Page 9 of What You Left Me

“Tomorrow,” I call out to her from the other side. “It’s nothing,” I say to my friends. “Just college stuff.”

The truth is an art form.

• • •

It’s like I’m stuck on the inside of a blink. The first one after a long night of sleep, when your eyes don’t really open. It’s just a flutter of moving grayness, but you know something is happening on the other side of your lids—the start of a new day.

Do I see this?

Am I feeling it?

What does something become when it’s all there seems to be?

• • •

We walk down dark side streets elbow to elbow.

“We graduated!” Aminah shouts.

I should tell them what’s going on with me. But I can’t.

I can’t.

Cameron nudges me, seeking shared acknowledgment of Aminah’s flair for the dramatic. It used to be Aminah who led our smart-girl group. Cameron and I admired her, strived to be her, studied extra hours to reach her heights of intelligence. Then junior year came, and Aminah surrendered her title without explanation, swapping out impossible academic standards for personal liberation. All we knew was that she seemed happier. That was what mattered.

“What a perfect way to kick off our last summer together,” Aminah reflects, nuzzling Cameron and me in for a walking hug. “We are women now!”

Cameron lets out a single laugh, her patented indication to Aminah that she’s being ridiculous. “We’ve always been women.”

Cameron, being the thorough girl that she is, vacuumed up every bit of neuroses Aminah shed junior year. She wears it in her attitude, always selective with the moments she allows to get the best of her.

“No. Before, we were girls. Now, real life begins!”

They settle into quarreling without so much as a breath in my direction.

Aminah and Cameron have been the same since kindergarten. Aminah might be freer and Cameron might be more neurotic, but at their core, they’ve always been a perfectly complementary pair. I’ve always felt like the wild card when it comes to the three of us. Even in appearance. My skin tans easily but turns sallow in winter. My hair was blond when I was younger and has since browned. It used to be curly, now I have to do it with an iron. The rounded puff of my cheeks deflates with every passing year. Of course, the way we appear does not dictate all of who we are to one another, but it’s hard not to notice that while Aminah and Cameron look like someone digitally age-progressed their grade school photos—adding occasionally used glasses on Cameron around eighth grade and braces on Aminah from ninth to tenth—I’m unrecognizable most of the time.

Even to myself.

“I think we turn here,” I contribute in the midst of their arguing.

They pivot in unison.

In the center of a cul-de-sac, flanked by identical ranch houses, sits a two-level orange anomaly with a basketball hoop in front. The home is a statement piece straight from the 1970s, complete with a yellow security light casting eerie horror film shadows on the rusting clapboard.

“No lights on inside.”

“Probably because everyone’s in the basement.”

“Where’d they all park?”

“If they’re drinking, maybe they walked like we did?” Cameron guesses.

“Wow. Please never again assume that the rest of our graduating class is anywhere near as responsible as you are,” Aminah shoots back.

“Should I knock?” I ask.

Aminah takes her cell phone out of her bra. “Let me call Daniel.”