If You're Gone (17 page)

“I was wondering about something.”

“Yeah, what?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the road.

“Does Caleb Marino have a date for the fall social yet?”

Anna pulled up to a red stoplight and jerked her head towards me with her eyebrows raised.

“That’s funny. It sounded like you just asked if Caleb has a date for the fall social… but I must have misheard you.”

“Come on. Does he?” I rolled my eyes.

“He, in fact, does
not
to the best of my knowledge. Can I ask why you want to know? Asking for a friend, I assume?” She grinned as she accelerated again and headed toward the school parking lot.

“I'd like to go with you guys. If it’s not too late. I’m sorry I said no before. I just…”

“You don’t have to explain.” We pulled into her parking space and she smiled at me as she turned off the engine. “It’s going to be so much fun. I’m so glad you want to go!”

“Me too.” I collected my bag from the floorboard but stopped myself before I reached for the door handle. “Anna, thanks for being my friend through all of this.”

She looked at me with her lips pursed. “No, thank you for being
my
friend through all of this. I’m sorry I couldn’t always understand what you were going through.”

“Consider yourself lucky,” I said with a stone face that slowly grew into a smile. “Come on.”

We walked arm in arm to the school doors and I took a deep breath as Anna tugged on the handle.
Here’s to normal.

****

I stayed alert through my classes, attempted to joke and laugh with my friends at lunch, and even auditioned for a solo in choir. After school let out I went shopping with Anna and Mandy for dresses to wear to the social. I didn’t try anything on, I wasn’t quite there yet, but I watched as they twirled around in dozens of formal dresses in the department store, oohing and aahing over the sequins and jewels.

“Can I plan something for all of us for this weekend?” I asked as we were leaving the store.

“Sure, hun,” Mandy answered, “what did you have in mind?”

“I don’t want to say just yet. But I want to do a sort of celebration of Brad. Nothing sad or cheesy, just a fun way to remember him.”

“That sounds perfect.”

The two girls put their arms around me as we walked together to the car.
I can do this.
I can go on living and go on loving him
.
It’s just time that I stop being
in love
with him.

The sun was still lingering on the horizon on Saturday night when Thomas picked me up. I piled into the back seat of his SUV next to Mandy and Tess, carrying a large duffle bag in my arms.

“All right, Lil.” Anna turned around from the passenger seat. “You can’t keep it a secret anymore! Where are we going?”

“Just drive,” I said in a low, mysterious tone. “I’ll get us there.”

Anna laughed as Thomas put the truck into gear.

“What in the world is in that giant bag?” Mandy asked. “I am so not dressed for camping!” She motioned to her wedge sandals and I laughed.

“You’ll be fine. Seriously, do none of you know the meaning of the word
secret?
”

I navigated as Thomas took my turn-by-turn directions and we pulled into the park entrance. By the time we hit the tree line everyone had figured out where we were headed.

“I should have known you were taking us here,” Anna whispered, nudging me. “It’s a perfect night for it.”

She was right, it was
perfect
. Just as it had been with Brad nearly five months ago. Thomas parked the SUV on the grass and we all climbed out. The group hadn’t been back since school began and it had become too cool to swim in the crisp lake water. But there we were, all together. It would be perfect.
Perfect.
The word carries a new definition now.

I lead the way down towards the lake with my duffle bag bouncing off of my leg as I walked. Once again, the moon was reflecting off the water like a spotlight. I found the perfect place on the grass near the banks where the light was hitting just right. I dropped the bag, unzipped the top, and pulled out the crocheted blanket that Brad and I had used that night. Thomas grabbed the corner and with a quick jerk we sent the center billowing into the air as we slowly lowered it to the ground.

“Have a seat, guys!” I told them. I remained standing as I fished around in my duffle bag.

“She is being so mysterious tonight,” Mandy exclaimed to Tess. “I like it!”

“All right, one for everyone.” I passed around red plastic cups with thin white rims and then reached back into the bag and pulled out a glass bottle. “Surprise!” I smiled, raising the bottle into the air.

“Is that champagne?” Anna squeaked. “Where did you get that?”

“I had Lizard get it for me.”

“Yeah, right,” Tess said with a laugh.

“No, I’m serious!” I told them.

They looked at me in astonishment.

“Since when do you talk to Lizard?” Anna asked. “Doesn’t he like… hate you? And don’t you hate him even more?”

“Let’s just say...” I gave them a sly grin. “We have a mutual understanding.”

