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I nod, and then I lean forward and kiss him, bringing both of my hands to his face. He stays still and lets it happen, kisses me back. His lips are soft.
We separate slow.
He picks up the camera again.
Maybe one day, I’ll decide I don’t want to be here anymore, and this is what I will leave behind. Photographs. And whoever I leave behind can pore over them and try to make sense of it. Scratch their heads. She was young and alive, untouchable. Why did she want to go?
But they’ll never make sense of it. Never …
I wake up alone.
I know it before I open my eyes. At first, I think he’s just stepped out and I imagine this whole moment where he comes back. Like a coffee run, maybe. And when I see him, my heart stops and then it starts again like it’s beating just for him. I feel the space beside me in a way that knows he’s been gone a while, and my chest is winding itself tight with everything that means for me. What does that mean for me. I don’t move because I don’t want to move. I keep my eyes closed because I don’t want to open my eyes.
But eventually you have to move.
Eventually you have to open your eyes.
There’s no note.
His things are gone.
I look out the window and his station wagon is gone.
It’s just after lunch and that’s when it hits me—how fucked I am and why did he do this to me and I’m fucked. I am totally fucked. I pace the motel, full of too many questions: why did he do this to me, why would he do this to me, why did he go, where did he go, what about the church, why. All the questions are so big, none of them eclipses the other enough for me to focus on one and work from there. Focus. Focus. Start with getting dressed.
I get dressed.
And then I end up over the toilet, sick to my stomach. Crying.
I don’t know what I’m going to do.
What am I going to do. Unless—
Maybe he left a note with the desk clerk.
I wipe my mouth. Flush the toilet. I splash my face with water. I keep splashing my face with water until I can convince myself my eyes don’t look puffy and red. I walk to the desk clerk’s office. It’s a man behind the desk, and the way he looks at me as I approach him makes my skin crawl.
“Did—uhm—” I clear my throat. “Did the guy I was—I came here with…”
And then I realize how it must sound to him already—how it makes too much sense with the way he’s looking at me. And then I think I’m going to be sick again.
“He left,” the man says. My stomach lurches, but I fight it. I am not going to puke in front of this guy over what Culler’s done to me.
I don’t even know what he’s done to me.
Maybe he didn’t do anything to me.
“Did he leave a note?”
“Nope. ” The man looks at me. “You have until three. If you’re not leaving, you pay for another night. ”
“Oh,” I say faintly. Another night. “Okay…”
I go back to my room and I get my wallet and then I go to the desk and pay for another night and then I go back to my room and sit on the floor and I comb through the place just in case I missed something. Something that says he’s coming back. But there’s nothing.
Why would he do this to me. We were supposed to leave today, for the church, and now I don’t know what I’m going to do. The church.
The church.
I go back to the desk.
The man raises his eyebrows when he sees me.
“Uh, do you know where there’s a church … around here?”
“Yeah. We got a few. ”
“I mean, an abandoned church?” I ask. “Somewhere around here? Maybe just outside of town … it’s been there a while? It’s abandoned. ”
He stares at me like I’m an idiot. “What do you need an abandoned church for?”
“Forget it,” I mutter.
I go back to my room and sit on the floor again. I don’t know what to do. I close my eyes and try to picture the church the way my father saw it, from the photograph. I remember the sky was ominous the day he took it, so it must have been going to storm, and the church complemented it perfectly. It looked angry.
And it’s out there right now and my father is in it, and Culler has left me here without telling me how to get there.
And I don’t know why.
* * *
I move from the floor to the bed. I fall asleep and then my phone buzzes on the nightstand, jolting me awake. Culler. I grab it. Milo.
Text message from Milo.
IF WE DON’T HEAR FROM YOU ASAP, CALLING THE POLICE.
I drop the phone. The shock of his message makes my hands go, or maybe they’re just dying on me again. I pick the phone up and realize between this moment and last night, there are a lot of texts from Milo. I start with the first to get to the latest. CALLING THE POLICE. And then I think something stupid that doesn’t even make sense, but that I almost believe: did the police come? Maybe the police came and took Culler quietly away in the night.
