I Was Here

  I push the vacuum into the corner where Hendrix’s cage once sat. Something clatters in the motor. I switch it off, get down on the floor to inspect what’s inside, and find a bobby pin, the kind Mrs. Driggs uses to pull back her bun. So she haunts this empty room, this empty house. She should get a pet or something, maybe some cats. Much better than a snake, although cats would go after mice too. Still, it wouldn’t be such a rigged game as it was when Jeremy fed Hendrix—the victim and the victor predetermined. Poor fucking mouse.

  I’m sitting there with the bobby pin in my hand when it hits me. How to find All_BS. He’s the snake. To get him, I have to be the mouse.

  22

  What makes someone appetizing to someone like All_BS? Why did he choose to help Meg and not, say, Sassafrants, or the guy who always asks about rat poison? And how can I get him to think I’m one of those people?

  I go back through his posts, looking for a pattern. He responds more to girls than to guys—particularly to smart girls. He doesn’t ever reply to the illiterates, or the ranters. He also seems to take an interest in people at the beginning of their journey, the ones who are just starting to think about “catching the bus.” And he likes philosophy—his posts are full of quotes—and seems drawn to those whose posts are philosophical too. No wonder he liked Meg.

  The first step is obvious. I’ll have to post something on the boards. An opening, like Meg’s. Something that introduces me to the group, announces my intentions to kill myself, couching those intentions in a question. If I’m too sure, if I’m already shopping for rat poison, I won’t seem like a mouse.

  It takes me several days to come up with something, and then I get stuck thinking of a username. Everything I want to use is related to Meg, and I don’t know how much she told him about herself, so I don’t want to give myself away. I glance at the overdue stack of library books and use them as inspiration.

  Kafkaesque

  Opening Salvo

  I’ve been thinking about catching the bus for a while. I think I’m ready to buy my ticket. I just need some encouragement. I’m worried about my family and not succeeding, and let’s be honest, succeeding. I’d welcome intelligent thoughts.

  As soon as I post it, I regret it. It sounds fake, nothing like me, and nothing like a suicidal person. I fully expect to be called out as a fraud by everyone on the boards. But the next day, there are several responses. As with Meg, most of them are so nice and encouraging—Welcome! Congratulations!—which, in an odd way, is gratifying. Except All_BS isn’t among the responders. I might have fooled some of these people. But not the one I’m looking for.

  I switch usernames and think of Meg’s post about Scottie and try again.

  CR0308

  Survivor

  I have been thinking very seriously about taking my life for several months now, but what’s held me back is my mother. It’s just her and me, and I worry about what it’ll be like for her if I’m gone. Can I live with myself? Will I have to?

  This one also smells of bullshit. It’s not entirely accurate to say Tricia didn’t want me, because she did keep me. It’s more that I don’t think Tricia wanted children. What mother makes her two-year-old call her by her first name because she says she’s too young to be called Mommy? I know Tricia would probably be pretty bummed if I killed myself, but I also know she’s looking forward to having me out of her hair. She tells me this on a regular basis.

  I get a bunch of responses, some of them telling me that, yeah, it’s a pretty fucked-up thing to do to a single mom. That maybe I should wait for her to remarry or something. Which makes me laugh. Tricia can’t remarry until she marries, and with her three-month-relationship shelf life, I can’t see either of those ever happening.

  There’s nothing from All_BS. I have this weird feeling that as long as I lie, I won’t get a response. Which is kind of a catch-22, because how can I do this without lying?

  I pick a new username, something vaguely Meg-related—the Pete and Repeat—but ambiguous enough not to be tied to her. Instead of trying to channel Meg, I try channeling myself.

  Repeat

  The Truth

  I recently lost someone. Someone so integral to me, it’s like a part of me is gone. And now I don’t know how to be anymore. If there’s even a me without her. It’s like she was my sun, and then my sun went out. Imagine if the real sun went out. Maybe there’d still be life on Earth, but would you still want to live here? Do I still want to live here?

  The next day, there are a bunch of responses, though not one from All_BS. Some of them are weird scientific explanations of how unlikely it is for the sun to actually go out. Others are more understanding of my loss. Others yet suggest that if I were to die, I’d be reunited with the person I lost. They are so certain, as if the Final Solution people have visited death, taken notes, and come back to report. I’m reminded that for so many of these people, this is a kind of entertainment.

  But I am starting to understand the appeal of the boards. Yesterday when I hit post, I felt this massive sense of relief. This whole thing might be a charade, but for the first time in a long time, I am telling the truth.

  x x x

  A few days later I’m at work at the Thomases’, trying to figure out how to smoke out All_BS. I’m lost in thought, which is maybe why I don’t hear Mindy Thomas walk in while I’m cleaning her bedroom. If I had, I’d have gone and pretended to clean the garage or something.

  “Hey, Cody,” Mindy calls in a singsong voice. “How’s it going?”

  “Great!” I say with all the enthusiasm I can manage while holding a feather duster.

