Noggin (18 page)

I dreamed that night that Cate and I were lying on my roof, and we kissed and held hands and her head was resting on my shoulder. Mostly it felt just like before, like we could pretend the years away. Or she could. When I woke up, all I could think about was how the familiarity of it all made me wonder what would happen if I stayed there in that one spot and closed my eyes again, if I refused to acknowledge everything and everyone in the world around me. Maybe time, as they say, is just a human invention. Maybe I never really left because leaving wasn’t possible. Maybe we’re all on a string, and maybe our past selves are on that string and our future selves are too and maybe Jeremy Pratt’s there. Maybe he’s there lying awake at night and wondering if his family will be
okay after he dies. Maybe we all just exist, all versions of us exist at all times, and we have to figure out a way to get to each of them, to find each one and tell that version that it’s okay, that it’s all just the way it works, a concept too powerful to ignore but too complicated to explain.

It was the first week of December when I saw Cate again. We met at this new little coffee shop downtown called the Grindhouse, which I guess was supposed to be funny, but sort of grossed me out. I kept picturing people drinking coffee and dry humping. But as I’m sure you might have guessed, this is not what happened when I met up with Cate.

Even though it was pretty cold, she was waiting for me outside when I walked up. I’d told my mom to drop me off around the corner because I was a little embarrassed about not being able to drive yet. Before, when I was sick, it hadn’t mattered. But now with Cate being a little older and all, I didn’t want anything extra to remind her of our age difference. She stood up to hug me, and I counted to three and then let go of her, being careful not to touch the small of her back or press myself too close against her. She wanted to be friends, so we’d be friends until she
wanted something more than that. Damn, it was hard, though. I wanted to be like this couple I saw in a horror movie when I was a kid and be Super Glued to her forever. Only without the murder by the demented serial killer that followed.

“Should we go inside?” she asked, shivering.

“Hell yes,” I said.

I stepped just past her and opened the door. Then I stood back and waited for her to walk in ahead of me, and I swear it was like nothing was different. For a few seconds there, nothing had changed at all. Not her, not me, not the world around us. I’d call it déjà vu or whatever, but that’s sort of what my whole life was right after I came back. Just one big moment of “Hasn’t this happened before?” that no one else could understand.

“This okay?” she asked, stopping at a table by one of the front windows.

“Works for me.” I took my jacket off and hung it on my chair before sitting down. She did the same.

“This place is pretty good,” she said. “They’ve got the
best
chai I’ve ever tasted.”

“You and your chai,” I said. “Still no coffee? I thought maybe you’d grown into it or something.”

“Oh no. No, thanks. I’ve tried. I really have. It’s still like . . .”

“Drinking dirt?” I said, finishing her thought.

“Yeah.” She smiled. “Plus, Turner says tea’s much better for you anyway.”

Turner says tea’s better for you? What is he, a doctor? Last I heard, he worked with computers. So he knows how to use Google, then? Good for him. I bet if I Googled “people who are destined to lose their fiancées to miracle cryogenics patients,” his name would pop right up. So suck it, Dr. Computer.

“Well, I’m still getting a coffee. I’ll be right back. You want medium or large?” I stood up with my wallet in one hand.

“No, Travis. Here, let me get mine.” She handed me a five from her pocket.

I took it from her and then set it back down on the table.

“No way. You crazy?”

Then I walked away before she could argue. I ordered our drinks at the counter and looked over to see her texting someone. I bet it was Turner—probably checking in to make sure I hadn’t kidnapped her and tried to take her back in time with me or something.

“Here you go.” I handed her the tea and sat down.

“Thanks,” she said. “Sometimes they have music and stuff here. Over on that stage. We saw this guy doing an acoustic set here one night, and it was surprisingly good.”

“Oh yeah? We?”

“Me and Turner. He doesn’t drink or anything, so we usually end up coming to places like this whenever we need to get out of the house.”

