The Last Time We Say Goodbye

by Cynthia Hand

  I arch an eyebrow at him. “You’re saying I need an imaginary audience, so to speak. Do you have someone specific in mind?”

  “Well, let’s see,” Dave says, as if he hasn’t already given this a lot of thought. “Maybe you could write to a future version of yourself. Many people write their journals to future selves, I think. It demonstrates a kind of hopefulness.”

  “So my audience would be some wise Alexis who’s made it through all this crap and occasionally cracks open this journal to see how far she’s come and says to herself, Whew, I’m glad that’s not my life anymore.”

  “Exactly.”

  I wish I could be her, I think. Fast-forward through this part of my life.

  I shake my head. “But maybe she’s just as messed up as I am. Maybe all of this has twisted me irrevocably, and I will forever be incapable of a healthy, normal future. Maybe it would only torture Future Me, having this record of where it all went south.”

  “Is that what you think?” Dave asks. “That you’re twisted?”

  He takes a few seconds to write something in the yellow legal pad he keeps his notes on. This makes me nervous.

  Time for a change of subject. “Or I could write to aliens or robots or whoever’s left in ten thousand years. An extraterrestrial will lift this book in its gray fingers and think, Hmm, so this was the life of a female Homo sapiens. How interesting.”

  “Yes,” Dave says, like he is taking me completely seriously. “You could write to aliens.”

  Who am I kidding? Nobody’s going to care. Not future me. And certainly not an alien species.

  This is pointless.

  “You could write to God. That has been known to be therapeutic to many people,” he suggests.

  “No. I don’t have anything to say to him. I mean, I don’t believe in God.”

  Dave writes more in his notebook.

  “You could try writing to someone else,” he says then. “Someone you want to talk to. You could speak to him or her by writing. Even if that person never reads it. Even if that person can’t hear.”

  That’s when I understand where he’s been leading me all this time. That person. “You mean Ty.”

  “If you’d like.”

  “I don’t want to write to Ty,” I say without hesitation. I had my chance to talk to him, when it counted, when it would have meant something, and I missed it. “He’s gone.”

  “The people we love are never truly gone.”

  “Yeah, you know what, you should design bumper stickers or something. That’s profound. That’s catchy.”

  He sits back. “You seem tense today, Alexis. Has something happened?”

  My heart rate picks up. A part of me still wants to tell him everything, ask him what I should do about the letter and talk about the times I’ve seen and smelled Ty, the dreams I’m having about him, just get it all out there in the open, see what he’ll have to say, but my desire to confess is still considerably less than my fear that he will think I’m crazy, and if a mental-health professional thinks I’m crazy, I probably am.

  “Lex?” Dave prompts. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Nothing,” I say automatically. “Nothing’s happened.”

  Thirty-one minutes.

  He sighs and writes something else in his notebook. “Well, I think your assignment this week should be to figure out some kind of audience for your writing.”

  “A recipient,” I say.

  “Yes.”

  “Great,” I answer. It’s fruitless to argue with Dave; he’s so freaking calm. “I’ll get right on that.”

  I can’t wait.

  14.

  THIS TIME TY AND I ARE SWIMMING in Branched Oak Lake, the water cool and green and deep under us. At first it feels just like the old days. He says he’ll race me to the shore, and we start out swimming steadily side by side. Then I become aware that I am swimming alone.

  I’ve lost sight of Ty.

  I tread water and look for him. He’s gone. Nothing but dark water all around me. I call his name. I turn in the water, searching, and then suddenly he comes up right beside me, spraying me, laughing.

  “Gotcha,” he says. “Look at your face. What, did you think I drowned?”

  “Jerk,” I say as my heart rate begins to slow. There was another dream I had, a couple of nights ago, in which he drowned in a swimming pool, a lifeless shape at the hazy blue bottom that I was trying to fish out using the pool net.

  “You know you love me,” he says now.

  I do.

  “Hey, what’s that?” He looks off over my shoulder at something in the water.

