The Beauty That Remains

by Ashley Woodfolk

  Deedee is taking pictures of everything. She has an idea for an ongoing series for BAMF called Remaking the Band. Callie just asked me to brainstorm interview questions to go with Deedee’s photos, so we sit down to work on it.

  When Logan and Rohan identify a song they both like, they go over to Dante, and Autumn joins us on the sidelines.

  “How’s he doing?” I ask Autumn, nodding in Dante’s direction. She gives me a slight shrug.

  “And you?” I say, remembering that Dante had told me that Tavia was Autumn’s best friend.

  “Okay, I guess. As good as can be expected? I don’t know. It was a month on the thirteenth. Seems like it’s been longer. And I guess shorter at the same time.”

  I nod.

  “It’s been four months for me. Since Sasha, I mean.”

  Autumn nods. “I was at her memorial. I’m sorry,” she says really looking at me, and something passes between us that doesn’t really need to be said out loud. It’s awful and lovely at the same time. I don’t remember her being at Sasha’s service, but I don’t remember much about that day at all. I touch her shoulder and smile. “Thanks for being there,” I say.

  When Unraveling Lovely’s music fills the room a few minutes later, all the empty space inside me feels a little less hollow.

  FEB. 9, 2:26 P.M.

  Everything is different without you here. Especially me.

  But I’m starting to think that maybe that’s okay.

  Tavia may not be on Hangouts right now. She’ll see your messages later.

  From: HeCalledItAutumn@gmail.com

  To: TaviaViolet@gmail.com

  Sent: Feb. 10, 6:11 p.m.

  Subject:

  I’m starting to remember what I was like before, or, I guess, who I am now without you here. That I love classical music and sketching people’s faces when they don’t know I’m watching. That I’d prefer to stay home and watch a movie instead of going out to a party. And books. I’d forgotten all about books.

  We go to the library today because Dante needs to study, and I want to check out a book. I couldn’t turn him down when he said the word “study,” and besides, it’s been almost two months since I’ve read anything other than your photo captions and the lyrics to UL songs. I’m leafing through one of the newer novels, its plastic-wrapped jacket crinkling under my fingers, when I hear someone whisper my name.

  “Hey, Autumn.”

  When I turn around, Perry’s there, his dark blond hair mussed and messy, like someone had just pulled a hat from his head against his will. His cheeks are dotted with stubble. He’s wearing his glasses, which he almost never wears, but I can still see his quiet, translucent eyes behind the lenses, shining like a shallow forest pond. His lacrosse stick is poking out of his backpack, and he’s holding a fat fantasy novel. It’s the first time I’ve really looked at him since the day on the beach. He looks like a different person here, in those glasses, holding that book. I could finally see the version of him that you loved.

  I push the book I’m holding back onto the shelf and run my finger along the spine of the one beside it so I don’t have to look back at those eyes. So I won’t have to endure the nakedness of his expression again.

  “Hey, Perry. How’ve you been?” I ask, even though I’ve been avoiding his sadness, like it’s a sickness, especially since that fight with Dante. Especially since I screamed at him on the beach. And it’s strange making small talk considering that the last time I saw him, I was yelling in his face, telling him he’s the reason why you’re gone.

  “Not too good, but okay, I guess.” He slouches his backpack from his shoulder and drops it on the floor between us. He leans his head against the shelf right beside my hand, and he’s quiet for a second or two before he says my name again. I keep staring straight ahead, reading the spines of the books in front of me like they’re pages instead.

  “Autumn. Can you look at me?” His voice sounds dark and desperate, so I do.

  He lets out a long sigh, and his bangs flutter in a way that makes him seem like a little kid. He looks up at where a mural of the night sky is painted across the domed ceiling. I haven’t been here in so long that I’d forgotten about it.

  “Tavi would always point out the Big Dipper in here,” Perry says before he aims those eyes of his back at me. He smiles and shakes his head. “Or Orion’s Belt. When we were dating, she would pull me into that last aisle, and we’d lie on the carpet looking up until her giggling got us kicked out.”

  He takes a step so that he’s even closer to me. When he swallows, I can see his Adam’s apple bob, and he lowers his voice a bit more before he speaks again.

  “What you said, on the beach…,” he starts, but he trails off almost right away. The rest of his sentence, his question, hangs in the air between us, and neither one of us wants to finish it.

  I turn my head back toward the shelves and read a few of the spines in front of me before looking down at my shoes. I’m in the W part of the fiction section, and almost all of Alice Walker’s titles remind me of you:

  Anything We Love Can Be Saved.

  The Color Purple.

  Hard Times Require Furious Dancing.

  The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart….

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” I whisper. Perry flares his nostrils, so I know he heard me. “I shouldn’t have said any of it.”

  “But was it true?” he asks, like my answer can change something. “Was she really on her way to see me?”

  I don’t know if it will help him more if I lie or tell the truth. I look away from him because I know my face will give it all away.

  “Autumn,” he says, his voice too soft to belong to a lacrosse bro, to the boy who fought Dante. But soft enough to be the voice of the boy who you loved.