  Mindy is trailed by her posse, girls all a year younger than me whom I haven’t seen much since I graduated. Sharon Devonne waves to me. Sharon was one of Meg’s acolytes. She adored her, used to follow her around like Meg was a movie star. Meg pretended to be put out by this, but I knew she thought Sharon was sweet, particularly because she was nice to Scottie. She was his counselor at the Y camp, and he had a huge crush on her.

  “Hey, Cody,” she says shyly.

  “Hi, Sharon. How’s senior year going?”

  “Almost done.”

  “Any plans for after graduation?”

  “Sleep.”

  “Yeah, I hear that—”

  “You know what?” Mindy interrupts, clapping her hands. “I have the best idea. Cody should come to the party. It’s next weekend. My parents are going out of town, and it’s going to be a rager.”

  Before I have a chance to make an excuse, Mindy continues: “It’ll be so perfect. You can come to the party and do the cleaning up afterwards.” Her laughter follows her out of the room.

  I stand there, too floored to say anything. Mindy Thomas? We used to take dance class together. She always wore these perfect outfits: leotards, leg warmers, ballet shoes, all matching. Tricia couldn’t even afford the class—the teacher, a friend of hers, let me take it for free—so I just threw together what I could: leggings that were ripped, a tank top, mismatched legwarmers that I found at a thrift store. But then one day Mindy came in wearing the same getup as me. I’d thought she was making fun of me, but when I’d told Tricia, she’d laughed. “The little brat is copying you.” I had my doubts. One thing I knew for sure: A year ago, Mindy Thomas never would have spoken to me like she just did.

  Sharon lingers after the other girls leave. “She’s just being a bitch,” she whispers. “You should come to the party.”

  “Thanks, Sharon,” I say. I hold up my feather duster to show her it’s time to get back to work. She hesitates as if she wants to tell me something else, but then Mindy calls to her and she trots off.

  x x x

  Later, at the library, I can’t stop thinking about Sharon, the way she used to idolize Meg. Meg may have stood out in town, but she definitely had her admirers. She had that thing. People, at least
smart people, were drawn to her: people from school, musicians she met online, All_BS—they all found their way to Meg.

  How am I supposed to attract All_BS? I don’t have what Meg had. People may have called us the Pod, but it wasn’t really an accurate description. There was Meg. And me, lassoing myself to her.

  I can’t do that anymore. To find All_BS, I have to be all me. I take a breath. And I start to type.

  Repeat

  Repeat

  I’m not one of those people who has spent a lot of time thinking about death, or imagining her own death, or dreaming of it, or wanting it. At least I didn’t think I was. But so much shit has happened in the last year of my life that I am questioning whether I even have a life, or if what I thought was my life is actually an illusion, or maybe a delusion. Because it doesn’t seem like living to me. It seems like persevering, like that’s the most I can hope for. I’m not that old, but I’m already so tired. Even getting out of bed each morning seems like an enormous chore. Life seems to be about endurance, not enjoyment, not fulfillment. I don’t see the point. If someone told me I could go back and undo my birth, I think I might. I really do.

  Is that the same as wanting to die? And if so, what does that mean?

  23

  One night I’m sitting at my computer, staring at all of the messages I’ve posted to the Final Solution boards and all the responses I’ve received. There are way too many pages to print out now without arousing Mrs. Banks’s suspicion, so I’ve started saving everything to a file on the hard drive.

  The door swings open. I snap the computer shut. “Ever hear of knocking?” I ask Tricia.

  “When I’m living in your house, I’ll consider knocking,” she says.

  I’m about to mention that I pay rent and therefore it’s my house too, but then I think of the boxful of cash stashed under my bed and decide it’s probably wiser if I don’t bring money up.

  She taps on my computer, which is hot. “I read somewhere that the rise in cancer is linked to how much people stare at their computer screens all day,” she says.

  “Everything gives you cancer,” I reply. “The sun gives you cancer.”

  “I read that computers are really bad. All that radiation. It’s not healthy.”

  “Where’d you read that? In one of the many scientific journals you subscribe to?”

  She ignores the dig and sits down on the edge of my bed. “What are you reading these days?”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you. You used to always have your nose in a book, and now I only ever see you on that computer.”

  When I returned the latest batch of books Mrs. Banks had borrowed for me, I pretended like I’d read them all when, in fact, I hadn’t finished a single one. I used to read at home at night, but now I can’t seem to stop looking at my growing file on Meg, which I’ve hidden in a dummy folder named college. I’ve still gotten no response from All_BS, and I keep re-reading all the messages, trying to figure out what to do next.

  Tricia gestures to the computer. “What’s so interesting in there anyway? Is there some other world?”

  “It’s not another world. It’s just ones and zeros—that’s all programming is.” But that’s not true. All_BS is somewhere in there. Meg, too.

  Tricia doesn’t say anything. She stares at my room, my walls, the pictures tacked up with Scotch tape of me and Meg at shows, me and the Garcias on a camping trip to Mount Saint Helens, Meg and me on graduation day last year, her beaming, me smirking. There are pictures of me and Tricia, too, but they’re outnumbered by the Garcias.

  “You two always were like day and night,” Tricia says, looking at the graduation picture.

