The Leaving Season (6 page)

“What are you gonna say?”

I held my hands open helplessly. “I don't know. I have nothing to say.”

“You're the only one who
does
have something to say. And me, I guess. Since I was his best friend.”

And there's not a person in the world who understands that,
I wanted to say but wisely did not. “Well, what would
you
say?” I turned to face him on the bench, hugging one knee to my chest. “Go ahead. You're at the park under the gazebo—”

He made a face. “That's a dumb place. Nate would hate that.”

“And Mr. Z calls you up—”

“Who's that?”

“Guidance counselor. And you say . . .” I gestured to him with a flourish. “Go on.” I dug into my bag and found a pen
and a scrap of paper.

“What are you doing?” he asked brusquely.

“Taking notes.”

He snorted his disapproval. “Are you kidding? Don't do that. Don't
plan
it like that. Nate deserves better.”

“Excuse me?” I snapped.

“Speak from your heart.
Your
heart. Not mine.”

My
heart? The one that was about to crack wide open and bleed all over this paper? I put my pen down. “Really? Let's see you do it.”

Lee took a loud slurp of Icee and then turned to mirror me on the bench. He belched softly and wiped his mouth. I could see his lips and tongue were dark blue, and I wondered if mine were too. “I loved Nate. He was not only the best friend I
ever
had, he was the brother I
never
had. He always thought of me before himself. He laughed at my stupid jokes. He made me feel more important than I was. He made me a better person.” The sun shifted just then and a shaft of light cut across Lee's face, making his eyes shimmer and accenting his sharp cheekbones with shadow. “Nate kept me sane when all around me was shit.”

The silence in the small town seemed to intensify in the absence of Lee's voice. Not far away, a pair of dogs barked and whined and their owner shouted cheerfully. I watched Lee, who seemed to have withdrawn into himself with these words, as if he were pulling a protective shell around him.

Profound? No. Heartfelt? Absolutely. I felt the depth of
his love for Nate in those few words. They were the truth. Nate
was
his best friend.

“I got your text.” I wanted to let him know I cared, but he didn't look at me. “It meant a lot to me that you sent it.” I waited. Lee's gaze was on his sneaker, on his finger tracing the lines of green marker he'd drawn. “It was really—”

“Station's open,” he said abruptly and hopped up from the bench. And like that, he was gone, loping awkwardly across the street. I tossed the Icee cup and the candy wrapper into the trash and followed him.

“You really saved my ass,” I told him.

“Nah. You'd have made it to the circus eventually.”

I grinned and felt immediately guilty for it.

“Remember,” he said very seriously. “Always feed the rabbits in your hat.” With that, he was off, back toward Lookingglass, his job, and his girlfriend.

I arrived home as the sun was setting, late for dinner, late to help with Emma or the cooking or even setting the table. The meat was dry and the salad warm, but neither of my parents complained, which made my apology sound even more desperate and my running-out-of-gas excuse lame.

“It's okay, Middie,” my mother said as she scooped mashed sweet potatoes onto my plate. “You've got a lot on your mind.”

Even Emma was sweet. “I ironed my uniform myself,” she said proudly. And then she asked, “Why are your lips all blue?”

I ran a finger along my mouth as if I could rub off the color. I remembered the Icee and the candy bar and my sidesaddle ride on Lee's Vespa. And I remembered his words:
I loved Nate.

“A friend of mine gave me a slushie.”

She smiled. “The blue kind's the best.”

“Yeah, it is.” My heart ached a tiny bit less. It must have been the slushie.

My sister Allison arrived home the night before the memorial, surprising me at breakfast the next morning. She wrapped me in a hug when she saw me. “I'll be right by your side for the funeral.”

“It's not a funeral,” I corrected her. “It's a memorial, a candlelight vigil.” I still didn't know what I would say.

Speak from your heart,
Lee had said. But what was in my heart?

All day I paged through photos on my phone for inspiration. I clutched the pool party photo of us for so long the edges warped with my sweat. By the time my parents drove us to the town center, my thoughts were elusive and vague.
I prayed the right words would come to me when my name was called.

A small crowd was gathered around the white-canopied gazebo on the green in front of the town hall. A couple of girls on the cheerleading squad were handing out candles with small paper cones to catch the melting wax. We stood off to one side as the group swelled. It didn't take long for the green to be filled with people, young and old, from all areas of Nate's life, but I didn't see Lee.

