This is what prevented the hope from growing too strong, before they pulled the pieces of his car from the river, with finality.
I think about that now, anytime I’m driving somewhere. I think about who’s watching, or inadvertently acquiring evidence. I think about that now as I pull into school early—wondering if there are cameras on the buildings, inside or out as I pass, and what people will think if they watch the tape.
—
Max’s car is the only one in the senior lot, and the engine is still running, the exhaust white in the winter air. I rub my hands together to fight the chill as I make my way across the junior lot, to Max.
I knock on the door before pulling open the passenger side, so I don’t surprise him. I’ve always loved Max’s car. He got it late last school year, and it’s used, with fabric seats. There’s something appealing about it all, where you can imagine a whole story—the people who sat here, what they were like. It feels broken in. “It feels broke,” is what Max said, laughing, when I told him this. “But it runs. Most days.”
Now, I feel the heat sputtering from the vents, loud and rattling behind the plastic. Max turns down the radio dial, all the way until it clicks. He still hasn’t looked at me. His hand is shaking, and I’m not sure if it’s from the cold.
“He knew,” he begins. My shoulders stiffen, and he shakes his head and starts again. “He knew how I felt about you. That’s all.”
“How you felt about me…,” I repeat, letting the thought trail.
“He knew because you asked us to join cross-country, for fun, and I did. He knew because of the day in the city, at the ball game. He knew because I always asked if you were coming with us.”
He licks his lips, and my gaze drifts to his mouth.
“So I wasn’t really paying attention to what Caleb was up to right then, I’m sorry. I can’t answer your questions. I was trying to hold together a friendship with him, when he knew I liked his girlfriend. I could deny it all I wanted, but he knew me too well. I was too busy trying to hide it to see what was going on with him.” His hands grip the wheel, though we’re parked, and his knuckles blanch white. “I don’t know where he was going. I don’t know who he was talking to. I don’t know why he showed up at the race that day, and then left.” He turns to look at me then, his eyes wide and searching my face. “He’d been distant, but I thought it was because of something else. I’m sorry.”
This is Max in the front seat of his car: He has these faint dark circles under his brown eyes; his dark hair sticks up at odd angles, like he’s run his hand through it over and over; you can see the lines in his long arms, the muscles flexing in emotion. His lips are parted and his eyes trace over the contours of my face. I’m trying to find a place for his words. Fit them in the moments when he pushed me away, addressed me with apathy, when he picked me up that last night and drove us around for hours.
“Max,” I say.
“I know,” he says. “I know.” What we both know: we are forever and permanently bound to Caleb. The line is drawn, at his home, at school, even in this car. We’re here in secret, so people won’t see, won’t talk.
But I think of Caleb saying those words: I know.
What must he have known, or thought? Was he merely grasping straws in the dark? “But he said it to me,” I say. “Not you. Me.”
He tips his head down, and I can see he doesn’t want to say it, the thing he’s thinking, the thing we’re both thinking. That if Caleb saw it in him, he must’ve seen it in me, too.
And then I’m there, in the passenger side of Caleb’s car, after he sees us at the meet, laughing before lining up at the start of the race. He was angry, they said. I see him driving away, the wipers slashing through the torrent. I’m there when he comes upon the bridge, where we all jumped, where he promised I wouldn’t drown, and Max held me until I fell. I feel Caleb lose control of the wheel, confused by the change in weight, and traction, and direction. The tumbling and disorientation as gravity takes over, and then the current, metal tearing, water pouring in from every seam—
Max’s hand is on my shoulder, and he’s calling my name, and I can hear my own breath. “What I’m saying is, it’s not your fault, Jessa. It’s mine.”
But I’ve had enough of fault, and lines, and words. How can I trust his when I’m discovering all these things I never knew about the person I thought I once loved?
Another car pulls into the lot, and I know it’s time for me to go. But my gaze is locked on the small plastic smiling face on the dashboard of Max’s car—one of those bobble toys that’s been here forever. A disembodied happy face. And everything about that terrible night comes tumbling back.
That day in September, after the race and the rain, Max had called as I was getting out of the shower. I heard the ringing as I was stepping into my bedroom, then saw his name on the display. I held the phone in my hand for several seconds, deciding whether I should answer, before doing it. We had been careful about boundaries, since the day we found Saturn. We didn’t hang out without Caleb, except for at practice, with other people around. We would text, with specific questions, like What time is the bus leaving for the meet, but we didn’t call each other.
Finally, the moment tipped, and I answered. “Hello?” I said.
His voice was low. “Please tell me Caleb is with you.”
I looked around the room, confused. Wondering why Max would want Caleb to be with me. Why the undercurrent of desperation. Nothing made sense.
“No, Caleb isn’t with me,” I said, feeling my face contorting with confusion.
He didn’t respond.
“Max?” I said, wondering if the line had gone dead.
A beat of silence, and then, “Jessa—” It came out in a choked whisper, and I sat on the edge of my bed.
“What is it, Max? What?”
I could count the heartbeats echoing in my head in the moment before he answered. “They think his car went over the bridge.”
I felt the air rush from my lungs. “What? They think?” There was nothing substantial about his sentence. I had just seen him. He was just there.
It was all maybes anyway. I could do maybes, too. “Then they’re not sure. He’s probably getting food or something. Or at a friend’s house.”
Anyplace else.
“The guardrail is missing,” he said. “Caleb is missing.”
But I was shaking my head. There was another explanation. He had my necklace. I’d asked him to hold it for me. The last time I’d seen him, from the starting line of the race.
“I’m coming to get you,” Max whispered.