Page 7 of What You Left Me

We’re in the back seat of his car. Sweat is pouring down my back.

“Your eyes look like pancakes,” Martin says finally, after what could be years or milliseconds. He dissolves Ryan into nothing more than a mirage I never meant to chase.

“What?” It’s such an absurd sentiment that my laughter doesn’t feel like too much of a giveaway.I’m laughingatMartin, not with him, I assure myself. And laughter is a great distraction from the aftershock of surfacing memories.

“I mean maple syrup,” he corrects.

I still don’t let myself look at him, but the heat radiating from his cheeks burns stronger than the sun. I can’t help but soften. “Petty Margs and the Maple Syrup Eyes. Our official band name.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see his shoulders relax. “Available for weddings, birthdays, and graduations.”

Ms. Hornsby signals for us to walk back to our seats. I stare at my feet as we start moving, thinking about everything and nothing at once. When I look back up, Martin is nowhere to be found.

• • •

Sneaking out had no unforeseen difficulties. Zig when everyone zags. Easy as that. Spits waits for me behind the bleachers. He pulls two travel-size bottles of whiskey out from beneath his robe and hands one to me.

“Cheers!” he says.

We chug them back in one gulp.

Don’t know where I’m going next, but I like the way everything looks right now. A little too bright and way too hot, but exactly the way I want it to be. High school took my sobriety and most of my dignity, so Spits and I break our whiskey bottles on the bleacher mud to honor all we gave to this sacred ground.

“You look nice,” Spits says, tugging on the part of my tie he can see above my robe. “Now give me my ten bucks.”

“Take it and use it for the greater good,” I tell him, shaking off the nagging feeling that I’ve left behind something essential. “Beer would be very appreciated at the McGee residence tonight,” I say as Spits lifts up his robe and crams my ten-dollar bill down his pants. “You’re sick, you know that?”

“Shut up. Let’s go for one last joy ride before this thing ends. I promise we’ll be back in time for your mom to give me a big kiss, and you know she will.” He tries to click his heels together but gets tripped up on his robe. “Shut up!” he yells, but I’m already laughing.

Spitty and I arrive at his parking spot. I usually keep my crying reserved for baseball games and videos of pets being reunited with owners, but I’d be lying if I said the sight of his raggedy Dodge Caravan didn’t choke me up. “I thought you were driving with your dad.”

“Did you want me to bring him to the liquor store?Hold on, Pop. Grabbing some whiskey for me and Fly.He drove himself. I rode solo in the White Whale.”

I climb in. The passenger seat is pushed and leaned back to my exact preference, covered in stains and nostalgia. I am the co-king of the White Whale. This is my throne.

Spits takes out two more baby whiskeys. We chug, so fast I get a bubble caught in my throat, then toss the little bottles out the White Whale’s manual windows, cranking the handles as fast as we can to let in the fresh air. Spitty takes a hard left out of the school lot. Not a car in sight.

“By the way,” I say, grabbing at the warm summer air as it flies through my fingers. “That girl’s coming tonight.” I smile at the thought of Petra, imagining her walking through my front door, eyes shooting left to right, scanning for me.

Me.

Accelerating speed pulls my cheeks back. I can almost taste the future’s possibilities in the wind whooshing through my mouth.

• • •

No one cares about Martin’s empty seat. No one checks. Rules are gone, because for 867 other people, high school is officially over.

I could throw up.

Without him here, I remember the reason for my initial dread. Every reason, actually. Every twelve-hour school day. Every agonizing assignment. Every painstaking triumph and hard-earned grade. My years of work all erased, obsolete, rendered irrelevant. Because of one misstep, none of it matters. None of it pays off.

At some point, the ceremony ends, and I hear, “Congratulations, graduates!” At some point, I switch over my tassel and rise up to toss my cap into the air. Doing what Dad’s always asked of me. Faking it until I make it, even though I know it’s not that simple.

At some point, families crowd the football field.

At some point, Cameron finds me. “We did it!” she squeals, as if there were ever a question in her mind that we would.

If only she knew…