“You drive by here a lot, right? Do you think you’re going to pull over all the time? Save it for anniversary days? Or change your route completely?”
“I’m sure I’ll come on random days too.”
“Even when you’re dating someone new?”
Jackson’s face scrunches up and his hands raise, like he’s carrying sand and letting it slip between his fingers, and ultimately shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m not thinking about dating anyone else right now. Are you?”
“Hell no. But I haven’t been thinking about that for a while now. I know everyone keeps reminding us that we’re young and we have the rest of our lives ahead of us, which I always thought was stupid. Someone could drop an anchor off this cliff and kill us right now.”
“Maybe if we were living in a cartoon,” Jackson says.
“I’m seventeen and you’re nineteen. I’m not saying we have to go on dates right now, but we should be open to someone new eventually, right? Theo is gone and more than anything, I want someone to tell me when it’s okay for us to let someone else in.”
Jackson shakes his head. “I’m not thinking about moving on right now,” he says. There’s something in his voice that I can’t interpret, but both guesses make me feel shitty. The first is that he’s judging me for throwing this out there, for trying to have this conversation. The last is he believes I should’ve moved on a while ago because you and I weren’t even dating when you died. I hope that’s not what he’s thinking. Love doesn’t begin and end with some online status.
I drop it.
I let him know I’ll wait for him in the car so he can have a minute alone out here in the space you shared. In the backseat, I rest my arm on one of your boxes and observe Jackson from the window. He’s not crying, and, what’s more notable to me, he’s not talking to himself, which means he’s not talking to you, either. I wonder when that will start.
Jackson returns to the car after a few minutes. “I’m ready to head back. You cool with that?”
“Yeah.”
We drive in an awkward silence. I know I should fill these silences with explanations instead of letting them drag on, but I don’t have the energy to explain where I was coming from when I said we’d eventually have to move on. All I know is you wouldn’t want us crying over you forever. Right?
I hang up with my mom just as we pull into Jackson’s garage. I assure her for the fourth time that once I get home, I’ll honor my promise and go to therapy.
I gained three hours today—I wish it were four, of course—but it’s been so draining that I’m paying the price for it now. I’m exhausted. But I have no regrets, other than wishing I’d documented our day on Instagram or Facebook. I haven’t touched those accounts since a couple of days after you died.
Jackson must’ve trained Chloe right, because she isn’t barking when we enter the house, just wagging her tail with tired enthusiasm; she’s already over my newness. He immediately throws all the clothes off his bed and onto the floor, including the shirts we folded and socks we balled up.
“You’re more than welcome to sleep in the bed with me. It’s big enough, obviously.” He gestures at his king-size mattress. It’s definitely big enough so that we wouldn’t touch. Maybe he even played a game with you, rolling over to you, bumping into you and laughing until your lips found each other’s . . . and I’ll black out everything from there.
This is making me feel a way.
I don’t know how Jackson truly feels about this. He’s probably being nice but might actually prefer if I slept on the floor with Chloe, which is pretty much the treatment he received at my house. To take it to another level, I don’t know how you’ll feel about this, if you’ll see it as some sort of betrayal. It only makes me think about how all our families would react to this, and whether or not they would be happy to see my friendship with Jackson has grown so much that I would feel comfortable sleeping in a bed with him, or if they would mistake it for something it’s not.
To top it off and even it out, I don’t know if I’m feeling okay with this idea because I trust Jackson is a good guy who won’t pull anything that’ll make this uncomfortable, because I trust Jackson doesn’t have any feelings in him to make me suspicious of this simple invitation, or if I’m feeling okay with this because I’m truly lonely and miss sleeping in a bed with someone—because I missing sleeping in a bed with you. Sleeping in a bed you’ve slept in next to someone you’ve slept with might be the next best thing for both Jackson and me.
“Are you sure you don’t want me sleeping down here with Chloe?”
