Fragments of the Lost

by Megan Miranda

  This bed has been moved by Caleb.

  I walk to the side of the bed, and I get onto my knees, planting my hands against the metal frame. And I push. It barely moves, with the box spring and mattress on top. I move to the other side, grip my hands to the underside, and pull with all my might, and it slides a few inches. I do it once, twice more, until the bed feet settle into their previous location.

  The floor underneath looks the same, on both sides. I walk around, to the side next to the window, and my stomach falls, everything lurches. The wall that I’ve just exposed behind the bed, the foot of old gray paint just exposed. There’s a deep gouge in the wall, like the indentations on the other side of the room, where he’d thrown the letter opener long ago. But here, it’s cut down through the gray to the plaster. The swipe was strong, the line in the wall angry, starting and jumping, with force and intent behind it.

  And it’s inches from the window.

  The fight. The fight with Sean. He wasn’t lying.

  If Sean hit him, what had Caleb done back? Had he grabbed the closest thing he could find? The letter opener on his desk? Had he swung it around, in a practiced maneuver?

  I can picture it happening—Sean grabbing his wrist, the force wrenching the blade through the wall. Missing. Struggling. The chain of the pocket watch breaking. And then.

  And then. I look to the open window. The screen is missing. Sean is missing.

  I can’t breathe.

  Caleb, no.

  —

  The door swings open downstairs, and I want to tell her. I want to show her. Look what happened. Look.

  Except.

  She knows. My blood runs cold. She must. Sean is gone; his clothes were here. The pocket watch in the garage. She knows—she’s always known.

  The room hollows out: Why am I here in this room? Why did she ask me to come?

  As I hear her heading up the steps, presumably to continue painting this room, I slink into the closet, pull the bookcase aside, and disappear into the hidden attic space, pulling the bookcase back into place behind me.

  I listen to her footsteps. She walks into the room. She must see the wall I’ve exposed. She must know someone has been here. She opens the closet door. Peers inside. Steps back. I hear fabric moving, assume she must be checking under the bed.

  It’s like she can feel the presence of another.

  “Caleb?” she calls.

  And the name, the very word, makes him come alive. Makes everything something other than what I assumed. Her steps circle the room slowly. And then, closer now, she calls, “Jessa?”

  I reach my hands up, to the spot I cannot see, where the Swiss Army knife once was. There’s nothing but empty space. I know Max and I were passing it back and forth, but then Caleb’s mother arrived, and…I can’t remember what we did with it. I take out my phone to use as a flashlight, and there, between two wooden beams, the glint of light reflecting off metal.

  I reach down and my grip tightens on the Swiss Army knife. It’s all I have. That, and my phone. I turn the volume down, and input the numbers 9-1-1 into the keypad. My finger hovers over the button, ready to hit Send.

  Because I suddenly understand exactly why I’m here. Why she was keeping me so close. Following me.

  She has sent me here to find her son. She believes he’s alive. It’s why she’s been following me, thinking I knew something more. And when it was clear I didn’t, she brought me here instead, hoping I’d find something and figure out where he was, where he went.

  And I believe I have.

  A phone rings, and I jump—it’s not mine.

  I hear her answer, her voice just beyond the wall. “Yes, you’re here? Great. Be right down.” And then the footsteps back away. They fade down the stairs. Then there’s the sound of a door swinging open somewhere below. I hold my breath until I hear the door close again. I cancel the call screen on my phone. Then I leave my hiding spot in the attic, the Swiss Army knife still in my clenched fist, my phone in the other. I peer out the window, carefully. There’s a van out back, at the edge of the long driveway. I assume she’s rented it. She’s carrying her things to the back. It’s now or never, I decide. She’s busy. She won’t be paying attention.

  Caleb’s backpack is in the middle of the room, and I picture him swinging it onto his shoulder, looking over at me briefly: “Coming, Jessa?” Raising an eyebrow as he takes off, launching himself down these steps—me always running a step or two behind.