Just as the sun began to set, Reverend Platt from Nate's church stepped up to the gazebo. A large man who looked like an ex-boxer, he held no microphone but even without one, his booming voice carried across the green, welcoming everyone. He nodded to the girls with the cones, a signal for them to light their candles and walk among the crowd, passing the flame from one person to another. Soon there was a blanket of flickering lights, as if the stars had tumbled from the heavens and landed on the town green.

“Friends,” the reverend said. “We are here to honor one of the finest young men this town has ever produced.” His grin was genial, despite the sad occasion. “Everyone in Roseburg knew Nate Bingham. He touched so many lives.”

I heard a few sniffles and some whispers around us as the pastor went on. He reminded us that this was a celebration of who Nate was and what he had done with his brief life, not a time to mourn.

I saw Mr. Bingham standing at the back of the gazebo
with the twins and Scotty. He looked resigned to the memorial and to being in front of all of these people. I felt sorry for him being all alone up there—first Nate was gone and now his wife. My mother had told me earlier that Mrs. Bingham had refused to come back from Honduras for the service. She wasn't ready to even consider the possibility her son could be dead until all efforts to find him had been exhausted. When I'd told Mom I agreed with Mrs. Bingham, she'd shaken her head sadly and replied, “A memorial is for
others
. They need to be given permission to move on.”

Others
, I thought. But not me. Not yet.

A few moments later, Mr. Z brought a blowup of Nate's yearbook photo on an easel. I heard a collective gasp from the crowd. This memorial suddenly became very real.

One by one, Mr. Z called the names of people who wanted to share memories of Nate. Some were poignant and sweet, while others were funny: Brad Bingham's story of Nate teaching him how to fish was far more hilarious than he'd let on at the meeting. Before I knew it, my name was called, and there was a smattering of encouragement from my friends and family. I felt my heart leap to my throat.

The words I'd written down earlier in the day utterly escaped me. My gaze swept the green as I tried desperately to think of something to tell these people about my boyfriend.
He was the love of my life,
I wanted to say.
He was my soul mate. He was the first boy I ever kissed.

The
only
boy I ever kissed.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything. Nothing came out but a jumbled mess. “Nate . . . my . . .”

Speak from your heart
. Lee's words had been effortless. He'd expressed his sorrow so completely, so easily. How could I not? Did I not love Nate enough?

I glanced over my shoulder at the photo of Nate and heard my breath catch. He was gone. He was really and truly gone. I reached into my purse, and my fingers gripped the edge of the photo. It soothed me but only briefly.

“Nate . . . made me a better person. He made me more important than I was.” They were Lee's words, but they were echoes of my own thoughts too.

And I stopped. That was all I could say, all that I had in me. I stood and swayed, feeling my knees getting weak underneath me. As my father helped me down from the gazebo, I couldn't help but think that I'd been a disappointment. I hadn't honored Nate. I hadn't done what others had. They'd spoken from
their
hearts. They'd revealed
their
personal stories. But I—who'd known him the best—had nothing to say. Nothing that was
mine
.

At home I went straight up to my bedroom, flinging off Allison's black dress and heels as I went. I emptied my purse on my desk and found the photo of Nate and me. I stared hard at my image.
Why couldn't you find something to say? Why didn't you tell them all how you felt?

When I turned on my phone, I saw four text messages
from Haley appear, but I didn't have the energy to read or respond to them.

And then, as I was holding the phone, another one came in:
who is this?

I glanced at the number. It was from Lee. Huh?

I quickly texted him back:
it's Meredith

I don't know any Meredith

Shaking my head, I typed again:
Middie

Yoko? Why r u texting me?

Me? I wasn't . . . ! My fingers tapped the tiny keys.
U textd me

And then I added,
im not yoko

No response. I waited, staring at the screen.

Nothing.

Nothing? What the hell? I finished dressing, washed my face, and tied back my hair—and then, nearly half an hour later, a new text came in:

Why did u use my words

My mouth opened.
Why
. . . I stammered an answer in my head.
I—I—I didn't mean to . . .
and just as I realized what his comment meant, the phone rang and I snatched it up. “You were there,” I said to Lee. “You were at the service.”

“No, I wasn't.”

“Yes, you were. Or else you wouldn't know what I said.”

