I Was Here(56)
Author: Gayle Forman

“What do you think I’m doing here?” And he sounds so wrecked, it kills me. “Have a good life?”

“How are you here? It’s, like, a twenty-four-hour drive.” I calculate how long it’s been since I left him in Vegas yesterday: a little more than seventeen hours.

“It’s twenty-four hours if you stop.”

That explains it. Driving all night alone can age you a year in a day.

“How did you know where to find me?”

He rubs his eyes with the heel of his hands. “Meg told me where she lived. It’s a pretty small town.” He pauses. “I’ve always known where to find you, Cody.”

“Oh.”

He looks so exhausted. I want to take him into my house, lay him down on my bed, pull up the sheets, and touch his eyelids before they flutter to sleep.

“Why’d you run off like that?”

I don’t know what to tell him. I got happy. I got scared. I got overwhelmed. I put my hands over my heart, hoping that explains it.

We stand there for a moment. “I saw Meg’s parents,” I say at last. “I told them about Bradford. Apparently, the police had already told them about Meg’s involvement with the Final Solution people.”

Ben’s drooping eyes widen in surprise.

“They also told me that Meg was depressed. She’d had a bad episode in tenth grade that I didn’t recognize even though I was right there and even though I was her best friend. And she had another after she moved to Tacoma. Before she met you.” I look at him. His eyes, like the skin under them, seem bruised. “So, apparently, it’s not your fault. Or mine.” I try to say this last part flippantly, but my voice hitches.

“I never thought it was your fault,” Ben says softly. “But I figured out that it wasn’t mine, either.”

“But you said that her death was on your conscience.”

“It is. It always will be. But I don’t think I ranked enough to have caused it. And besides . . .” he trails off.

“What?”

“I keep thinking, if it were my fault, it wouldn’t have brought you into my life.”

My eyes fill with tears.

“I’m in love with you, Cody. And I know that this is all complicated and confused in a wholly fucked-up way. Meg’s death was a tragedy and the worst kind of waste, but I don’t want to lose you because of the fucked-up way I found you.”

And now I’m weeping. “Fucking Ben McCallister. You make me cry more than almost any person I’ve ever met,” I say. But I step toward him.

“I shed a few tears myself last night.” He steps toward me.

“I’ll bet. A thousand miles is a long way with no iPod.”

“Yeah. The music was what was missing.” He takes another step toward me. “I shouldn’t have let you go. I should’ve said something yesterday, but it was intense for me, too, and you scared me, Cody. You scare me a lot.”

“That’s because you’re a city dick,” I reply. “City dicks are always scared.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Well, you scare me, too,” I say.

I open my arms for him. And as it always is when I let myself be with Ben McCallister, scared is the opposite of what I feel.

We stand there, holding each other in the waking morning. He brushes a lock of hair out of my eyes, kisses me on the temple.

“I’m pretty fragile right now,” I warn him. “Everything’s sort of coming down all at once.”

He nods. For him, too.

“And this could be tricky. ‘Complicated and confused in a wholly fucked-up way,’ as you put it.”

“I know,” he says. “We’ll just have to ride it out, cowgirl.”

“Ride it out,” I repeat. I lean my head against him. His whole body heaves.

“Do you want to come inside?” I ask. “Sleep for a while?”

He shakes his head. “Maybe later.”

The sun is up, and the early morning mist has burned off. I reach for his hand. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“For a walk. I want to show you around. There’s a crazy rocket ship at the park where the view goes on forever.”

I interlace my fingers with his, and we take off walking. Toward my past. Into my future.

Epilogue

The year after Meg died, we laid her to rest.

We have one more service. There are no candles at this one, no “Amazing Grace,” not even a religious officiate. But there will be Meg. Joe and Sue had her cremated, and now her ashes will be scattered in the various places she loved. They struck a deal with the Catholic cemetery to give her a grave there, so long as there wasn’t a body.

Today we’re going to let some of her go in the hills of Pioneer Park. Her friends from town will be here, along with several of the Seattle people, and, of course, the friends from Cascades.

Alice picked me up in the dorm and drove up with me last night, and Tricia welcomed me home as if I’d been gone two years rather than two months. Since I’ve been at school, she’s texted me practically every day. (Raymond is history, but his texting legacy remains.) But she seems glad I did it, took the leap and applied for (begged for) mid-term admission at the University of Washington. “I won’t be eligible for any scholarships, and probably not even many grants. I’ll have to take out loans,” I told her.

“We’ll both take out loans,” she said. “There’re worse things to have hanging over you than debt.”

x x x

Alice fusses over what to wear, regretting now that she didn’t bring anything black, no matter how much I reassure her that it’s not that kind of service. We’ve all worn enough black. Even Tricia scored a new dress off a sale rack; it’s turquoise.

“What are you wearing?” she asks me.

“Probably jeans.”

“You can’t wear jeans!”

“Why not?”

Alice has no answer for that. “When is everyone else getting here?”

“Richard got in last night. Ben left early this morning. He’s meeting us at the park. He said Harry’s catching a ride with him.”

“I never see Harry anymore. He has an internship with Microsoft so he’s never on campus.”

“I know. We talked last week.” Harry had called to tell me that amid all the scrutiny, the Final Solution boards shut down. That was the one concrete thing I managed to accomplish from all this. The police had questioned Bradford Smith, subpoenaed his computer, even. I liked to picture his look of indignation, crumbling into fear, when the cops knocked on his door, when they walked away with his files. He must’ve known that it was me behind this, the sunless planet who turned out to have some light left in her after all.