  “We don’t look that different. Or didn’t.” Meg had dark brown eyes and mine are hazel gray, but that was the biggest distinction. We both had brown hair, and though Meg had Joe’s coffee complexion, in summer my olive skin gets so dark that we used to say that I could pass for Joe’s daughter. Except I wasn’t Joe’s daughter, and now this insistence on our resemblance embarrasses me. Was this just another way of trying to lasso myself to Meg?

  “I’m not talking about looks,” Tricia replies. “Personality. You’re nothing like her.”

  I don’t answer.

  “Thank God,” Tricia adds.

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

  Tricia continues to stare at the graduation photo. “She had everything. Those big brains. Fancy college scholarship. She even had that expensive computer you can’t seem to get off of.” Then she looks back at me. “You just had me. And you’re smart, don’t get me wrong, but you aren’t Meg-smart. You got stuck at the shitty junior college and now, from what I can tell, you don’t even have that.”

  I twist a loose thread from my quilt around my finger until my finger throbs. Thank you, Tricia, for such a precise overview of my inferiority.

  “But even with the deck stacked against you, you stuck to your guns,” Tricia continues on her tear. “You didn’t quit that damn dance class that Tawny Phillips let you join for free, even when you sprained your ankle.”

  “I couldn’t quit. I had the big solo in the dance show, All That Jazz,” I remind her. I’d forgotten about that. Mindy Thomas had been so pissed when I’d gotten the coveted role. I’m not sure Tricia remembers it either. She couldn’t come to the show. She had to work. The Garcias came.

  “Right,” Tricia continues. “And at school, you hated math, but you kept with it all the way through goddamn trignastics.”

  “Trigonometry,” I correct.

  She waves away the distinction. “You took math all the way through that because you wanted to go to college. My point is, you never quit on dance, on math, on anything, and maybe you had more reason to. You had a pile of rocks, and you cleaned them up pretty and made a necklace. Meg got jewels, and she hung herself with them.”

  I know I should defend Meg. This is my best friend. And Tricia has it wrong. She doesn’t know the whole story. And she’s probably jealous of the Garcias for being the family she never was.

  But I don’t defend Meg. I may not be Joe’s daughter. But right at this moment, I actually feel like Tricia’s.

  24

  The next day there is a message from All_BS. It simply says: Who did you lose?

  It takes me a minute to realize he—by this point I’m almost certain he’s a man—is referring to an older post. Which means he’s been watching me. I spend an hour thinking about what to write, which story will be most effective, and then I circle back. The true one will.

  Repeat: The better half of me.

  Within twenty minutes he has responded again.

  All_BS: “Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.”—James Baldwin

  Repeat: What do you mean by this?

  The library closes before he has time to respond, leaving me to think about the quote all night. I bring my computer with me to the Chandlers’ the next morning, and discover they don’t lock their Wi-Fi network. I sneak into the bathroom and check to see if there’s a response from All_BS. And there is.

  All_BS: Perhaps your better half, as you call it, was nothing more than a crutch. It can be terrifying, after so long using one, to go without. Maybe that adjustment is what you are going through now.

  And that’s it. Nothing about offing myself, or life being the affliction. Only the suggestion that Meg was my crutch.

  The scary thing is, he’s right. Meg held me up. And without her, I’m falling down.

  Repeat: So you’re saying this is temporary, that I shouldn’t be thinking about catching the bus because I’m just upset over my loss?

  I hear Mrs. Chandler in the next room. I quickly hit post and stash my computer in a corner. The rest of the morning, I worry that I somehow
put him off. I practically run to the library that afternoon, relieved to find a response waiting.

  All_BS: I’m saying no such thing.

  Repeat: Then what are you saying?

  He must still be online. Because the reply is instant.

  All_BS: What are YOU saying?

  I think hard before I answer.

  Repeat: I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s why I’m asking you.

  All_BS: Yes. That is why you’re asking me.

  25

  In the middle of June, I get a call from Alice. I haven’t spoken to her since the last time I stayed with her, but when I answer the phone, she starts burbling away like we chat every day.

  “So I checked on the map, and you’re in Eastern Washington, right?” she asks after she’s caught me up on things I don’t really care about. “Between Spokane and Yakima?”

  There are hundreds of miles between Spokane and Yakima. I love how people consider it flyover. But I don’t correct her. “More or less.”

  “Cool! I’m working as a counselor at Mountain Bound. I’ll be outside of Missoula, and I’m pretty sure I-90 goes through your neck of the woods.”

  “It’s not far from here.”

  “Perfect! It’s, like, seven hours from Eugene to Spokane, or wherever you are. A good one-day drive. And then I can make it to Missoula the next day.”

  It takes me a second to understand what she’s talking about. “You want to stay with me?”

  “If that’s all right,” she says.

  We almost never have guests. Even Meg only slept here a handful of times. I’m already trying to figure out how to explain Alice to Tricia. Where to put her. Tricia and Raymond still seem to be together, judging by the number of nights she hasn’t been home. Maybe she’ll stay at his place that night, though if I request that, it’s a surefire way to make sure it doesn’t happen.

  “When are you coming?”