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s true. She still loved you.”

  Perry sticks his hands into his hair, and then he takes off his glasses. I keep talking.

  “She wanted me to come to the party with her to find you. To tell you that she made a mistake—that she wanted you to be her boyfriend again. And when you weren’t there…You know how Tavia was. She still had to tell you that night. So she started driving to your house.”

  I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it. But Perry is staring at me with his watery, water-colored eyes, and the words just pour out of me under that ceiling full of stars.

  “The day before, she wouldn’t stop talking about how you were going to be at the party. About how we had to go. I told her I didn’t want to, so she went without me.”

  The tears fill my eyes so quickly, I barely feel the sting of them. I know Dante’s a few aisles away at a table, and I ache for him, but I decide to be brave.

  “I told you it was your fault, but really, it wasn’t. I think I’m only starting to realize now that blaming you or myself or Dante—or even Tavia—is only making everything harder.”

  Perry’s chin is trembling, his happy-go-lucky attitude about everything nowhere to be found. I’m hoping he doesn’t cry because I don’t know how to comfort him, even when he’s in his wrinkled T-shirt. Even though he’s holding that nerdy book. I suddenly, desperately, need to say out loud that none of us could have saved you.

  Perry puts down his novel. He touches my shoulders with his big hands, both of them at the same time. And he says it for me.

  “You’re right,” he says. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

  When I look up at him, he’s smiling a little.

  “I know that she was your best friend. And at first, I wanted to be there for you because I know what it’s like to lose someone and to feel like nobody gets it.”

  He squints almost imperceptibly, a ghost from his past touching the edges of his face. But the look is gone before I can even be sure that I saw anything.

  �
�But you wouldn’t talk to me. And then you wouldn’t stop screaming at me. And, I mean, if you need to yell, you can yell—everyone deals with this crap differently.”

  He swallows, like it’s painful, and I know what those lumps feel like, when you’re fighting tears and forcing them back down your throat. It does kind of hurt.

  “But all I ever wanted to tell you was that I get it. I think about her all the time.”

  He looks up at the ceiling again and then takes his hands off my arms. Then he picks up his book and throws his backpack over one of his shoulders. He swipes a hand across his eyes and levels me with a look I can’t describe.

  “All I ever wanted to say was that I love and miss her too.”

  “I’m so sorry, Perry. She would have been pissed at me for yelling at you like that.”

  He smiles a little more because he knows I’m right.

  When we leave the library, Dante takes me back to my own house for once. I have a pile of books, and I’m eager to read them, so I shower, even though it’s still early. I crawl into my bed with three of the five books I checked out, and I start reading.

  Right before dinnertime, Willow shows up. No one knew she was coming home, so my mom is freaking out, worried that she hasn’t cooked enough samgaetang (even though there’s an entire chicken in the pot), and my dad rushes home from work. But my sister comes straight to my room.

  She places my stack of books on the floor and climbs into bed with me. She hugs me hard and long, and when she asks how I’m doing, I lose it. Minutes before, I was fine, but something about the sweet smell of her skin and the gentle sound of her voice breaks me. I bawl against her university sweatshirt until my tears have stained the light gray in patches that almost look black. And when I calm down a little, she asks me if I’ve found anything at all that helps, and I tell her about all the messages and emails I’ve sent to you.

  “A, you can’t do that forever” is what she says right away. She picks up my laptop and finds the browser tab with my email. She looks through the sent folder, and I let her. Next, she searches my chats and looks at all the messages there. Then she frowns in my direction, and she starts crying too.

  “Why didn’t you tell me things were this bad? I knew you were hurting, but I could have come home more often. I could have called to check in every day.”

  I clear my throat and walk over to the stereo. I put on the Unraveling Lovely EP, look back at her, and shrug.

  Willow chews the inside of her cheek and stares out my window. I look too. Two little dark-haired girls are playing in the cul-de-sac, and they could have been you and me when we were little.

  “You know what you have to do, right?” Willow says. She’d logged me out while I was putting on the music. When I go back to my bed, my sister hands me the laptop. She knows I know your email address and password. And I know she wants me to delete your email account without her saying anything else.

  “I can’t,” I tell her, my throat squeezing, like I’m allergic to the thought of getting rid of anything related to you. “I need it.”

  Neither of us says anything for a few minutes, and the music fills the room. I watch the little girls through the window and pull my sleeves over my hands.

  Willow’s thinking. I can tell because she’s quiet and still, two things that she normally isn’t. She takes my laptop back, opens a new tab, and creates a new email account: A­Willow­In­Autumn@gmail.com.

  I smile a little at the name. When she looks at me, her eyes are soft and warm and still a little wet. “The next time you want to talk to Tavia, want to try writing to me instead?”

  I swallow hard and nod slowly. I promise to try. Then I finally tell Willow I want to go on the trip with her this summer. She asks my mom for her credit card, and we book our tickets to London and Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.

  So, I may not be sending any more emails to you. Earlier today might have been the last time I type your email address, but I won’t let it be the last time I write your name.

