Everyone We've Been (18 page)

“So I get that I'm remembering you, but why like this?
Are
you a ghost?” I ask him, cranking up the heat in my car when we're back in it.

I guess the pieces started falling together while I was playing in my room earlier. Hundreds of questions and guesses moving in slow motion until they collided with one another just now, until the single most messed-up day of my life finally started to make a crumbling kind of sense.

“The
real
you,” I clarify when he still hasn't responded.

I obviously don't remember Bus Boy. The “real-life” Bus Boy.

But I know I am asking the right questions. It's the only version of things that makes sense and that doesn't make me a complete lunatic.

If I'm right, though—if he is a memory—I have a million of them, and none of them are like this. Life-sized, real enough to talk with, to touch. Could he be a ghost?

I shoot a quick glance at him, his long legs cramped in my small car, and wonder exactly what he was to me. What
I
was to
him.
Blood rushes to my face and I feel angry with myself. Of course, I'm crushing on an invisible boy. The fact that I know I didn't
completely
make him up offers some relief, but it is mild at best.

“Well?” I prompt, impatient for his response.

“Well.” Bus Boy pauses thoughtfully. He sticks his arm out and flexes his hand so his fingers press against the cool window. “I can't go through objects. But maybe that means nothing. I wouldn't call myself an expert on ghosts.”

Or anything,
I think bitterly. I mean, if we were to tally up the number of things he does know, particularly on the subject of himself, we'd be firmly at zero.

I cross my arms over my chest. “So, then, you
might
be dead?”

“I suppose.”

“In which case, you'd be a ghost.”

“I…could see that,” Bus Boy says carefully, and I roll my eyes, but my heart is starting to feel like a rock in my chest.

What if the real him is dead?

Did my parents know about him? Did they remove him intentionally when they removed Rory's memory?

But if that's the case, why didn't my mother mention him when she told me about my little brother?

We don't seem to be getting anywhere, sitting in the car, watching our breath mist the windows, so I drive home. Bus Boy and I say goodbye in my driveway. Then he climbs out of the car and starts to walk down the street. I watch him for as long as I can, his figure growing tiny before, in one blink, blending into the darkness.
Did he disappear?
Or did he just get too far away to see?

I hate that I can't tell.

I quietly slip into the house, ready to endure another night of tossing and turning, my mind whirring with too many things.

In the morning, the atmosphere in the house is nearly as cold as the one in my car last night. Neither Mom nor Caleb seems sure of what to say to me. I leave without saying anything to them, without even having breakfast.

I corner Katy at her locker before first period. I know she's used to determining the duration and continuation of her relationships, but she can't do that with me. I won't let her. And I need backup. I need my best friend.

“Oh, hey!” She looks surprised, caught off guard when I corner her at her locker. “Sorry I didn't call you back last night. Working on those monologues is
killing
me. Literally killing me. You're so lucky that you don't have to perform a piece or anything for NYU. You've applied and it's done, but my process is just
starting
. So that's why I've been so busy.” I fold my arms across my chest and let her dig herself into a hole with her explanation. “Plus, my throat has been killing me. Maybe it's all the practicing, but I told my mom to produce proof of my mumps vaccination by the time I get home today, because I am not one hundred percent sure I've had it. And this is
not
a regular sore throat.”

“I need to talk to you,” I say.

“I'm serious. Cough drops aren't helping. Am I running a fever?” She grabs my hand and puts it against her forehead.

“You feel fine.”

“I feel
awful,
” she says, but a second later, she's waving violently at Mitch Enns, who is en route to class with his football posse but breaks away to pretend to reel her toward him. She laughs and flicks her wrist, dismissing him and the rest of his crew.

“Maybe Mitch gave you something,” I say pointedly, and her eyes snap to mine, hurt at my impatient tone.

She decides to ignore it. “Did I tell you Mitch found my bracelet? It was in his car.”

“I thought you said you drove
your
car the day you hung out?” My voice is still sharp, accusing.

