Since You've Been Gone

15

The summer had come full circle.

Once again, I was all alone. I had no friends, and nobody to hang out with, but this time, it was all my fault. Once again, I was having trouble grasping how I’d gone from having people to talk to, plans, some semblance of a life—to nothing, all in a moment.

I was going to work and avoiding Captain Pizza, though I had once passed Dawn while she was talking on her phone as I headed into Paradise and she sat outside the pizza parlor. We’d made brief eye contact before we both looked away and she went back to her conversation. I only caught the occasional word, but I could hear how happy she sounded—her voice was suffused with it, and she kept calling the person on the other end “Matty”—which seemed to indicate that the movie date had gone well. I hated that I didn’t know more, that I hadn’t heard the recap, moment by moment. And while I was happy for both of them, it made me feel all that much more alone.

I’d started taking long runs by myself, in neighborhoods I’d never run with Frank, going out of my way to avoid bumping into him. I hadn’t heard from him since the morning I ran away from him. And while I didn’t regret what I’d done, there were still moments when I wondered what would have happened if I’d just let him finish, heard him out. But then I would tell myself, firmly, that I’d done the right thing—Frank, as junior class president, had once convinced me that school really should start fifteen minutes earlier. He was that talented a speaker.  And I hadn’t wanted to hear him talk his way out of our friendship, talk his way around the fact he’d kissed me back, talk me into agreeing with him that it had just been a huge, terrible mistake.

Because while it had been a mistake—all the proof I needed was in my current total lack of friends—I wasn’t willing to deny that it had happened, or the fact that it had meant something. I found myself thinking, more than I really should have, of Frank’s hands on my bare back, of his fingers tangled in my hair, of his mouth on mine, of the way he’d run his thumb over my cheek, of the fact that it had been, without question, the best kiss I’d ever gotten.

But none of this changed the fact that I missed him in my life. I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to rely on him, how often I’d text him throughout the day, how much I needed his perspective on things, how boring my iPod seemed without his music.

With all the time I had on my suddenly friendless hands, I tried to be productive. I had dropped off both of the disposable cameras to be developed. I’d organized my closet, taken Beckett for a haircut, and finally read the first book in the series Doug was always going on about.

And every so often, I would go to my dresser and pull out the list. I had done it—every single one.

1. Kiss a stranger.

2. Go skinny-dipping.

3. Steal something.

4. Break something.

5. Penelope.

6. Ride a dern horse, ya cowpoke.

7. 55 S. Ave. Ask for Mona.

8. The backless dress. And somewhere to wear it.

9. Dance until dawn.

10. Share some secrets in the dark.

11. Hug a Jamie.

12. Apple picking at night.

13. Sleep under the stars.

All these things that had shaped my summer. I’d finished her list. I was done.

So where the hell was Sloane?

I’d started this believing that, somehow, when I finished, I would have the answers I needed. I would know what had happened to her. But now that I looked at it, I wondered if this had just been a distraction. I’d been avoiding questions like why my best friend had just left me without a word. I’d been thinking, hoping, that this would lead to something. But maybe it was like all her other lists, full of things she must have known, deep down, I would be too scared to attempt.

As I looked down at it, at her careful handwriting, at all my flaws that were exposed on the page, I found myself getting furious. I crumpled the list into a tiny ball, and for good measure, picked up the envelope and crumpled that too. Then I grabbed my keys and took the stairs two at a time, throwing the list and the envelope into the kitchen trash, yelling to my parents in the TV room—my dad scratching his new beard, my mom working on her macramé project—that I was going out.

I drove around town for hours, until the sun went down and the first stars began to shine. I wasn’t going anywhere in particular; I just felt the need to be in motion. I was driving past places I’d gone with Sloane, places I’d gone with Frank, and feeling the loss of both of them so sharply. How was I supposed to keep living in this town when everything I saw reminded me of someone I’d lost?