“Who cares where she got it,” Thomas chimed in. “Point is, she got it!”

He motioned for the bottle and began untwisting the wire cap as I handed it to him.

“I don’t even know who you are anymore, Lillian!” Anna laughed.

“That makes two of us,” I said.

There was suddenly a loud
pop.
We all jumped and watched as the cork soared through the air and landed in the lake.

“That’s my man.” Anna poked at Thomas’s hips as he held the bottle towards us, foam bubbling from the top.

“If we had let you open it you probably would have shot me right in the face,” he said, laughing while he poured the fizzy liquid into my cup.

“You know me too well,” Anna told him sarcastically.

“All right,” I said once everyone had champagne in their glass. “To Brad.” I raised my cup towards the center of the blanket and everyone followed suit, the plastic cups crinkled together as they touched.

“To Brad!” The group repeated as we toasted.

We all sipped in silence for a moment, until I coughed as the bubbles hit my nose unexpectedly.

“Such a rebel you’re turning into, Lil,” Mandy joked. “If only Brad could see you now.”

My face dropped.
If only Brad could see me now...

“Oh, I’m sorry, Lillian. I didn’t mean it like that,” she insisted. “I just meant…”

“No, it’s okay.” I let the words from Chris’ book comfort me. “You’re right. Brad wouldn’t know what to do with me!”

Everyone laughed, and it felt good.
The pain won’t go away, but sometimes you have to push it to the back.
Surprisingly, with my friends by my side, it wasn’t as hard as I thought.

****

After finishing up the bottle of champagne and half a bag of cheese puffs that I produced from my duffle, we settled down and watched the ripples in the lake as the moonlight jumped from one to the other.

“Thanks for doing this with me tonight,” I told everyone. “It means a lot.” I looked around at their faces, they were all nodding and smiling. “I guess I really just wanted to tell you all how much it meant to me the way you instantly accepted Brad into our group of friends. I’ll admit, I was afraid you would think I was crazy and freak out the first day I invited him to have lunch with us, but you didn’t. You all welcomed him to our table and in no time, it was like he had always been a part of our little group. Like he belonged.”

I smiled with tears in my eyes, thinking back to that December day when I nervously led Brad across the crowded cafeteria and introduced him to my friends. They knew who he was-the quiet, mysterious troublemaker who hung out with Lizard and Jones, but they still smiled and offered him a seat. Within minutes, he was joking with Thomas about the basketball game from the previous weekend and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“And I’m sorry if I acted like none of you understood how I was feeling once Brad went missing,” I continued. “I guess it was just easier to throw myself a pity party and act like I was going through this all alone. But this… Brad, I mean, has affected all of us. I’m ready to stop mourning him and start celebrating him. Wherever he is.”

“I must admit,” Anna said. “The day you called me and told me you kissed
Brad Lee,
I
did
think you were crazy!”

Tess nudged my arm as everyone laughed.

“But then I met him,” Anna continued. “I mean, really met him, not just saw him in the halls, and it was obvious what you saw in him. Brad… he’s cool. Not like in the way that we all think we are.” I let out a giggle. “But in a genuine ‘cool’ way. And he’s sexy, no offense to you, Thomas.”

“None taken.”

“Knowing his reputation around school, I wasn’t sure if it would last. But then he gave you this…” She reached for Brad’s ring. “What was it, less than a month after you started dating?”

“Three weeks,” I grinned.

“Three weeks!” she repeated. “There was no denying he was crazy about you. Anyway, there’s something special about Brad. He’s genuine, and fun, and always knows how to make people laugh…” Anna suddenly choked up and I watched as her eyes welled up with tears. “I am proud to be his friend.”

“Me too,” Mandy said with a nod, and Tess agreed.

“The first time I met Brad, he completely intimidated me. I won’t lie.” Thomas threw his hands into the air. “I mean, we all heard stories about his shenanigans with Lizard and Jones. I had no idea what he was capable of. And I think at one point he may have been in that group that broke into my house and stole food out of our refrigerator while my family was on vacation…”

“Yeah, that was confirmed,” I said with a laugh.

Thomas nodded and a smile grew on his face. “I knew it! Anyway, despite everything I had heard about the guy, I realized within seconds of talking to him that I wanted to be his friend. He kind of oozed with a certain bro-charm, but you ladies wouldn’t understand what I mean by that…”

We all laughed for a moment as we fought back tears.