  Willow falls asleep in my bed after dinner, but I’m not tired yet. I rummage around in the basement until I found some sidewalk chalk; then I walk outside, to the spot where the little girls were playing earlier. I write “A+T Forever” on the asphalt and look for Orion’s Belt in the dark sky, as if you’re right beside me. I realize then that I haven’t listened to the voice mail you left me in a while, and something about that makes me feel sad and proud.

  I want to call Dante. I want to send you a message. But I just look at the stars.

  BRAM IS BORED so he makes a video channel.

  892 views | 10 months ago

  Undying Light has been climbing the Battle of the Bands leaderboard since they found Lo, so I’m wondering if the girl just had a backlog of a zillion songs. I open my laptop and listen to their latest one. It’s good. It’s a little too good. But practicing with Unraveling Lovely is making me a lot more gracious about the other UL’s success than I would be otherwise.

  I go to Bram’s channel with Undying Light’s song still playing in the background in a different tab. I scroll through all of his uploaded videos until I get to the first one he ever posted. He looks a little different in the tiny freeze-frame square; younger than in the more recent videos and all the photos I’ve been obsessing over since Christmas—more fresh-faced and cute, and his hair is longer; curly and flopping in his face. I pause the song, then press play on Bram’s video.

  “Heeeeeeeeyyyy,” Bram says. He’s really close to the camera, so the whole screen is his face, and then he backs up a little and grins.

  “So here’s the deal. I’m Bram. And I’m always so damn bored. So I thought I’d make a video channel. Why would anyone want to watch you? you might be asking yourself. Or I guess I’m asking myself that. And I don’t really know the answer. But I like doing stupid stuff, and people love stupid stuff, so I thought I’d marry my love of attention with your love of giving me attention. Or something…I guess. Anyway, this is video numero uno. The next one will be much more exciting. I SWEAR. ’Kay. Cool. Bye.”

  The video is super boring. But it’s his face and his voice, so I could watch it for hours. I don’t, though. I only watch it one more time because there’s something important I have to do today.

  I lace up my shoes, and my eyes are instantly wet because it hits me that I’m going to Bram’s grave. Gertrude and I planned this little field trip during my last session, and even though I’m not supposed to go alone, I don’t really want to go with Yara or Nico. I don’t want to ask my parents. And I don’t want to put it off any longer.

  The sky is overcast when I step outside, and by the time I get to the cemetery, it’s foggy as hell. I feel like I’m in a goddamned horror movie with a really uncreative director, but I’m grateful for the clouds. If it was sunny, that would feel all wrong.

  I didn’t come to the cemetery the day they buried Bram. The funeral was hard enough, and I knew watching his body disappear would seriously fuck me up. So I skipped it. I snuck out of the church and away from my parents. I called Aden and got drunk in his dorm room while I was still wearing my suit. I lied when he asked why I was all dressed up.

  But I’m here now, and it’s creepy as all hell. The fog isn’t helping. I’m going through row after row, looking for the right plot. I have a folded piece of paper in my hand instead of flowers.

  When I find it, I almost want to laugh. It’s a big block of a stone, smooth and a darker gray than I expected—almost like modeling clay instead of limestone, or whatever pale rock is usually used for this kind of thing.

  But here’s the kicker: it looks like the tombstone from the Vonnegut book. The cartoon one with the quote across the front of it. The quote’s size is smaller, of course, but the font looks the same and everything. It’s so weird to see it in real life after seeing it in Bram’s room. I shouldn’t be surprised that Ms. Lassiter knew her
son that well, but some part of me is. Parents usually don’t know shit.

  I stare at it for a few more minutes, reading Bram’s favorite quote, his name, the day he was born. The day he died. I didn’t think I would cry, but I feel that annoying tightness in my chest anyway. He’s gone, and here’s the proof. There’s no denying it now.

  I clear my throat, even though no one’s around and I’m not about to talk. I walk a little closer to the grave and reach out my hand. I run my fingers along the top of the stone, and it’s smoother than I expected it to be.

  I unfold the paper I’ve been gripping like mad and try to smooth it out against my leg.

  I wrote a song. I can’t bear to be lame and start talking to the stone, like it’s Bram, and I’m sure as hell not singing or even reading what’s on the sheet in front of me. Instead, I stoop down so that I’m eye to eye with the part of the quote that says EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL. There’s a pile of old bouquets at the foot of the stone; some completely brown, some just starting to lose their color. I don’t want to disturb them too much, but I move the oldest ones to the side until I can see the ground. I find a few small stones and use them to pin the paper down. I don’t want my words to blow away.

  I think about the poem Yara left on Bram’s video a month or so ago. How pissed I was about it. But now I get why she did it. There’s something about being able to say things you never had a chance to that feels so damn good.

  I touch the stone one more time before I stand up. I pop the collar of my peacoat because the wind is picking up again. Maybe it’ll rain, and the ink on the paper will bleed into the ground. It might snow, and my words will be buried, just like the person I wrote it for. But I guess it doesn’t matter now. I said what I needed to say. I gave it to the person who needed to have it.