Page 34 of What You Left Me

Looking at Art staring off in the distance and Cameron staring at me, all three of us in different states of deep contemplation, I agree to let her come along, giving her a nod in the direction of the door. I know she’s dying to understand what’s up with me, and it’s all gotten so strange that maybe it will be okay to let her in on some of it. If ever anyone could appreciate the weirdness that’s happening right now, it’s Cameron in her homemade Art Garfunkel tee. She frees herself of Daniel’s arm and joins me.

“What’s happening?” she whispers as we begin walking. Even the hallways demand libraryesque silence. She winces at the fluorescent lights. “I have a headache. Why did I drink wine coolers in the middle of the day yesterday?”

“We’re going to find Spencer.”

“Why?”

It’s too early to tell her I’m working on knowledge from my dream. I can already feel the details slipping, so to preserve what I remember, I explain to her about the shoe box and the envelope, saying Martin mentioned something about it at graduation. We go down on the elevator and walk through a few clickety halls before arriving at one of the hospital entrances. It’s still dark outside. A woman arrives to sit behind the main desk just as we approach. She glances up. “Do you need help?”

“Yes, thank you. I was hoping to see Spencer—” I come to a stop. I’m sure I’ve heard his last name over the past two days, but it’s nowhere to be found in the overflow of information clouding my brain.

“Spencer?” she inquires, as if I’m both troublesome and perplexing. The longer I pause, the wearier she grows. “Visiting hours won’t start for a while, so I’d suggest—”

“Kuspits,” Cameron declares. “Junior.” Her unrelenting friendly smile bends the receptionist’s will.

The woman plunks something into her keyboard, scans the information, and gives us directions. “I don’t think they’ll let you in!” she calls out as we head down the hallway to a new set of elevators.

“How did you know his last name?”

Cameron laughs, picking fuzz off Art’s nose. “His dad left his wallet behind.” I let out a startled gasp. “Oh stop,” she says. “I’m planning on giving it back. I found it when I heard you go to the bathroom.”

The elevator dings. We follow imaginary parallel lines inside.

“Why did Martin tell you that?” Cameron asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, and that’s the whole truth. I don’t know how or why or what it even means, but Martin keeps finding me, and I keep falling deeper. Away from my life and into the one he’s left behind.

The blueprint for this hospital must read like a maze. It’s a complicated series of turning hallways and elevator rides, all of which lead to places that look the same as what came before. It reminds me of my first week in high school, when I thought I’d never understand how to reach the east gym from the north wing, much less find my locker between classes.

Yet the desk clerk did not lead us astray. A nurse sees us walk up and looks like she’s about to stop. Then she looks at a file in her hands like she hasn’t noticed us at all.

Spencer doesn’t have the luxury of a private room. In a space curtained off at the end of a series of similar rectangular setups, he’s awake, reading a magazine. The first thing I note is the lack of flowers around his bedside. Martin’s room was inundated. Then the bruising around his dubious eyes: a side effect of slamming into his airbag. Good fortune in comparison, because juxtaposed against what I saw of Martin yesterday, Spencer might as well have a four-leaf clover sprouting from the top of his brassy mop of curls. Aside from the bandaged broken nose and a gash on his forehead, he looks downright blissful, with a resting grin even tragedy can’t seem to shake from his face. I remember seeing him at the ceremony. He’s the one that told Martin to invite me to the party.

“You,” he states, remembering me too.

“Me,” I say, now knowing confidence is key in communicating with the Martin McGee crew. “How are you?” It’s a useless question that I instantly regret, but words cannot be swallowed back once we’ve released them into the world.

“Been better.” He looks to a clock on the wall across the way. “Kind of early for visitors.”

“I know. I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t important.” That same voice, the one from the bottom of me, urges me to keep going, but another more rational voice tells me this is too far. I can’t ask him about something from a dream. And a third—the voice that cannot be swallowed back—continues on with no notice of the conflict. “I’m sure you don’t want to talk about what happened, so I just want to say I’m sorry, if that means anything. I’m here because Martin told me something.” An uncontrolled note plunks out when I say his name. “He mentioned a pact. Something about an envelope in a Foamposites box. Said you’d know what that means.”

The magazine almost falls out of Spencer’s hands. Cameron instinctively clutches me.

“He said that to you?” Spencer asks.

My muscles are still seized as I try to do something that passes for a confirmation.

“Why would he tell you that?” he wonders, his gaze shifting upward, eyes darting back and forth, reading the blank ceiling tiles.

“I was hopingyou’dhave that answer,” I say.

Cameron clears her throat to get his attention, but she only gains mine. Her quizzical stare shoots from me over to Spencer’s hands. They are shaking, rather violently, and he doesn’t seem the least bit aware. He is lost to whatever’s playing out in his mind. Cameron and I observe, frozen in fascination, communicating our shared curiosity and fear telepathically. Neither of us wants to interrupt what can best be described as a memory exorcism. He jerks his head forward and locks in on me. “Can you get it?”

“The envelope?”

He doesn’t answer. He goes back to wherever he went before he asked.

Cameron jumps in. “Of course! In fact, we will go right now! Feel better!” She shuttles us out of the room. Holding hands, we fall into a hallway corner. “That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” she says.