All This Time(16)

“You’re glad you didn’t lose me, too,” I repeat, shaking my head. “Sometimes I wish it had been me. Sometimes I feel like I’m waiting for her to walk right through that door.” I look across the hallway to the couch, the empty gray cushion. “Waiting for things to go back to normal.”

Sam’s face gets serious, just like it used to when he’d start the chant in our football huddles before a big play. “Me too,” he says, his voice firm. “That’s why we can’t forget her. We have to stick together because we’re the only ones who will keep her memory alive. That’s what Kim would’ve wanted.”

What Kim wanted. I used to think I knew what that was better than anyone. But I didn’t. Sam did.

I think about all the conversations that happened behind my back. How he knew how she really felt. What she really wanted.

“How long did you know?” I ask him. “About Berkeley?”

He pauses, but instead of answering, he hangs his head. “I’m sorry. I should have told you.”

“Yeah,” I say simply. But I think of what Kim said in the car about breaking up. About her going to Berkeley. Would you have let me?

Did he think that too?

He watches me for a long moment, and when he realizes I’m not going to explode, he continues. “I know that night was bad, but she loved you. You have to remember that.”

I let those words sink in, making my head swim more than the alcohol. The “loved” past tense is still just as jarring as it was that night. And it’s too much to unpack right now.

Sam doesn’t stay much longer. We move to safer territory, talking about his plans for this semester, the upcoming UCLA football games, even though I haven’t had it in me to catch up on any preseason coverage.

And then, as he leaves, I promise to not be an asshole and text him more.

But after the door closes behind him, I find myself reopening it a few minutes later and stepping outside, a light chill in the late-summer air. It takes me a second to realize I’m walking to the pond, the half-finished whiskey flask in tow as I limp along the path to the park. I sit at the water’s edge in the shade of one of the huge looming willows, looking out as the afternoon sun reflects off the surface of the water and sends twinkling light all across it.

Gently, the wind blows, tugging at my hair and bringing with it a voice. A whisper. The words are too soft to make out.

I look around, trying to find the source, but this time I’m not surprised when I’m met with nothing—just the green grass around the pond, the trees lining the shore, and a feeling I can’t shake. What Sam said keeps running circles in my mind, like laps after a confiscated bag of peanuts.

I’m not worried about forgetting her. I never could. But how the hell am I supposed to know what she’d want me to do? How she’d want me to be without her?

The voice fades with the breeze, and I run my hands through my hair, wondering how I can possibly stand on my own when I feel so damn unsteady.





8


I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, tucking the hem of my white button-down securely into my pants as I give myself a final once-over.

My hair is still a mess, long and overgrown, but the patchy beard of the last three months is gone, and the new aftershave I bought before graduation has finally been put to use. The scar on my forehead has faded, and the redness is now a soft, far-less-noticeable pink.

I wouldn’t say I look good, but I do look like I’m trying.

Plus, I don’t want to go see Kimberly looking like I’ve “never heard of something called a shower.”

I smile to myself, remembering the athletic banquet at the end of junior year. I showed up straight from a touch football game with Sam. She roasted me with that before we even set foot inside, then pulled out a comb from her purse to slick down my hair in a way that only she could somehow manage.

It’s always like this, some memory rooting me to the spot, stopping me in my tracks.

But Sam was right last week. I have to go and see her. I can’t let her think I would forget her.

Sighing, I head out of the bathroom door and into my bedroom, determination turning into uncertainty as my hand hesitates over a bouquet of irises, the purple petals shockingly bright for such a heavy day.

Am I really ready for this?

I think back through the weeks since Mom decided to take my door off its hinges. I guess I feel stronger in some ways. I’m actually going to my PT appointments. Replying to Sam’s texts instead of ignoring them. Not having a freak-out every time I see Kim in empty chairs and across the room and in places she couldn’t possibly be.

But today I’m actually going to see her. Going to the cemetery and standing in front of a gravestone with her name on it and trying my very best to figure out what exactly she’d want me to do.

And now that the moment is here, I’m scared shitless. The same stomach-dropping feeling I had when not-actually Kim decided to show up next to me during that football game two weeks ago. What’s going to happen when I’m actually near her?

I mean… I could do it tomorrow. Or even next week. After my mom gets home from running errands, I could even call Sam to… put it off. I’d just be putting it off.

“Don’t be such a little bitch, Kyle,” I mutter, and I head up the steps and out the door, hoping the super-long walk to the cemetery will be enough time to pull myself together.