All We Left Behind

by Ingrid Sundberg

  “Marion?”

  I grab my things and walk away without saying anything. I stumble through the door, down the hall, and out into the parking lot, where the air tastes of winter and fog hangs heavy on the trees. Plenty of fog hiding golden leaves. Plenty of fog to hide me.

  Kurt

  Josie’s still on the couch in the morning. She’s half in a sitting position and half lying on her side, as if she wanted to sleep but couldn’t move her legs. I look around for Dad and hear the shower running. It makes me slam the wall.

  The door’s right there. She could walk right out of it. It’s not like the fact that she’s home means we can trust her.

  Though maybe—maybe she wants to stay.

  I start to pace and my legs itch. They want to run. I check the window and it’s gray out. Fog. It’s the best kind of weather to run in, where you can’t see two steps ahead of you. It helps you focus. Forget.

  But I don’t want to forget anymore. Not with Josie here, and playing my guitar last night, and the scent of almost-gone salt water that I don’t want to wash off yet.

  I sit in the recliner and watch my sister. Her chest rises and falls as she sleeps. She’s so quiet and I don’t understand. On TV people go crazy when they detox. They tear shit up. Sweat like pigs. Scream like the world is on fire. But Josie isn’t doing any of that. It’s like there’s nothing inside her anymore.

  “Kurt?” Her eyes flip open like she’s a creature in a horror movie, and my stomach rolls into my throat.

  “Josie?” My voice is so high it startles me.

  “Nothing happened to me, Kurt,” she says, her eyes glassy but hard. She’s answering my question from last night, but her look has punched me through my ribs and grabbed my stomach.

  I want to nod and say it’s okay and let that be the end of it. But I can’t.

  “Something happened,” I say, trying out the words again. I have a million questions. Like where she’s been and how she got hooked on whatever she’s on, and how she got the money for it. Too many bad things crawl through my brain. Maybe I don’t want to know.

  Why.

  That’s the big one. Maybe it’s the only question that really means anything.

  I wait.

  She yawns and nuzzles her face into the pillow, lifting her feet onto the couch. Her bony toes dig into the cushion and I see why Dad’s in the shower. There’s a metal cuff locked around her ankle with a green light that blinks. It’s a sensor. Or a tracking device. It’s the kind of thing you put on a dog.

  My hands ball into fists. This can’t be the way we deal with her.

  I need to be outside. Now. Before I march into that bathroom and pummel him. I’m almost out the door when her voice stops me.

  “Nothing happened, Kurt.” Josie’s eyes peer over the edge of the couch like it’s important I understand this. “Nothing happened to me that didn’t happen to you.”

  That can’t be true.

  She disappears behind the couch, and all I can see is that thing on her ankle, her foot draped over the armrest. I hate the feeling that hits me next. We both grew up in this house. We both had to deal with Mom and Dad’s shit. But maybe that’s not all of it. She always took me to parties, and drove me to soccer practice before I got my license, and took me out for fries when Mom was passed out and there wasn’t any food in the kitchen. She always made sure I got away from all this. And what did I do? I left her on the other side of that wall crying, where I could hear her. But I didn’t do anything. Maybe part of what happened to Josie . . . is me.

  * * *

  People rush down the corridor and elbows smack into me like I’m going too slow. Maybe I am. I never spend this much time in a hallway.

  I look for Marion, but I don’t see blond among the lockers. I’m not sure why I’m looking so hard. I’ll see her in chemistry. But then Lilith comes into view and without thinking I wave.

  “Lilith.”

  She turns, surprised, and saunters up to me.

  “Kurt Medford. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Uh . . .” I drop my hand and shove it in my pocket. The fact that I even called out her name betrays more than I should have.

  “She done gone and messed with your head, now, didn’t she?” Lilith teases, and I shut up. I can’t imagine the two of them don’t talk. “Good giiirrrl!”

  Elbows graze my back and I almost shift into their flow and forget this.

  “Did you need something, Medford?” Lilith fishes.

  “I, um . . .”