There was a party going on at the Orchard—I could tell from the cars lining the road. I pulled in, but left my car running, looking at all the people there with their friends—and remembering that, not so long ago, I’d been among them. I turned the car around and left, realizing I should probably stop in for gas, since in my aimless driving I’d lost sense of where my car was with fuel. There was also the fact that I no longer knew who I could call to help me if it died again.

I stopped by Route 1 Fuel, and when I walked into the mini-mart, saw that James was behind the register once again. He was leaning against the back counter, reading a thick book entitled Mastering Sudoku—For the Advanced Player. I hadn’t seen him since I’d hugged him, and hoped this wouldn’t be awkward as I handed over twenty dollars. But he just smiled at me as he put my bill in the register, then nodded out at the Volvo. “Check your oil?”

“Oh,” I said. I wasn’t sure he would have offered if I hadn’t hugged him, but I wasn’t going to turn this down—especially since I had no recollection of the last time it had been checked. “Sure,” I said. I walked outside and he followed, then waited while I tried to figure out how to pop my hood.

“So when were you in South Carolina?” he asked, wiping off the end of the dipstick with a rag and then dipping it into my oil gauge.

I looked over at him and realized he had been reading the bumper stickers along the side of the car. I scanned them, trying to see what he’d seen. “Why do you ask?”

He tapped one I’d hardly noticed, a dark-red sticker, half peeling off and mostly faded. Save the SC Sea Turtles! it read. Next to this was an image that looked familiar—a palm tree and a crescent moon.

“I wasn’t,” I said, turning my attention back to him. “The stickers came with the car. I’ve never been.”

He nodded. “Too bad. It’s really pretty down there.” He closed the hood and patted it once. “You should be okay for another few hundred miles.”

“Great,” I said. “Thanks a lot.” He nodded, gave me a quick smile, and headed back into the store.

I looked at the bumper sticker until a car pulled up behind me, engine idling, clearly desperate to get this specific pump. I pulled out of the gas station and headed for home, trying to sort through why I was sure I’d seen it before. It was in my mind, but just out of reach, until I paused at a stop sign and remembered.

The envelope.

I sped home, barely pausing at stoplights, screeching into the driveway and parking at an angle, not even locking my car as I ran inside and straight to the kitchen. I went directly to the trash, and started digging through it.

It was still there, only halfway down, and thankfully not covered in anything disgusting. I smoothed out Sloane’s list and then the envelope, feeling my heart thud in my chest as I looked at it. There, where the return address was supposed to be, was the same image on my bumper sticker. The image that meant South Carolina.

I took the list and envelope with me as I headed up to my room, needing space and quiet to try and figure this out, not wanting to have to answer any questions. I sat on my bed and stared at the envelope until my eyes burned, trying to make it make sense.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I felt like I was too close to something. Sloane had an aunt in South Carolina. I knew that. But I couldn’t exactly go knocking on every door in the state, could I? I closed my eyes, trying to think. The answer was there—somewhere—I just had to adjust my eyes to see it properly.

I was waiting outside the CVS when a tired-looking employee holding a to-go coffee unlocked the doors at six a.m. It was likely there wasn’t anything to be found in either of the cameras. But I was all out of other options, and around five, I’d woken up with this, the closest thing I had to a plan.

The photo department wasn’t even open yet, but after the night I’d had, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to wait until ten, and I convinced the employee to get my pictures for me. I suspected he did it mostly so that I’d leave the store, and him, in peace, but he rang me up, and I left the store clutching the two photo envelopes.

I waited until I got back inside my car before opening them. The first envelope had the picture Dawn had taken of me riding Butterscotch, so I knew this was the one that had come from my car. There were the horse pictures, and the picture I’d snapped of the highway on Frank’s birthday, but all the rest of the pictures were of Sloane.

