I knew Max would wait for us, after we got changed. I knew in a way that didn’t make me have to ask him, or him have to say it, even though his allegiance was to Caleb in that moment. But I knew, because of how he once pushed back through the crowd for me, how he said You just left her, to him after.
We dropped Hailey off first, on the way, and we were almost to my place when he said, “Want to talk about it?”
But I just stared out the window, resting my head against it. I felt the reality filter in, all the changes. I wouldn’t take out my phone to text Caleb as soon as I was alone in my room. He wouldn’t pick me up tomorrow. I’d have to ask my parents if I could use Julian’s car for school. They’d have to ask why. I’d have to say it. All this talk, and now I just wanted silence.
“No,” I said. He pulled up at my house, and I grabbed my bag from the backseat. “Max?” I said. “Thank you for the ride home.”
He nodded once, his face stoic.
I went to close the door, and he called my name. I turned back. “We’re friends, too. Whether you’re with him or not. We were friends before.” I’d known him forever, it was true, but the last year with Caleb had really cemented our friendship.
I nodded and looked quickly away, feeling the knot in my throat, the burn in my eyes.
Max’s words were both true and not. We could be friends at practice. He could give me a ride home if I needed one. But we couldn’t just pick up the phone, or meet up at the beach, or fight over riding shotgun.
All of this changes, too.
The car is mine alone again, now that Julian’s gone. I park in the far lot, with the rest of the juniors who have their licenses. My eyes scan the lot for Caleb’s preferred spot from last year—under the tree, facing the athletic fields. Not the most convenient spot for morning class, but the best location for leaving at the end of the day. Caleb was like that, always planning for the parts that came later.
I grab whatever spot I come across first, ready for another day of the places Caleb does not exist. The combination lock has been permanently removed from his empty locker. I won’t hear his voice in the hall, his laughter around the corner, or see the top of his head in a crowd, his eyes locking with mine over the people between us. All empty spaces, a gap in the world as I know it.
But something’s different today, and I think it’s from spending so much time in his room. Now I’m seeing him everywhere. Not just the emptiness, but the things he’s left behind, instead.
Now I see the paint scratched off his locker, from the lacrosse stick, and the memory flickers through my mind: Caleb spinning around too fast when I whisper Boo in his ear, the stick hooked through the bag on his back scratching the metal. In first period I pass the open door of his class and see his seat, now occupied by another guy from his team—but at first it’s Caleb waving his hands over his head, recounting a story. Sitting in math class before lunch, staring out the glass window of the wooden door, my eyes are drawn to the remnants of glue, a corner of adhesive—and I see Caleb biting his lip, scrubbing at it as I walk by.
—
As part of school spirit week last year, the lacrosse team had plastered our school flags to each classroom window. Which probably would’ve been fine, but they’d added a line in black marker, about their opponent. Specifically, referring to how badly, and what, they sucked.
Which was why the team was back out in the hallway after school with buckets of water and sponges and soap, scraping the glued signs off with their fingernails, or using the ice scrapers from their cars.
Sitting in math now, I imagine him there on the other side of the door, working at the window along with the rest of his teammates as I walked by.
I’d passed him in the hall, making a tsk-ing sound, laughing at the look he gave me in return. He ran a soap-streaked hand through his sun-bleached hair and gave me a self-conscious smile. I paused across the hall, my hand on my hip. “You missed a spot,” I said.
One of his teammates said, “Can’t you get your girlfriend to help?”
And he said, “Why would I want to subject my girlfriend to stripping glue from glass? Run, Jessa. Run while you can.”
Everything inside and outside of his room still reminds me of him. I catch my dimmed reflection in the glass of the classroom door, and even that, even the image of me, conjures up Caleb.
Someone calls my name, and it takes me a second to realize it’s the teacher. And by the time I do, by the time I look in my notebook, ready to answer, he has moved on, unsure of what to do with me, either.
—
The bell rings overhead, and the rest of the students leave.
I hear the distinct tread of shoes turn in the hallway, entering the classroom. They’re purple, with a strap and a black heel. She taps one toe beside my bag. “You ready?” she asks.
Hailey has her long dark hair swooped up into a ponytail. She’s trying to make light of this moment, and I suddenly see how lucky I am, because I do remember the last time we spoke. It wasn’t at the service; it was the next day. She’d come by my house, and after my parents let her in, I cut her off with one-word answers and asked her to leave. Her last words: I’m trying to help here.
Yeah, well, you’re not.
Don’t wreck this, too.
Too. That little word. It dug itself under my ribs, and every time I heard her speak, I’d feel them stabbing my heart.
“Hailey,” I say, trying to find the right words to apologize.
“There are french fries,” she cuts in, tapping her toe again. “You know how the line gets on french-fry day. I’m just saying.”
I swing my backpack over my shoulder and give her a grateful smile. “Let’s go,” I say.
On the way to the cafeteria, Hailey tries to lead me in the other direction. She tries to distract me with gossip about her latest date.
“What the hell is that?” I ask, as Hailey pulls me past the display.
But it’s too late. I’ve already seen it.
There’s a pen hanging from poster board, and sheets of paper stapled to it. It’s a petition, I see. A petition to rename Coats Memorial Bridge to Evers-Coats Memorial Bridge. There are at least a hundred names. There’s a photo of Caleb at the top, the same one from his school ID, and beside that, mounted to the wall in a glass frame, is his gray athletic T-shirt, folded into a square, so his name is visible under the logo for our school.
“Where did they get this?” I ask.
“His locker,” Hailey answers. “Come on.” She pulls me by the arm, but I don’t budge.
“When?” I ask.
“His mom came, that first week, when you were…” She trails off. She doesn’t need to say it. When I was in my room, in the dark, not answering my phone or texts or the doorbell. When she showed up and I wouldn’t see her, and I went running late at night, by myself, after everyone was sleeping—sure, at times, that I could hear the rumble of a river in the distance.