You Were Here

by Cori McCarthy

  Bishop rolled up one sleeve and showed off a whole series of slash mark scars on the inside of his upper bicep.

  “Hell,” Zach said. “That’s insane.”

  Bishop put his arm down. “Yes. It was.”

  “You know, cutting is a rather common psychological disorder,” Natalie called up. “Asking her to stop won’t work in the long run. She’ll have to make that choice on her own.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Freud,” Bishop yelled down.

  “Natalie, you should pretend like you know half as much as you do. Especially when it comes to other people’s lives.” Zach’s words were quite possibly the harshest he’d ever given her, and they stirred up a storm in his chest.

  “I’m not going to pretend to be stupid,” Natalie yelled.

  “Not stupid, Nat. Sensitive. You think Jaycee’s honesty is the scariest thing around? I’ve got news for you. Your honesty is pretty damn sobering.”

  “You’re supposed to be honest with the people you’re in relationships with.” She had that look on her face. That I’m about to dump you look.

  “Do you mind taking a walk?” Zach asked. “I’m talking to Bishop about something important.”

  Natalie scowled and headed down the path.

  “What’s so important?” Bishop asked, in the middle of spray painting.

  “I don’t know.” Zach sat on the edge of the platform roof, his legs dangling and swinging. Ever since Bishop had talked about time being a knot, he’d imagined Geauga Lake alive. People streaming through the gates. The wave of screams coming from the upside-down twist of a massive, hurtling roller coaster…

  “For the record,” Bishop said, “I miss your goofy side. You’ve been too quiet since…”

  “Since you showed me a video of Jaycee’s brother dying?” Zach asked.

  Bishop faced him, revealing the spiral upon spiral image he’d drawn in the center of his words.

  “Is that Gordon’s knot?”

  “Gordian knot. Yeah. Look, Zach—”

  “It’s cool. I’m just…well, maybe I’m like that knot. I’m goofy Zach, but at the same time, I’m also all the shit things in my life. All at once. All tangled. One side of me daydreams nonstop,” he admitted, thinking of all the times he’d turned the world into pixels or LEGO bricks or both. “The other side thinks this whole struggle isn’t worth it.”

  Bishop sat next to him. “Sounds like a good balance.”

  “Neither one of those Zachs can sleep by themselves though.” He rubbed his face. “And lately, well, when I hang out with you guys, the fanciful Zach is starting to feel more and more ridiculous. Maybe I’m supposed to get boring and annoyed with global politics or some shit.”

  Bishop laughed hard. “No, please don’t. We give you a hard time, but we do love you. You keep things light.”

  “That sounds like a secret insult.”

  “Take it how you will. Just don’t fight your nature.” Bishop stood and returned to his stenciled poem. “And for fuck’s sake, don’t stop daydreaming. Particularly if you can’t sleep. That’d be like having no dreams at all.”

  Zach’s gaze trailed to the spot where Mik and Jaycee were still locked together. “I want to know what that feels like. Soul-igniting love, or whatever’s going on there.”

  “I highly suggest it,” Bishop said. “Marrakesh and I were doomed from the start. I see that now. But I’ve gotten a lifetime of words out of my feelings for her.”

  “Wow,” Zach wondered aloud. “What am I doing with Natalie?”

  Bishop laughed so hard that he dropped his can. “Do me a favor. Go ask her that.”

  Zach climbed down the brick pillar and jogged over to where Natalie was inspecting what might have been a wave pool. Zach found himself imagining laughing people. He had to. He didn’t want to see the world for its bad spots alone. After all, without perspective, Tyler was Hitler and Natalie was an ice queen. Oh, this was fun. He kept going. That would make Jaycee the Mad Hatter and Mik had to be the Headless Horseman. Bishop could be the Artist Formally Known as a Good Time.

  And Zach? Who was he? He wasn’t the sad teen with a growing drinking problem who lived in his dad’s basement. Well, he was, and maybe he should do something about that, but he was also the kid who’d won the eighth grade science fair—not because of his project. No, he’d made a volcano out of papier-mâché like the other low-level achievers. He’d won because he’d beat out the other boys by making Natalie laugh and kissed her on the cheek.

