What Remains (18 page)

Twenty-Six

I avoid everyone at school the next day. After the initial concern over my physical health died down yesterday, fear over my mental health kicked in and everyone is avoiding me anyhow. The one exception is Spencer, who finally tracks me down as I'm standing in front of the locker that used to be Lizzie's.

“It's not hers anymore,” he says, coming up behind me.

I turn and lean my head against the cool metal. “It's like she's slipping away.”

Spencer pauses before he says, “She's already gone. You just need to realize that.”

My first reaction is anger. I turn around and say, “Don't we owe her more than that?”

“You owe yourself something too,” he says, turning and leaning back on the locker next to me. “What happened with you and Ally?”

“There is no me and Ally.” The words feel horrible coming out of my mouth. But I spent the night coming to some sort of resignation with the fact that losing Ally somehow makes karmic sense in light of what I did to Lizzie. I'm numb from all this resignation. I will, as Spencer said, live. I want to. And I'm not going to waste Lizzie's sacrifice. But for the first time, something about this loss makes sense.

Spencer turns his head and gives me a look I've only seen him use onstage. “If you've ever trusted me about anything, trust me about this. You need to talk to her.”

Behind my back, my hand finds the combination lock and squeezes hard enough to leave a mark. I didn't think it was possible to overdose on pain, but I've reached the point where I'm not sure that I can take on any more. “I told her about … ” I start to say Lizzie, but even in my haze I care about Spencer too much to burden him with that. “I told her about what happened in The Cave. She bolted.”

Spencer's eyes widen. I can see the flash of surprise in them, followed by disbelief. “I honestly don't think that Ally would care if you French-kissed a wombat.”

I don't think there's any laughter left inside me, but this at least makes me smile.

“I've always thought of you as more of a koala,” I say in a lame attempt at a joke. “It doesn't matter. This way I can't hurt her too. And I trust you, but she said she doesn't want anything to do with me.”

On the other side of me, someone coughs. “I didn't say I didn't want anything to do with you. I said I couldn't.”

I don't know if Ally came to find me or if it's a bad coincidence that we're all standing in the hall together.

“I'm just going to … ” Spencer points down the hall. I have the urge to grab his arm and keep him here in the hope that he can make sense of what's happening. He seems to be able to read Ally better than I can. Something in his eyes tells me to fight for the future. I want to; it's just that standing against Lizzie's locker with Ally looking like she hadn't slept since yesterday makes it hard to believe that I can have a future. Or at least one where I can get close to someone without hurting them.

“Can we go outside?” Ally asks.

I follow her out to the field. Somehow Ally and I always end up on a baseball diamond. I sit on the visitor's bench but she stays standing, nervously dragging one foot through the dirt.

“I'm sorry about how I acted yesterday. I'm sorry I freaked out,” she says.

“No. I get it. I do.” She'd already admitted to hearing all the rumors about us. No surprise she freaked when I confirmed that at least some of them were true.

She runs a hand through her hair. “I keep thinking that I'm over it. You know? For years after Grandma died, I wouldn't even let Dad go out in the evenings. I'd just cry and cry.”

“What? I don't understand.”

She puts her arms around herself and says, “When we started working with the team, you were running and everything. I mean, I knew what you'd been through. But you seemed fine. And then when you didn't show up for lunch the other day, I went to look for you. And all I heard was that you'd been taken to the hospital. That it was your heart. Justin even told me that he heard you'd died.”

She looks like she might cry and that's the only thing that keeps me from finding Justin Dillard and killing him.

“But I'm fine. I
am
fine. Ally, what's this about?” I take her hand and pull her back down to the bench next to me.

“I can't stand to lose one more person,” she says in an eerie echo of my own thoughts. “I'm seventeen. I can't spend every day worrying that my boyfriend is going to die.”

Boyfriend? “I thought you said we weren't … ” I stop mid-sentence because suddenly the word “die” rings even louder in my ears. “I'm not dying, Ally. I might be a panicky freak with his best friend's heart. But I'm not going anywhere.”

To prove my point I fall on the ground and do ten pushups. Then I race to the pitcher's mound and back. When I pick her up and start spinning around, she actually starts to laugh.

She links her arms around my neck. Somewhere in my head I hear
Live, Live, Live
only I'm not sure if it's Lizzie's voice or my own or even Spencer's.

“You can't promise me that,” she whispers with the same lost expression she had on her face when she was over at my house and told me about her mom and her grandmother and her aunt, and it all becomes clear.

I put her down so that she's standing on home plate, my heart racing and my head a jumble of sound. “No, I can't promise. No one can. But I don't think I'm dying faster than anyone else.” If I'm surprised by my own words, I hope it doesn't show.

