What You Left Behind

by Jessica Verdi

  I gape at her for a long moment, slowly coming to realize that Joni is my Washington Square Park. My way to connect with who I was—am—in the middle of all the bullshit.

  She gets it. I wonder how she knew that was the exact right thing to say to me.

  “What bullshit are you pushing back against?” I ask. She always seems so perfectly happy.

  She shrugs. “Family being all up in my business all the time. Friend drama. Karen and I…I don’t know, lots of stuff.”

  I want to know more, but then she’ll feel like she can ask me more about my life, and we’re not going there. So I nod. “How did you even do this?”

  “You’d be surprised what you can do with a little elbow grease and imagination.” She grins. “Elijah did most of it.”

  “Elijah?”

  “The guy in the garage? He’s my stepbrother. Anyway, you ready to go?” She jumps up and down. “It’s tattoo time!”

  We wave to Elijah on our way out, but I don’t think he sees us, he’s so immersed in his work. The kids are out of sight, but I can still hear them screaming and laughing.

  “So what are you getting?” I ask as we drive. The evening is warm, and we have the windows rolled down.

  “An outline of an elephant on my shoulder,” Joni says as her short hair blows around in the wind.

  “An elephant? Why?”

  “Because they’re beautiful.”

  Fair enough. “Your parents don’t care?”

  “Nah. My dad let me get my first one last year. I’d been telling him I wanted a tattoo for as long as I could remember—since I was six or seven. I’ve always loved the concept of decorating your body. Anyway, he kept saying, ‘Sure, Joni, when you’re sixteen, you can get a tattoo.’ I think he thought I’d forget about it by then. But I turned sixteen and still wanted one, and my dad never goes back on his word.”

  Joni’s dad’s follow-through seems to mean a lot to her. I file that bit of information away for future negotiations with Hope.

  “What did you get?” I ask, taking the Laconia exit.

  Joni gives me a closed-lipped smile. “Tell me how you got your eyebrow scar and I’ll tell you about my tattoo.”

  I shake my head. “No deal.”

  “Is it a soccer injury?”

  I just look at her, expressionless. “Yup. Soccer injury.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I’ll get it out of you one of these days.”

  “You can try.”

  We get to the tattoo place, and Joni fills out a bunch of paperwork, chatting with the girl at the front desk about Sherlock like they’re best friends. I’m beginning to think Joni is best friends with everyone she meets.

  Then we’re ushered to the back, and Joni’s sitting in the chair. The tattoo artist is snapping on rubber gloves and placing the elephant stencil on her shoulder, saying, “Ready?”

  Joni nods and grabs my hand and closes her eyes tight as the needle makes contact with her skin.

  She squeezes my hand tighter and tighter the longer the needle presses down. “Jesus fuck, that hurts,” she says.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, unable to take my eyes away from the elephant slowly forming on her shoulder and the tiny droplets of blood the artist keeps wiping away.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. It’s a good pain. Addictive.”

  I shake my head. “There’s no such thing as good pain. You’re crazy.” But I keep her hand tight in mine.

  She squeezes so hard that my hand starts to go numb, and it’s easy to imagine I’m holding Meg’s hand instead, talking her through a contraction, wiping her sweaty hair away from her face as she pushes her way through labor. “I’m here,” I tell her. “I know it hurts but it’ll be over soon. You’re doing great.”

  She smiles at me and squeezes my fingers as she follows the doctor’s order to push again.

  Is it possible to have a flashback to a moment that never happened?

  The alternate universe only lasts a second, and then I’m back with Joni, and the tattoo guy is wiping off the last of the excess ink and showing her what it looks like in the mirror. Joni claps with glee, then he covers her shoulder in ointment and a bandage, she pays her bill, and we’re back in the car.

  “Thanks for coming with me,” she says.

  “No problem. It was fun…in a sadistic kind of way.”

  “You want to go get some food? I could use a sugar boost after all the bloodletting back there.”

  “Works for me.” Really, she could suggest crashing a wedding or shoplifting a mouse from the pet store or going to buy nipple clamps, and I’d probably agree. Tonight, I’m free.

  We get grilled cheeses and milk shakes and a giant tub of waffle fries to share and sit along the lakeshore. It’s strange, hanging out with a girl who eats junk food. If I’d ever seen Meg eat a waffle fry, I would have collapsed in shock.

  Joni tells me more about her family. Her dad and stepmom got married when she was four, and she has one full sister (Stevie, the girl I saw at her house), two stepbrothers (Elijah’s the only one who still lives at home), and two half-siblings—the Super Soaker twins. Her real mother died in a boating accident when Joni was two, so she never knew her.

  “What’s it like having such a big family?” I ask.

  “Loud.” She shakes her head. “I love my little brother and sister, but they’re intense, man. Always running around and screaming and demanding attention. I got the job at Whole Foods ’cause I was sick of being stuck in the house with them all the time. I guess I’m not a kid person.”

  Not a kid person. Good to know. I make a point of taking a huge sip of milk shake so I don’t have to respond.

  “What about you?” Joni asks.