  Natalie smiled at him sadly now. “Zach, I think you and I should—”

  “Hang on a second. Picture this with me.” He stood behind her and pointed at the crumbling park entrance. “You come with your family, but you ditch them at the gate. Your dad tries to give you a high five, which makes you flee in embarrassment. You have to meet your parents by the main fountain at three o’clock, but you have four hours to do anything you like.”

  Zach pointed to the old wooden coaster and zoomed his fist over the profile of the rails. “There! Right there! You stand so close to the lines for the huge roller coaster that the screams roll over you when the cars hurtle by. You’re too terrified to ride. Next year, you promise yourself, watching every twist and turn and taking notes so that when your dad asks you if you went on it, you’ll say of course you did.”

  He moved Natalie by the hips to look left, sneaking a peak over her shoulder at her smile. Then he swept his hand over the imagined slopes of slides. “You walk by the water slides where people are screaming down at a million miles per hour, only to stand up and pick their bathing suit wedgies out of their small intestines.”

  “Gross, Zach!”

  “Shh! Listen. You hear that?” He held her around the waist. “It’s the Wave. It comes about once every fourteen years, but it’s coming now, and the crowd of unsuspecting people bobbing in the pool is about to figure out what it feels like to take a swim in a blender.”

  “I would look away,” Natalie said.

  “No, you don’t. You watch because this is as close as it gets to seeing a live train wreck.” He used his hands to conduct the full effect of smashing bodies and limbs. “In the wake, children cry for their moms and floaties scatter all the way up to the line of sunbathers.”

  He pretended to unfold a map before Natalie. “You turn to the billion-fold park directory, and you keep walking around the whole park, maybe looking for someone to practice your brand-new flirting skills with. But instead, you see a fistfight, the kind that always gets stopped at school before it goes this far. Blood flies from each punch landed, and you hurry away, scared that the fight might spread like a fifties Hollywood movie about greasers versus jocks. You go over there”—he pointed—“and buy a frozen lemonade that’s already mostly melted but still tastes bitter and yet at the same time so sweet. In front of you, two teenagers are kissing. Like really kissing. Exactly the way you want to kiss somebody someday. One of the park cops walks up and taps them on the shoulder, telling them to move along.”

  “There was a log ride here,” Natalie whispered. “Jaycee and I found the chute.”

  “You’ll get there,” he whispered back. “First you go past the games. People call out to guess your age or weight. ‘Climb the ladder and you can take home a stuffed lion as big as your bed!’ one yells. ‘Throw a Ping-Pong ball in a bowl and win a goldfish!’”

  Natalie jerked around. “Which is incredibly impractical and borderline inhumane. How many of those fish survive the day, let alone getting shoved in a sweatshirt pocket while their new owner rides something called the Texas Twister?”

  “So true,” he said. He’d accidentally killed a few goldfish at carnivals in his day.

  She leaned against him, giving him all her weight. “Log ride,” she reminded.

  “You walk past the log ride where limey water is sloshing around scared-silly people in a plastic tre
e trunk. You wonder if you’re going to work up the courage to ride all by yourself when your dad sneaks up behind you, surprising the crap out of you. The two of you head up to the farthest roller coaster, the one that people tend to avoid because it’s off the beaten path. Your dad convinces you to sit in the front seat, and you both hold your arms up the whole time, which is loco because the clacking and thrashing throws you from one side of the seat to the other.

  “When the ride finally comes to a jarring, neck-jerking stop, you’re laughing so hard that you can’t breathe. You head down to check out the picture of you on the roller coaster coming down the steepest drop, and it’s so ridiculous that you have to buy a key chain of it to show your mom. Your dad holds up a high five, and you smack hands with him and laugh like you’re no longer twelve trying to be twenty, but just twelve being twelve. It feels perfect.”