  I grab the few things left in this room, shove them all into his green backpack, along with my things. I barely focus on anything else as I half tumble down the steps, out the front door, racing, racing, around the block, to Max’s house.

  —

  I send my brother a text, letting him know I have after-school plans and won’t be arriving until later. I don’t want him worrying, and calling our parents.

  I have Caleb’s backpack, the flashlight, my phone that’s slid into the side pocket. These shoes aren’t the best, but they will have to do.

  Because she knows what I know. She’s been following the same path. And I’ve led her most of the way there.

  I’ll have to go the rest of the way alone. To beat her there.

  It’s the things that are missing that tip me off: the camping gear, the money. Eve doesn’t know about those things. She doesn’t know the pieces I’ve put together, from my memories. I know where he went. He took me there, once before.

  The day is like yesterday, a hazy gray, a fine drizzle, the sky always on the verge of just breaking open. My wipers cut through the mist as I drive, and the rain seems to come down heavier the faster I go. I imagine, for a moment, that I’m Caleb. Coming upon the bridge. Deciding. Seizing the moment.

  Max still isn’t picking up his phone. If he’s in a science lab, he probably won’t be able to check it until the end of the double period. His voice finally answers: Leave a message, and I’m shouting into his voicemail, which I have on speakerphone in the cup holder. “Max. I know where he is. Don’t tell his mother. It’s the Delaware Water Gap. I’m heading there now.”

  The drive takes almost two hours, but alone, it feels longer. It feels like I’ll never make it, that he’ll always be somewhere just out of reach. I’m constantly checking the rearview mirrors, but that’s crazy, and impossible. She didn’t see me go. She missed her chance. I’m free of her now. Free to find him on my own.

  Max calls back when I’m almost there. It’s started to rain, and it’s hard to hear him over the wipers. “Jessa?” His voice is frantic. I’ve pulled into the lot I remembered from the day months ago, and I sit there in the empty parking spot, the rain faintly hitting the windshield.

  “I’m here. I made it.”

  “You’re where?”

  “A parking lot where we once took this trail. I remembered, he met his dad here. Only I didn’t know it was his dad. And Brandon said Caleb had a bunch of camping gear, but I never saw it. It’s nowhere. It must’ve been in the attic, and now it’s gone.”

  “Wait for me, Jessa. Okay? Tell me where you are.”

  “I don’t know exactly. It’s this trail we once took. So, take the parkway to 80, and then follow signs. It’s in the town of—”

  “Just send me your location.”

  “What?”

  “On your phone. Go to my contact, and hit share location, and I’ll be there.”

  “Okay,” I say. I hang up. I open his contact page. I see the arrow, and I hit it. There. He has me, I think.

  And then I freeze. My finger shakes. I slowly scroll through the names, until I see the entry marked Eve. She took my phone, that day, when Hailey texted. She checked my text, and she entered her own information. I thought she was just being nosy, seeing who I was talking to, making sure that I wasn’t lying, but a slight moan escapes my lips.

  How she always shows up just after I get there, or seems to know when I’m about to arrive. How she seems to know when I’m not where I say I am. How someone showed up at that ol
d house, just as Max and I did. Did she think Caleb would be there? Hiding out inside?

  I press her name, and that same arrow comes into view, enabled. I click it, frantically, to turn it off. But it’s too late. She set this up. She doesn’t need to follow with a pen and paper anymore, because she could follow me remotely. She knows exactly where I am. Where I’ve stopped.

  I’ve led her straight to him.

  —

  I’m bouncing on my toes, pacing back and forth in front of the trailhead. It’s still daylight, but the rain is starting to come down heavier. Max is coming. But so is Eve. And if she makes it here, if she finds Caleb first…I don’t know what happens next.

  Still, right now, I have a head start. I can’t wait for Max. I don’t have time. I don’t know if she’s on her way or not. And so I run.

  There’s something about having Caleb’s bag on my back that gives me comfort. His flashlight in the main pocket. The papers I’ve found, my wallet, my things.

