Page 19 of Fragments of the Lost
We stood in the river, on the border, rocks and dirt under our toes. “We’re not in New Jersey anymore. But we’re not in Pennsylvania, either,” he said.
“We’re nowhere,” I said, and the current ran over my bare feet, up my bare legs, numbing and enticing all atonce.
I hopped onto his back, made him carry me out, laughing as my toes tapped the surface of the water when he pretended to drop me.
We tried to get a picture when we were back on the shore, the two of us in a frame, the waterfall behind us. But our faces were too close, blocking everything. One of the men who’d been swimming was now wading up to his knees, and he offered to take the photo for us. “You guys look like you could use some help.”
Caleb passed him the camera, and the man shook off his hands to dry them first before taking it. He didn’t count us down, or sayreadyor anything; he just took the shot and handed the camera back. In the photo, I’m half wincing from the cold on my feet, and Caleb seems distracted, looking somewhere beyond the camera. Neither of us is truly smiling, but there’s something beautiful about it, still. Maybe it’s the waterfall. Maybe it’s the way we were both caught unprepared. Or maybe it’s everything surrounding us. The mist coming up off the water. The scattering of people at the end of the frame, caught midmotion, hands scooping water, an arc of water droplets, a child with his hand on the way up to block his face.
—
It was worth it later, he was right. If only for the drive back, and the stop at the drugstore, and the way he set me in the backseat, holding my bare foot in his hand, wrapping the Band-Aid around.
And because, when he dropped me off, my legs sore, my body sweaty and gross, he said, “Thanks for today, Jessa.”
It was the last time he thanked me for anything and meant it.
—
I throw the hiking boots in an empty box and the sound echoes through the room. I remember that waterfall photo—the last photo of us that had been on the wall. The beginning of the end. I make my way back to his desk, needing more.
After emptying the rest of the middle drawer, I move on to the last.
The top drawer is in disarray, as I had expected. There’s the calculator to the side, a heap of papers, ticket stubs, receipts. All thrown in, one on top of the other. You can work your way down to the bottom, like moving back in time.
Except there’s something wrong with the chaos. The receipt on top is from a year ago, covering the concert tickets from last spring. I piece through them gently, so as not to disturb the balance.
Near the bottom, completely out of order, I find two ticket stubs from a Yankees game, his and mine, a secret my parents still didn’t know about. I wasn’t supposed to be in New York City at all. I wasn’t even supposed to be off the school grounds.
—
Late April. Max and Hailey and Sophie. A guy named Stan who lived in the city, who Max knew. Hailey’s brief failed date with Craig Keegan. All of us bursting with energy on the train station platform, skipping out on school.
Max had gotten bleacher seats through his friend Stan, twelve bucks apiece, a perfect outing on a sunny April afternoon. It was unofficially senior skip day, so half the school would be missing anyway. Julian was visiting the UPenn campus for the long weekend, and my parents were driving him up and spending the day. Skipping school was not something I did often (or ever, really), and the day buzzed with the added adrenaline.
We took the train into the city, switched to the subway, riding it out to the Bronx. Holding on to the bars overhead in the packed subway car, holding on to each other. Taking the stadium ramp up and up and up until we emerged to the sunlit arena, the green and brown of the field, the players moving like miniature figurines in the distance.
I don’t remember much about the game itself. I do remember the hot dogs, the pretzels, the ice cream. How far away we were, in the bleachers. The players indistinguishable below. Three hours laughing with Caleb and Hailey, and Hailey giving me a look about Craig Keegan, like,This is so not happening.Craig had spent most of the time asking Stan what other tickets he could get. Max was the only one who seemed to be paying attention to the game. The rest of us were just there for the thrill of it.
On the way home, we got caught in the exit rush, streams of people funneling back down the ramps, out into the street, down into the subway station. Caleb and I had calculated how much it would cost for four subway rides, and put the money on a card together—not realizing the card itself had a purchase fee.
Not realizing until that moment when Caleb handed me the card to use after him, as he slipped through the turnstile, that the card wouldn’t work. Me left on the other side, with a huge crowd waiting behind me, pushing up against me.
“You need to put more money on the card,” the man behind me said, shoving me aside as he went through. I turned around. There was a swarm of people in the station, surrounding the card machines and the turnstiles. My friends were on the platform, running toward the arriving train, pushed along by the chaos.
We had been a trail of people connected hand to hand, dragging each other through the crowd. And then I wasn’t. I stepped aside, the sickening knot back in my stomach. The line for the card machine was endless. I didn’t have cash to add onto it, and I felt a lump in my throat, thinkingThis was all a mistake, such a mistake.
I’d have to use my credit card, stand on the line for the one working credit-card machine, miss a train or two, and hope they waited for me at Penn Station before heading back to New Jersey. I took a deep breath, realizing there was a good chance I’d be alone the whole way to Penn Station—and maybe all the way home. I felt a flash of anger and resentment as I stepped away from the turnstile.
It was Max who appeared, pushing back through the crowd. Calling my name. Shoving a five-dollar bill at the woman behind me, begging her to take it and let me through with her card. She didn’t smile, but she took it. Swiped her card once, and Max pulled me through, hands linked together so we wouldn’t lose each other. We were practically sprinting, weaving around clusters of people, and I was so sure we would make it—like a race we would win.
But by the time we made it to the platform, it was empty. I heard the rumble of a train fading into the distance. Everyone else was gone. My calls to Caleb and Hailey went straight to voicemail, and I figured they didn’t have service between stations. I sat on the bench, closed my eyes, rested my head on the wall behind, and let out a shaky sigh.
Max sat beside me on the bench, tensely put an arm around my back, and let me rest my head against his shoulder. “We’ll catch up at Penn Station,” he said.
“I just thought we would make it,” I said, hoping he understood. I wasn’t upset or sad; it was more a disappointment, a hope cresting and then falling—a bell curve.
I had felt, in the span of a day, the freedom of adulthood—the freeing feeling that I was independent—and then the crushing other side, the alienation of being left on my own. The big, big world moving on without me. My friends not waiting for me here, not in the hustle of the city.
