“It is Valentine’s Day,” he said.
We walked the stacks, his arm around me, taking in the warmth and the quiet, like we were strolling the beach. He led me through the fiction aisles, to the row of computers, hidden away in cubbies. “Come on,” he said, tugging my hand and leading us toward the periodical desk. It was empty, and there were a few single cubbies for working scattered around the perimeter.
“My favorite desk,” he whispered, leading me toward the cubby pressed against the window. He quickly looked over his shoulder before opening the bottom cabinet. Inside was the computer tower, humming. But there was a shelf above it, with a separate drawer. Caleb opened the drawer, reaching deep into the dark, and pulled out a handful of candy, the wrappers echoing in the silence.
“This is yours?” I asked.
He smiled. “They give me a hard time about bringing food in. But you know how I am about food. So I keep some reserves on hand, just in case.” He patted the top of the desk, and I hopped onto the surface. He unwrapped a candy, offered it to me.
“They never find it?” I asked.
“Nope,” he said. “I’ve been using this desk for a year. Nobody checks the drawers.” I peered inside the open drawer. There was also a pen inside, and what looked like his math homework, half-completed. “Promise you won’t tell,” he whispered.
“Promise,” I said as the taste of butterscotch filled my mouth.
“Come on,” he whispered, pulling me off the desk. “We’re not done here yet.”
There were large, uncovered windows facing the trees. Beanbag chairs in the shapes of animals, in the kids’ section. A framed print of an atlas map on a wall, signed by the artist.
He kissed me in the travel aisle, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, and I thought, I love him, I love him. I really do.
—
In the days after his death, I’d spent plenty of time with the map program open, looking for where he might’ve been heading.
The bridge was on the route we took for the beach, so I was familiar with the passing landmarks. I thought of the food places we’d stopped at on the way, or on the way back. Picking up ice at the gas station for the cooler we were hauling with us to the shore. The ice cream shop, open seasonally during summer hours only. I supposed it was possible he was in the sudden mood for a hoagie. But there were closer places, on the way back from the meet to his house.
I had traced the roads that forked off after the bridge, looking for any possibilities. I’d thought, briefly, of the library again. He was the only student I knew who used the library outside of school. Most of my classmates, if they needed a library, used the school facility. If they were going to a study group, they’d meet at someone’s house.
But he really would go study at the library. I think he liked getting out of his house. I think he liked the silence. If I drove by his place and he wasn’t home, and he didn’t answer his phone, I’d know where to find him.
He had found himself some solace there.
For a while, I was convinced he’d been heading there. After the meet. Except he hadn’t brought his backpack with him, that day. It was, I had heard, still in his room. He had taken nothing with him that might tip us off. And so everything circled back to me.
I have a lump in my throat, standing with the shell in my hand. I want to keep this. I’m scared his mother will find out. Still, I take the risk, sticking it into my purse. I remember the moments later on when I felt it wouldn’t work between us, that there was too much to mend, but as I work my way back, I remember this part as well.
These moments when I was so sure, so one hundred percent made of a single feeling, that I know it wasn’t a mistake.
That I can take the pieces together. I loved him, once. I loved him, once, despite everything to come. I loved him, and I lost him, and it makes sense, then, that I would feel pieces of myself in this room, too.
I know what I’m looking for, with this endless search, where I can’t seem to get enough, no matter how much more I find.
He took parts of me when he went, and I can’t seem to get them back, and now I’m digging through everything, trying to piece together myself as well.
I clear off the rest of the trophies and books, and all that’s left is the marked-up white shelf, and a piece of gold fabric wedged in the gap against the wall. I pull on the fabric, and a trail of ribbon emerges.
—
It was Christmas.
He pulled this off the box I’d wrapped, tossed it behind him over his head. Balled up the wrapping paper, and did the same.
It was snowing, the big, fluffy kind that piled up on the windowsill, coating everything in softness. He opened the box, revealing the keychain in the shape of a flattened metal helmet, flipped over to show the signature of his favorite player—my dad knew the player’s mom through a mutual business partner, and got the signature for me. I’d been looking forward to giving him this for the last few weeks, and couldn’t stop the smile from spreading as he pulled the keychain from the box.
I held my breath as he dangled it on his pointer finger.
God, the look on his face.
I stand on my toes, looking to see if there’s anything else wedged behind the gap in the shelves, but there’s nothing. I bring one of the new boxes over to the side of his room and drop the contents of his shelves inside, kneeling beside it as I tape it up. I plant my hand against the carpet behind me to push myself upright, and a sliver of glass hidden in the crease against the wall digs into my palm. I brush it off and hold it up to the window. It’s clear, the shape of a triangle, with a slightly purplish tint. I move my hands around the edge of the carpet, digging my fingers deeper into the fibers, and find another shard.
There are two more by the time I’m done, all scattered against the wall beside the bedside table. I leave them on the wooden surface, moving them around like a jigsaw puzzle. But nothing fits. There are too many missing pieces. I try to think about something breakable that had been here, that’s now gone. Something on the surface that could’ve been knocked over.
There’s the lamp, the wires from his chargers, an empty plastic cup from a sporting event. Maybe a glass cup was also here, I think. Maybe a picture frame. I close my eyes, envisioning the surface of the bedside table once more, but nothing comes to mind.
But what does come to mind is the way he’d always knock things off the surface. The Danger Zone, he called it. It became a joke: Don’t put anything there if you fear for its safety.