  I wait a minute for the brain freeze to subside, and then say, “Not really a kid person either.”

  “No, I mean what about your family? Your life?”

  I figure the best way to approach this conversation is to pretend the last year and a half never happened. Anything post-Meg is off limits. Anything pre-Meg is fair game. It’s still being honest—just with some restrictions. I tell Joni about my mom and my nonexistent dad and soccer and UCLA.

  “Have you ever thought about trying to find your father?” she asks.

  Gee, what a timely inquiry.

  I don’t know if this information lies in pre-Meg green light or post-Meg red. It’s a little of both. I decide to be as honest as I can, without fully going there.

  “Yeah. I’ve thought about it.”

  “What would you say to him if you found him?”

  What’s with all the questions? In all our years of friendship, Dave never once asked me about my dad.

  I don’t know how to respond. We’re getting too close to the danger zone. I shrug. “What would you say to your mother if you could see her again?”

  “Well, that’s different. My mother didn’t choose to leave me,” Joni says.

  I suck in a breath.

  “Oh shit, Ryden. I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.” She puts a hand on my shoulder.

  I stare at the setting sun. “I know, I know, you say things you don’t mean. It’s a fault. You’re working on it.”

  Joni sighs. “What I meant was what I would say to my mother is different because—”

  “Believe me, I know all the different ways someone can leave you,” I bite out.

  There’s silence as the last of the sun disappears over the horizon.

  “Can we go back to having fun now?” Joni asks, her voice more unsure than I’ve ever heard it.

  I glance at her. She’s looking at me with a hopeful grin, holding out a handful of Pixy Stix. I can’t help it. I laugh. Joni’s really freaking good at knowing exactly how to make me feel better—even when she was the one to make me feel shitty in the first place. “Another peace offering?”

&
nbsp; “You could say that.”

  I take a blue one. “Where did you get these?”

  “From my bag.”

  “What else you got in there?”

  She holds it out to me. “See for yourself. I have no secrets.”

  “Except for the tattoo,” I remind her.

  “You know how to make that secret go away, friend.” She points to my eyebrow.

  I rifle through her bag. I’ve never looked through a girl’s bag before. Meg didn’t carry a purse, just a backpack filled with journals. And Shoshanna and the girls I used to be friends with acted as if their bags contained the secrets of the universe.

  Joni’s got all sorts of shit in hers. The expected stuff: keys, wallet, phone, lip balm. But she’s also carrying a bottle of water, a large Ziploc filled with more candy than most kids score on Halloween, a book (Tempted by Lust: Book 4 of the Bahamas Bikers Series, which I hold up, eyebrows raised, causing her to just smile and shrug), an extra pair of flip-flops, an old-fashioned compass, and a tiny plastic pinwheel.

  I hand the bag back to her and hold my hand out to help her to her feet. “So what’s the Bahamas Bikers series about?” I ask as we walk back to the car. “I assume you’ve read the first three already?”

  “It’s a romance novel series, Ryden. What do you think it’s about?”

  I laugh and shake my head. So she reads books about hot guys. Major check in the not-gay column.

  A little while later, I pull up in front of Joni’s house but don’t get out of the car this time. “Say hi to your magic room for me,” I say.

  Joni smiles. “Magic room. I like that.” She leans toward me. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow?”

  She’s really close. She smells like fresh air and Pixy Stix and the goopy ointment from her tattoo. She licks her lips, and her mouth is so close to mine I’m surprised her tongue doesn’t graze my own lips along the way.

  Holy shit. Not gay. Definitely not gay. My heartbeat speeds up, but I don’t know if it’s from anticipation or panic. This was not supposed to happen. Joni was supposed to be safe, a friend. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”

  And then she does it. The thing I knew she was going to do but wouldn’t let myself believe. She kisses me. Her lips brush across mine. My body reacts before my brain can catch up. I pull her to me and drink her in. The kiss is frantic and hungry and wild. I’m acting on autopilot, doing exactly what I’ve done every other time a girl has kissed me.

  And then Joni is in my lap. I don’t know how she got there. I wasn’t paying attention. But she’s straddling me, her back pressed up against the steering wheel. She takes my hand out of her hair and guides it down her body. Suddenly, it’s like the plug has been pulled on my adrenaline supply, and I’m more awake than I’ve been all night.

  I break away from her, open the car door, and scramble out into the street, leaning forward, my hands on my thighs, supporting my own weight, desperate to catch my breath, desperate to go back in time and erase the last few minutes.

  “I can’t do this,” I manage to get out. “I can’t do this to her.”

  “Who?” Joni whispers, still on her knees in the driver’s seat. “The girl in the picture?”

  I nod, because with all the guilt and regret and pain and goddamn anger inside me, that’s all I can do.

  “I get it,” she says and steps out of the car, righting her clothes and grabbing her bag. “See ya, Ryden.”

  I manage to collect myself enough to call after her when she’s halfway up her front walk. “Joni.” She pauses for a minute, then turns. Her face is less expressive than I’ve ever seen it. Does she really not care? “I’m…” But that’s all I’ve got.