  She laughs and taps me on the chest. “I get it, Medford. You kiss better than you speak. And yes, if you’re asking, I saw Marion in the library about ten minutes ago. I know, there’s nothing sexier than a girl with her nose in a book, huh, soccer man? Threw you for a loop, now, didn’t she?” She smiles to herself like that’s an inside joke I’m not supposed to get. “I knew that girl had superpowers,” she says, tapping my chest again. “I’m glad she’s finally using them!”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Medford,” she says, smiling with too much lipstick. “Just have fun.”

  “It’s not like that,” I say, and she squints at me.

  “Not like what exactly?” Her eyes narrow, and I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I know what that tone means. I have a reputation. I get it. She opens her mouth to say something snide, but then her hand grabs my shirt instead and there’s something protective in the way she grips me. “Look,” she starts, her voice getting quiet, and her gaze falls to my shoulder. She pauses, and I’m not sure if she’s about to kick my ass or not. The fabric of my shirt tightens under her knuckles and her jaw pinches. A stream of people flies past us, but she doesn’t budge. I like that this is Marion’s best friend.

  “Lilith, I—”

  “You’re gonna break her heart,” she says, interrupting me. The fabric on my sleeve pulls tight and she catches my eye—only, her look isn’t a threat. She stares at me, matter-of-fact, like this is something inevitable that she thinks I should know. “I’m not saying stop,” she says quietly. “You’ll be good for her.” She lets go and presses her palm against my shoulder, smoothing out the wrinkles. “But you’ll also break her.”

  She starts to walk away and I don’t know if that was a warning or an apology. But either way I don’t like it.

  “Hey!”

  Lilith looks back, and I shake my head at her. I want to tell her I won’t, but the words can’t find their way out.

  She smiles weakly and shakes her head.

  “You’re sweet,” she says, then disappears into the crowd.

  Marion

  I’m distracted in chemistry class. I can’t think straight. I haven’t seen Kurt yet and I don’t know if I want to. But at any minute he’s going to walk through that door and we—I don’t know—we’re going to have to deal with this. Us. Make it public. Keep it private. Whatever. I can’t focus and I don’t know which I’d prefer us to be.

  I pull out my pen and draw stars on the back of my wrist till there’s a solar system covering my arm. I want to connect the dots and make them into something. Invent new constellations. See if there’s a way through this skin of stars to the girl underneath.

  Abe takes a seat and mumbles something about my inked skin, but I don’t catch it because I’m too overwhelmed by the closeness of him. Too warm and confused, and these dark-blue stars suddenly feel like a new way of marking me. His silver buttons sparkle and I can actually imagine myself unbuttoning them. Finding his skin underneath, where I could draw starbursts on his chest, scattered like dandelion seeds. I don’t know why I feel brave enough to think that’s possible. For me to touch him.

  “Are you all right?” Abe’s voice breaks me from my daydream.

  “Sorry? What?”

  “You were kinda off this morning,” he says, looking me over carefully, and I don’t know what he’s searching for. “When Lilith came by and . . .” I flush, afraid he can read everything
I’m thinking.

  “No, I’m—” I start, but that’s when I see Kurt in the doorway.

  Kurt doesn’t come in. He waits just outside the frame, watching me, and I’m not sure he’s going to walk in at all. Suddenly I know I can’t face him in this classroom. Not with Abe here. Not with the rest of our classmates watching.

  “Marion, are—?”

  “Can you excuse me a minute?” I get up and walk away from Abe, not looking back. I don’t want to see the disapproving look on his face.

  I grab Kurt’s arm and pull him down the hall away from the door. I grab him with my star-covered hand, inked with a whole blue universe I want to disappear into.

  “Don’t we have class?” Kurt says, but he’s not really protesting. The slump of his shoulder and the way he opens the stairwell door make me certain he’s just as happy to walk away from that room as I am.

  The stairwell echoes with the clang of the door, kicking up dust, and I turn and face him. Fog clouds the window beside us, making his skin look pasty white, and in this light he doesn’t look like the gold-kissed boy who was so intangible at the bonfire. Here, he’s just a boy. The one boy whose hands know me.

