I Was Here(4)
Author: Gayle Forman

Either way, it was a bust. The weather was rainy and cold, whereas back home it had been clear and cold. Another reason not to move to Seattle, I told myself. And none of the places we visited—the vintage clothing shops and comic book stores and coffeehouses—seemed as cool as I’d thought they would be. At least that’s what I told Meg.

“Sorry,” she said. Not sarcastically, but sincerely, as though Seattle’s shortcomings were her fault.

It was a lie, though. Seattle was great. Even with the rotten weather, I’d have loved living here. But I’m sure I’d have loved living in New York or Tahiti or a million other places I’d never get to.

We were meant to go see a band play that night, some people Meg knew, but I begged off, claiming I was tired. We went back to her house in Tacoma. I was supposed to stay most of the next day, but I told her I had a sore throat, and caught an early bus home.

Meg invited me to come again, but I always had reasons why I couldn’t: my schedule was busy, bus fare wasn’t cheap. Both of which were true, even if they weren’t the truth.

x x x

It takes two buses to get from downtown to Cascades’ tiny, leafy waterfront campus. Joe had instructed me to go to the administration building to get some papers and a key. Even though Meg had lived off campus, the university runs all student housing. When I explain who I am, they immediately know why I’m here, because I get that look. I hate that look, and I’ve come to know it well: practiced empathy.

“We’re so sorry for your loss,” the lady says. She is fat and wearing the drapey kind of clothes that only make her bigger. “We’ve been holding weekly support groups for those impacted by Megan’s death. If you’d care to join us for one, there’s another gathering coming up.”

Megan? Nobody but her grandparents called her that.

She hands me some literature, a color copy with a big smiling picture of Meg that I don’t recognize. On top it says Lifeline with hearts dotting the i’s. “It’s Monday afternoon.”

“’Fraid I’ll be gone by then.”

“Oh, shame.” She pauses. “They’ve been very cathartic for the campus community. People are quite shocked.”

Shocked is not the word for it. Shocked is when I finally got Tricia to tell me who my father was, only to find out that up until I was nine, he’d been living not twenty miles away from us. What happened with Meg is something altogether different; it’s like waking up one morning and finding out you live on Mars now.

“I’m only here for a night,” I tell her.

“Oh, shame,” she says again.

“Yes, shame.”

She hands me a set of keys and gives me directions to the house and tells me to call if I need anything and I’m out the door before she hands me a card. Or worse, gives me a hug.

At Meg’s old house, no one answers when I knock, so I let myself in. Inside it smells of beer and pizza and bongwater, and something else, the ammonia scent of a dirty cat box. There’s the sound of jam bands, Phish or Widespread Panic, the kind of bad hippie music, I muse, that would make Meg want to shoot herself. Then I catch myself and remember that she did, in effect, shoot herself.

“Who are you?” A tall and ridiculously pretty girl stands before me. She’s wearing a tie-dyed peace sign T-shirt, and she is sneering.

“I’m Cody. Reynolds. I’m here for Meg. For her stuff.”

She stiffens. As if Meg, the mention of her, the existence of her, has completely harshed her mellow. I already hate this girl. And when she introduces herself as Tree, I wish Meg were around so we could give each other that imperceptible look we’d developed over the years to register our mutual disdain. Tree?

“Are you one of her roommates?” I ask. When she first arrived, Meg sent me long emails about her classes, her professors, her work-study job, and, in some cases, these hilarious character portraits of each roommate, actual charcoal drawings she scanned for me. It was the kind of thing that normally I’d have adored, reveling in her haughtiness, because that’s how it had always been: Meg and Me Versus the World. Back home, they referred to us as the Pod. But reading the emails, I had the sense that she was purposefully playing up her roommates’ faults to make me feel better, which only made me feel worse. In any case, I didn’t recall a Tree.

“I’m friends with Rich,” bitchy hippie Tree replies to me. Ahh, Stoner Richard, as Meg called him. I met him last time I was here.

“I’ll get on with it,” I say.

“You do that,” Tree replies. Such open hostility is a shock after a month of people tippy-toeing around me.

Outside Meg’s door, I half expect one of those shrines that have popped up in town; whenever I see one, I want to yank the heads off the flowers or throw the candles.

But that’s not what I find. There’s an album cover pasted on the door: Poison Idea’s Feel the Darkness. The image is of a guy holding a revolver to his head. This is her roommates’ idea of a memorial?

Breathing hard, I unlock the door and turn the knob. Inside, it’s not what I expect either. Meg was notoriously messy, her bedroom at home full of teetering stacks of books and CDs, drawings, half-completed DIY projects: a lamp she was trying to rewire, a Super 8 film she was trying to edit. Sue said that her roommates had just locked the door and left it as was, but it looks like someone has been in here. The bed is made. And much of her stuff is already neatly folded. There are unassembled boxes under the bed.

It will take two hours to do this at most. Had I known, I would’ve taken the Garcias’ car and done it as a day-trip.

Sue and Joe had offered me money for a motel, but I didn’t accept it. I know how little they have, how every spare cent went toward Meg’s education, which, even with a full scholarship, still had all kinds of hidden costs. And her death has been a whole other expense. I said I would sleep here. But now that I’m in her room, I can’t help thinking of the last time—the only time—I slept here.

Meg and I have shared beds, cots, sleeping bags, without a problem since we were little. But the night of my visit, I’d lain in bed awake next to a soundly sleeping Meg. She was snoring slightly and I kept kicking her, like it was her snoring that was keeping me awake. When we got up Sunday morning, something mean and hard had taken root in my belly, and I felt myself itching for a fight. But the last thing I’d wanted to do was fight with Meg. She hadn’t done anything. She was my best friend. So I’d left early. And not because of any sore throat.