Page 94 of Fragments of the Lost
“Noted, and noticed. What are you doing today?” he asks, changing the subject, but I’m not ready for it. Not for this question. Not for an answer.
“My big plan is to do this,” I say, gesturing to the beach. “Oh, and Julian’s coming home tonight. So we’ll probably have family time.”
He waits for a few minutes, then says, “I’d join you in thewhole watching-the-ocean-and-thinking-about-life thing, but I’m kind of gross right now. So, I’ll see you?”
I smile over my shoulder. “See you,” I say.
I watch him walk back over the dunes, to the wooden steps.
In the next few months, he’ll be hearing from colleges. In less than a year, he’ll be gone. I don’t know how much time we have. I don’t know what will happen between then and now. I don’t know whether it’s worth the risk.
I don’t know whether I can ever trust myself with someone again, whether I’ll feel the need to hold back, pull back, always wondering if I’m getting the truth.
But I do know certain things about Max. And I know things about myself now, too.
He looks back once, and I wave, caught, not bothering to hide it. He laughs as he walks away.
It feels like the start of something here. Still, I worry we’re already too close to an end.
Except maybe it goes farther back, our beginning. Maybe it was a month ago, on the side of the river, hidden by the trees. Or maybe the start was that day over the summer in a field, looking for Saturn. Or the moment on the bridge back in the spring, when he held me, and I fell. Maybe it’s even earlier. Him in my kitchen, with my brother, when I gave him a drink.
No,my brother said, in warning.
Yes,I think.
It’s three days after Christmas, and the sky is a clear, deceptive blue. There’s no snow on the ground. It could be spring, if not for the trees missing the leaves. It could be summer, if I lie on my back, looking straight up.
Which I’m now doing.
Julian looks at me funny from the sliding glass doors to the kitchen, but he doesn’t say anything. He knocks on the window, holds up a mug of hot chocolate, offering. But I shake my head and go back to the sky.
My phone dings beside me. It’s an email from a store, no signed name. But I feel the smile growing. I can’t stop it.
It’s a gift for an app that’s less than two dollars. It’s the perfect gift.
It’s a night sky app. I download it onto my phone and hold it toward the daytime sky, scanning it across the horizon. And my screen lights up with all the things I can’t see, that are there anyway.
“What are you doing?” Julian asks.
“Look,” I say, and he tips his head to the sky. “Perseus.”
“Um,” he says.
“You can’t see it,” I say. “But it’s there. It’s still there.”
“If you say so, Jessa,” he says.
I catch Julian staring up at the sky, his eyes squinting, and I say, “Hey, Julian, was it worth it? All the years of baseball games and practices and clinics?”
He tilts his head, confused.
“I mean, are you happy?”
He grins. “Well, I do hate it when I lose. Or when I have a crappy outing. But yeah, Jessa, I love the game. Being on a team. The good days. Yes, it was worth it.” Then he laughs. “You know, no one’s ever asked me that before.”
“Huh,” I say.
“Don’t stay out too long,” he says. “It’s colder than it seems.”