“Wherever Brad is now, I just hope he knows how much we all care about him,” Anna whispered.

“I'm sure he does.” I nodded. “He would have loved to be here with us tonight.”

We all lay on our backs, stretched across the blanket, and stared up at the stars for what felt like hours. Being there with my friends made me feel a little more whole than I had since Brad disappeared.
Maybe it really is possible for me to put myself back together
. Thomas drove us home once it got late, and I spent the night at Anna’s house with the rest of the girls. We stayed up till two in the morning, watching chick flicks and giving each other manicures just like we had many times before. There were moments when it seemed like nothing had changed and I savored them. I finally felt like someone had pushed the play button on my life again.

****

I walked home from Anna’s the next morning with a plan for what I would do next. My family had already left for church without me but that was okay. I needed the time to myself. There under my bed was the wooden box from Brad-the tiny coffin that contained the remaining shards of our relationship. I wanted to give it a proper burial, and I had the perfect spot.

After a long search for a hand shovel in our shed, I found the right tool and made my way into the front yard with the box. The tree outside my window appeared thicker than ever, and I wiggled in-between its branches and the side of the house. In the dark opening, I knelt down in the dirt and struck the pointed tip of the shovel into the cool ground. It barely pierced the soil, but I continued to dig until a brick-sized hole formed beneath me.

I had almost dug deep enough into the earth when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Near the trunk of the tree lay something light in color, covered in dirt and pine needles. I tossed the shovel aside and crawled on my knees towards it. It was a small piece of paper sticking out of the ground, with a piece of tape attached to the top of it. I touched it gingerly with two fingers and carefully retrieved it. Once in my hand, I dusted away the dirt with my fingertips, blinking ferociously in the dim light as I tried to read what it said. There was writing on it that had become wet and faded and was nearly impossible to make out. But as I read the last line of the note my heart stopped.

I love you, Brad

I scrambled frantically from behind the tree and held the paper up to the light. There were several lines of writing above his signature but the ink was smudged. The only other sentence I could read was at the end of the letter. It simply said,
I’m sorry.

Clutching the note in my hand, I sprinted through the yard and towards the street, desperate to get back to Anna’s house. As I ran my mind raced.
This note is from Brad from the night he disappeared. The smudge on the window…
The window. I trembled thinking of my window and how I had lied to the police about where I had last seen Brad.
If I had just told Detective Padron the truth, we may have found this months ago.

“Anna!” I tore into the Redmond’s back yard and found Anna right where she had been heading when I left, sunbathing on the back deck.

“What, do you miss me already?” she said with a laugh as she flipped over onto her back.

“Look at this!” I raced towards her with the note and shoved it into her face. “It’s from him!”

She snatched it from me and brought it close to her eyes. “From who?”

“From Brad! Can you read it?”

She held it at different angles, squinting in an attempt to make out the faded words.

“I don’t get it. What am I looking at here?”

“It’s from Brad. From the night he disappeared. It has been under my window this whole time! It looks like he taped it to the glass but it must have fallen…”

“But, Lillian,” she said, handing the note back. “What makes you think it’s from that night?”

I held the paper towards her again and pointed. “Because, look. It says ‘I love you’.”

She looked up at me with wide eyes.

“It’s from that night,” I said again. “I’m sure.”

Anna sat up taller. “So what do we do? Don’t we need to take it to the police? Maybe they can read what it says.”

“No.” I shook my head. “They won’t do anything. It will end up in a drawer somewhere.”

“Lil, I'm just not sure what else you can do with it if you can’t tell what it says.” Anna shrugged her shoulders.

“I can’t read it,” I told her. “But I know someone who can.”

“Really?” she asked excitedly. “Who?”

“I don’t have time to explain. But... I... need your car.”

Anna’s jaw dropped as a smile grew on her face. “Wait… what is this? Is this a trick?”

“What?”

“Lillian… if you want to borrow my car just ask! You don’t have to show up here with some note and claim it’s from Brad...”

“No! Anna, I’m serious. Please.
Please
. I will never ask you for anything, ever again,” I begged.

“Yes, you will.”

“Okay... okay I probably will. But I’m begging you.”

Anna stood up and placed her hands on her hips. “ Good grief, Lillian. You know I’m going to say yes! Just had to make you sweat a little.” She headed towards the back door. “Now hold on, I’ll get you the keys.”

“Thank you!” I shouted as she disappeared into the living room. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”