  I grip his arm to steady myself, because I’m not sure what I want to ask him. I just need this—seeing him—to happen away from Abe and everyone else. He catches my eye, but I can’t read him. His gaze is honest, but I can’t see anything new in that look. No secret waiting for me. Nothing to settle this starlight burning through the base of my stomach.

  His hand takes my arm and he rubs his thumb over the inked stars, linking one smudged blot to the next. It’s messy and lovely, smearing everything I’ve been trying so hard to keep clean. And then he kisses me. Sweetly. Not hot like in my backseat, or distant like the first time in the car. Just simply, in that weird way Kurt can make something effortlessly simple and at the same time overwhelming. I melt into it, because part of me doesn’t want to ask questions or define us.

  Part of me just wants to burn.

  * * *

  My heart thumps in my chest as I run around the track in gym class. I close my eyes and listen to the rhythm of it. Body moving. Breathing. Released. I smell the ocean far away and wonder why there can’t be more moments like this one.

  Just body and breath. Sand and air. No water to drag me down.

  I open my eyes, running faster, to see if I can outrun that dark place in the back of my mind. The places that question Kurt and what being with him means.

  I look at Lilith rounding the track ahead of me, and wonder if that’s her trick. If she turns off all the questions, and exists right here, right now, without looking ahead or behind. Lives in the moment where nothing else can touch her. Is that it? To let go, do you simply have to choose to be free?

  “I’ll race you to the end.”

  Abe pulls my attention and I see him jogging next to me. He points to the final lap and smiles, a challenge in the curve of his eyebrow. It makes me feel like a kid, my hair full of wind, and I want nothing more than to play this game.

  “Eat my dust,” I yell, digging into the dirt and running ahead. Abe’s pushing hard behind me, trying his best to catch up to me. Only he isn’t Kurt. He isn’t fast. I could beat him.

  I focus on the track, on the pound in my chest, on the solid lines in the dirt. It feels good to stay between the lines, to follow the rules and race forward without questioning the possibility of what lies outside them. The adrenaline and rush melt all my questions away, and I sprint. That kiss in the stairwell makes me feel lighter, like I’ve got wings to fly above this. I can forget Abe behind me and be in this moment, ahead of everything that chases me.

  I cross the finish line and my heart feels like it’s going to burst. My head is dizzy with exertion. I turn to Abe and we both grab the fence to keep from falling over.

  “Okay, you win,” he says breathlessly. But I can’t talk. I’m out of wind. I half laugh and smile, gulping down air, rather than speaking. And he nods; he feels that too. That breathlessness and clarity. That part where you just feel alive. “Man, I got my ass kicked by a girl.”

  “Damn straight you did,” I say, and he’s full smile and laughing.

  I grip the fence to steady myself, and my arm is smeared in blue stars. Half-there, half-gone, covered in sweat and fog. Perspiration beads on my skin and I can feel the creek water again, on my wrists and elbows, wanting to drown those stars. It’s fleeting, there for only a moment, and I tell myself to ignore it. I don’t want it to spoil the joy of running. Of beating Abe. Of momentarily being ahead of everything.

  I look at the parking lot beyond the fence. My chest pounds and I swear I see Kurt walking through the cars. Only it can’t be him, because there’s a dark-haired girl trailing him. Vanessa, I think that’s her name. Yes, Vanessa, she’s a junior. Only all the joy and air squeezes right out of me, because the guy she’s with slumps his shoulder to the side, in the way that Kurt does, and I know it’s him.

  And then she kisses him.

  I flip around and stare at the mountain, not wanting to look back. But I have to, just to be sure. And yes, it really is him, and her, and his car. My fingers and toes go numb. That fleeting feeling rushes back, and there’s water up to my chin.

  Abe notices. “Hey, are you okay?” he asks, still catching his breath, but I walk away from him and head for the trees. I walk away from Kurt and her, my head swarming with an ocean of things I can’t breathe.

  “Marion?” Abe calls after me, but I ignore him. Silver reeds slap my shoes, and I walk until the mist smells of cedar and the fog clogs my breath.

  A snap of twigs makes me look back, and Abe is following me. It’s stupid, but I’m glad he’s following me. The leaves flutter down around him like orange butterflies, blotting out the school and Kurt and Vanessa and all that, since yesterday, I no longer am.

