bus continued on, replacing itself with
different people.  Eventually, I pushed my phone into my pocket, my forehead
resuming its position on the window.  We passed a park, a rec center, then we
were back in the historic area again, the colors sliding from the gray concrete
of office buildings to green tree lined streets of Old Towne.

When we
pulled up to the corner just past a hospital, I stared out the window, noticing
an old, orange Mercedes parked at the curb.  Was that Evan Foster’s car?  It
had to be.  Who else drove a beat up Mercedes the color of an orange
Creamsicle?

I peered
down at it but couldn’t really see anything of interest.  From my vantage
point, it was all roof, really.

Until the
driver’s door opened.

Immediately,
I pulled back from the window, as if he could actually see me through the
slightly tinted and grubby windows, like I’d conjured him with my thoughts of graduation
night.

The bus
lurched forward, and I swiveled in my seat.  Evan exited his car, slammed the
door, then jogged across the street.

We stopped
for a red light, and I kept my eye on him as he moved.  A thought popped into
my head.

What if Evan
could help prod my memory?  After all, he drove me home that night.  Sure, his
role was short, unnecessary, and not one of the happy parts of the night, but
it certainly wasn’t the worst of the night.  Maybe talking to him for a moment
could help me unlock more of my memories.

I slid out
of my seat, moving to the empty row on the opposite side just in time to see
him pull open a door and disappear inside.  The sign above read, TEA.

So I got off
the bus, chasing after my memories.

I wasn’t
familiar with this area of Old Towne.  I’d been near the river plenty of times
for field trips or my dad’s yearly office picnics, but this area appeared
tired.  Under a haze of gray, odd smells, rogue trash, and grass peeking out of
cracks in the sidewalks, this section of the city lived up to the
old
part of its name.

I wasn’t
completely
out of place in the fancy suit though.  It was lunchtime, and there were a few suits
out.  I just didn’t feel like myself, but that could have been because I was
stalking Evan Foster.

I passed two
empty storefronts, an Ethiopian restaurant, and an older Starbucks, the green
letters in its name looking pale.  On the next block, the one where Evan parked,
I walked by a store called Buffalo that advertised herbal hookah, then an
antiques store next door to TEA.  I slowed, peering in the window of the
antiques store.  There was a large, glass elephant on display.  It made me
think of my grandmother.  She collected elephants in various forms, or she used
to anyway.  Porcelain, ceramic, wood—she had several shelves of them in her Fredericksburg
house. Now, there were a couple in her room at Spring Hill retirement home, and
I vaguely remembered a conversation where she discussed the significance of the
trunk position.  Up meant good luck—or was it down?  I wasn’t sure.  This
particular elephant’s trunk was up, whatever that meant.

I took a few
leisurely steps toward TEA (after all, I was undercover, just call me Gucci
P.I.), until I found myself in front of a large storefront window, which
undercut my entire stealth factor.  Not that it mattered, since the place seemed
empty.  I leaned toward the glass.  The place had wood floors and tables, and a
large counter bar in the center.  From the outside, through the smudged glass,
it looked cozy and warm.

No sign of
Evan, though.  I shielded my eyes and peered closer.  There was a low stage in
the back with a mic stand and a piano.  Still no people.  Was the place even
open?

My gaze slid
downward, checking for a sign that displayed the hours, and I noticed the
couple.  They sat at a table right next to the window, shooting me sideways
glances.

Uh, yeah, it
was open.

I jumped
back, and offered a sorry smile and wave to the couple, only to step on a shoe.

“Hey!”

I turned to
see the scowling face of a man in scrubs and a white coat—a doctor, probably heading
back to the hospital two blocks down.

“Sorry, so
sorry,” I mumbled, holding up my hands in surrender as I twirled away from the
sidewalk traffic.  I ducked into TEA.

Inside, it
smelled awesome, an intoxicating combo of cinnamon, pepper, and vanilla.

That was
where my original view of cozy and warm ended.  Upon closer inspection, I saw
scratched wood floors and tables, legs gouged with dents.  The two plush but
lopsided chairs in the opposite corner reminded me of the chair I used to love
to read in on my grandmother’s screened in porch—if her porch had been exposed
to the wind and the rain.  Tired baskets crammed with books were wedged between
chairs, and the piano was just a dusty, upright that appeared to be missing a
couple of keys.  Spanning the length of the back wall was the main counter with
a glass pastry case underneath, displaying cupcakes, giant cookies with crumbly
edges, and something that sort of resembled a scone.