“I'm sorry that I'm scared,” she says.

“I'm sorry that I am too,” I admit. “Not about being sick, just … I don't want to lose you.”

She squeezes my hand and doesn't let go. “Maybe we can just slow down and see how it goes, together?”

I take a deep breath and enjoy the strong beat of Lizzie's heart. “So you aren't freaked out by the fact that I'm responsible for what happened to Lizzie?”

“You're a bonehead, Ryan. Seriously,” she says and it puzzles me because despite the words she's using, her voice is soft and sweet. “Spencer told me how you spent your entire life making sure that Lizzie stayed safe. How you never let yourself not be there for her. Man, you wouldn't even talk to me because of it.”

“That's not … ” I start, but she puts a finger to my lips and I shut up. I can feel her breath on my face and it sends shivers up my back.

“You didn't kill her, Cal. You're fighting like hell to keep her alive inside you.”

Is that what this is? Could it really be so simple? Before I ask Ally, she answers my questions.

“I don't think you're crazy. I think it must be wonderful to hear her voice and feel her with you. It must make missing her a hell of a lot easier.”

I sink like a perfectly thrown pitch and Ally kneels down next to me. How it is possible that she's managed to make sense of everything when I couldn't? When not even Spencer or Dr. Reynolds could?

“But you need to let her go just a little because I don't think I want to walk away from this … from you … without a fight. I'm already fighting myself. I don't want to fight Lizzie too.” Ally smiles. “She could probably wipe the floor with me. There has to be room for both of us in there.”

She puts her hand, palm flat, onto my chest. I can feel Lizzie's heart beating against it.

Without thinking I start to lean in to kiss her and then pull back. “Wait. So does that mean you aren't upset about me and Spencer either?”

Her face is unreadable and for a minute I think that I should have kept my mouth shut. Maybe she'd even forgotten what I told her. But I see a little smile play across the corners of her mouth.

“Nah, that's actually kinda hot.” I know that I'm standing there with my mouth open like an idiot. “But it's just us from now on, right?”

I nod again. I wonder if I'm ever going to be able to get to the point where she doesn't surprise me at every turn. I wonder if I'd ever want to.

Twenty-Seven

I drive the safe, reliable, boring-as-crap Volvo my parents got me to my next meeting with Dr. Reynolds. I'm still shaky behind the wheel, but he was right when he said that driving would get easier every time. And since I'm driving and he seems to think I'm getting a grip on things, I'm not going to meet with him for a few weeks and see how that goes.

But this time I share my list. Not the one about Ally, which now runs onto multiple pages, because that one is just for me, but the list about Lizzie.

I don't really have anything written down to show him but, for the first time, I'm able to talk about it and once I start, just like driving, it gets easier.

Dr. Reynolds listens and doesn't tell me I'm crazy either. In fact, he says he thinks that my hearing her voice and feeling like she's with me makes sense. His theory is that since she was such a big part of my life, it's to be expected, given everything, given that I have part of her inside me, that my brain would try to find a way to keep her with me. He says that so long as she isn't telling me to jump off of bridges or anything that he isn't worried.

He tells me that Ally sounds wonderful and I agree. We talk a little about Ally's issues. And we decide that I'm going to ask her to come with me the next time I go to see Dr. Collins so that he can explain my prognosis to her.

I talk about how Ally and I have been hanging out with Spencer some and it's strange. I mean, there was a certain dynamic with me, Lizzie, and Spencer that I'd been used to for so long. And this is completely different. Not bad—there is definitely nothing bad about it—but it's strangely easy. It's like Spencer and I were always trying to keep the teeter-totter that was Lizzie perfectly level. It was a lot of work, and both of us were always trying to make sure things didn't tip too far in one direction or another, that she didn't fall off and take us down with her. With Ally, it's like everything is just even to begin with. We can let our guards down and know that everything will be okay.

I thought I'd crossed Reynolds' last hurdle with the list thing, but no. There's one more thing he wants me to do and it won't be easy. In fact, it might be the hardest thing I've ever done, including telling Ally about what happened in The Cave that night.

I tell him that I'll think about it, but really, I'm not ready to go to the cemetery yet. In fact, I don't know that I'll ever be ready, even though Spencer and Ally have made it clear that they agree with Dr. Reynolds in thinking it might help. Even though they're going tomorrow. Even though they want me to come with them.

The whole next day in school I try to think about something else, baseball or Ally, but Lizzie's laughter fills the hallway and I hear,
Not my combination, Cal. I don't even have a locker anymore.

I pull on the lock and realize that I've been trying to open my locker with Lizzie's combination. This is, I guess, my new normal and I'd better get used to it. Maybe I'll just change my numbers to hers. It would make things easier.

