Page 36 of Fragments of the Lost
But something’s different today, and I think it’s from spending so much time in his room. Now I’m seeing him everywhere. Not just the emptiness, but the things he’s left behind, instead.
Now I see the paint scratched off his locker, from the lacrosse stick, and the memory flickers through my mind: Caleb spinning around too fast when I whisperBooin his ear, the stick hooked through the bag on his back scratching the metal. In first period I pass the open door of his class and see his seat, now occupied by another guy from his team—but at first it’s Caleb waving his hands over his head, recounting a story. Sitting in math class before lunch, staring out the glass window of the wooden door, my eyes are drawn to the remnants of glue, a corner of adhesive—and I see Caleb biting his lip, scrubbing at it as I walk by.
—
As part of school spirit week last year, the lacrosse team had plastered our school flags to each classroom window. Which probably would’ve been fine, but they’d added a line in black marker, about their opponent. Specifically, referring to how badly, and what, they sucked.
Which was why the team was back out in the hallway after school with buckets of water and sponges and soap, scraping the glued signs off with their fingernails, or using the ice scrapers from their cars.
Sitting in math now, I imagine him there on the other side of the door, working at the window along with the rest of his teammates as I walked by.
I’d passed him in the hall, making a tsk-ing sound, laughing at the look he gave me in return. He ran a soap-streaked hand through his sun-bleached hair and gave me a self-conscious smile. I paused across the hall, my hand on my hip. “You missed a spot,” I said.
One of his teammates said, “Can’t you get your girlfriend to help?”
And he said, “Why would I want to subject my girlfriend to stripping glue from glass? Run, Jessa. Run while you can.”
Everything inside and outside of his room still reminds me of him. I catch my dimmed reflection in the glass of the classroom door, and even that, even the image ofme,conjures up Caleb.
Someone calls my name, and it takes me a second to realize it’s the teacher. And by the time I do, by the time I look in my notebook, ready to answer, he has moved on, unsure of what to do with me, either.
—
The bell rings overhead, and the rest of the students leave.
I hear the distinct tread of shoes turn in the hallway, entering the classroom. They’re purple, with a strap and a black heel. She taps one toe beside my bag. “You ready?” she asks.
Hailey has her long dark hair swooped up into a ponytail. She’s trying to make light of this moment, and I suddenly see how lucky I am, because I do remember the last time we spoke. It wasn’t at the service; it was the next day. She’d come by my house, and after my parents let her in, I cut her off with one-word answers and asked her to leave. Her last words:I’m trying to help here.
Yeah, well, you’re not.
Don’t wreck this, too.
Too.That little word. It dug itself under my ribs, and every time I heard her speak, I’d feel them stabbing my heart.
“Hailey,” I say, trying to find the right words to apologize.
“There are french fries,” she cuts in, tapping her toe again. “You know how the line gets on french-fry day. I’m just saying.”
I swing my backpack over my shoulder and give her a grateful smile. “Let’s go,” I say.
On the way to the cafeteria, Hailey tries to lead me in the other direction. She tries to distract me with gossip about her latest date.
“What the hell is that?” I ask, as Hailey pulls me past the display.
But it’s too late. I’ve already seen it.
There’s a pen hanging from poster board, and sheets of paper stapled to it. It’s a petition, I see. A petition to rename Coats Memorial Bridge to Evers-Coats Memorial Bridge. There are at least a hundred names. There’s a photo of Caleb at the top, the same one from his school ID, and beside that, mounted to the wall in a glass frame, is his gray athletic T-shirt, folded into a square, so his name is visible under the logo for our school.
“Where did they get this?” I ask.
“His locker,” Hailey answers. “Come on.” She pulls me by the arm, but I don’t budge.
“When?” I ask.
“His mom came, that first week, when you were…” She trails off. She doesn’t need to say it. When I was in my room, in the dark, not answering my phone or texts or the doorbell. When she showed up and I wouldn’t see her, and I went running late at night, by myself, after everyone was sleeping—sure, at times, that I could hear the rumble of a river in the distance.
“Then why is ithere?” I ask. I know Caleb always kept a change of clothes in his locker, the Caleb he would become at three p.m. But something about this piece of him out on display, not in his house with his mother, doesn’t sit right.
