Page 40 of What You Left Me

The sides are taped shut. My fingers work as gentle scissors to break the seal. When the lid lifts up, there is a sheet of loose-leaf paper taped over the box top.

I MEAN IT. DO NOT LOOK AT THIS.

I remove the paper. There’s another piece beneath it.

PUT THIS BACK, KATIE!

The inside of the box is visible now. Against the perimeter, swollen with something beneath the surface, lies a rectangular envelope. I blink once, twice, making sure my eyes are focused. When I look again, I pick it up.

PROPERTY OF MARTIN MCGEE AND SPENCER KUSPITS

TOP SECRET

ONLY OPEN WHEN DEAD

My back slides down the door, falling, falling, falling, until the ground finds me.

• • •

I’m sorry for letting Brooke kiss me at Winter Formal. She’s an amazing girl. Any guy would be lucky to have the chance to date her. But her and me, we didn’t quite fit. I knew it. She knew it. I guess you get to a certain point in high school where you run out of people in your circle, and you go for the unexpected. She’s the most incredible girl I’ve ever been with, that’s for sure, but we ended up being more like friends who sometimes did stuff then boyfriend and girlfriend. The whole reason she started hanging with me and the boys more was to get away from her other friends. Then word got out, and our “relationship” gave her a good excuse to stay away from them, so she ran with it. So did I. The whole thing got so complicated it seemed easier to just accept it. We played the parts well, but it never really felt as natural as it should.

Now I finally understand all the times she used to say, “I don’t know. Buy me something random one day or something. I just want to know you’re thinking of me.”

Knowing Petra is thinking of me—that she’s dreaming of me, over and over—it’s enough to make a guy in a placeless place feel very much like he has a place.

But I can’t seem to find a good way to tell her that.

• • •

I believed myself. I did. Martin was there in my dream. But this is different than believing. This is reality.

“Top secret! Only open when dead!” Aminah screams. She throws the envelope down as if it’s contaminated.

Turrey picks it up by one corner. “Do we open it?” he asks, looking at me.

Like it was made just for this occasion, the McGees’ dining room table seats six. I sit at one end, Turrey the other, and the rest in the seats along the sides, as if they’re our children waiting for us to reach our executive decision. “Why do I have to make the call?” I shout.

“You’re the psychic!” Turrey shouts back. He slides the envelope across the table. It collides with my folded arms.

“I’m not psychic! I’m just the only one who’s been able to sleep!”

“Not true,” Turrey says. “In my truck yester—” Disbelief strikes him in the face. “Fly was in my dream. Remember? I told you about it! Was it really him?” he asks, as if I’m an expert on this now.

“I don’t know!” Yelling helps mask the quiver that vibrates through my whole body. I figured no one believed Cameron earlier, and I was right, because if anyone had, even just one, the force of that person’s entire belief system being thrown into chaos would’ve crushed me. I feel it now, and air is so precious in my lungs I keep holding it in for fear that when it escapes, I’ll never get anything back.

• • •

I guess what I’m figuring out is that I’m sorry for the ways I’ve hurt the people I care about. Maybe all we have is ourselves, but it’s the people around us who lift us up and make us better.

Before Dad messed up his back, we did a cross-country road trip every summer. I used to press my face against the glass and watch how, depending on how I looked at it, the outside world moved really fast or seemed to stay totally still. It blew me away. No matter what I picked, everything had to change eventually. Day melted into night. Flatlands grew into mountains. I liked it better when I took my time, staring at green grass until it morphed into sand or disappeared into concrete or something.

I don’t remember when I started watching the blur. I stopped asking questions. Hated answering them too. They are tests I decided I’d rather not take. Brooke and her constant “Why are you being like this?” My dad and his “When will you ever do what you’re capable of in school?” Spitty and his “What are you so afraid of, Fly?”

I danced across the graduation stage. I drank the whiskey. I got in the White Whale. And this is what I get. Just me, alone and filled to the goddamn brim with questions I can’t seem to answer.

19

The doors swing out into a dark, expansive gym, skylights projecting moonlit shadows onto the squeaking lacquered floor. Basketball hoops hang from the ceiling, and banners decorate the whitewashed walls, detailing a select few of the tens of thousands that have laughed, cried, cheated, and lied their way through the many activities forced upon them in this space. Still the kids come back day after day, year after year. Even on nights like these—where laser lights cut across the floor in jagged patterns, x-ing over bodies swaying near the beat that booms from the speakers—they come by choice.