I enter the right combination just as I hear “oof” behind me and something slides into my foot. I glance down and then turn and gloat at Justin Dillard hobbling down the hall on a broken ankle and now missing a crutch, which is lying on the floor in front of me. I'd almost feel bad for him had he broken the bone in a game or something, but rumor has it that he broke it falling over a curb in the parking lot while he was hitting on a freshman, so I'm not going to get worked up about it.

I lift my foot and put it down lightly on the crutch.

“Come on, Ryan. Don't be a dick.” Justin's eyes are pleading for me to stop.

“Seriously? You going to insult me? You must not want this back in one piece.”

He hops on his good foot and winces. “Sorry. Can you just give that back?”

We've got a couple of minutes before class and part of me wants to drag this out as long as possible. It's nice to see him look contrite. For once.

“Did you know you have a huge splinter on your foot?” Spencer moves up next to me and I'm even more amused by the fact that he's playing along than I am at giving Dillard a hard time.

Justin narrows his eyes and looks back and forth between us and I wait for him to say whatever horrible thing is on his mind, but then he literally bites his lip and I have to laugh.

I bend down to pick up the crutch and slide it across the floor. “Get out of here,” I say and start to stand, but something catches my eye. There in the bottom corner of my locker is a tiny painting of a cow wearing a Detroit Tigers' cap jumping over a moon surrounded by a couple of surprisingly accurate constellations. The whole thing is about the size of a silver dollar. I could have easily gone the whole year without seeing it.

I sit down and examine each perfect brush stroke and the tiny initials underneath:
LM
.

Spencer kneels next to me to see what I'm staring at. “She started it,” he says in a voice filled with awe.

I promised.

I grab my phone and do what I should have done with her locker: I take a photo. I'm not losing this message from her.

“Thanks, Lizzie.” I whisper it even though the hallway is loud with students and only Spencer is close enough to hear. “Thank you.”

I'm determined not to cry and wish I could find some way to thank her that's more public than talking to her in my head.

Spencer watches me, waiting to see how I'm going to react. He's ready to pick up the pieces as usual. But this time I'm not going to fall apart. This time I just want to do the right thing to honor the friend that I love and miss so much.

“I'll do it,” I say to him in a broken voice. “I'll go with you.”

And that's how I find myself after school in a new blue suit on a beautiful spring day, in the back of Spencer's car. I'm shivering like it's suddenly winter, and Ally keeps reaching through the space between the seats to hold my hand. I think she's as freaked out as I am, but there's no doubt in my mind that it's only their voices and the flow of the periodic table through my head keeping me together.

I keep my eyes closed through the whole drive and it's only when I realize they've stopped talking and the car has stopped moving that I open them.

I never thought I could ever go to a cemetery, yet here I am. Rows and rows of gray headstones stand at attention like concrete soldiers. Some have flags. Some have flowers. Some have nothing and these last ones make my chest constrict.

I sit in the car, paralyzed like I've forgotten how to open a car door. Spencer and Ally exchange looks like protective parents before getting out of the car and coming around to my door.

I take each of their hands in one of mine, and they pull me out, and we begin walking.

My suit is itchy and hot. I had a black one that used to get dragged out for athletic department dinners, but it didn't fit anymore. This new blue one already feels tainted. I don't want something that I only wear to cemeteries.

As we walk, Ally and Spencer keep hold of my hands, which is good because I'm watching the sky rather than my feet. Puffy cumulous clouds are dotted around like cotton balls and I focus on them until we stop and I'm forced to look at what's in front of us.

The headstone is gray marble like the others. For a minute I'm relieved because I think that we're in the wrong place since the grave is labeled, “Elizabeth Marie McDonald” and I don't remember Lizzie ever going by anything other than Lizzie or Liz. But then I feel my heart miss a beat and I know that this really
is
her grave.

Ally tightens her grip on my hand while Spencer bends down and places a bouquet of wild flowers onto the soil.

Some flowers are already scattered over the grave. Some are planted—I guess my mom and Spencer's have been busy—but there are a few scattered on the grass as well: fading, dried red roses next to some that look like they were just delivered by a florist. I know Lizzie didn't really have any friends beside us; Spencer must come here more than I know.

We stand there for a few minutes. I'm not sure what we're supposed to do so I start counting a bunch of rocks that are placed haphazardly on top of the marble.

“What's with the stones?” I quietly ask no one in particular.

Spencer picks a small round rock off the ground and adds it to the pile. “It's for respect,” he answers. “So that the person knows they've had visitors.”

That seems odd. I mean, everyone here is dead; they aren't out running errands. Spencer's explanation makes the stones sound like some type of cosmic voicemail.