Sloane at the drive-in, drinking Diet Coke out of a Twizzler straw, looking at the screen, her expression rapt. Sloane bargaining for a vintage leather jacket at a flea market upstate, looking determined—and then one of her triumphant, modeling the jacket for the camera. Sloane sitting on the roof of my car, wearing her vintage heart sunglasses, extending a bag of chips toward the camera, laughing. Sloane on the picnic table at the Orchard, the Thursday we’d cut class and shared an entire pizza. Sloane at the beach, smiling over her sunglasses at me. Sloane in the morning after a sleepover, yawning, her hair undone and wild.

I looked at the last image for a long moment, then tucked the pictures back in the envelope. They hadn’t shown me anything I hadn’t known before. Nothing that helped with where Sloane was now. Just my best friend, the center of my world for the last two years.

I opened up Sloane’s envelope and started looking through the pictures, and felt my eyes widen.

The first one was of me and Sloane, a selfie that we’d taken the first day of junior year, me carefully dressed, my outfit looking brand-new and stiff, Sloane looking much more relaxed in a vintage romper, smiling at me, not the camera.  There was one of a recipe, then one of me, cross-legged on the couch in Stanwich Coffee, hunched over my history textbook. There was one of me and Beckett watching TV. Me and Sloane, almost out of frame, totally out of focus, both of us bent double laughing. Me, my head bent, lacing up my running shoes. Me giving Sloane a cheesy thumbs-up after a race. The front seat of my car, with the pile of snacks for a flea market road trip. Me and my mother in the kitchen, sitting at the table, discussing something, my mother gesturing big while I listened. Beckett, grinning down at the camera from the top of the doorway. The two of us, carrying dripping ice cream cones, both covered with rainbow sprinkles. Me, dressed for the prom, fixing my hair in front of the mirror. Me and Sloane sitting on a picnic table at the Orchard, barely visible in the falling darkness. Me, laughing, holding my hand in front of the camera. Me, driving, hands a blur as I drummed on the steering wheel. Me, smiling at her through the camera, my expression relaxed and happy.

I set the stack down and wiped my hands under my eyes, even though it didn’t do much to stop the tears that had started to fall. All this time, I had just assumed that I’d been the one who cared more. That Sloane had floated above it, not missing me, which was why she’d been able to leave me behind. But this . . .

I picked up the pictures again, looking through the images—some carefully composed, some clearly shot in the spur of the moment. Sloane had seen me. She had taken these pictures of me, of us, many of which I hadn’t seen her take. She had needed me as much as I’d needed her. I could see that now, and it made me ashamed that I’d ever thought anything else.

I wiped at my eyes again and ran my fingers through my hair, trying to pull myself together, flipping through the pictures one last time. I stopped on the recipe photo, squinting at it. It was out of focus, but I could see that it was her aunt’s arrabbiata recipe, the picture Sloane had taken but then hadn’t been able to find. Now it made sense, since she’d never gotten the camera developed. I felt my heart pound as I stared down at it.

The recipe was handwritten, but it was written on a personalized recipe card. And the top of the card read From the Kitchen of Laney Alden. In smaller letters underneath that, it read River Port.

Alden was Milly’s maiden name, I knew that much. I could picture the tote that Sloane had hauled to the beach all last summer, emblazoned with her mother’s initials. And Sloane had told me it was her aunt who had given her the arrabbiata recipe. The aunt who lived in South Carolina.

I grabbed my phone and looked up Laney Alden South Carolina. I got seven results, all from people who seemed to live on opposite ends of the state. I typed in Laney Alden South Carolina River Port, and one listing came up—with an address. I looked down at my phone and realized I finally had my answer. It was where Sloane was. I could feel it.

It was seven by the time I got back home. I’d worked out my plan on the drive over—I’d make my parents coffee before they got up, get them in a good mood before I told them the truth—that Sloane was in South Carolina, and they needed to let me go see her.

I’d expected the house to still be quiet, but all the lights were on, Beckett was outside walking along the porch railing, and there were three suitcases lined up by the steps.

I walked over to Beckett, trying to make sure he saw me, so he wouldn’t get startled and go plunging onto the driveway. “Hey,” I said, and he glanced over at me, hardly bothered.

“Hey,” he said, then started walking backward.

