I Was Here (7 page)

“They must be littermates, and anyhow, it still works.”

“What still works?”

“The joke.” Ben looks at me, perplexed, so I explain. “Pete and Repeat went out in
a boat. Pete fell out. Who was saved?”

“Rep—” He stops himself. “Oh, I get it.” He scratches his head and thinks for a second.
“Except she named them wrong, because it’s not the girl who’s saved.”

And there we are. Back to the real reason I’m here. Not to see the kittens. But because
of this. Because in some awful way, this binds us now. We stand there in the soggy
afternoon. Then he sits down on the steps, lights up a cigarette. He offers me one.
I shake my head. “Don’t drink. Don’t smoke,” I say, mimicking the eighties song Meg
and I discovered on one of Sue’s old mixtapes.

“What do you do?” Ben asks, completing the lyric.

I sit down next to him. “Yeah, that’s a good question.” I turn to him. “What do
you
do?”

“I do odd construction jobs, woodworking. I play some shows.”

“Right. The Scarps.”

“Yep. We had a show last night and another tonight.”

“Doubleheader.”

“You could stay. Catch the show tonight. It’s in Belltown.”

“I’m staying in Tacoma.”

“I could give you a ride back, probably not tonight but tomorrow. You could crash
here.”

Is he for real? I give him a disgusted look, and he sort of shrugs. “Or not.” He sucks
on his cigarette. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“Visiting the cats,” I say, defensive. “You invited me, remember?” After I texted
him. Why the hell did I text him?

“No, I mean on the coast. In Tacoma.”

I explain to him about Meg’s computer, the deleted files, the encrypted folder, Harry’s
computer wizardry.

A weird expression crosses his face. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to read her emails.”

“Why, you got something to hide?”

“Even if I did, you already went and read my emails.”

“Yeah. That’s what got me started on this.”

He twirls the cigarette between his fingers. “But those emails were mine. Written
to me. It was my right to show you those. I don’t think you should dig into private
things like that.”

“When you die, you’re not a person anymore and privacy kind of becomes a moot point.”

Ben looks uncomfortable. “What are you looking for, exactly?”

I shake my head. “I’m not sure. But something is suspicious.”

“Suspicious how? Like she was, what, murdered?”

“I don’t know what I think. But something’s weird about it, something’s fishy. Starting
with the fact that Meg wasn’t suicidal. I’ve been thinking about this. Even if I didn’t
know what was going on when she moved here, I’ve known her all her life. And not in
all those years did she ever think about this or talk about it. So something else
happened. Something to push her over the edge.”

“Something to push her over the edge,” Ben repeats. He shakes his head and lights
a fresh cigarette with the butt of his last one. “What, exactly?”

“I’m not sure. But there was this line in her suicide note, about the decision being
hers alone to make. Like who else’s
would
it be?”

Ben looks tired. He’s quiet for a long time. “Maybe she wrote that to exonerate you.”

I hold his gaze for a moment longer than is comfortable. “Well, she didn’t.”

x x x

It starts to rain again, so Ben and I go back inside. He makes us burritos with some
black bean and tempeh mixture that’s in the fridge and then shows me where he keeps
a secret stash of cheese in a Tupperware container, and grates it on top. By the time
we finish eating, we’ve spent all of one hour together, and the guys won’t be back
until five and the time stretches ahead of us like a yawn. Ben offers to take me around
Seattle, to see the Space Needle or something, but it’s unseasonably cold out and
I don’t feel like going anywhere.

“What do you want to do?” he asks.

There’s a small TV in the living room. Suddenly, the idea of doing something normal—no
memorial services, no computer sleuthing, but just hanging out all afternoon in front
of the TV, the kind of thing that hasn’t felt right to do since Meg—is so appealing.
“We could watch TV,” I suggest.

Ben looks surprised, but then he grabs the remote and clicks on the set and hands
me the changer. We watch a rerun of
The Daily Show
while the cats snuggle up next to us. Ben’s phone keeps vibrating with texts, chiming
with calls. When he goes into the other room to take a couple of the calls, I can
hear the low murmur of his side of the conversation—
Something came up
,
maybe we can hang tomorrow night
,
he tells one caller. I overhear a squirmingly long conversation in which he repeatedly
explains to some clearly dense girl named Bethany why he can’t visit her. He keeps
telling her that maybe she can come up to see him. Seriously, Bethany, get a clue.
Even I can hear his lack of conviction.