Spencer opens up a bag I didn't realize he had and
pulls out one of those LED candles he had in The Cave.

“The cemetery won't let you bring in real candles because of all the grass.” He turns it on and puts that on top of the headstone as well. I think back to what he said about ghost lights and about how they're meant to keep the good, creative spirits around. Lizzie would like that.

Actually, as I look around, I think that Spencer was right when he said that she'd like this whole place. There's a pond and all sorts of bushes that are in bloom. I think if she were here, she'd already have climbed to the top of the tall tree that's casting shadows all around us. She'd be lobbing acorns at my head. That idea makes me smile, which isn't what I was expecting to do here.

Spencer grabs my arm and gives a little tug, then points to a grave a few rows away. “Do you see that?”

I squint. That grave has a candle on it too.

“Alice Tylor,” he says. “The girl who killed herself in The Cave. A bunch of us decided to take turns making sure it stays lit, at least until graduation anyhow.”

Ally's arm wraps around my waist and it feels like it belongs there. It's getting hard to imagine there was ever a time when all I could do was watch her across hallways.

“Can you guys do something for me?” Spencer asks.

He takes a deep breath and looks from one to the other of us and I know whatever he's asking means something to him; something important.

“My dad is speaking at a conference in Seattle. He … my parents bought me a ticket to go too,” he says with a half-smile directed right at me. “They think I need to spend some time with Rob in person.” If he weren't smiling, I'd think they'd had a fight or something, but Spencer doesn't look upset. In fact, he's pretty much glowing. “I guess I've learned that you can't take time for granted.” He shrugs, looking slightly embarrassed and a little young. “It's time to take my own advice.”

“Wow. Cool parents,” Ally says. I have to remind myself that she doesn't know Spencer well, so she wouldn't know that all his parents said when he came out to them was, “We know.” Just like with us, it just didn't really matter. I suspect that they've been giving him as hard a time about seeing Rob as Spencer gave me about talking to Ally.

Here in the quiet of the cemetery, with Spencer on one side, Ally on the other, and Lizzie seemingly everywhere, I find myself in the middle of a memory of first grade.

I honestly don't remember a time before I knew Spencer. We met in preschool or maybe even before. But in first grade, we met Lizzie. She was tiny, with long dark hair and a haunted sad look to her eyes. She walked into the first day of class late and Spencer and I looked at her and then at each other. Somehow we both knew she'd be important to us.

At recess, instead of joining the other girls, she stood against a wall and watched everyone. She looked so deep in thought that I never would have said anything. But Spencer recognized something in her, I guess. When he told her to eat lunch with us, her whole face lit up and she gave him a smile that seemed to seal our futures.

I look at Spencer now, watching him smile at Ally—it's a different smile from what he offered to Lizzie, but it gives me a similar feeling of completion.

“Yeah,” he says with a glint in his eye. “My parents are great. I was just wondering if you could take care of the ghost lights. Just while I'm gone.”

Ally doesn't let go of my hand, but she leans over me and pulls Spencer into a hug. “Of course we will,” she says, looking at me for confirmation.

I nod.

The wind picks up a little and I hear the tree leaves rustle in it. And that's when I realize that the wind is all I'm hearing. I search my brain for Lizzie's voice, for some sound, but for the first time since the hospital I don't hear anything at all. Not even the sound of her blood coursing through me.

This silence is odd and makes me feel lonely. I'd gotten used to Lizzie being in my head even though it freaked me out.

But then I think that maybe this is how it's meant to be. Maybe we each need to be alone at some point so that we can consciously choose who we want in our lives, who we want to be a part of us.

I stand there watching Spencer. I know, without even having to think about it, that I can count on him for anything. And then I look at Ally and I have to smile because she didn't know Lizzie and yet she's here. Just for me. Just to help. So even though Lizzie's voice is gone from my head, I'm not alone. I realize that now. And really, I don't think that Lizzie will ever totally be gone so long as I have her heart inside me.

But I guess what remains after someone you love dies aren't things you can reach out and touch. When you love someone, that love changes you for better or worse. So in a way, maybe they're never truly gone.

I kneel down and touch the dirt on Lizzie's grave. I expect it to feel different, but instead it feels surprisingly like the dirt on a baseball infield.

“I'm sorry,” I whisper for the last time. “I'll never forget you. Ever. You'll always be a part of me.”

As I stand up and brush the dirt off my pant legs, the breeze kicks up again. I get a whiff of some sort of flowers and then it starts raining with them. Ally, Spencer, and I hold hands as white and pink flower petals float over us like snow. Somewhere, I think, Lizzie is smiling.