“What’s going on?”

Beckett sighed deeply. “Dad’s making me go to a baseball museum. Cooperstown.”

“Oh,” I said sympathetically. My father was emphatic about the fact that he loved baseball, and that Beckett did too, but neither of them were true fans. My mother’s theory was that my dad had watched Field of Dreams a few too many times and become convinced that the only way to really bond with your son was through baseball. “Sorry about that.”

“Sorry about what?” my dad asked as he came out to the porch, wearing a Stanwich College baseball cap and looking far too cheerful, considering it wasn’t even eight yet. “Em, were you gone this morning? We looked for the car.”

“Yes,” I said, thinking fast. “I was just . . . scouting a new run. I wanted to see how long it was.”

“Oh,” my dad said. He didn’t look convinced, but he shrugged and said, “Well, I’m glad you’re up. Both your mom and I are heading out, and we wanted to talk to you first.”

I glanced down and realized that explained the third suitcase. “Mom’s going to Cooperstown too?”

“Nope,” my mother said as she came out of the house and down the steps, holding an overstuffed purse. “Thank god.” She smoothed my hair down with her hand. “You’re up early, hon. Everything okay?”

“Where are you going?” I asked as I watched, with increasing alarm, as my mother headed over to my car and slung her bag into the driver’s seat.

“New Haven,”  she said.  “I’m giving notes on a tech rehearsal for a friend today, and staying to watch the dress on Sunday.”

“And how long is Dad going to be gone?” I asked, as my father picked up his suitcase and Beckett’s duffel and headed for the car my parents used.

“He’ll be back Sunday night too,” my mom said as she rummaged in her purse, coming up with her sunglasses and pushing them through her hair like a headband.

“Wait,” I said, as I watched my dad shut the back of his car and yell at my brother to get a move on, feeling like things were moving far too quickly. “So you guys are leaving me for the weekend?”

“Did you want to come?” my mother asked, brightening. “I’m sure you could sleep on the couch.”

“Or you could come to Cooperstown,” my dad called cheerfully, walking away from his car and back to the house. “It’s the birthplace of baseball, you know.”

“No, thanks,” I said, looking between the two cars. It wasn’t so much that my parents were leaving me; it was that they were leaving me with no transportation. “But what am I supposed to do about getting around?”

My mom raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t think it’d be a problem for the weekend,” she said. “I thought that Frank or Dawn could drive you if you needed to go somewhere. There’s food in the fridge, so you shouldn’t need to go out for that.”

“But—” I started, feeling panicky. I realized that if I’d confided in either of my parents, they would have known that Frank and Dawn weren’t options at the moment, but that didn’t change the fact that I was going to be stranded.

“If you really need to go somewhere, there’s money in the conch for a taxi,” my dad said, maybe seeing something of what I was feeling in my expression. “But if you’re not comfortable staying alone . . .”

“No, no,” I said quickly, trying to get in front of this before I found myself being hauled along to a baseball museum or stuck in some drafty theater watching lighting cues change. I made myself smile at them. “I’ll be fine.”

My parents headed out shortly after that, both of them trying to beat the traffic that they were convinced would grow exponentially by the hour. I watched my mother, driving my car, make the right turn out of the driveway, her hand waving out the window at me, then I walked back and sat down on the front steps in the sudden silence of the driveway, thinking.

All I had wanted to do, ever since I saw Laney Alden’s address on my phone, was get in my car and drive down there. It would be a longer trip than I’d ever taken before, but it wasn’t undoable.

I pulled up the address again and called the number listed. It rang and rang, then a cheerful-sounding woman came on the machine, telling me I’d reached the Alden residence, asking me to please leave a message after the tone. I hung up before the beep, not even that disappointed. I hadn’t really expected to get Sloane—if she wasn’t answering her cell, she probably wasn’t answering her aunt’s landline.