  But then I remember the hike. How everything hurt. And it does. Oh, it hurts. The trail is wetter, and I lose my footing, cutting my knee once. It seems to take twice as long, alone, in the rain, with the sun slowly setting.

  When I finally come up on the view I last saw with Caleb, the wind blows and lightning strikes somewhere in the distance, and I feel too close to the sky. Too exposed.

  And then I think I’ve made the wrong decision. That I am out here alone, and it’s cold and raining, and there could be anything hidden in the trees, in the dark.

  But still, I keep moving. As if I can feel something just at my back. Stepping in our steps, from long ago. Feeling our strides in sync, hearing his breathing, just under my own.

  I know when I’m getting close, and I will my legs to move faster. The sound of water in the darkness feels like a tidal wave, like a flood. It’s dark before I make it, and I have to stop to pull out the flashlight, shining it on the path in front of me.

  I’m shaking, from adrenaline and the rain and the fact that I’m on this trail, alone, in the dark. I could turn back, I think. But I also think of Eve heading this way, and I’m not sure which I’m more afraid of. I have to move forward.

  There’s water in my shoes now, and it only gets worse as I plant my feet in puddles forming on the trail, over and over. And then, finally, I’m there. I hear the waterfall, shine the light in an arc in front of me, and the light reflects off the rain hitting the surface of the water.

  This is it. This is the spot. There’s the rock where Caleb and I sat. There’s the waterfall, where the people once swam. But now, there’s no one here. There’s no campsite, no tent, no Caleb. It’s eerily empty. A chill rises up my spine as I’m standing in the middle of the woods, so far from civilization, all alone.

  I remember that he told Stan he needed an ID for Pennsylvania, and I know I’m not quite there. We’re separated by a state border, deep water, a place we once called Nowhere.

  The beam of the flashlight shakes in my hand. I can hear his whisper almost as clearly as I could that day back in March, when we were sneaking across his backyard, and he placed this in my hand. Quiet, Jessa.

  I scan the light behind me, around me. Across the way, trying to see through the trees. It looks so different here than the last time. It feels more dangerous, sounds more ominous.

  The rain has been coming down steady and hard, and I can hear the river. The waterfall rages underneath the sound of the thunder, the rain. I know the river must swell, that it will be deeper than the day Caleb and I were here together.

  I shine the flashlight across the expanse. I look for footsteps, for evidence of a campsite across the way.

  I call his name, but it’s swallowed up. I don’t see a campsite—I can’t see anything that far in the dark.

  I know there’s something on the other side. Caleb had plans to be in Pennsylvania, if his ID was anything to go on. That day of our hike, I remember the river being shallow, passable, that one could be nowhere for a moment, and then across the border.

  But now it’s dark, and loud, and this is it. And for a moment, I wonder if I’m only seeing what I want to see, once more. If the truth is that Caleb did something to Sean, and was running away, and went over the bridge the day the river rose. That he was swept away, as everyone believed, along with the pieces of his car, to the ocean.

  I am scared that there is actually nothing at all on the other side. Nothing but terrible hope, cut down. That this is as close as I’ll ever get, still infinitely far away.

  I swing the flashlight around again, taking everything in.

  I watch the path, expecting to see Eve coming down at any moment. Or maybe she’s already here. Maybe she’s waiting. There’s nothing here but the rain, the darkness. A person could disappear here. No evidence. An accident. A slip, a drowning. A body never found.

  There’s one way in, and there’s one way out, and there’s a raging river in front of me, impassable now.

  I can’t stay still, so I begin to pace. But I can do nothing more, other than call his name, over and over, into the darkness.

  —

  Eventually, I sit on the rock at the corner of the river, where Caleb and I once sat—just out of sight. Nobody responds to my calls. They’re swallowed up in the rain and the dark. So I sit, and I breathe, and think, You have done everything you can.

  But that’s not true. The voice whispers everything it knows is true: You have done everything that is expected of you. But have you done everything?

  The water rushes, angry in the dark, in answer. The answer is I haven’t. I have not done all I can.

