Page 51 of Fragments of the Lost
And I realize the truth then, have to look it in the face. That maybe I’m only seeing what I want to see. That maybe there is no other place Caleb was going. That his mother was right, and he was coming back to talk to me, and he was angry, and he lost control of the car, and he drowned. And it’s as simple as that—what everyone already thought.
And then I hear footsteps, coming from above. From Caleb’s room. Down the stairs. I’m trapped. If I go out into the hall, try to make it down the steps, I’ll be seen. So I hold myself very still instead, hoping the footsteps keep going.
But they don’t. They round the corner, and suddenly Mia’s standing in front of her open doorway, staring at me—holding Caleb’s case of glasses.
“I just wanted to know where they were,” I say. I’m appealing to a child, I’m begging, I’m pleading.Please don’t tell.
“Give them back,” she says, stepping closer. Her eyes are wide and she speaks with a strength I’ve never heard from her before.
“Okay.” I hold them out in my hand, and she swipes the case from me, gripping it in both hands. I wonder what story she has, what piece of Caleb she sees in these glasses. I want to tell her, suddenly, about the moment I saw him in them, and loved him. I want to hold the glasses and tell her the story and let her see it, too.
“He can’t read without them,” she whispers.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. The words I want to say are caught in the back of my throat. I crouch down in front of her, nod, try to think of some comforting words, something someone else would say. “You can keep them,” is all that comes out.
She shakes her head, quickly. “They’re not yours.” She juts her chin up high, daring me to say otherwise. Then she steps aside so I can see the door, and understand that she’s sending me on my way.
I pause in the entrance, confused as to why she’s home this early. “Why are you home from school?” I ask.
“I’m sick,” she says, like it’s obvious. Then she shrugs, as if she can tell how flat the lie falls. “We’re moving anyways.”
I’m just glad she’s talking to me, and I try to keep up the momentum. “Do you know where you’re going?” I ask.
Then she narrows her eyes and closes her mouth, remembering who I am, why I am here. “My mom was right. You’re sneaky.”
I jerk back. “No, I’m not. I’m just…” Is that what she thinks of me? That I’m in here doing something I’m not supposed to do? “I’m just asking because I’ll miss you,” I say, and I realize that’s true.
But Mia just steps aside from the door, until I get the message. “You were sneaking around my room,” she says.
“I saw the glasses from the hall. I had been looking for them.”
“They’re not yours, Jessa,” she repeats.
Her gaze shifts to the window as I repeat my own plea. “Please don’t tell.”
I’m still shaken by the conversation with Mia. About what she said, and what she thinks. What else am I supposed to be doing in this room, other than sorting through his things? That’s the entire point. Eveaskedme to do it.
I’m getting down to the basics up here. There’s the bedding, the computer, the backpack, the odds and ends. But the shelves have been cleared, and his desk drawers have been emptied; his clothes have been packed away, and the walls are bare.
I can’t bring myself to strip the bed. It feels so violent, and final.
Instead I go for the closet, empty of clothes, now just an assortment of shoes and shoeboxes and whatever lingers on the shelf up high. Most of his shoes are lined up in pairs, and I leave them paired this way, stacking them in a large brown box. There are cleats and snow boots, flip-flops and sneakers—all different angles of the same Caleb. And then, in the right corner, there’s a pair shoved into a plastic grocery bag, tied at the top.
I rip it open, and immediately understand why. There are sand granules. And the pair of old sneakers smells like the ocean. I picture Caleb in front of me, kicking up sand with each stride. The burn of my lungs and my legs, and the glare of the sun off the ocean.
—
I was supposed to be training on the beach, which I hated, the sand kicking up and the ground giving way, everything in slow motion, like running in a dream. If hiking was Caleb’s thing to introduce me to, this was mine. It was a run I needed to do as part of summer training, but hated doing alone. Something about being on the beach by myself, before anyone else was up. Something about the feeling that at any moment a tidal wave could sneak up on us, wipe me out, with nobody knowing.
“Hailey, come on,” I’d begged her on a weekend in mid-July, while we all sat on beach blankets, side by side.
“I’m not doing that. I hate running in sand.”
“Hailey, September’s going to hurt.”
“Then let September hurt. I’m enjoying my summer.”
Hailey was also naturally faster than me, not needing to train as hard, or as consistently, to be able to stand on the starting line and run just over three miles in under twenty minutes. She could transform from “girl in a dress with red lipstick” to “girl who can kick your ass in red lipstick” in the time it took to slip on running shoes.
