What Happened to Goodbye(90)
Author: Sarah Dessen

I stood up, then turned and went back down the stairs, into the bar area. Everyone was talking, the noise deafening, the smell of fried pickles hanging in the air as I cut through toward the back door. I heard Riley call my name, but I didn’t turn around. Outside, I pulled my sweater more tightly around me and started to jog down the alley to my street.

The lights were on in Dave’s house as I came up the driveway, his Volvo parked where it had been for the full week, right under the basketball goal. I stood looking at it for a moment, remembering my dad and me pulling into the adjacent spot that first day. I looked up at the basket, its shadow an elongated circle, stretched across the windshield and driver’s seat. A Frazier Bakery cup, empty, sat in the holder, a couple of CD cases stacked on the seat. And on the center console, there was a Gert.

What? Impossible, I thought, moving closer and peering into the window. Same weird braiding, same dangling shells. Just to be sure, though, I opened the door, reaching in to grab it, and turned it over. A tiny GS, in Sharpie marker, was on the back.

“Freeze!”

A flashlight popped on, brightness filling my field of vision. I put up my hand, seeing stars as I heard footsteps, coming closer. A moment later, the light clicked off, and there was Dave. He looked at me, then at the Gert.

“You know,” he said, “if you’re looking for cars to break into, I think you can do better.”

“You came,” I said softly, looking at the Gert again. I turned, facing him. “You were there, at the Poseidon, that night. All this time I thought …”

He slid the flashlight into his back pocket, not saying anything.

“Why didn’t you let me know?” I asked him. “I don’t understand.”

He sighed, glancing at his housethen started walking down the driveway, toward the street. I fell in beside him, the Gert still in my hand. “I saw your dad when I was leaving. He was panicked … so I told him what I knew. Then I went back inside. But I kept thinking about how you’d called me, how it was so unlike you, or the you I’d seen on the Ume.com page that day.”

I winced in the dark. We were coming up to the alley now.

“So I went anyway, to make sure you were okay. Drove down, found the hotel, parked. But when I went up to knock on the door, I saw you through the window. You were lying on the bed, with your mom and your dad, and it just … You were with who you needed right then. Your family.”

My family. What a concept. “So you left,” I said.

“Only after I stopped for a souvenir at the only place open,” he said, nodding at my closed hand. “I couldn’t resist. I can’t believe you recognized it, though.”

I smiled. “It’s a Gert. My mom and I used to get them every time we were down there.”

“A Gert. I like that.” We turned the corner, to Luna Blu. “Anyway, so I drove back. And my parents were waiting for me. You know the rest of the story.”

I swallowed, feeling my throat get tight. As we walked down the hallway, I could hear the noise and laughter getting louder, the air warm as Dave pushed the door open and we went inside the restaurant proper.

“There he is!” Ellis called out. “How’d you get sprung?”

“Good behavior,” Dave told him. “What’d I miss?”

“Only the end of everything,” Tracey said, from the other side of the bar. I was surprised to see her, cynical as she was, dabbing at her red eyes with a bar towel, while Leo, true to form, chewed a mouthful of pickles beside her.

“It’s not just an end,” Opal told her. “It’s a beginning, too.”

“I hate beginnings,” Tracey replied, sniffling. “They’re too new.”

I looked at Dave, sitting beside Ellis at the end of the bar. Riley was next to him, then Heather and Deb, their chairs forming a triangle, heads together as they talked over the noise, while Opal hugged Tracey on the opposite side of the taps. I looked at all of them, then down at my dad, who was at the very end of the bar, taking it all in as well. When he saw me, he smiled, and I thought of all the places we’d been, how he was my only constant, my guiding star. I didn’t want to leave him, or here. But I had no other options.

I stepped away from the bar, quickly turning the corner and heading back upstairs to the model. I walked over and stood there, looking down at it, trying to center myself. After a moment, I heard footsteps behind me, and even before I turned I knew it was Dave. He was standing at the top of the stairs, looking at me, as the noise from the party downstairs drifted up behind him.

“This is amazing,” I said to him. “I can’t believe you did it.”

“We all did it,” he said.

“Not the model.” I swallowed. “The people.”

He smiled. “Well, model trains really teach you aot of good skills.”

I shook my head. “I know you’re joking … but this, it’s like the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. Seriously.”

Dave walked closer, sliding his hands in his pockets. In the bright light, he looked clean, clear. Real. “You did all of these things,” he said after a moment. “All I did was document it.”

I felt tears prick my eyes as I looked down at the model again, looking at that girl and boy on the curb. Forever in that place, together.

“You should get back downstairs,” he said. “Your dad sent me up here for you. They’re about to do a toast or something.”

I nodded, then turned to follow him. “So I guess this is what you meant, huh?”

“About what?”

“Looking more closely,” I replied as he started down the stairs.

“Pretty much,” he said. “Hey, hit the lights on your way out, okay?”

I stopped, taking one last look at the model, stretched out and complete, before I reached for the switch, turning it off. At first, in the darkness, I could see only a bit of streetlight coming in the far window, illuminating the floor. Then, though, I spotted something else. Something small and glowing, in the exact spot I’d been studying before. I walked over, my eyes scanning Luna Blu, my house, and Dave’s. But it was the building behind them, that empty hotel, that had the tiniest light, provided by one word, written in fluorescent paint. Maybe it wasn’t what was once there, in real life. But in this one, it said it all: STAY.

I turned, looking at the stairway, the light at the bottom. I had no idea if Dave was already downstairs with everyone else, as I ran across the room, grabbing the banister to go after him. But after only one step, suddenly we were face-to-face. He’d been there all along.