“Chloe sleeps alone,” Jackson says.
“Sucks for Chloe.”
“No, Chloe gets action. She just sends all her hookups back to their respective doghouses once the deed is done.”
“Poor guys.”
“You’re assuming Chloe plays it straight.”
Jackson closes the window because all sorts of bugs have been known to sneak in during the middle of the night, not that they make it very far throughout the rest of the house before Chloe hunts them down and eats them. In a flash, Jackson unbuckles his pants, his jeans drop to his ankles, and he kicks his way out of them. I’m expecting him to pull on some pajamas over his slightly hairy legs and somewhat revealing gray boxers, but he sits on top of his covers like this shouldn’t be surprising to me even though I’ve only seen him going to bed in my sweatpants the past few nights. Jackson counts the pillows, throwing one off the bed so only four remain. It fills me with warmth that he’s making the bed safe for me. He sets his phone to charge, uses a remote to turn on his air conditioner, and lies down.
I wonder if this is his routine.
I walk to the opposite side of the bed, to the left side. “Did Theo sleep here or where you are?”
Jackson knows where I’m coming from with this. “He originally only slept here,” he says, patting the side he’s on. “He never admitted it, but I think it was something left over from you. But one night he fell asleep on that side and changed.”
You used to joke I ruined you because you would find yourself wandering to everyone’s right, not just mine. But Jackson somehow fixed you. I press a hand on this side of the bed where you once woke up feeling differently, and I sit down, hoping Jackson can somehow fix me, too. The cold air fills the room. Soon I’m under a light sheet, the comforter at my feet if I need it. Jackson turns off the light and the whirlwind of discomfort I was anticipating never hits me. It doesn’t feel right, but it doesn’t feel wrong either.
What hasn’t changed is how much I like noise when I go to sleep, something that started when I was a kid. My parents originally thought I only wanted the TV on so I could keep watching cartoons instead of going to sleep, but I truly just wanted noise to drown out everything happening outside my window.
“Bore me to sleep with a story,” I say.
Jackson laughs. He launches right in with how whenever Anika and Veronika stayed over during high school, they would play their card game, talk shit about the latest person they couldn’t stand, have heart-to-hearts that always surprised them and sometimes made things awkward, and would always end in three-way spooning. He asks me about the good days with you and Wade. I push all the bad stuff away, remembering fun times, like relay races in middle school and funny things like Wade’s aversion to eating snacks shaped like animals and the way he quickly steps onto an escalator as if it’s going to suddenly change its speed. Jackson tells me how much he misses his friends, but I can’t get myself to admit that about Wade.
It’s after midnight, officially the thirteenth. Jackson must know it too, but neither of us brings it up. You know Jackson and I would sacrifice so much to have you lying here between us, but I’m learning there should be some times I put you to rest for a little bit instead of obsessing about you every day. Or I’m trying. I don’t know what will be left of me if love and grief can’t bring you
back to life. Maybe I need to be brought back to life, too.
Tuesday, December 13th, 2016
It’s been one month since the universe lost you. One month since you woke up in the morning. One month since you opened a book. One month since you ate a meal. One month since you keyed a text message. One month since you went for a walk. One month since you held a hand. One month since you kissed your boyfriend. One month since you thought of a future that’s not happening. One month since you maybe dreamed up your own alternate universes.
It’s been one month since you died.
It’s been one month since you lived.
“What did Theo do on his last day?”
Jackson and I haven’t spoken much today. To each other, at least. We had a fairly quiet breakfast with Ms. Lane—scrambled eggs and sausage links. Anika called Jackson because she remembered the date, and the two caught up for a little bit. I called your family and spoke with Denise for a bit, relieved your parents let her stay home from school today. I guess they’ve cut back on their whole stick-to-a-routine business. Jackson and I have only spoken about little things, like what time we need to get to the pier, but nothing bigger than that. But once Jackson pulls into the beachside parking lot, the gleaming sand and Pacific Ocean straight ahead of us, all my silence turns into curiosity, and all my curiosity refuses to hold back.