  The pieces I’ve followed fit together into the puzzle of a boy, leading me here. But more than that, it’s the puzzle of a girl. Leading to this moment, this version of herself.

  From that girl in the first picture, afraid of the ocean that was six feet in front of her—to this, right now.

  I jam the base of my flashlight into the mud, the light shining up, like a beacon, so I can find my way back.

  I close my eyes and picture Caleb. Cutting the wheel, the water rising, but his head above the surface, swimming for shore.

  And I think that maybe I am not just doing this for him.

  I call Max. I try to. The phone keeps breaking in and out, so far from the main road and the trail entrance. Dropping the call before he picks up.

  I send him a text instead. I’m crossing the river. I can’t wait. Eve is coming. Call someone. Call for help.

  It shows that the message is sending, but it hasn’t gone through. I have to hope that it will.

  —

  I’m in New Jersey. I need to be in Pennsylvania. I leave my backpack, including my phone, to keep it all dry. I tuck it all out of sight, under a tree, trying to keep it protected. All I’ll have left is myself.

  I remember the expression on Caleb’s face on Christmas, then Valentine’s Day in the library, the moment I saw him in his glasses, sitting at his desk.

  I loved him once, the parts I thought I knew. I think he loved me too, the girl he thought he knew. Even if he didn’t believe I was a person capable of holding his secrets, and the truth. But I am more than he thought I was.

  I wade into the river, and it’s freezing. I step back out, take off my outer jacket, lay it over the bag with my phone. The truth is, whether he’s there or not, I have to know. Because it’s not only his story, but mine.

  The water rises up to my knees quickly, then my thighs, and when it hits my waist, I feel the current moving faster than I expected. Careful, be careful. I plant my feet gently on each rock, making sure I have my footing before continuing on.

  And then, in the middle, when I’m nowhere, the ground suddenly drops away, and I’m weightless, at the mercy of a current, until I remember myself, and swim frantically, arm over arm, for the other side, my feet reaching down, and feeling nothing, until finally—a rock. My toe reaching the bottom, my next step solid, and then I’m on the way out, on the other side, with nothing but darknes
s and the cold. I remind myself—keep moving. Keep going.

  I’m standing on the other side of the river. It’s completely dark here, except for the stars. Behind me, I see the faint light from the flashlight, the rain slanting across the view. I can’t see the path in front of me. I reach out my hands as I walk, feeling the leaves and twigs marking the path, holding on to tree branches, until I start to get the feel of the thing. A path, slowly emerging in the shadows.

  “Caleb?” I call. It’s tentative, unsure, because I’m standing here soaking wet, and I feel outside myself for a moment. That if I were to step back and look at the scene, I’m sure I’d be witnessing the unraveling of a girl in the dark, in the woods, who has swum through a river in the cold, because she thinks her ex-boyfriend isn’t really dead.

  I take another step, away from the sound of the river. There’s a sliver of light through the trees, and as I move, it disappears. And then there’s the noise: like water hitting something else. I move through the trees, closer and closer, until I’m upon it. It’s a green tent, the front flap moving in the wind. I throw it open, my hands shaking, and peer inside, into the darkness.

  I wait for someone to speak, for a hand to reach out and grab me, but there’s nothing. I crawl inside, feeling for anything left behind. And then I hear heavy footsteps outside. A light shines on the outside of the fabric. My shadow, illuminated on the far side.

  “Caleb?” I call, but no one responds.

  I crawl back out of the tent, because someone’s here, and I’m running for him, for the shadow, but the light is in my eyes, and I can’t see who’s there.

  Then the shadow’s edges take shape: He’s older, heavier, harder. It’s the man we saw on our hike. It’s his father. I hold up my arm to block the light, and my steps slow. A deep voice says, “No one by that name here.”

  “Please,” I say, walking all the way up to him. “I need to talk to Caleb.” I’m shaking, because I’ve done it. I traced him back to this man, from the pieces left behind. I grab onto the front of his jacket—here, solid, the image of a photograph, brought to life.