But that’s not it.
He just left me.
BURDEN?
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ‘WORTH STAYING FOR’?
WHY IS IT BAD?
I MISS YOU
EDDIE WHERE ARE YOU
CALL ME
IF YOU CAN’T CALL, TXT
This morning:
I’M GOING TO BETH
I’LL GIVE YOU ANOTHER HOUR
EDDIE, CALL
JUST TOLD BETH. BETH TOLD YOUR MOM
Of course it all has to go wrong like this. It has to go wrong, just like this. I call him back, but the last thing I want to do is talk to him. I can’t believe he went to Beth.
“God, Eddie—” This, before I can yell at him or tell him he’s making everything ruined more ruined. He sounds so relieved, all my anger dies. “Where are you? Are you okay?”
I press my lips together, my throat too tight to speak. I curl the fingers of my free hand into a fist and press my fist against my forehead. I don’t even know where to begin. But I can’t not tell him. Culler left me and I have no way to get home.
“Will you pick me up?”
“What?”
“I’m in this town called Lissie. It’s like fourteen hours south of Branford…” I realize how far that is for him to come for me, and how far it is to go back and all of a sudden, I just want to be home. I want this to be over. “Or I could take a bus, I don’t know…”
“What happened?”
“Culler’s gone. ”
“What?”
“He left. I’m at the Lissie Park Motel. ” I start crying. Stupid hot tears roll down my cheeks, and I brush them away and hope Milo can’t hear them somehow. “And I don’t know why he left, so don’t ask…”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. We were going to the church. I woke up and he was gone. ”
“Do you think—” Milo sounds like he’s struggling to keep a hold on, and something about hearing him lose it makes me feel slightly better. “Do you think something happened to him?”
“No. ”
But then I think, maybe something happened to him. But nothing happened to him. I know nothing happened to him. Just like I know my name. And my father is dead. And the sky is blue. Two plus two is four. Some things you just know.
“Okay, just—just a minute. I have to call your place and tell them. Or do you want to be the one—”
“No,” I say quickly. Anything but that.
“I’m going to call you back in, like, ten minutes. Pick up when I do. ”
“Okay. ”
I hang up. I sit the phone in front of me.
I stare at it until it rings again.
“Eddie?” he asks.
“Yeah. ”
“Okay, I’m coming to get you,” he says. “It’ll be a while though. I won’t get t
here until after midnight, probably. We’ll crash and then head back…”
“They’re letting you get me?”
He pauses. “I told them the only way you would agree to come back is if it was me. ”
“Is my mom okay?” I don’t even really want to know.
“Beth … told her you ran away. ” He pauses. “I mean, that’s what you did but … you know how Beth is. I don’t know how she’s doing. I think she’s freaking out. ” I don’t say anything. He clears his throat. “You’re going to be there when I get there, right?”
“Yes. ”
“Okay, I have to get ready and then I’ll hit the road. I have my cell. I want you to call if there’s anything. ”
“I’m room twelve,” I say.
“Okay. ”
It’s quiet. He’s waiting for me to say it. I know I should say it. Simple: thank you. But I don’t know how to say it. So I hang up because I know he’ll understand.
I lay back on the bed, the shock of this all slowly settling, when I get an idea and it’s so obvious, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it first. I sit up, grab my phone, and dial Culler’s. It goes straight to his voicemail, so I hang up and call the apartment.
It rings and rings and rings.
“Hello?” It’s Stella. And then I feel stupid. I know Culler’s not there, couldn’t have gotten there yet, but that’s not the point. But I don’t want her to know it’s me calling either. “Hello?”
I bring my voice up an octave and hold the phone away from my mouth. Maybe she won’t be able to figure it out. “Is Culler Evans there?”
“Oh—sorry, he’s not,” she says.
“Do you know when he’ll be in? I have an extremely important message for him. ”
“Uh, actually he’s out of town but I just heard from him and he’ll be back later tonight. You can try him again tomorrow. Can your message wait until then?”
I bring the phone close and forget to disguise my voice.
“When did you hear from him?” I ask. “I mean, when did he call?”