Katy's cheeks flush. “That was a different day.” She tucks her hair behind her ear. “He looked all over for it—he looked through all the dressing rooms at Act! Out! because he didn't know which one was mine. He checked all the classrooms and the girls' bathrooms after school and told the custodian I'd lost it. I didn't even know he was doing all that, but it ended up being in his car the whole time. Can you belie—”

“Katy, you've been avoiding me,” I say, cutting her off.

“I've been busy,” she says, proving my point by avoiding eye contact.

“I need your help. Urgently,” I say, and my throat tightens as everything I've learned rushes into my mind.

Rory.

I'm not imagining Bus Boy.

I have pieces, but I need help ordering them, figuring out where the corners go.

She frowns, gauging my no-nonsense expression, and scans the hallway. “Okay. Where do you want to go?”

We sneak out of the school building as the warning bell rings and wind up in my car, Katy in the same seat Bus Boy was in only hours ago.

“What's up, Buttercup?” she asks, dropping her backpack on the floor. “Why's the seat so far back?”

I blink back the memory of my invisible boy's long legs cramped in here last night, blink back the tears building in my eyes.

“My whole family is so fucked up, Katy,” I say, which was not where I intended to start, but it now seems as good a place as any.

“Hey,” Katy says gently, leaning over to hug me. “What happened? What's wrong?”

“I had a baby brother. Rory.” Even now the name feels poisonous and big and small. It means nothing and everything at the same time. “He died when I was eleven because of a mistake I made. And you know Overton? That brain facility outside of town? My parents—well, my mother—had him erased from my mind there.
Erased.
”

I feel Katy's body go rigid beside me. Her arm over my shoulder becomes wooden. After a second, she slips it off and puts her hands in her lap.

“Oh my God,” she whispers. “Oh my God.”

“I know,” I say. “I went there yesterday to ask if they could help with my memory lapses and not being able to sleep.”

She looks at me, surprised, all color drained from her face. “You said it was better—that you were sleeping. That you weren't seeing him anymore.”

“I lied,” I tell her sheepishly.

“Oh God, Addie.” She says it over and over, under her breath.

“I
know,
” I say, and I want to reach across and hug her again because she understands. Because she's my best friend and the only person I could tell this to—tell that my whole life has been a lie—and she'll understand how much it hurts, how awful everything feels.

“Anyway, I think Bus Boy is related to Overton and to Rory. I thought for a second that maybe he was my brother, but he can't be. He's too old and they look nothing alike.”
Also, I think I like him.
I'm rambling now, only vaguely aware of Katy turning white as a sheet beside me. “So now I think maybe he got erased along with Rory when I was eleven. I mean, I could be wrong. Maybe I have brain damage from the crash. Maybe it is a Psychological Episode and I've imagined up some guy, but I don't think that's what this is. He feels familiar. I think I'm remembering him.”

“Addie,” Katy says, and when I look at her, I see that she is weeping now, the kind of crying where you can't draw in enough breath. I'm confused because I know she's shocked about everything I just told her, but that can't explain her reaction.

“What's wrong?” I ask her.

She's shaking her head, struggling to find words and air. But finally both start to tumble out. “I told you to let me go to my mom. Oh God, Addie. You made me promise. I didn't know about Rory. Obviously, you didn't, either. I n-n-never would have let you if I'd known. We thought it was the f-f-first time. You wanted it to get over what happened.”

She's saying words, stuttering them, but not one is making sense. I grab her arm to calm her down.

“What are you talking about, Katy?”

“We didn't know, Addie,” she's saying now, bawling again. “We didn't know you'd had it done before.”

“I don't understand,” I say, even as some of her words are starting to catch like burs on socks.

We didn't know.

We thought it was the first time.

“I don't understand,” I say again.

Katy takes a deep breath and looks at me.

“We went back, Addie,” she says, her words and voice finally clear. “You had the procedure done again.”

“Addie, what do you know about goldfish?” Zach asks, in lieu of saying hello, when I pick up the phone.

“Don't they forget everything? Or is that a myth?” I ask.

“I think that's a myth,” Zach says. It's around eleven-thirty in the morning. I've just come back from today's viola lesson and quickly fallen into a William Primrose wormhole. Most of the recordings online are fairly old because he died in the 1980s, but he's probably the most expressive violist I've ever heard. He plays the way you use your fingers or vocal cords, thoughtlessly, naturally, like his viola is part of his body. I would kill for his dexterity. Even after all these years, playing is hard for me. The easier I need a piece to sound, the harder I have to work on it. But it's worth it, if only for that moment I can play the piece all the way through without thinking about technical things and lose myself in the music completely.

