Page 53 of What You Left Me

“Of course not. I was thinking about it while you were gone, and I think I figured out what you were saying. It’s like, you climb a mountain, and the whole trip up, you have a goal. See the view. Then you get there, and it’s beautiful, but there’s nothing to work toward anymore. You have to go back to where you’ve already been.” She turns to me. “High school was our mountain, obviously.”

“Isn’t Mrs. Garfunkel particular poetic today?” Daniel sings out.

“You’re just jealous you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

He throws his arms up. “Guilty.”

“Hands on ten and two,” she scolds. “Anyway, the journey changes you. Even though you end up at the beginning again, you’re a different person than you were when you started. We were too focused on the view on the way up. Our climb back down’s been really weird so far, but look at the plus side. We have new friends for the first time in, like, ever.”

Aminah shrieks. “Enough of the mountain thing. Plus, that’s not even true. I’ve had many exes that you guys banished from our trail.” She slaps her own wrist. “Dammit, now I’m doing the mountain thing.”

“Don’t even start on your tragic exes. That is a detour we don’t want to take.” Daniel pulls into his driveway and shuts off the car’s engine. “Mountain joke intentional. But also the end of the trail.” He pulls his fist from the sky to his chest. “And scene.”

“Well, what about Petra and Ryan Hales?” Aminah spits out before she can stop herself. She clamps her lips so tight that Ryan’s last name comes out as a gurgle.

Daniel fakes gagging. “I thought we agreed to never speak of the dark ages again.”

I simmer in the moment, preparing to let it pass, but find my mouth opening instead. “You all know what really happened, don’t you?”

• • •

• • •

It’s been quiet for an entire minute. I counted. Sixty whole seconds of stonewall silence outside of Daniel’s house. I say, “There’s no good answer. I know.”

Another thirty seconds tick by. I say, “I don’t know why I said anything.”

Fifteen seconds. I say, “It doesn’t matter.”

Five seconds. “It definitely matters,” Aminah says back.

• • •

• • •

My axis isn’t tilted anymore. It’s upside down, and every hidden truth I have knocks into the next, into the next, into the next. I can barely stay far enough away from the domino effect to keep breathing. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I promised myself I’d never bring it up.”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Daniel says.

For me, the most hurtful memories always feel like a fifty-fifty mix of pathetic and powerful. “Who told you?”

“Sometimes Ryan would be in the locker room when I got out of track practice,” Daniel whispers.

Bile, tasting like venom, mingles with my spit. “I hope you know he never got me. He didn’t win.”

“Oh, I do,” Daniel tells me. “He told his friends that you bit his hand. That’s the only reason I didn’t go ballistic on him straight out. I knew you’d already gotten the better of him. But just so you know, I stole his gym shoes on his last day of school. And I tripped him. It was the least I could do for you.”

One single laugh shoots out from my gut, followed by spurts of little chuckles, the pathetic side of the hurt appreciating the powerful side. It helps. It’s a battle for control that’s festered inside me for an entire year.

“That’s my girl,” Aminah says to me. “Biting his hand.”

Cameron hands me a napkin to use as a tissue. She contorts her face into a sympathetic scrunch. “I’m sorry. We’d try to bring it up, and you’d shoot us down. I never knew what to say. I still don’t, if I’m being honest.”

“You and me both.” I close my eyes, fighting against the memory as it tries to resurface. “Don’t feel bad. You’re right. I never let you guys bring it up.”

“We still should’ve tried. I’m bad at this stuff,” Aminah admits. “I hate him.”

“Let’s kill him,” Daniel says. “I know. Too soon. I’m obviously terrible at this too.”