Page 62 of What You Left Me

Back in the bedroom, Daniel’s covers wear my impression, waiting for me to fill the crinkled outline in with my weight. I oblige. My new clothes are a little damp from my hair dripping out from beneath my towel. The cool water on the warm pillow creates a perfect contrast.

I set an alarm on my phone.

I close my eyes.

One last moment of peace.

35

The soft pulse of distant music comes through first. The crunch of people eating chips and the shuffling of feet follow. Indecipherable pieces of conversations start floating by—chattering, static, like a TV that’s been left on without being turned to a proper channel. It’s all a restrained kind of loud. Sound that doesn’t carry far outside of itself.

Petra’s perspective sharpens. Now, she can smell detergent and cigarettes in the air, and she can see she’s in a basement she doesn’t know. At the same time, it’s the kind of place she knows well: a stock suburban hangout of the well-used variety. The ceiling is too low, and the carpet is worn thin, making obvious the poured concrete beneath it. In the center of the room, there is a gigantic beige sectional. It’s tufted and pillowy and designed for naps and for going days without seeing sunlight. The flat-screen TV in front of it is bigger than a TV has any right to be. There are two Mario Kart points of view on its screen. Petra looks from the game back to the couch and realizes Turrey and Spencer are on the sectional, side by side, remotes in hand. Their focus is impressive. The game rules them.

The other kids in the room are scattered about, talking and laughing and eating chips. A warm feeling floods Petra. It’s knowing that for this night, the dark will never be too dark. The late will never feel too late. It will just transform into early morning, which is even better. Because this is Martin’s party.

She finally made it.

Finding him isn’t hard. He’s in the back of the room, leaning into the space between walls, looking at Petra. She wants to meet him where he stands, but her legs are incapable of moving. The last time she saw him, they were dancing on the football field.

Things feel different now. They’re…more.

“This your idea of a party?” Martin calls out. He grins like he’s teasing her. “Everyone’s eating chips and drinking water.”

If she could, she’d breathe a sigh of relief. He always makes things feel easy. “Considering the events of the past week, I think they’re all being more than reasonable.” It’s awkward bringing it up, but it has to be said.

“I like that you expect the best from people!” Martin shouts. There’s no reason to be as loud as he is, but it helps lessen the tension all the same. He knows how to pivot a conversation. He also seems to know Petra can’t bring herself to move toward him, so he comes to join her in the open space between the back of his couch and the wall where he’d been standing.

“Shouldn’t we all expect the best from people?”

Across from her and Martin, next to the stairs, there’s an old pool table. It’s covered in folded laundry and random boxes, save for the center, which has been cleared out. In the open space, Cameron, Aminah, Daniel, and Brooke sit cross-legged in a circle of sorts, playing hot hands. Petra smiles at the sight of them. They look so happy.

“I’m impressed. This is almost exactly what my basement really looks like,” Martin says, pulling her attention back to him. “Our couch isn’t that big, but other than that, you’ve got it down. It even smells right. Like soap and stale tobacco.” He pauses to marvel. “I wouldn’t have known how to explain that before. With all my time away, I can really smell it now.”

Petra blushes. “I was in your house the other day. I didn’t see the basement, but I could figure out how it would be.”

“You were in my house?”

“Yeah. When we were looking for your letter.”

“Oh.” He sits down and folds his legs. He looks so young, hands resting in his lap, legs crossed. “A lot of life has happened since my accident, huh?”

She’d been so mad at him yesterday. She still is now. What he did was beyond reckless. Ignorant. Neglectful. There is no excusing it. Yet none of it matches up with the boy she knows in her dreams. Why didn’t he stop Spitty from drinking and driving? Someone isdead.She shudders at the thought.

Martin cocks his head to take in her reaction.

The battle between her anger and her sentimentality has to be settled, if temporarily. Martin’s life is too fragile right now. She joins him on the ground. “Nothing you can’t catch up on,” she says. Fighting is a bridge better crossed in person. He has to make it out of this alive first. Then she can yell. Oh, how she will yell.

Martin takes inventory of his friends scattered about the party. “That’s true. We seem to run with the same crowd these days.”

“You know good people.”

Martin points to Spencer, who is currently leaning into Turrey so that Turrey can’t see the game on the screen. “Even Spits?”

“To be honest, I don’t know why he’s here,” Petra admits. “I don’t have full control over all of this. Some of the people at this party are my best friends, and then some are members of my old Girl Scout troop. A couple of people from random extracurriculars I’ve done over the years. Some people I’ve never seen before in my life.” She points to a girl sitting on the coffee table, staring at her phone. “But that’s my sister Jessica’s best friend from day care. There’s a picture of her and Jess on our fridge. It’s like nineteen years old at this point. I couldn’t even tell you that girl’s name. No idea how she made the cut.”

They laugh. It’s all so absurd, yet somehow, right now, it makes perfect sense.

It occurs to her then that there’s one person who hasn’t snuck into the party. One person who’s chased her for a full year.