“Well,” I say now, trying to unwind from practice mode and answer Zach's question. “They're gold. They're fish. Freshwater, I think. And you have one.”

Zach sighs. “Had,” he says. “He was floating at the top of the fish tank, just, like,
sitting there,
when I woke up this morning. I tapped on the glass, trying to wake him up, and then used the net to nudge him, and that didn't work. His gills aren't moving. Also, his eyes are this weird concave shape and gray, which they never used to be. I looked online and those are all the signs.”

“That sucks,” I say. “He seemed…like a good fish.”

“Oh, he was terrible,” Zach says. “We actually started out with him and another fish—a yellow molly called Molly. But Goldie ate him within, like, six hours of both of them being brought home.”

“Oh my God,” I laugh. “Still. That sucks.”

“I mean, he was my brother's, but…yeah.” I hear what sounds like movement on the other end of the phone. “So, listen, Kev is spending the day at his friend's place and he doesn't know yet. And I thought maybe you'd like to help me find an exact replica of Goldie Hawn before he gets home. I hate to overhype it, but it's going to be pretty mundane.”

I laugh. “I don't know. I was going to spend the day doing nothing and maybe practicing for a bit and then going back to doing nothing,” I say. “But I guess I might be able to take some time out of my busy schedule.”

“Excellent,” Zach says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

When he picks me up, half an hour later, he's wearing a faded green T-shirt with a tiny hole in the neck, and his hair is exceedingly messy. The whole effect is so hilariously disheveled that it makes my stomach flutter. I run my fingers through his hair, because
I can,
when I kiss him hello in the car.

“I have to work at four,” Zach says, glancing at the clock on his dashboard. It says 9:12, which I've figured out means it's roughly twelve-something, as it tends to run three hours behind no matter how often Zach resets it. “So we're going to have to make good time.”

I shoot him a confused look. “I thought we were picking out a goldfish, not a house. We have three hours.”

But Zach is right; three hours does leave us pressed for time. Because, as it turns out, we are not looking for a goldfish. We are looking for Goldie Hawn's identical twin. In the first pet store we go to, there are dozens and dozens of fish, and we press our faces up to the glass and Zach shakes his head in dissatisfaction. “No, he had this one white stripe just under his eye.”

“White stripe? You're sure it's not a
clown
fish you're looking for?” asks the spiky-haired teenager who is helping us.

Zach gives him an unimpressed look. “Yeah, I'm sure. It wasn't a long stripe. Not even a big one. Just, like, a white mark.”

We try another store, where the manager is this super tall guy, like quarterback big, except in his forties. He is very knowledgeable about all things goldfish, and maybe even a little judgmental. “Sure,” he says after we explain what we're looking for. “I'll show you our troubling and we'll see if there's one that meets your very specific criteria.”

“Troubling?” I echo.

“A group of goldfish is a troubling. Like a herd of cows.” He flicks his gaze over us, like he's not sure what they even teach in school anymore. I'm not, either; I thought all groups of fish were called schools. “I bet you didn't have him in a big enough tank. That's always it. And to think some people put them in
bowls.
They can grow to be over a foot. How would
you
like to live in a bowl all your life?”

I know he means “you” in the general sense, but it sounds pretty accusing. Zach and I exchange a glance, and I bite my lip to keep from laughing. I wouldn't like to live in a fish tank, regardless of the size, but I don't see the point in saying this out loud.

Being in a pet store reminds me of how animal-crazy I used to be in elementary school. Before music, horses were the great love of my life—my room and notebooks were covered in cutouts of ponies. Since I couldn't have a horse, I'd drag Dad into a pet store whenever I could and try to convince him I desperately needed a gerbil or rabbit or parrot. We owned a tiny gray Lhasa apso for a whopping twenty-eight hours once. Mom freaked out because Caleb was allergic and the dog wasn't hypoallergenic, so we returned it, and there was talk of going back in the next few months and getting one that shed less. I'm not sure why we never did.