  “Hey, slow down,” he says, but I keep trudging forward. “What just happened?”

  “Nothing,” I say, my limbs aching. “I just need air.” I point to the mountain through the trees. “There’s a trail up this, yeah?”

  “Dorsette?” he asks, confused. “I think so. I hiked it once when I was te—”

  “Great,” I say, showing him my back and walking deeper into the woods.

  He mumbles something that I don’t catch. If he wants to go back, he can. I don’t need him. But I hear twigs snap behind me and I know he’s following. I feel powerful knowing he’s coming with me, and I wonder if this is some of that power Lilith has. This spark that’s able to lure Abe into the woods after me. I pick up my pace, tromping through the leaves that lie gold at my feet, and wonder if it’s possible. Can I be like Lilith and find fire? Be fire? Use my skin as a spark? Perhaps this is what not being a virgin is. Perhaps this is why things feel different between Abe and me. Because my virginity was the one thing that always kept us apart.

  We hike in silence and I can feel Abe watching me. Breathing. Not asking, just coming. We search for the trail for a long time, heading deeper into the mist, and I swallow the salt on the back of my tongue. The taste of Kurt wells inside me and it strikes me that I don’t know him. Everything between Kurt and me has been ocean—fast and vulnerable and full of drowning currents. He’s a stranger, like that man, and perhaps everything between us dissolves into creek water because I can’t untangle them. What if yesterday had been with someone who knew me? Like Abe? With Abe I would mean something. I wouldn’t be just another girl lost in the surf.

  Abe slogs through the brush, and wet moss squeezes under my feet, soaking through my sneakers. Is Abe the spark that beats the water? Is he the prince whose kiss will undo the bad magic?

  “This way,” I say, nodding to the fog, but Abe checks his watch.

  “We’re lost.”

  “No,” I insist, pointing to a pair of birch trees with charcoal knots in their trunks. “I’m sure the path is up here.”

  “Marion.” He pauses to wipe the sweat from his brow. “There isn’t a trail.”


  I spread my hand over the curls of bark. I’ve stepped off my normal path, with Kurt. I need to keep moving forward and believe there’s a path with Abe.

  “Of course there is.” My thumb peels back the husk of wood. “You said—”

  “I said I thought there was a trail.” His voice is annoyed, and I dig my nail into the tree. “But then you just walked into the woods.”

  “You make me sound crazy.”

  “It’s not like that, M.”

  My skin prickles. It’s nice to have him call me M. It’s familiar, like I’m allowed to touch his hair again.

  “You didn’t have to come,” I say, and my throat pinches, because I wanted him to come. That was part of the lure, wasn’t it? Having him come with me.

  I look back and he’s only a step away.

  “Yes, I did.”

  The white of his gym shirt is damp and his head tilts to the side. But those three words, he’s said them all wrong. They’ve come out pointed and cross, like I’m a child in need of a chaperone.

  “Of course I knew there wasn’t a trail,” I say, yanking at the bark, unraveling its hangnail of flesh.

  “That’s bad for the tree,” he scolds, and I yank it farther to expose the pink.

  “It’s just a tree!”

  “Fine.” He runs a frustrated hand through his curls. “You’re being ridiculous. I mean, why are we even out here?”

  I’m so close to him I can feel his breath.

  His eyes flick to my mouth and ice reeds though me. Ice, like the water yesterday, dousing me naked. I wanted him in these woods, but I didn’t think I could admit to myself why. And now all I can feel is this red heat raging through me.

  Abe doesn’t move.

  I don’t move.

  Suddenly I understand that when I told Abe I’d never have sex with him, it was because I didn’t think I would ever have sex with anyone. But now I’m this other person—who has—this something new, and all my lines of white and black have become fog, dissolving.

  I was the one who stood in the way of Abe and me. And now all this knotted-up heat is unraveling. The flirting. The unfolding looks. Kurt doesn’t care about me, his kissing that girl tells me as much. My skin flushes and Abe’s fingers dig into the cotton of his shirt. I’m only a breath away from him and the fog is—