  She raises a hand in a weak don’t worry about it gesture and disappears into her house.

  Chapter 10

  “I’m sorry,” I say over and over again to the empty car on the drive home. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” I don’t know if she’s listening, but I hope she is. I really need her to know. “For now, for then, for all of it.” I take a deep, agonizing breath and wipe my eyes. “Meg,” I say, the name feeling so familiar yet so foreign on my lips. “I’m sorry. I love you.”

  It hurts so much, but I have to say her name. Because if she is listening, I need her to know I’m talking to her. I need her to know how perfect she was, and how I destroyed everything the moment I almost sat in that wad of gum, and how I will never forgive myself as long as I live.

  Chapter 11

  The next morning, Joni’s waiting for me when I pull my car into the Whole Foods employee lot. Great.

  “I wanted to say,” she says as I get out of the car and clip my name tag to my shirt, “that I like you.”

  I groan. “I know, Joni, but—”

  “No, wait. I mean, I like you as a person, above anything else. I like you the way I like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and anything made from colored sugar and watching the roller bladers in Washington Square Park. And okay, yes, I thought I liked you the way the Bahamas Bikers ‘like’ their biker babes, and maybe you liked me that way too. But you’re still not over the girl in the picture. And that’s fine. Really. But I don’t want to not be your friend, okay?” She holds out a Tupperware.

  “What’s this?” I ask, taking it.

  “Chocolate pudding. One of Dad’s specialties.”

  I sigh. I don’t know if I can be friends with Joni after what happened last night. But I don’t have the energy to actively avoid her either. “Thanks,” I say.

  “So we’re good?” she asks, hopeful.

  “You mean it? Just friends? Nothing else? You’re okay with that?”

  She nods.

  “Then we’re good.”

  “Woohoo!” She does a cartwheel, right there in the parking lot.

  • • •

  During my break, I eat chocolate pudding and open to the next entry in Meg’s journal. I didn’t read any yesterday because I was pretty sure I couldn’t handle it after everything.

  January 19.

  I have a feeling Hope will be born soon. I know I’m not due for a couple more months, but I don’t think she’s going to wait that long. Theoretically, the longer she stays inside me, the healthier she’ll be. But does that count for a pregnancy like this one too? Where the baby is trapped inside a rotting body? What if I’m poisoning her? I know I’m going to die, but what if I die before she can get out safely? What if she dies too and all of this will have been for nothing?

  My heart is in my throat.

  Meg knew she was going to die? She never once told me that. The only thing she ever said was that she hoped Hope would be okay—when it came to herself, her confidence never wavered.

  Everything is going to be fine. That was her go-to line. She was so sure.

  But now it seems she wasn’t. She wasn’t sure at all. And I never would have known that if Mabel hadn’t given me this journal.

  What changed for Meg between that day in August when she sat us all down and said she was keeping the baby and January 19, the day she wrote this entry? When did it change?

  And what the hell else was she lying to me about?

  Chapter 12

  Fuck the read-the-journal-slowly plan. I need to find out what else is in here. I sit on my bedroom floor and read as quickly as I can while still paying attention to what the words actually say. Jesus. There’s a lot more about how Meg hadn’t been feeling well and how she didn’t think she had much time left. She even went to her doctor by herself one day without her parents or me or anyone knowing to get checked out. She took a fucking cab—a weak, sick, pregnant, seventeen-year-old girl taking a cab to a secret doctor’s appointment so she could find out how long she had to live. Goddammit, Meg. Why didn’t you tell me?

  The doctor told her there was no real way to know for sure, but it looked to him like she didn’t have much time left. Weeks. Th
e cancer was everywhere. Her organs were going to fail. He wanted to do an emergency C-section, get the baby out of her, give her body a final chance to bounce back. A Hail Mary pass, he called it.

  She said no. It was too soon for the baby to be born. She’d accepted her fate; she just needed to hold out as long as she could—for the baby.

  I throw the book against the wall and pace the room.

  Why the hell would she do this? Why wouldn’t she give herself every possible chance?

  It wasn’t a pro-life thing—Meg was always going on about women’s rights and equal pay and gender inequalities and “the old, white jackasses in Washington who think having a penis gives them the right to govern vaginas.” She was pro-choice. And she certainly made her choice, didn’t she?

  I pick the book off the floor and flip to the next entry, searching through her scribble for some kind of meaning, some hint, some answer.

  By the time I reach the end of the journal, one word has jumped out at me more than any of the thousands of others, the very last word on the very last line: legacy.

  Hope’s been kicking a lot lately. It hurts when it happens, like I’m being beaten up from the inside out. But it’s okay. Actually, it’s the only thing that’s okay lately. I can’t look at my parents or Mabel, because all I see is anguish. They know I’m dying. They know it and they hate me for it. And Ryden…Ryden’s still in denial. It’s even harder to be around him. With him, I have to pretend. He still has hope, and I’m not going to take that away from him. It hurts to smile, but I will not stop. I will not take away his hope. I love him too much. And it makes me want to cry.