It was me who got it stuck. Caleb was loading up the notebooks on top of his desk, getting ready to go study at the library. He swung it onto his back and called, “Ready?” over his shoulder
Halfway down the steps, I asked, “Do you have any gum?”
“Second pocket,” he said.
We were still moving, descending the steps, and after I took a piece of gum, I tried to pull the zipper shut—but it caught, and I pulled harder. But when I tried to tug it back to realign things, it wouldn’t move. “Oh, crap. I broke your backpack,” I said.
He stopped moving and dropped it to the ground at the base of the staircase, fidgeting with the zipper. “My gum is held hostage,” he said.
“Forgive me?” I said.
“Always,” he said.
Now, I think again, Forgive me, Caleb. Because I’m trying to unearth something he wanted to keep hidden. And I can feel how close I finally am.
The zipper, now, is pried open. It seems someone has taken scissors to the material around it, splitting it open, but also tearing the fabric in places. I wonder if it was just Max who tore into it, looking for the money stolen from him, and I didn’t notice.
Either way, someone has been through here, so sure there was something hidden.
That pack of gum is still inside, and I laugh for the moment, imagining this was all they uncovered. The pieces are brittle, snapping in my hand. I toss them in the garbage, but the scent of mint fills the empty room, until it is inescapable. It’s starting to rain, so I don’t open the window, but I take Caleb’s trash down the steps, outside.
—
I move quickly, through the drizzle. The garbage goes out tonight.
Peering inside, I see the placemats, the cookbooks. All dumped without care. It’s junk. It’s nothing. I tip Caleb’s garbage can over, watch the contents rain down over the rest of the trash.
I dislodge a cookbook in the process, and underneath, I see something iridescent. At first I think it’s one of Mia’s toys—the colors change when the light hits it. But as I move the other items aside, it comes into focus. It’s a spiral-bound notebook that I last saw less than a week ago, in the passenger seat of Eve’s car.
I had gone by her house three times, without being let in, after the accident. I walked up their front steps and stood at the door, and heard muffled noises behind. I knocked, and the noises went quiet. They didn’t come out. They didn’t move. I figured they knew it was me and decided they didn’t want to talk to me, and I tried to respect that.
I sent a card instead, a lame thing expressing condolences, which felt absolutely appalling in hindsight, but I couldn’t get inside otherwise. I mailed it across two towns, a few days before the service.
I felt invisible, the ghost of a person left behind, ignored as I drove by her house, or sat in the pew of the church, beside Hailey.
And then, suddenly, she saw me. The tables turned.
—
My house had been empty, my parents on the way to pick up Julian. And the silence was unbearable. In the silence, I could only hear wisps of Caleb: Just leave it, Jessa. Just say it. Mia, come say goodbye to Jessa—
I had been standing on the front porch, just to breathe, when I saw her car, like a ghost itself, parked at the corner of my street. It was dusk, everything cast in shadows, and for a moment I thought I had conjured it from my mind. The window was cracked, the car dark. But I saw a figure moving inside. I stepped closer, just to be sure it was real. I walked down my front steps, my arms crossed over my chest, and at first she didn’t notice. She was staring up at the big house behind me, and I was suddenly embarrassed by it. By the white pillars and the brick facade, the hedges all cut to the same height, the way it all felt suddenly so unnecessary. She narrowed her eyes at it—the lights on outside and inside, the curtained windows—and frowned when she saw me.
“Hi,” I said as she lowered the window some more. Her eyes were dry and cold, and I wondered if she was out here for some sort of revenge fantasy. As if she could see the river rising up under the base of my car in the driveway, sweeping me away.
I took a tentative step back, unsure of everything.
“Jessa,” she said, like she was confused to find me here—as if she weren’t the one parked in front of my house, waiting for me. “I was going to knock.”
I nodded. Waiting. She was the adult, but it seemed like she was checking out of the conversation, leaving it to me. My breath escaped in a short burst of fog. The words I’m sorry hovering between us. But I didn’t know what I was apologizing for.
“We’re moving,” she finally said.
The shock of it knocked me back a step. “Oh. Where?”
But she brushed the question aside. “I need to pack up his room.”
It’s then that I saw the question, heard it lingering between the spoken lines. She licked her lips. “This isn’t something a mother should ever have to do.” And then, “The room is full of you, Jessa.” It was both an invitation and a request, and I seized it.
“Okay,” I said.
“We’ll be ready for you this weekend.” Then she started the car, with one look back at my house.
She looked so small, with me standing over her on the curb, and the childlike notebook in the passenger seat, which must’ve been Mia’s.
My parents were due back with Julian at any moment. Memories of Caleb circled in the silence again. I was never so grateful for the headlights coming down the road, and Julian crammed in the backseat, like an oversized kid.
I was already walking toward the driveway when he exited the car.
“If I knew you’d be waiting on the curb, I would’ve caught an earlier train,” he joked. He tucked my head under his chin and said, “Good to see you, kid.”
I patted him twice on the back, thrown by the sudden display of affection. My parents averted their gaze, and I knew: they had spoken to him, warned him that I was a fragile thing that must now be handled with care.
Like a glass figurine in the box.
—
Now I see the notebook in the trash can, under the placemats and utensils and cookbooks, nothing else of Mia’s on top or underneath.
I open the cover, expecting to see Mia’s writing. But instead it looks like a ledger. Row after row of times, dates, locations. I flip the page, and it keeps going. A diary. A file. Propping it on the edge of the garbage can lid, I try to read the words in the fading light. I cup my hand around the pages, to protect it from the steady drizzle.
There is a list. An annotated schedule. I’m confused at first. It says things like: school, home, school, with predictable times, in an unwavering pattern of regularity.
The dates don’t make sense, because Caleb wasn’t there. These are more recent.
Then there are a few diversions. Walk, 10 p.m. Another: Run. Out for 1 hr. And another: Girl shows up. Leaves after 10 min. And then an address follows.
I look again. I know that address. It belongs to my best friend. To Hailey. I don’t understand why Eve would be following Hailey. What Hailey has to do with anything at all.