“So you did use my words.”

“So you did attend the service.”

Silence.

“Why didn't you come up?”

“Not my thing.”

“But why—”

“Meredith, stop talking.”

I was so shocked by the request, which came so matter-of-factly, that I stopped. Not for the first time did I wonder why Nate and Lee were such close friends. Nate was kind and sweet and would never tell me or anyone else to shut up. I crawled across my bed and lay down, resting my head between two pillows.

Lee's voice was slightly muffled. “You got home okay.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm glad. You . . .” He said something else, but I couldn't hear it.

“What's that?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Good night.”

Good night? What?
“Wait. . . .”

“What?”

“You were his best friend. Tell me—tell me what you did together.”

There was a pause.

“We liked hanging out. He liked doing shit with me.” Lee's tone was clipped. “Couldn't you say the same thing?”

“Yeah.”

His voice softened. “Then why didn't you?”

“I . . . I don't know.” I laughed once, embarrassed. “Your words were better than mine.”

“We loved Nate. Nate loved us. For different reasons,” he said. “He was a pretty funny guy, you know?”

“Funny?” I'd never thought of my boyfriend as
funny
necessarily. He smiled and laughed, but usually other people were telling the jokes.

“He'd call me up in the middle of the night,” Lee said with a chuckle. “Just wanting to drive somewhere. Stop someplace random for a burger or whatever. He liked to be . . . What word did he use? Oh yeah. Spontaneous.”

Spontaneous?
Nate was a careful planner of all things: class schedules, workout routines, life.

“We had some good times, Nate and me,” Lee said quietly. “I'll miss him.”

He ended the call without another word.

I'll miss him too,
I thought as tears filled my eyes. I wondered if Lee cried too. I scrolled through my messages and found his very first one to me:

breathe

I turned over onto my back and stared up at the ceiling.

And did as recommended.

The house was emptier, my room more lonely after Allison went back to school a few days after the memorial service, and I wasn't surprised at all when I was unable to sleep. Before dawn arrived, I tossed on my running shoes, something I hadn't done in weeks, set the coffee pot to brew for my parents, and headed out into the crisp morning air. The sun was still an hour from rising, so the fog that typically burned off had not yet evaporated. I grabbed a thin jacket from the front hall closet before I set off to keep the breeze from chilling my chest and neck and strapped my iPod to my left biceps. I pressed
SHUFFLE
as I popped the buds into my ears. I didn't want to have to choose which songs were on
my run list; I wanted it to be . . . spontaneous.

As I reached the end of the driveway, “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence + the Machine was playing, immediately followed by Neon Trees' “Everybody Talks.” I passed Haley's house when Led Zeppelin was on and circled the town green as I heard Michael Jackson. For a long stretch of dirt road, I listened to a violin concerto by Bach, which almost made me cry, but then LMFAO's “Sexy and I Know It” kicked in and I grinned. I sang along with Blondie and Rihanna, songs I didn't realize I knew by heart.

With every song, I took a new turn in the road and before I knew it, I had traveled far past my typical run with Nate. I heard one more song, “Hey Jude” by The Beatles, and then I was at the creek. The one that ran through the woods behind Nate's house. How had I gotten so far off my path?

I felt sweat pooling under my arms and tickling the hair at the back of my neck. After I unzipped my jacket and tied it around my waist, I knelt by the stream and splashed freezing-cold water on my face. The shock of it made me gasp, but it felt good. I was suddenly exhausted. I'd run on fumes, having not had any breakfast or even orange juice, and was ready to collapse. I leaned my back against a tree and slid down carefully until my butt hit the tree stump below.

From this angle, I could
just
see his house, which meant that this was
our
tree. A month ago Nate had sat here with me on his lap, not a care in the world. My finger traced a lazy pattern on the side of the stump. Funny that we'd been together
for so long, living in a town filled with trees, and we never once carved our initials into one. Were we so much a part of the digital age that declaring our love like that was too analog for us? I smiled, thinking of how Nate the environmentalist might cry,
Carve a tree? That would damage it forever!

My gaze found the side porch at the Bingham house where we studied and the old-fashioned swing where we would curl up as night fell. On those nights, Nate and I would simply melt into each other and ignore the prying eyes of his sisters, who were determined to catch us kissing. I felt my cheeks flush, thinking about the many,
many
times they had succeeded.