  I think he’s still joking around with me, but I turn. There’s a fin cutting its way toward us, maybe twenty feet away. Then ten. Then five. Then it glides under us, out of sight.

  “Uh-oh,” Ty says gravely. “I knew we shouldn’t have come out here. It’s not safe.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say, with that weird logic that exists inside dreams. “This is fresh water.” As if my stating this fact will negate the existence of this inevitable shark.

  He pivots in the water. “There,” he says, pointing down. “Do you see it?”

  I see it. A huge dark form taking shape below us, closing in.

  It’s on us before I can catch my breath.

  Ty screams. He thrashes and goes under. There’s billowing blood in the water. Ty pops up again, sputtering, caught in the middle by a massive great white. I try to grab him as the shark shakes him the way our dog used to shake her toys.

  “Ty!” I cry. “Tyler! Ty!”

  I can’t get a grip on him. He’s too slippery.

  Then, as suddenly as it came, the shark is gone. Ty comes to the surface, gasping. His face is white as milk, his lips tinged with red.

  “Lex,” he chokes.

  I turn him over onto his back, grab him by the shoulders, and start to tow him toward shore. Blood trails behind us as I swim, so much blood, too much, but I don’t stop to think about that.

  “Lexie,” Ty says again, this time like a warning. “I . . .”

  “No.” I kick hard, swim with as much power as I can, but the shore doesn’t seem to be getting any closer.

  “I have to . . . go,” he says.

  I stop. “No. Stay with me, Ty.”

  “It hurts,” he whispers.

  “Stay with me,” I plead. “Stay.”

  His eyes close. His breath rattles in his chest. And then stops.

  “Ty!” I scream, and then I sit up with a jolt, tangled in sheets.

  Another dream.

  My hands are shaking. My breath jerks in and out of my lungs. I can still feel the cold of the water. I can still smell the blood.

  A bad one this time.

  Really bad.

  There’s a soft tap on my door, so soft I wonder if I really heard it. I try to make my breathing quiet so I can listen. Which is hard.

  Another tap. Louder. Real.

  “Honey?” It’s my mother’s voice behind the door. “Are you all right?”

  I fumble for my glasses, pausing before I put them on to wipe my wet face. Was I crying? I couldn’t have been crying. I don’t remember.

  I straighten out the blankets before I answer. “I’m fine, Mom.”

  The door opens. She pokes her head in. “I heard a noise. It sounded like you were upset.”

  I wonder if she heard me yell Ty’s name.

  “I had a nightmare, is all,” I say. “I’m okay.”

  She comes in and sits at the edge of my mattress. When I was little and had nightmares, sometimes she would crawl into bed with me and stay there for the rest of the night, her body so warm and soft and safe that the nightmares never came back. And then, after Dad left, for the rest of that lousy summer, I slept with her because she couldn’t bear to sleep in their big bed all alone without him.

  She snored. Loudly. Like a wounded pig. But then again, the times she stayed with me when I was little, in the twin bed so small she had to sleep sideways
to fit, I used to wet the bed.

  The things you do for the people you love.

  She tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Sometimes I dream about your brother, too.”

  She meets my eyes. There’s a painful knowledge there. She heard me call his name.

  “Yeah,” I whisper.

  I can’t explain it to her, how they make me feel, these dreams where Ty dies. They’re bad, and it feels like they’re getting worse, more graphic in nature, but I don’t want to stop having them. In some morbid way, I like having them. Because at least then I get to see Ty. I get to talk to him, sometimes. At least, when I’m there, when Ty is dying in whatever way he’s dying, I’m with him. I’m hanging on to him. I’m asking him not to go.

  In those moments I can do something for him that I didn’t do in real life. I can answer the text. I can be there.

  “Valium helps. Do you want a Valium?” Mom asks. “I don’t dream when I take them.”

  What is it with people trying to force-feed me drugs? I shake my head. “It wasn’t that bad.”

  She hesitates.

  “I’m fine, really,” I insist.

