Page 53 of Fragments of the Lost
“Take yours off, too,” I said, but he only watched me, grinning.
Then I turned and sprinted down the beach, but Caleb was ready for me, and he caught me in three quick strides. I squealed while he tossed me over his shoulder and ran straight into the surf.
He dropped me into the water, and the cold felt so good, so shocking, but I panicked for a moment, until I got my feet back under me, felt the sand giving way under my weight. We were deeper than I thought, and I automatically scrambled back toward shore.
“Ugh, I hate you!” I said, but he was laughing, holding me up.
He carried me on his back as he walked back out, as he had the month before at the river. “I told you, Jessa. I’m not gonna let you drown.”
On the beach, he took off his sneakers, caked with wet sand and salt water. He tipped them over, and the ocean streamed out. “I told you, Caleb. Take off your shoes.”
Max was lying on the sand, drying in the sun. There were other runners on the beach now. “Please tell me you brought water,” he said. “Please. I’m unprepared. I think I’m dying.” A girl stared at him lying there shirtless as she ran down the beach, and he raised his hand at her, smirking.
I reached a hand down. “Drinks are in the car, hot stuff.”
At the car, Caleb opened the trunk, and they each grabbed a Gatorade from my cooler. “You guys should do this with me. Cross-country, I mean. You’re fast, Caleb. And you’ll both stay in shape.”
“I notice you did not say that I was fast,” Max said.
“I said you’d stay in shape.” I smiled wide. “Come on, it’s fun.”
“That wasn’t fun,” Max said.
“You’ll feel awesome later.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
“You both just did five miles from nothing. That’s harder than most of our practices. Come on, Max, I see you in the weight room, trying to keep in shape until baseball season. I’ve seen you on the treadmill.”
He focused on me then, took a long sip, brushed the wet hair from his eyes. I held my breath, waiting. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
We both turned to Caleb, who was looking Max over. He turned to me, took a deep breath. “Sorry, Jessa. Not my thing.”
Then he looked at Max again, and there was this awkward silence, where I wasn’t sure what we were doing here, standing in a circle, a feeling I couldn’t put my finger on. Then Caleb finally said, “Come on, Max. We’re all waiting here.”
Max handed him the bottle of Gatorade and climbed up on the hood of Caleb’s car. He walked onto the roof, stretched his arms out to the sides, and belted the lyrics, “O say can you see—”
—
The sneakers are beach-worn, waterlogged, completely spent. I hate that I have to throw these out, but they’re ruined. I warned him, I think. I told him. But Caleb was like that. He didn’t like to be told what to do, even by me.
The top shelf of his closet is partially lined with a tower of shoeboxes. They’re black and orange, and have miniature images of cleats, or sneakers, or boots. They’re all in his size.
During the middle of last school year, I remember Mia telling him in the kitchen, “I need a box, for a diorama.”
Caleb saying, “Go get one from the tower.”
And Mia shaking her head, her eyes wide.
Caleb grinned. “There aren’t any monsters up there.”
“But I hear them,” Mia said.
Caleb groaned but bounded up the stairs and returned a few moments later with an empty shoebox.
“You have a tower of boxes?” I asked.
“I do,” he said. “I started out keeping my shoes in them, but then I also just started keeping them for projects and storage, and now, what can I say, I’m the person who has a tower of boxes in his closet.”