I tilted my head back against the gnarled bark of the tree and felt the world spin around me. I had run too far without water and was probably dehydrated. Nate would have reminded me to drink water; he would have brought it on the hottest mornings. I missed that. I missed his sweaty hand pulling me along for the last quarter mile. I missed his salty kiss when we finally finished.

I heard a rustle in the leaves and saw two figures coming toward me. They looked exactly like Nate walking Rocky, and even though I knew it was akin to a mirage, my hands gripped the stump I was sitting on and I tried to push myself up. God, I was tired. My eyes blinked a few times, bringing Nate's image into and out of focus. I wanted so badly to see Nate that my mind was eager to play a trick on me.

“Come on, boy!” It sounded so much like Nate calling
to his dog, but I knew it couldn't be. It was only my sleep-deprived, dehydrated brain being cruel.

He's not there. It's not real.

“That's it, Rocky! Come on!”

Oh, Nate,
I thought wistfully as he loped toward me through the woods, dog at his heels. His hands were dug deep into the pockets of his jeans and he elbowed aside bushes and stepped over fallen branches as he came toward me. He was so handsome: the sun filtering through the leaves gave his chiseled features a golden glow and highlighted his hair. As he came closer, I caught a glimpse of a brooding grin, a look I hadn't seen before—it was sexy.

Ha! Sexy.
I must have been
very
dehydrated to imagine . . .

“Hey, Middie.”

Oh. Shit.

I gasped as the guy I'd imagined became very real. And very someone else.

“Lee. Hey.”

What the hell?
I felt my blush spread down my neck, and I had to quickly look away from him. I jumped up to go, but my head swam and I began to sway.

“Meredith?” He reached for me and I clutched at his arms, falling forward over his shoulder. He caught me with one hand at my waist and the other on my back. My face was pressed against his neck for a brief second, and I breathed in his scent. Sharp, soapy. Nothing like Nate's spicy aftershave.

No. Nothing like Nate at all.

I pushed Lee back and put some distance between us just as Rocky swished his tail around my legs. I bent down to rub his face between my hands and let him place a sloppy kiss on my cheek. “Hey, boy, you going for a walk today?” I needed to pull myself together. I was just tired, not crazy.

Lee knelt down too and scratched Rocky's neck. “Watch for his ears,” he said. “His ears are really sensitive.” Lee's face was so close, just a few inches from mine.

“Are you really telling me how to pet a dog I've known since he was a puppy?” I stood up again, but slowly this time so I didn't faint. “What are you doing here anyway?” I crossed my arms over my chest and took a few steps away from the tree. Lee stayed on his knees with the dog, gently stroking the back of his neck as if he hadn't heard a word I'd said.

“I'm walking Rocky, what does it look like?” His words were abrupt but his tone sweet. He crooned softly into Rocky's ear. “We're walkin', yes, indeed, we're talkin', 'bout you and me . . .”

“Does Mr. Bingham know?” I was irritated by his presence, annoyed by his
knowledge
. He wasn't supposed to know so much, to be so much a part of Nate's life. That was
me
. Not him.

Lee finally glanced up at me over his shoulder and fell back onto the log. “Rocky and I go way back,” he said as if that explained things. “I helped Nate train him. I took him to the vet when he swallowed a plastic bone.”

“He was Nate's dog.”

“Yup, he was. And now . . . well, I just want to make sure Rocky's getting enough attention.” Lee cocked his head to one side. “Nate's dad has a lot on his plate, you know?”

He was right. Why did he have to be right?

I reached a hand down to poor Rocky and combed his fur with my fingers. “Yeah. Okay.”

“I got my Vespa, if you want a lift back,” Lee said. He mimed revving the engine with invisible handlebars.

“I'm good.” But I did still feel a little woozy. “Maybe I should sit for a bit longer.”

Lee moved aside, and I took his place on the stump. Rocky plopped himself down on top of our feet so we couldn't move without disturbing him.

“You might be right about telling Mr. Bingham,” Lee admitted. “He probably should know I walk him every day.”

“Yeah, they might wonder why Rocky's always exhausted.”

“He's old. He's always exhausted.” But he said it with affection.

“How'd you get in? You have a key?”

Lee held a finger to his lips. “There's a door that doesn't close all the way.”