Oh, Turner doesn’t drink? Well, isn’t he just Mr. Awesome? I swear
this guy was getting on my last nerve and I’d never even met him. Why couldn’t he be some jerk who made her miserable? I mean, I didn’t want her to be miserable, but I also didn’t want her to be in love with some guy who sounded perfect, either. Even her parents said they liked him, and I never thought they’d like anyone as much as they liked me. This was going to be harder than I thought.

“He’s a recovering alcoholic?” I asked, sort of whispering.

“No, Travis. Jesus.” She laughed.

“You’re sure?” I kept a straight face.

“He says he doesn’t like it. His mom was a pretty big drinker when he was a kid, and I think it just left a sour taste in his mouth, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That sounds like a good reason.”

“Travis?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, yeah. Still getting used to you having a boyfriend who isn’t me, I guess.”

“I’m sure it’s weird,” she said. “And I appreciate you trying so hard.”

“Did you date much? After I left?”

“Not really. I was completely shut off to even the idea of it for a long time. Then senior year Jake Brassett asked me to the Homecoming dance.”

“Jake Brassett? The gay football player?” Shit. I probably wasn’t supposed to say that.

“Yeah. That one. But he wasn’t gay at the time. Or he wasn’t all the way gay or whatever.”

“How long did you date him?”

“Not long. Maybe two or three weeks. Then I saw Ryan Fielder for a while after that. He was nice.”

“Ryan Fielder? Wow. Did you guys play Magic: The Gathering, like, every night?”

“No.” She laughed. “He’d grown out of that by then. Mostly we just drove around town and stuff.”

As hard as it was to hear her talk about dating other guys, it also made me proud of her. She hadn’t let my “death” ruin her, you know? She hadn’t let it keep her from trying to just be a normal kid who did normal-kid things. That being said, I made sure to add Jake Brassett and Ryan Fielder to my list of Assholes Who I Will Find a Way to Destroy. I mean, let a guy actually die before you go taking away his girlfriend.

“Let me ask you this,” I said.

“Oh boy. Okay. I’m scared.”

“Were either of them as good a kisser as I am?”

“I’m not answering that,” she said with surprise.

“Okay. Fine, fine. But at least tell me you never took either of them to the park. Please just tell me that.”

“Nope. Never once. Some things are sacred, Travis.”

“I haven’t been back since,” I said. “Feels too weird.”

“You’re kidding. Okay. Let’s go.” She stood up and started putting her jacket on.

“What?”

“We’re going to the park. We have to. It’s weird if we
don’t
now.”

I followed her out and to her car, which was parked on the street just about a block away. She was still driving the same thing she’d always driven, this black ’90s Jetta her stepdad had rebuilt an engine for and given to her on her sixteenth birthday. It felt so familiar that I didn’t think twice about kicking my right foot up to rest on the edge of the dashboard above the glove compartment, like I’d always done.

“Weird,” she said.

“What?”

“I just got the strongest déjà vu when you put your foot up there.”

Soon enough we were turning into a small parking lot beside the Colonnade at Kessler Park. We used to drive up here all the time, just the two of us. It seemed otherworldly, this massive collection of stone columns that stretched along the road and looked down onto the park. She liked the way it opened out to the nature all around, how nothing was confined to any small space. It was like a long corridor that only pretended to lead somewhere, but instead could’ve taken you in any direction you chose. Concrete benches lined the section we liked most, the one with no real roof, just rectangular beams lying across and connecting the two long rows of columns. If you sat there at the right time of day, just late enough in the afternoon for the sun to still be blazing
bright, but on its downward path toward the west, the shadows from the beams and columns would intersect and slice dark lines through your face and chest and arms. Maybe even your neck.

And so we got out and sat on one of our benches, and I immediately noticed how different this place felt without the sound of kids in the distance or tourists walking around snapping photos or cars driving past. Winter had driven these things away. And it
was
cold out, but it was a good cold, the kind that reminds you you’re alive, that every inch of your body is still able to feel. Even painful, uncomfortable things are good for a guy who never thought he’d feel them again.

“I love it here,” I said.

“I couldn’t let you go any longer without seeing it again.”

“Thanks. Coming up here alone would’ve been too weird.”

