Page 42 of What You Left Me

“I don’t know—”

“Martin McGee, are you embarrassed? I never thought I’d see the day!”

“Cut it out.”

“Hey, remember what you just told me,” she starts. “People can like you. People can love you. Peopledolove you.” She presses her hands over his heart. “And we want you back.”

20

Back to the hospital again. Before this weekend, I’d been here once: when I was born. The same receptionist from earlier in the day sits behind the main entrance desk. “Here again?” she asks us. “At least it’s closer to visiting hours.”

We travel as a pack toward the elevators, me at the helm, guiding us to Spencer’s floor.

The envelope is in my hands. I grip it so tight that the sides start to fold over. Feeling the weight of it keeps me steady.

It is real. This is real.

We walk down a hallway lined with windows. Beyond the distraction of restaurants and stores packed along the roadside, the ground in the distance irons out, level and unblemished. It appears to be an edge, like if we headed toward it we would fall off. Maybe that’s where Martin is. The place where the round Earth turns into an edge. Somewhere impossibly possible.

Not dead. Just stuck.

Everyone stares out at nothing as they walk, tracing back through the last two nights of sleep and wondering how it’s possible that I know what I know.

Brooke is especially off her guard. She fell asleep on the car ride over, and when she woke, she had a startled look on her face, like something happened she wanted to discuss but didn’t know how. She kept looking back at me, her lips slightly parted, words failing her.

I understood anyway.

She’d seen him too, but she’s not sure how to take that and carry it with her into waking life.

I used to love the idea that in sleep, my mind could form a narrative around ideas from days, months, even years prior. Something as unsubstantial as dropping a piece of paper could get put away for later use. And the feeling, that punch-drunk, knee-buckling sensation of waking up from a great dream so complete and whole that you spend the rest of the day peeling imagination off reality; that used to be my favorite escape from the madness that was school.

But last year my dreams started to brown at the edges. Slowly they rotted all the way through, and every time my eyes closed, one single memory multiplied against itself. I taught myself not to pay too much attention to my dreams anymore. To wake up and purge them from memory without a second thought.

It’s some unspoken human code that we are to be bored by dreams. We are to think they don’t matter. I’ve tried to believe that. I’ve never been able to, even with all the trying in the world. Now, for the first time in a long time, my dreams have done some good. I don’t know how or why, but the voice that lives in the deepest parts of me confirms it, nodding yes when everything feels like no.

It’s the worst possible timing. A reroute at the end of a deadline I’ve been limping toward for a year. The final is tomorrow, and I’m holding an envelope instead of the thick study packet collecting dust on my desk. The anchor in my stomach shifts around, just to remind me that it’s there.

But I need this, I say to the sharp pain that comes after the anchor settles.I need to help Martin. I need to feel likemaybecan becomeyes.

When we arrive where Spencer is, the nurse from earlier this morning approaches us. “He’s read every magazine we have,” she says. “He fell asleep a little while ago and woke up very upset. Won’t close his eyes again. Maybe you guys can help distract him.” She leads us to Spencer’s bedside then slips away.

Spencer coughs in response to the sight of the six of us. It must be strange to see this group glued together by the accident he caused.

“Didn’t think I’d see you here,” he chokes out, looking at Turrey. “Chris said you’ve been off doing your own thing.”

“You don’t look too bad,” Turrey says. They clasp hands. Nothing about it is right. It’s just a formality. In some ways, it seems like it’s an insult. “Damn.” Turrey shakes his head. “I told you guys not to drink.”

Spencer takes it. No rebuttal. Not even a reaction.

The edges of Martin’s envelope have started to fray from my iron grip. I can see loose-leaf paper inside. “We got this for you,” I say.

It leaves my hands and goes into his, and he slips his fingers underneath the edge. He pulls out three sheets of paper and begins examining them. A question mark hangs in the air for so long it numbs the rest of us into placidity. Just six people staring at one person in silence for what seems like forever. Abruptly, Spencer drops the sheets and looks at the ceiling tiles.

I gesture to the papers splayed out along his side. “May I?”

“I don’t care,” he says.

Novemember 12