I want to know everything about the day you died.
Jackson doesn’t answer me.
We get out of the car. Jackson kicks off his sneakers, leaving them in the front seat, his little life hack to keep sand out of his shoes. (“You can’t get sand in your shoes if your shoes never touch the sand,” he told me yesterday.) I do the same, leaving my socks behind too, and my feet are burning against the asphalt, so I hop over to a patch of grass as if I’m walking on hot coals. Jackson doesn’t seem to be as distressed as I am.
The sky is the same blue as yesterday, nothing magical or noteworthy going on there. But the Santa Monica Pier grabs my attention, its Ferris wheel standing tall.
“We went on the Ferris wheel for the first time together,” Jackson says, as if reading my mind. “Both of us. I don’t hate heights as much as Theo did, but we promised to get through it together.” He pulls out his phone and I remove the sunglasses Jackson loaned me so I can clearly see the photo of you two sitting in a Ferris wheel car, making fake-scared faces. The clouds look so close to you both, it’s as if you could’ve brought one back down with you.
You had a first on the day you died, too, something you did to feel braver and something you were supposed to be able to reflect on when something else scared you.
“We felt untouchable after that,” Jackson says. He throws his phone into the front seat and locks up.
He walks past me and I follow, stepping over a guardrail and onto the sand. He’s not running toward the ocean, childlike—not that I was expecting him to do so—but there is a charge in his step, which I wasn’t expecting. This is the place where you drowned, the place where Jackson watched you drown—there’s no way in hell I could ever hurl myself into this like he is.
We walk past a family of three spread out on a towel. The father is reading from a tablet, the mother is filling out a crossword puzzle, and the little girl—who I’m considering the tip of this odd triangle, her parents balancing her out from bottom angles—is building a sand castle and in desperate need of more sunscreen. I hope her parents will grab her if she wanders away, that they won’t let her get too far, that they’ll be there to pull her out of the waves.
Jackson and I reach the edge of the wet sand. He looks around, crying, his hands trying to speak for him but constantly falling back to his sides.
“I don’t even know the spot where it happened, Griffin,” he manages, his voice strained. “When accidents happen, people know where to leave flowers, but not me. Everything happened so quickly. All I know is the lifeguards weren’t close enough. And I, I . . . I wasn’t fast enough.”
He walks into the ocean, and I go with him. A small wave brushes my ankles and toes, sending chills up my legs, and I almost retreat, wishing my feet were burning against asphalt again. But I stay with Jackson.
You once shared a really weird speculation about water with me. It was when you first got out here and I actually thought you must’ve been stoned. You said every single molecule in all bodies of water—ocean and lake, shower and sink—has a story and reason for existence. You always thought there was more to the world, but this idea about water didn’t feel very conversation-worthy before. What was I supposed to say when you thought a drop from your showerhead was about to fall directly into your drain, missing you completely, and head out on its way toward a greater purpose than cleaning you? College kids smoke weed; everyone knows that. This is what I felt like saying.
But as I stand here in the ocean that stole you away from us, I wonder if any molecule here witnessed your death, if any water splashing against my legs filled your throat as you struggled to breathe.
I wade in deeper, knee-high, and my jeans tense against my legs. I crouch, crying now, too, and punch the water again and again. Punching water hurts. But I don’t stop, even after I’m drenched, even after Jackson calls my name, even after I howl, even after a wave surprises me and takes me under, though now I’m fighting the ocean to release me as I tumble underneath, panicking.
I know I’m not that deep, but I don’t know which way is up, I’ve never been able to keep my eyes open underwater. The ocean gets heavier, pinning me down—no, it’s sucking me up, and it’s Jackson, not the ocean. I inhale a deep breath, spitting out water, and Jackson hugs me and I hug him back.
“What the hell were you doing?”