  For a long moment, Zach and Natalie were quiet, wound up together in the way that had always felt like home. His throat was a little dry, but he’d seen every single word. He’d felt the rumbles of coasters in his chest and tasted the oil in the air from a hundred sizzling deep fryers.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you too.” He sighed. “We’ve had a good run. Years and memories and whatnot.”

  “Will you remember me like all of that? With color and sounds and flares of happiness?” Her voice dropped. “Will you remember me beyond what happened with Tyler?”

  “Natalie, the best thing about me is that I remember everything. I can’t stop remembering.”

  “That’s me too. See, maybe we are the same species,” she said. He laughed, and she hurried to add, “But we can still be friends. I mean, I want to be friends.”

  “Friends that sometimes have sex? Like when we’re both single and bored?”

  She sighed. “I won’t say yes to that. Or no. Just promise me that we’ll never ever get back together.”

  “Oh man, we’re a Taylor Swift song.” He grinned.

  Natalie laughed, and she looked beautiful. “Yes. Finally.”

  He gave her a crushing hug and kissed her hair.

  Bishop had finished his art and climbed down from what was left of the front gate. Natalie and Zach joined him, and they read his stenciled words.

  “It’s a little depressing,” Zach pointed out.

  “All my stuff is a little depressing. It’s a stylistic choice,” Bishop argued.

  “Shhh,” Natalie said at both of them. “I want to take a mental picture.”

  Chapter 57

  Bishop

  Chapter 58

  Jaycee

  After kissing Mik for a solid half hour, I no longer felt like I wasn’t in his league. Instead I felt like I’d joined the league, tackled the entire team, and become the captain.

  I never wanted to stop kissing him, but the sun was only a few inches of red at our backs, and the image of Jake standing atop the roller coaster during a sunset five years ago made me pull from Mik’s mouth. My lips were raw, and my hands clenched in frustration from where they’d almost succeeded in tearing his shirt from his body.

  His hands were doing something similar to mine.

  “Coaster,” I said. “Must climb.”

  “Yes. Demo tape,” he added.

  Apparently we already had a shorthand dialect. We started walking hand-in-hand toward the roller coaster. The sunset’s rays threw a sideways heat on my cheeks, and when I closed my eyes, everything felt orange. We met Bishop, Zach, and Natalie by the ramp in front of the roller coaster. Zach whistled like they all knew exactly what we had been up to.

  “So,” I said, having to clear my throat before I could continue. I stared up at the roller coaster. “What’s this old guy’s sad story?”

  Natalie looked up too. “It really is sad.”

  “Has to be,” Bishop added. “He’s the only one left.”

  “He’s called the Big Dipper, the oldest standing roller coaster in Ohio,” Natalie said. “Seventh oldest in the country. Twelfth in the world.”

  I glanced around. “And everyone just forgot about him?”

  “There have been attempts to sell him. Even on eBay, but they’ve fallen through. Now there’s not much to save.”

  I walked up the ramp that led to the little pavilion where riders would have been strapped into cars and sailed around the track for a solid minute or so of clacking screams and wind and rush. Mik touched the rails. Bishop ran his hands over the yellow gates that would have divided and funneled the passengers into each car.

  Zach stepped inside the tiny little control booth. “Hey look! The controls are still in here. Jaycee! You’ve got to come see this!”

  I jumped the tracks to see what he’d found.

  Jake’s marker was on the control booth’s glass. It stood out amid the other graffiti, and I rubbed my finger over my brother’s scratchy left-handed signature. An arrow reached from the E and pointed toward the high bend of the track beyond.

  “Easy to find this time,” I managed.

  “I meant this, Jayce.” Zach pointed down at the floor of the control booth.

  I gasped. An honest to God, bad-acting gasp.

  A bare footprint had been left in the dirt and dust. It had a high arch, and the second biggest toe didn’t leave an impression. Tears spotted my eyes as I imagined my brother here.

  Right here.

  “Jake,” Natalie said like a swear. “Only he would be stupid enough not to wear shoes in this place.”