  “All right, honey.” She leans to kiss me on the temple. “I love you.”

  It wasn’t fair for me to be blaming her, before. Not for Ty. All she’s ever been guilty of is loving too much.

  “I love you, too,” I say.

  She gets up and goes out, closing the door quietly behind her, as if there is someone else in this house she doesn’t want to wake up. I lie back.

  0. 1. 1. 2. 3. 5. 8. 13. 21. 34. 55. 89. 144.

  But sleep doesn’t come for a long time, and when it does, the dreams are all still waiting.

  21 February

  The last time I saw Ty

  22 February

  Dear Dave,

  This writing thing is killing me. Can I please stop now? I’ve been hanging out with a new friend, by the way. Well, an old friend, technically. But a new friend. Healthy, right? Cathartic, right? I’m the picture of sound mental health, I swear

  23 February

  Dear alien race in the future:

  Please don’t read this journal as a representative of the typical life of a human adolescent. It will screw up your research for years to come. In fact, it’s probably best if you simply disregard what’s written here entirely.

  Also, if you haven’t already, please don’t annihilate the human race. We can be charming.

  Yours truly,

  Alexis P. Riggs

  15.

  MY CAR WON’T START. I’m in the parking lot at Dave’s office, after yet another scintillating hour of non-productive conversation, and now, to top it off, the Lemon is screwing with me. It does that sometimes—some kind of electrical short that would cost me more than the car is worth to have fixed. I put the key in the ignition and turn it, and nothing happens. I do all the stuff that normally works in this situation. I open and close the door, bang on the dash a few times, turn the heater to the off setting, jiggle the key, and try again. Nothing happens.

  I wait five minutes and try again.

  Nothing.

  This is a problem.

  I’m all the way across Lincoln, at least twenty miles from home. It’s getting dark.

  I take out my phone and stare at my contacts list. I can’t call Beaker—she’s at play practice for Brigadoon. Eleanor doesn’t have a car—her mom drops her off everywhere. My own mom is working until ten.

  Crap.

  I could call Dad. We were supposed to have dinner tonight, Tuesday, as usual, but he left me a message earlier that he wanted to reschedule for Saturday morning.

  I check my watch—5:17. He might be home by now. Megan’s house is only a few miles from here. I know he’d be happy to come pick me up.

  I sigh and try the key one more time.

  Nothing.

  I’ve never called Dad, is the thing.

  Not since he left.

  He calls me, if there are plans that need to be made. We meet at a rotating set of restaurants every week, and these meetings last about an hour at most. We talk about work. We talk about school. Sometimes he gives me money, an offering that communicates that he is sorry he messed up my life, words I know I will never hear him say out loud. I take his money. The bad-father tax, I like to call it. Which I don’t feel bad about, since most of the savings my parents had put away for my college education was eaten up by the divorce.

  We have our rituals. Our unspoken rules.

  We don’t talk about Megan.

  We don’t talk about Ty.

  I don’t go to Megan’s house.

  I don’t call Dad at home.

  If I did that, it’d be like me saying it’s okay, what he did. Like I’m accepting his new life, the one he built without us.

  I won’t do it.

  I dial Sadie’s cell, but she doesn’t pick up. I dial her house. The phone rings and rings, and I’m about to hang up when I hear a disembodied voice.

  “Yeah,” it says. “I’m here, yo.”

  “Seth?” I ask, but who else could it be?

  “In the flesh,” he says with a sleepy laugh. “What can I do you for?”

  I try to ignore his atrocious grammar. “Hi, it’s Lex. Is Sadie home?”

  “Sadie? Nope. Did you try her cell?”

  “Yes, Seth. I tried her cell.”

  “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, then. Do you want to leave a message?”

  “No.” I try the key one more time. Nothing. I beat my fist against the steering wheel. Stupid, stupid Lemon. “I was just hoping she could give me a ride home. My car’s . . . stupid. Never mind.”

  “I could give you a ride,” Seth says. “Where are you?”