I lost my sunglasses when I was taken under, and the sun is piercing. I try telling him about your damn water molecules and wanting to fight them all, but I keep crying and crying, knowing what I felt under there for a few seconds is nothing compared to what you experienced when your arms and legs couldn’t fight anymore, when your panic probably got the best of you, when you breathed in water, when your brain shut you down. Thinking of this terrifies me, but I know I’m safe with Jackson—you could’ve been too if he were in here with you.
“Why weren’t you swimming with Theo?” My question comes out in a cough and sounds more accusatory than I mean it to, and Jackson freezes. We’re inches away from each other. It’s still hard to make out his face because my eyes are irritated and the sun is attacking my vision. “I’m not blaming you.”
“I know,” Jackson says quietly. “Theo wanted to go in alone. He had just gotten off the phone and wanted a minute to himself. I stayed at the beach with our stuff, and Theo went deeper than he should’ve.”
It isn’t Jackson’s fault.
My rage dies down. My body is registering how ice-cold this water is, even after I’ve made rounds underneath it. I also officially hate the ocean because it can’t be trusted with any of our lives. I was right to protect my sand castles from the ocean as a kid. Screw this. I hold Jackson’s bare arm and force him out of the water with me.
I take off my shirt and drop face-first into the sand, feeling the sun on my back and shoulders instantly. It’s not burning me alive like it should be. Instead it actually feels kind of relaxing. Or maybe that’s just because I’m back on dry land.
“I’m sorry,” Jackson says, sitting beside me, staring out into the surf. I almost ask if he’s talking to you or me, when I remember he doesn’t talk to you like I do. “I should’ve been in there with him. I could’ve saved him. Everyone’s lives would’ve been so much better.”
My hand flies out toward Jackson’s as if his hand were some deus ex machina button that could blow up every zombie pirate in a single blast. “You’re not single-handedly responsible for Theo, okay? You didn’t force him out there, and you made every effort you could to bring him back.”
Jackson nods, but I’m not sure any
of this is actually comforting him. The fact is that I feel just as powerless now as he did then.
I’ve been blindsided into watching Edward Scissorhands tonight with Jackson; I’m blaming my yes on our vulnerable state. I always thought you’d be here with me when I finally took on this childhood fear, ready to pause the film if I needed a second. I never thought I’d be watching it in Los Angeles with another guy who loves you, especially not while wearing his shorts. I would’ve preferred sitting outside, watching the sky burn in yellow-orange and pinkish-red clouds.
It turns out this film isn’t as terrifying as I remembered it to be. Sure, it’s creepy because Edward has scissors for hands and scars all over his pale face, but how scary can the guy be when he’s trimming a bush into a dinosaur and giving dogs haircuts?
“The film score may have had something to do with it, too,” I tell Jackson, sitting cross-legged with a pillow on my lap.
“I’m not sure who composed it,” Jackson says, pulling out his phone.
“Danny Elfman.”
Jackson nods when his search comes through. “Yup.”
“Suck it, Google,” I say. “Did you ever hear Theo say that?”
“Yup. It was like a cowboy match with him to see if he could answer something before I could draw my phone and look it up. Theo would’ve kicked ass at Jeopardy.”
I turn away from the movie. Jackson gets what it was like to be with you so much, I could hug him. “I bought him the Jeopardy video game, which was a huge mistake. I felt like the hugest idiot whenever we played.”
“You’re not an idiot.”
I shake that off. “Did you ever feel smart around him?”
“No, and I’m older. I probably felt worse than you did.”
That age stuff is stupid and almost cost you and me our friendship, but I get where he’s coming from. “Theo was never trying to be superior about it, which I loved. He was just so excited to be learning everything to the point that it sometimes felt like he didn’t have enough room in his head to remember the little things . . . and a couple of bigger things. It’s weird how all the information Theo spent downloading into his stupid beautiful brain is now gone.”