  I almost laughed and pushed the tears away with the back of my hand. Mik’s arm went around my waist, and I leaned into him. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine my brother climbing the Big Dipper. Barefoot and jumping, so much wiry energy that he always seemed destined to blow a fuse before the rest of us. I took a picture of his footprint with my phone. Then I started up the path of the roller coaster. Mik was behind me, followed by Bishop and Zach.

  “That’s not sound,” Natalie called out.

  “You said you’d climb the roof next time. Remember?” I threw back. “This is it.”

  We were getting farther from her, and I stopped at the top of the first peak to look back. She seemed smaller and more scared than I’d ever seen her, and yet I had the feeling that it had nothing to do with the roller coaster.

  “Ask me, Jayce,” she said. “Ask me. I’m ready.”

  “Truth or dare?”

  “Dare.”

  I smiled and glanced at Mik. Zach and Bishop had stopped their hike up the rails to watch our exchange. “Major in history,” I said.

  “Hey, that’s not what I—”

  “That’s the dare, Nat. Take it or be a wimp.”

  Her scowl was fierce and set on me. I loved it. She took forever on her first steps, carefully picking each foothold on the ladderlike platform that ran beside the tracks.

  When she finally reached me, I linked arms with her. “If we go down, we go down together,” I said.

  “Let’s not go down at all.”

  We made our way around the rails, feeling how loose the metal joints had become and even seeing spots where the wood had rotted away. When I looked down, I realized that all that separated me from the ground were crossing supports, too many to count but enough to see through. We kept climbing, and around the downhill, I lost my footing, sliding away from everyone toward a spot where the tracks disappeared.

  Snapped apart by a fallen tree.

  Mik’s hands caught the back of my shirt. I stood and tried to lean forward, but he held more tightly.

  “I want to look over the edge,” I said. He shook his head, his mouth set in a line. I took his arm. “I won’t let go.”

  Natalie had caught up, and she took my other arm. “I want to look too.”

  “Liar,” I said, but I inched toward the drop with her, understanding for the first time what my da
d had meant about telling a lie that you want to be a truth. Natalie wanted to be brave. I wanted to feel connected to people. Two lies we’d have to tell ourselves until they became true.

  Natalie and I leaned over the edge, and it wasn’t until I glanced down at the massacre of the track, the long, long drop, and the broken tree branches like spears at the bottom that I realized that Zach and Bishop were holding on to Natalie and me as well. I stepped back from the edge, climbing the tracks to the highest spot on the U-shaped bend of the roller coaster. My friends followed.

  The sunset was getting over itself with a spray of brilliant reds and pinks. In the near distance, the lake glittered with the last of the light, and though poor Geauga Lake resembled an archeological ruin more than a relic of the world’s largest amusement park, I felt its beauty.

  Bishop started doodling on the wood with a fat black marker while Zach did some rail balancing that was near comical. Natalie ordered him to sit. She had a death grip on the supports, and her whole body was as rigid as a statue.

  “Breathe, Nat,” I said.

  She did, reluctantly.

  “Say, what happened to Mik’s shirt?” Zach asked with a smirk, motioning to the rip.

  “Jaycee happened,” Mik said.

  Zach stared at Mik, astonished. Bishop laughed.

  “He prefers to be called Ryan.” I moved closer to him, fitting myself between his knees.

  “Hey, Jayce. Truth or dare?” Natalie asked.

  “Dare.”

  “I really hate you, Jaycee Niagara Strangelove.”

  “Niagara?” Bishop and Zach asked at the same time.

  Natalie sat forward, looking entirely too pleased to provide this information. “The Strangeloves have middle names reflecting where they were conceived. For example, Jake Albany and Jaycee Niagara.”

  “My parents have a thing for New York.”

  “Ew,” Zach said.

  I pointed at him in agreement. “Jake and I had a running joke about our fictional little brother, Joey Manhattan.” I laughed. It felt strangely good to remember that, like breathing fresh air after too many months in a submarine. But then, oh hell, what do I know about submarines or even air? What do I know about anything—other than how fast the world can break and how very long it takes to put all the pieces back together.