  “A ride? On your bike, you mean?” I’ve seen Seth tearing around the neighborhood on that thing. It makes so much noise you can hardly miss it.

  He snorts. “On my Kawasaki Ninja 300. Her name is Georgia. Because she’s a peach.”

  Right. I try to picture it, me balancing precariously behind Seth on his motorcycle, clutching him around the middle as we careen twenty miles over the icy roads across town.

  “No thanks, Seth,” I decline as politely as I can. “I can get someone else to pick me up. I only called because I thought Sadie might want to hang out.”

  “Oh, so me and Georgia aren’t good enough for you?” he says, his voice teasing. “Come on, Lex. Where you at?”

  “It’s okay,” I say quickly. “You probably have to be at work soon, and I’m all the way downtown, and I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

  “Lex.”

  “There’s someone else who can come get me,” I say again. “It’s no problem. Thanks for the offer, though. Some other time I’d love to ride . . . Georgia, okay?”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive. Thanks.”

  I hang up. I try to start the engine again.

  Nothing.

  I hate the Lemon.

  “Crap,” I say to nobody. “Crap!”

  I get a flash of Ty’s face, a memory of his brow furrowed in frustration, when I taught him to drive.

  “Crap,” he said. He tugged on the shift, making the Lemon groan in protest. “I’ll never get this.”

  “You will,” I told him. “But hopefully you’ll get it before you ruin my transmission.”

  The car died.

  “Crap!” Ty roared. He’d been so moody lately, every ten minutes switching to a different wild emotion. I chalked it up to shifting hormones. It’s a terrible thing to be a teenage boy.

  I put my hand over his on the shift, and for a minute I was mad too, that it was me teaching him and not Dad. It should have been Dad.

  “Hey,” I said to Ty. “It’s okay. Take a breath.”

  He leaned back in the driver’s seat, exhaled forcefully through his nose, and rubbed at his bloodshot eyes. He’d started wearing contact lenses a few weeks earlier. I was still trying to get used to seeing him without his glasses.


  “I suck,” he said. “I should just take the bus.”

  “You do suck,” I agreed. “But, you know, pretty much everybody sucks at first, and everybody learns to drive, sooner or later, the same way everybody learns how to walk. Step by step. Put your foot on the clutch.” I reached over and turned the key in the ignition, and that time, which happened more than a year ago, the Lemon started right up.

  “You can do this,” I told him. “No big deal.”

  He nodded. Smiled faintly. “Thanks.”

  And then he drove. Not well, not that time, but he got us from point A to point B.

  I blink against the memory.

  I turn the key, but the engine doesn’t make a sound. Maybe the battery’s dead this time. Maybe my crap car has finally gone belly-up.

  I’m hosed.

  Of course, there is someone else I could call. I wasn’t lying when I said that to Seth.

  Someone who would definitely come and get me.

  Someone not Dad.

  I stare at my phone.

  It would be awkward. Embarrassing. Pathetic, even. But what other choice do I have?

  I swallow, hard.

  “I can do this,” I whisper, and then I press send. “No big deal.”

  Twenty minutes later, Steven’s little car—a blue Toyota Corolla that he shares with his older sister Sarah—pulls up next to the Lemon. His brakes squeak as he comes to a stop. He rolls down the window.

  “Do you want me to try to jump you?” he asks.

  “Don’t bother.” I want him to expend as little effort here as possible. “I just need to get home.”

  He leans to unlock the passenger door and clears a bunch of books and papers off the seat so I can sit down. He waits while I put my seat belt on, then clears his throat and backs us out of the parking lot.

  We head north on O Street. It’s fully dark now, and a light snow is falling, catching the street lights. We make small talk for a while: the weather (cold, as always), Ms. Mahoney (awesome, as always), and college plans (still waiting to get our acceptance letters). Then we hit Wyuka Cemetery, its heavy black iron fence stretching along the edge of the road, the graves, old trees, and mausoleums looming beyond it.