Zach peers into the giant aquarium full of goldfish that look, to me, exactly the same as the fish I saw in his house.

“What do you think?” I ask when the guy goes to attend to another customer, leaving us to decide. Personally, I am starting to wonder if Zach is crazy. Maybe it's too good to be true that I would like a normal, well-adjusted boy who likes me back.

“They just seem very obviously
not
the same fish.”

He sighs and walks around to the other side of the aquarium to look more closely at a particular fish that is in the process of eating something.

“Zach,” I say, realization dawning on me as to why a person could possibly be this obsessed with replacing a goldfish. “Did you do something to Goldie Hawn?” I drop my voice so Judgy McJudgerson doesn't overhear, even though he's about two aisles away. “Did
you
kill him?”

Zach's eyes widen. “What? No!” he says, and I laugh, not believing it for a second.

“No, I swear,” he insists. “I just found him that way this morning.”

“Right. Well, you seem awfully invested for
just
having found his body.”

Zach shakes his head and looks at me. “It really had nothing to do with me,” he says. “I just…Kev—for how annoying and mouthy he tries to be—is actually kind of a sensitive kid. He is. Don't look so shocked.”

“I'm not,” I lie.

He straightens to his full height now and runs his hand through his hair, which just makes it look even more like he might have been electrocuted. “I mean, Kevin is
fourteen
and obviously knows about the circle of life and all that, but even I was sad when I saw Goldie just lying there floating at the top of the tank. It just sucks to watch something go from being alive to being dead. No warning, no in-between. And we've had him for three years. I just hoped Kev wouldn't have to know.”

Zach shakes his head when the manager comes back to ask if we've found what we're looking for.

We leave and try another store, the last pet store in town, and the fish area is close to the loud, squawking bird area, which doesn't seem like the best idea if those birds ever get free, and we circle the tanks over and over again, looking for the right fish, but Zach keeps coming back to one that has sidled up to the glass and is peering right back at us. With our heads pressed close together, I can smell citrus laundry detergent and sweat and the slightest hint of cigarette smoke on Zach. I watch him while he nods at this fish. He runs his hand through his hair worriedly as he leans against the counter while he's paying, continuously looking back at the water-filled bag we're taking Goldie Hawn's twin home in and asking if I think it's fine that
this
fish's mark is closer to the mouth than the eye. I think it's kind of the sweetest thing I've ever seen in my life.

But when I mention this to him, he says, “Nah, you'd do the same if you had a younger sibling,” but he's smiling a little bit.

And I don't know if it's true—what I'd be like as an older sister—but I remain firm in my conviction of his sweetness.

Later, once Goldie Hawn II has been acclimated to the tank and Zach has gone to work and I'm back at home, arguing with Caleb about cleaning the bathroom, I get a text from Zach.

Sooo. Mom saw Goldie this morning before I did and she picked Kev up on her way home from work this afternoon and told him the fish had died.

WHAT,
I text back.
I hope you pretended he'd had a miraculous resurrection or this was his ghost, back to clear up his unfinished business.

Ha ha!
Zach replies.
I should have done that, but I just told him the truth….He said he'd have preferred a turtle.

HA HA HA,
I text.

And,
You're a good brother, Zach.

Hey, thanks,
he texts back.

We keep texting for the rest of the night, through dinner and practice and right up until it's midnight, and my lips hurt from smiling. I thought I needed something to wake me up. Like a city full of things to fall in love with—people and places and monuments and tastes and sounds. Not just one person, not just a
boy
who lives across town. I want my life to be more than that. And yet.

I feel idiotic and silly and funnier than I am, and my heart kicks in my chest every time my phone vibrates with a new message. I feel crazy, charged with electricity and exhausted and slightly panicked at each text I send that goes unanswered for a few minutes. Or when he
does
write back and I have to figure out something funny or clever or flirty—or, oh my God, all of the above—to say back.

It feels a little bit terrible. Like walking across a shaky bridge with the world laid out before you. You might fall off any second, but you have to know what's on the other side. There is not much to hold on to. And I don't know if I would, anyway, if there was.