I felt myself grin. “The one next to the cellar. Yeah, I know.” Lee looked surprised. “What, you think you're the only one who knows the secrets of the Bingham house?”

Lee's eyes widened. “You know about the bodies?”

“What . . . ?”

He held his finger to his lips once more. “Shhh . . . let's never speak of this again.”

I laughed in spite of myself. And then I remembered something. “There was a body once—”

“Shhh!”

“But it was a gerbil.”

Lee nodded. “Scotty's gerbil, Harry Potter.”

Nate's little brother had tried to cover up the animal's death from his parents by simply pretending it was alive. One day Mrs. Bingham, with the assistance of the twins, decided to clean the cage. The girls' screams echoed for miles.

We both fell silent, content to listen to the rush of the water over rocks in the creek bed, a crisp birdsong high in the trees, and the hiccupy snore of the old dog at our feet.

“What'd you mean the other day,” I said quietly, “about the shit in your life?” It sounded more abrupt than I'd intended. Lee seemed to bring out bluntness in me.

“Take your pick. You wanna hear about the school shit? The father shit? The mother shit?” He picked up a small stone and chucked it into the water. It plopped with a teensy splash. “I have many different shit flavors.”

“Uh, school?”

He shrugged. “Crappy grades. No money. Ergo, no college.” He aimed another rock at the water, and it skimmed the surface of the creek before sinking. “Next.”

I hesitated. I wasn't sure why I wanted to know about Lee's life. Maybe it would help me understand what Nate saw
in him a little better. “Your dad?”

“He's a contractor. Overseas. Don't see him much.”

“Oh. Um, you ever get to visit him?”

He grunted. “Uh, yeah, no. Iraq. Awesome, right? Next.”

And just like that, I felt the wall go up again. It was like a layer of steel and stone between us; it surrounded him, protected him. He'd told me to ask. Was I not supposed to take him up on it? Was I not supposed to know? Sometimes it seemed like talking to Lee was walking in on a conversation that had been going on for a long time before I arrived, as if he simply expected me to know stuff. But how could I when Nate had never talked to me about him?

“I said, next,” Lee huffed at me. “What else?”

I felt a chill run up my spine. I'd hit the edge of something, and I was afraid to go further. I swallowed and shook my head. “I should probably go now. I'm sure I'm late for school.”

“School? Nate
died
, for god's sake. Give yourself a fucking break.”

The harshness of his words hit me as hard as if I'd been smacked in the face. I smacked back. “I can't. It's . . . important.”

“Why?”

“Uh, so I can get
good
grades and
go
to college?”

Lee waved a hand at me. “Whatever.” This “whatever” was dismissive, no doubt about that.

I dislodged my shoes from under Rocky and stood care
fully, walking my hands up the tree until I was sure I could stand without collapsing.

Lee rose as well and stamped the ground next to the old dog to get him up. “Come on, ya old bag o' bones,” he mumbled.

I bent at the edge of the stream to get a sip of water before the run home. I tried holding my ponytail out of my face to splash water into my mouth, but it was impossible to get more than a tiny sip while using one hand—and impossible to not get wet as I was doing so.

If Nate had been here, he'd have brought water, I thought again, or reminded me to bring a bottle.

But he wasn't here. The weight of that loss nearly made me weep. Would every tiny thing make me think of Nate? For the rest of my life?

I felt Lee come up behind me and kneel next to the stream. “I'll hold your hair.”

“What—”

“Just—I'll hold your hair, okay? Use both hands.” With his shoulder pressed to mine, he lifted my ponytail from my neck, making it easier for me to scoop water with two hands.

After gulping down as much as I could, I pulled my head and hair away from him and wiped my mouth with the sleeve of my jacket. “Thanks.”

Lee stood without another word and walked away with Rocky trotting by his side.

“I'll see you around,” I said to him.

He lifted his hand but didn't turn around. “I'll call you when you need me.”

Huh?
“How will you . . . ?”

But he was already disappearing among the trees.

God. He was so strange. Maybe I would never truly know what Nate saw in him.

I stretched my legs on the stump, readying myself for the run home. I popped the buds in my ears and started my iPod—and then stopped. No music for the run home, I decided. I wanted to listen to the trees and the birds and the leaves falling on the road.

And maybe I wouldn't go to school. Not today. Maybe today I would give myself a break.