He stares, stares, stares out the window. “It’s plenty.”
And I’m worried by the resignation I hear in his voice. I fidget and turn the envelope over in my hands. It feels so light now. “So,” I say. “So nothing has changed, though. So, so…” Resolve tightens in my belly. “So no maybe later. Maybe now. You wanted to come. You’re coming.” I feel a burst of annoyance. What makes Matt think he can just give up? It’s not even my birthday yet.
“Lake—” His tone isn’t even mean. Or angry. Or anything.
My knuckles turn white, fingers clenched onto the envelope. “Matt—I—I—don’t be like this. Please.” I stomp my foot just like I’m twelve again. I’ve gotten used to the idea of Matt coming. Why is he trying to change it up on me? What gives him the right to say it’s all over?
He looks at me for the first time. Messy hair, clean-shaven, thin, hollowed-out cheeks. We stay there for five long seconds. I watch him for signs of the old version of my brother or any version of him that I recognize. But to me he looks small and alone and sad.
And then Matt says, “Okay.” No explanation, just “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
I nod and feel a slight swelling sensation pressing out at my ribs. I swallow it down so that, without further hesitation, I can slide my fingernail under the flap and tear open the envelope.
“‘Clue Number Three,’” I read. “‘By now you must think your boyfriend’s awfully clever. Outside of where we learn, you’ll find your next endeavor. Here we all share the spot together. Hummus, ham, peanut butter, and rye, our love’s forever.’”
Matt lets out a long, exaggerated breath and drops his head. “Wow. Wow, wow, wow. That is so much worse than I thought it’d be. Hummus? Peanut butter? And they say romance is dead.” There is still no humor in his eyes, or any scorn for that matter, but at least Matt is still showing signs of life.
“Don’t forget about the ham,” I say, barely registering how much easier it’s becoming to laugh at Will.
***
We arrive at St. Theresa’s in search of the fourth clue when the sun is high in the sky and threatening to tip over toward sunset. The empty school is lovely at this time of day. The centerpiece of campus is a quaint chapel with a white steeple stretching up into the sky. Dozens of classroom buildings encircle it and, at the bottom of a short hill, there’s a bright-blue swimming pool.
I know the third clue will be somewhere around the lunch table that I shared with Penny and Will during the school year. It’s been the same one since we first became friends.
Here we all share the spot together…our love’s forever.
The words have been playing in my head over and over. Our love. And Will had chosen our lunch table, a fact that Matt naturally found hilarious, as the third stop on the scavenger hunt.
I’ve wandered back to the ChatterJaw thread too many times to count. There have been no updates from them. Not from the person I know to be Will and not from his nameless muse.
No updates, though. Just the leftover words and the thoughts that sink claws into my back that I can’t shake.
I roll Matt down the deserted pathway made of bricks that were purchased by, and printed with the names of, past St. Theresa’s graduates. Next year, I’d have a brick on the path. But would Will or would Penny?
Or…or would neither?
No. I stuff the thought down, down, down. Everyone wants something from me, everyone wants to change my mind. I have to follow the path I’ve laid out for myself. It’s the only way to the truth. I need to find those wishes. They’re the only way I’ll really know who Will and Penny were when they weren’t attached to me.
I watch the back of Matt’s head. He hasn’t finished high school. He hasn’t even gotten his GED, although the state would have made certain accommodations for him had he wanted to try. He didn’t. Or more likely, he wouldn’t. Even though he’s listened to more books than are in an entire school library.
I listen to the sound of the wheels over the bumpy surface, content to remain silent. There’s so much to think about and I know that I’m reaching the end of it all. I’m lost in my own head when Matt tells me to stop.
His voice echoes against solid walls and glass windows. It’ll be another week and a half before students return to the school. The emptiness surrounding us is eerie.
“What?” I jerk the wheelchair to a halt. “What’s wrong?” It’s my automatic assumption now that something must be tragically wrong. This more than anything else seems to have become a constant in my life.
“I—I want to do something,” he says.
This isn’t what I was expecting. “You want to…do something?” If there’s one thing I’ve known about my brother in the past few years, it’s that he absolutely never wants to do anything other than die, and I’m not helping him do that, so I’m nervous to ask, but I do anyway. “What?”
“It’s stupid,” he says. “Actually, just forget about it.” Even though my brother can’t move, sometimes I can see the motion he’d make just by listening to his tone. Usually the gesture would involve giving me the middle finger, but today it’d be more like waving me off.
I sigh. “Matt, we are on a great, big, epically magnificent, cowabunga awesome birthday surprise scavenger hunt. How much more stupid can it get?”
“I thought maybe it’d be cool to be onstage for just a second. You know. Just to see what it felt like to graduate. Because I never got to do that.” He spits this all out at super speed. Faster than I’ve ever heard him talk, and even then, it sounds like each word pains him. He was noticing the bricks too, I guess. I suppose we’re all feeling a bit nostalgic this week. “But it’s dumb,” he concludes.
“It’s not dumb.” I rest my cast on the back of his wheelchair.
“It is. Graduation’s not about the stage. I know that.” His head droops and already it’s like I’m watching the life drain from him.
“I bet it’s a little about the stage,” I say, teasing, and I can’t help imagining Matt in a cap and gown. But the Matt I picture is walking and grinning, still tan, still my brother. Although generally a jerk and a half, Matt is still the smartest person I know. He deserves to be on a graduation stage. “Come on,” I say, standing up straighter. “I have an idea.”
“Lake…” He protests without really protesting. I pick up speed, wheeling him down the curved path, around the outside of the chapel to a dome-shaped building marked Klatzenburg Auditorium.
“Voilà,” I announce with a flourish of my cast-encased arm. Suddenly this seems brilliant. Matt said I needed closure. That’s why I’ve come after the clue. Now I’m not the only one searching for my bookend.