I stared down at the address. I had finally found her and now I couldn’t even go? I had known my parents weren’t going to be thrilled with the idea of me driving down to South Carolina. Since they were gone, though, they’d given me a two-day window in which to do this. Unfortunately, they’d also taken away my means of transportation. In a well-ordered universe, you would have been able to rent a car at seventeen. But . . .

Just like that, a possible solution occurred to me. It was so scary, and so potentially awkward that it really seemed like it should have been number fourteen on Sloane’s list. I pulled out my phone and looked at the time. I had no idea if he was still running. But if he was, the timing would work out.

I stood up and walked down the porch steps. I was still in my flip-flops, and I kicked them off. I left them at the end of the driveway, took a breath, and started to run.

I reached his house and sat down at the end of his driveway to wait for him. If he was still running, he’d be coming home around now.

The birds were out in full force, and it was already really hot out, which didn’t seem like a good sign, considering how early it still was. I felt the warm breeze blow my hair forward, over my face, not sure what I was more scared of—that he would show up, or that he wouldn’t.

I heard the sound before I saw him, the sound of sneakers hitting pavement at a steady pace. And then there he was, coming around the curve of the road, headphones in and iPod strapped to his arm. He was staying far over to the inside of the road, like he was leaving room for me. I had a flash of pride as I took in his pace and the fact that he didn’t even look winded, realizing that he probably wouldn’t have been doing that well without me, without all our mornings together. I wondered what he was listening to, if it was a mix I knew.

He saw me, and even from twenty feet away, I saw his expression of surprise as he slowed to a jog, then a walk, pulling his earbuds out. It felt like my legs were shaking, but I made myself stand up, not letting myself look away from him, even though this became harder the closer he got. This was the most familiar Frank to me, the Frank I’d spent my summer running next to, trading stories and songs, pushing each other on. I felt a pang of missing him twist my stomach as I looked at his hair brushed back from his forehead, at his left shoelace that was threatening to come untied. We stood there, by the side of the road, just looking at each other.

“Hi,” I finally said, making myself speak, feeling like I should start since I was the one who’d shown up unannounced in his driveway.

“Hey,” Frank said. His voice was cautious, and he seemed to be looking at me closely, searching my face like he was looking for an answer—to what, though, I had no idea. He broke eye contact and looked at the ground, and at my feet.

“It’s, um, that barefoot running trend I keep hearing about,” I said, and Frank gave me a half smile. “I found Sloane,” I said, all in a rush, to stop myself from saying anything else to him, things I really shouldn’t. “She’s living down in South Carolina.”

“Oh,” Frank said, and I could tell that this wasn’t what he’d expected me to say. He nodded. “That’s good, right?”

“I need to go there,” I said, still speaking fast, like I might be able to rush past whether this was actually a good idea or not. “I want to find her. But my parents are gone for the weekend and they took both of the cars.” Frank just looked at me, waiting for me to go on, and I knew I probably wasn’t making much sense. I took a breath before asking, realizing that he very probably would say no, and then not only would I not be going to find Sloane, but I would have made a fool of myself to boot. But I was standing barefoot in his driveway to ask him this—there was nothing to do but say it. “Would you be willing to drive me? I’d ask to borrow your car, but I can’t drive a stick shift.”

Frank just looked at me, his head tilted slightly to the side. He wasn’t jumping in to agree to this, but he also wasn’t saying no.

“I’ll pay for gas and everything,” I said quickly. “And it won’t be that long. I have to be back by tomorrow night.”

He just looked at me, still not speaking. He took a breath like he was about to say something, but then just let it out slowly, and I had a feeling I knew what his answer would be, could tell in that silence how ridiculous he thought this was.

“I know it’s stupid,” I said, breaking eye contact with him, and looking up to the tree above me as a bird alighted on the uppermost branch. “But I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

“You want to drive to South Carolina and back by tomorrow night,” he said, finally breaking his silence. He didn’t phrase it like a question, more like he was just trying to get a grasp of the facts. I nodded and Frank looked away for a long moment.

When he looked back at me, though, he had a ghost of a smile on his face. “Then I guess we’d better get going.”