Page 48 of What You Left Me

Up until Friday, my life always felt like enough. Like my heart was at capacity, and I didn’t need to find any new people to know and love. Now my list seems way too short. I can see all the spaces between—the experiences I hid from, the people I never really let in.

I see how their lives are getting fuller just by knowing one another, and I’m just here, stuck, watching it all happen without me.

• • •

Ever since the first day of high school, when Daniel sat in the open seat at our table in Honors Biology, it’s been the four of us. Now Cameron and Aminah sit in the front of his car, Daniel and me in the back, and I notice the spaces between us—the experiences we hid from, the people we never really let in. I see how it doesn’t matter as much as it seemed to in school. We’ve been gone from them for ten minutes and I already miss the way Turrey and Brooke filled in the gaps. We blended into their group without protest. Or they came into ours. There isn’t even a difference. We’re all trying to survive the same thing: the waiting.

“Thank you for everything,” I say to my friends in the car. Against their better judgment, they have been here for me this weekend.

“You know we love you, Petty,” Cameron says. She rubs her palms on Daniel’s steering wheel, having driven for him so he could get some quote unquote “beauty rest.”

“Tell them,” she mouths to me through the rearview mirror.

Aminah laughs. “What were we gonna do? It was come with or not see you. I swear, you’re twenty times stubborner than I am.” She turns to touch my hand. “And I mean that in the most loving way.”

“Please don’t let it get sentimental in here,” Daniel coughs out.

I didn’t even realize he’d woken back up.

After a beat, he lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Okay, fine, I’ll be serious for a second. I need to thank you guys too. For being patient with me. I know you’ve known about me forever. There was a time sophomore year when I was convinced Petra had found my secret Tumblr account with all the queer fan fiction I’d written.”

I did find that, but I don’t say anything.

“Thank you for not pushing it,” he continues. “And not being weird about the Michael thing.”

“Of course.” I can barely pause before my curiosity barrels over my politeness. “Can we know what’s happening?”

Daniel tosses a forlorn look over his shoulder. “Well, when you all left for your little mission to find Spencer the first time, you woke me up. I go to follow you guys and see Michael looking—no, staring—at me, and I think, ‘This is so ridiculous. I need to know what’s going on.’ So I ask him. He doesn’t lie. He says he cares about me. He’s just trying to figure out how to be brave like I am.” He stops for a second, amazed. “Isn’t that funny? He doesn’t know that I came out to you guys literally yesterday. He said he was scared of what people would do to him—it’s not easy being black and gay—but he was also saying that with all that’s happening with Martin, he doesn’t want to run out of time, because what if it’s all gone tomorrow?”

“So you’re together?” Aminah asks.

“Kind of. I’ll be at college soon...” Daniel drifts off, much closer to hitting a nerve than he prefers to be. “Part of me knows it’s going to have to end when I leave, but I also can’t stop myself. I like him.” He rolls down his window. “Sorry!” he yells over the wind, waving one hand back and forth like a broom. “Have to air the car out. Can’t have sappiness polluting my Prius.”

“Keep the window down because I have one last thing to say,” Cameron starts. “Youarebrave. All of you. And I love you all.”

“Jesus, Cam!” Daniel screams. “They don’t make a Febreze for this!”

Nervous spit gathers in my mouth when Cameron pulls into my driveway. “I’m dreading this,” I admit. “I wish I could just fast-forward through it. Or somehow go back in time and stop everything from happening in the first place. That would be nice too.”

“You’ll be fine,” Cameron says. She’s doing her best to be assuring, but hitting only false notes. She knows, like I know, that a storm is brewing.

“Hey, what if one of you comes with me?” I ask. “That way my parents can’t kill me for going MIA.”

Aminah shrugs. “Sure.”

“Really? I didn’t think that would work.”

Cameron starts to protest, but Aminah’s already out of the car and walking up to my front door. I lean over and give Cameron a hug. Then I wrap my arms around Daniel. “Thanks again. I’ll text you guys soon.”

Daniel pretends to claw at my arms. “Can’t. Breathe.”

I open my door and linger near the passenger side of the car. “Do you think Martin’s going to be okay?” I ask Daniel in the interim.

He just looks ahead—neutral, unreadable. “I think whatever you think.”

“Yeah,” I say with a nod.

Cameron climbs into the passenger seat, and Daniel moves to his rightful place behind the wheel.