There was that feeling in my chest—the one where it feels like something is drilling into your ribs on each side and the vibrations are sort of meeting in the middle. And then it starts radiating down your arms and you’re not sure if you can steady them enough to reach out for her, to touch the sides of her face as she leans closer. Your voice even starts to shake, matching the nervousness of your body, of Jeremy Pratt’s body, as she finally gets close enough to hear you, and you say to her that this is the most perfect moment of either of your lives.

“You okay?” She snapped me out of my daydream.

“I’m fine. Just thinking about something.”

“What?”

“Okay. So I was wondering—how do you refer to me? Like, when I’m not around.”

“By your name. It is still Travis, right?”

“No, you know what I mean. Do you call me your ex-boyfriend? Or maybe former boyfriend? Dead boyfriend?”

“Well, in high school I tried not to talk too much about you. It was hard for me, I guess. I didn’t like saying things about you in past tense. It never felt right.”

“And after that?”

“After that, especially around the time I started dating again, I just decided that not talking about you was worse. That it actually made me feel more like shit. So I just called you Travis, my first boyfriend.”

“That’s not so bad, I guess.”

“I don’t think I ever called you my ex-boyfriend even once. So at least there’s that.”

“We should do this again,” I blurted out.

“Yeah,” she said. “We should. I’m super busy with school and work, but we’ll make it happen, okay?”

“Okay.”

And just like that, we were friends. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it would do. Anything that got me nearer to her would definitely work until I found a way to get even closer.

A few days later she called looking for a good excuse to skip her night class the next day and offered to pick me up from school. I immediately thought that maybe this was it—maybe this would finally be the day she came clean about how she
really
felt about us and how she couldn’t keep pretending with Turner anymore.

“Are you sure it’s okay to skip these classes?” I asked when she picked me up.

“Yeah. It’s fine. I told them my grandmother was dying.”

“Oh. Is . . . well, never mind.”

“What is it?”

“Is she? I mean, is she still alive?” I whispered
alive
like I wasn’t supposed to say it.

“Yes, Travis. My God. You weren’t gone for twenty years.”

“So where are we going?” I asked.

“Not telling. Just wait and see.”

We eventually drove up to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, which I hadn’t been to since a school field trip back when I was a freshman. We parked in the underground garage and went inside.

“Close your eyes,” she said as we walked past the gift store.

“If I close my eyes, I won’t be able to see the art,” I said.

“No. You’ve seen all this. I want to show you something else.”

Then she grabbed my hand. I’ll tell you this much—if
I’d never gotten to open my eyes again but could still feel her semi-sweaty grasp and the rough scratch of the tips of her fingernails, I would’ve been okay. She could’ve taken me anywhere as long as she kept pulling at me that way, tugging Jeremy Pratt’s arm and making my shoes squeak against the slick linoleum floor with every step.

“Okay,” she said, letting go of my hand and positioning me by the shoulders. “You ready?”

“If someone isn’t naked, I’m going to be unimpressed.”

“Shut up, pervert. Okay. On the count of three.”

“Do I open my eyes
on
three or right
after
three?” I took every opportunity I could to prolong this moment. Talking to her with my eyes closed felt more like it was supposed to feel than anything else had.

“On three. Okay. One . . . two . . . three!”

I thought I might cry. To be completely honest with you, I think I had at least one tear rolling down my cheek as soon as I saw it. I never thought it would happen, so it hadn’t even occurred to me that I’d open my eyes to see the one thing I’d always wanted to see before I died. But there it was, right in front of me. Katsushika Hokusai’s
The Great Wave off Kanagawa
. You’ve probably seen it on television or in someone’s dorm room or something. And maybe it was lame to be so infatuated with a piece of artwork that was so popular, but I didn’t care. I used to have this huge print of it hanging across from my bed, and I’d stare at it for hours, especially when I was sick. They’d even moved it down to the guest bedroom for me when I
couldn’t make it up the stairs anymore. Standing beside Cate, I looked at that thing like I was seeing the entire world for the first time. She’d remembered, of course, because I used to have this whole scheme about taking a trip to New York to see it in person before I died. But we ran out of time.