Will it hurt?
A body coming off this bridge hits the water at eighty miles per hour. Quickest way to die, his father had written in his notes.
God, he hopes so.
He prays it won’t hurt.
He’s hurt enough for one lifetime.
He stands at the edge of the bridge, crying. He’s crying because it’s cold and it’s windy and his head hurts and because he’s scared. He’s crying because his father left him, maybe on purpose, maybe not knowing any better, and now he’s staring into the inky abyss, hoping to find him there, but he sees nothing but more darkness.
But mostly he’s crying because in the course of one day, he’s glimpsed the life he never had, the life he would’ve liked to have, the life he can’t have because of the life he did have.
He doesn’t want to die. This was never about wanting to die. But he can’t be alone anymore.
He’s been alone for too long.
Not just those unbearable two weeks, but the years before. He and his dad in the house in the woods. Just us. Their fellowship of two has rendered him incapable of living amid the rest of the world. Today proves that. Harun’s face proves that. Even Freya’s kiss proves that.
It’s not never having things that hurts. It’s having them and not having them at the same time. It’s having a best friend for a father. And having a lunatic for a father. It’s having a mother who loves you. And having a mother who deserts you. It’s having always known people like Freya and Harun were out there but being unable to reach them.
“Dad, are you here?” he shouts into the empty night. “Can you see me?”
There’s no answer save for the rumble of traffic below and, beyond that, the sound of a river, still wild, even here.
In his hand he holds all he has left, his father’s copy of The Lord of the Rings. When his father had declared them a fellowship of two, he’d felt anointed. A holy mission.
He was seven years old. Too young to know that there’s no such thing as a fellowship of two. A fellowship is a group. An army. A mass. Two people aren’t enough. Two people can’t save each other. How many times did he hear stories about one person drowning and the other person trying to help, but they drag each other down? It happens all the time.
Nathaniel screams to the void as he claws at the pages of the book. The binding’s so old and creased and the glue is weak, but the book refuses to give. He manages to tear only a small handful of pages from the spine.
The pain feels like it is cleaving him in two. What is so wrong with him? What has rendered him so unlovable? So invisible?
“Dad, do you see me?” he screams. “Do you see what you did to me? Why?”
In the silence that follows, Nathaniel understands he’s asking the wrong person the wrong question. It’s not why his father did this to him. It’s why everyone else stood by and let him. His father didn’t know any better. But what about everyone else? Why didn’t anyone turn off the stove? Gently lift him from the pot and lay him on the soft, leafy ground before it was too late?
Nathaniel grips the book, the seed of their sick fellowship, and with every ounce of will left in him, he hurls it. In the light of the moon, he watches the pages flutter as the book sails higher in the air than the physical laws of the universe dictate it should and descends not at a painful eighty miles per hour but gently, slowly, as if gravity has, for this one moment, reversed itself, allowing Nathaniel to back up and imagine his life with a different kind of fellowship.
In this version, Nathaniel plays softball once a week on a grubby patch of grass with people who already know his name. In this version, Nathaniel is seated at a large dining table, not eating buttered noodles with one other person but sitting with whole groups of people, eating foods whose names he does not yet know, but whose flavors he has always known. In this version, Nathaniel is not leaping to his own death but gently escorting others when it’s their time, as Hector had done with Mary, helping them say the things they need to say while there’s still breath, helping those left behind grapple with the questions he knows are sometimes unanswerable. In this version, he’s kissing a girl whose voice he can hear even when she’s not singing.
In this version, Nathaniel is not alone.
Because today, Nathaniel was not alone.
None of them were. Not after they found each other.
He’s too far up to hear the book splash, but he knows the instant it makes contact with the water, because at that moment a sob escapes from the deepest part of him, and when it does a thousand pounds of sorrow—more than a lifetime of it—flow out of him. Was this how Frodo felt when Gollum finally fell into Mount Doom, destroying the ring, relieving him, once and for all, of the beautiful, terrible burden?
Nathaniel steps away from the railing. He won’t see his father tonight. He might never see his father again. Might never know why he left their fellowship of two, or why he created it in the first place. Maybe his father didn’t know that a fellowship of two is too small. You need more people. Mothers who you will forgive and who will forgive you back, wise hospice nurses who will teach you to escort people to the Undying Lands, teammates who won’t care if you can only see with one eye because they’ll know that the trick to a good catch is seeing the ball in your mind’s eye. You need people who will give you the food from their plate because they feel your hunger, who will refuse to let you wander off alone no matter how many times you say it’s all good, who will snap in your face and whisper so softly in your ear, Nathaniel, come back, come back, until you do.
Nathaniel, Nathaniel.
He hears her voice. Even with his eyes closed, he would know that voice. He’s been hearing it since that day in the forest.
Nathaniel, Nathaniel.
He opens his eyes and sees Freya and Harun running toward him.
Nathaniel, Nathaniel.
If that’s not singing, Nathaniel doesn’t know what is.
Nathaniel, Nathaniel.
They see him.
He hears them.
They find each other.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As with any book, many people pitched in to help with I Have Lost My Way, but I’m not sure it would even exist had Ken Wright, Anna Jarzab, and Michael Bourret not helped me find my way. Ken patiently and humanely held my hand through my crisis (crises) of confidence and several misfires, until I found my own voice again. Anna read an early train wreck of a draft and convinced me that these kids had already burrowed into her heart and that their stories were worth telling and then spent hours (literally) helping me figure out what those stories were. And Michael believed in me when I was unable to believe in myself. I would refer Freya to him if he represented musicians (and if she were, you know, real).
Thank you to everyone at Penguin Young Readers, with special shout-outs to Jen Loja for captaining the ship, to Leila Sales for fixing the words, to Elyse Marshall for spreading the word, to Kristin Gilson for making me sound like I play softball, and to Theresa Evangelista for the stunning jacket. Added hugs and thanks to Erin Berger, Rachel Cone-Gorham, Christina Colangelo, Aneeka Kalia, Emily Romero, Elora Sullivan, Felicity Vallence, Caitlin Whalen, and to all the sales reps who are on the front lines of getting books out there.
Thank you, thank you to my small army of readers who made me think harder, dig deeper, recognize my blind spots, and helped me get ever closer to something resembling truth: Imam Shair Abdul-Mani, Arvin Ahmadi, Libba Bray, Tamara Glenny, Marjorie Ingall, Farah Janjua, Justine Larbalestier, and Jacqueline Woodson.
Thank you to the members of LadySwim™ for support, sisterhood, and steam. Thank you to the Brooklyn Mama (and Papa) Brigade for being my hometown family. Thank you to my parents, siblings, and in-laws for being my family family. Special shout-out to my hospice-nurse sister Tamar Schamhart for inspiring the character of Hector. Thank you to Yosef Ayele for being part of my Ethiopian fam
ily. Thank you to Isabel Kyriacou for your ferocity. Thank you to Lauren Walters for All The Things. Thank you to Eric Gordon for ten years of this. Thank you to Lauren Abramo, Kieryn Ziegler, and everyone else at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.
Thank you to all the booksellers, librarians, and teachers who put these little empathy-delivery devices we call books into readers’ hands. We need you now, more than ever.
Thank you to all the readers, for being large-hearted and curious and willing to enter other people’s experiences in fiction. We need that now, more than ever.
Thank you to Nick, Willa, and Denbele, for inspiring me, constantly, to do better and be better, and for being my fellowship, my family.
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Gayle Forman, I Have Lost My Way
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