When he comes back to the sofa, I’ve flipped to MTV, which is having a marathon of
16 and Pregnant
. Ben’s never seen it before, so I explain the premise to him. He shakes his head.
“That’s a little too close to home.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” I say.

His phone chirps with another text. “If you’d like some privacy, I can leave,” I offer.

“I would like some privacy, actually,” Ben says. And I’m about to gather my shit,
wait out the next few hours in a café, when he turns off his phone.

We watch the show. After a few episodes, Ben gets into it, yelling at the TV like
Meg and I used to. “Good argument for mandatory birth control,” he says.

“Have you ever gotten a girl pregnant?” I ask.

Ben’s eyes go wide. They’re an electric shade of blue now, or maybe it’s just the
reflected glow of the TV. “That’s a personal question.”

“I kind of think we’re beyond standing on ceremony, don’t you?”

He looks at me. “There was a scare once, in high school, but it was a false alarm.
Since then I learned my lesson. I always use condoms, unlike these assholes.” He points
to the TV. “Sometimes I think I should go ahead and get snipped, like Pete and Repeat.”

“Like Pete. Repeat’s a girl, so she got her ovaries out or something.”

“Okay, like Pete.”

“Don’t you want kids? One day?”

“I know I’m supposed to. But when I picture my future, I don’t see it.”

“Live fast, die young.” Everyone romanticizes that notion, and I hate it. I saw a
picture of Meg’s body from the police report. There is absolutely nothing romantic
about dying young.

“No, it’s not like I see myself dead or anything. It’s just I don’t see myself . . .
connected.”

“I don’t know about that,” I say. “You seem pretty
connected
.” I gesture to his cell phone.

“I guess.”

“You
guess
? Let
me
guess. Did you have a girl over last night?”

His ears go a little pink, which answers the question.

“And will you have a girl over tonight?”

“That depends . . .” he begins.

“On what?”

“If you decide to stay over.”

“What the hell, Ben? Are you, like, some kind of addict? Can you not help yourself?”

He holds up his hands in surrender. “Chill, Cody. I meant if you crashed on the couch
or something,
you’d
stay over.”

“Ben, I will clarify this for you so there are no misunderstandings: I will never
sleep with you, or in the vicinity of you.”

“I’ll cross you off the list.”

“A long list, I imagine.”

He has the good grace to look embarrassed by this.

We watch the TV for a while longer.

“Can I ask you something else?”.

“If I say no, will that stop you?” he answers.

“Why do you do this? I mean, I get why guys want to have sex. I get that guys are
all horny all the time. But why a different girl every night?”

“It’s not a different girl every night.”

“Near enough, I’m guessing.”

Ben pulls out a pack of cigarettes, toys with an unlit one. I can see he wants to
light up, but I don’t think smoking’s allowed in the house. After a while he puts
the cigarette back in the pack. “You know what you know,” he says.

“What’s that’s mean?”

“It just . . . becoming a man, it’s not like it’s something that happens instinctively. . . .”
He trails off.

“Oh, please. I’ve never met my father and my mother is hardly a role model, and I
don’t blame my shit on them. So what’s your story, you didn’t have a father, Ben?
Cry me a river.”

He looks at me, his face gone hard, the Ben from the stage, the Ben from Meg’s room
that first time. “Oh, I
had
a father,” he says. “Who do you think I learned it from?”

x x x

At four thirty, Harry texts that they’re wrapping up and should be there soon. I start
to gather my stuff, and Ben and I go wait out front.

“Am I going to see you again?” he asks.

My breath catches. I’m not sure why.

“Because if I’m not,” he continues, “there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Oh, okay.” So this why he wanted me to come up. Not to see the kittens. But to take
his confession. “Go ahead then.”

He takes a long drag on his cigarette and when he exhales, there’s not nearly enough
smoke. It’s like all that toxic stuff stayed in him.

“She cried. After we slept together. She cried. She’d been okay, and then she was
crying.”

“Was she drunk?” I ask. “Like, really drunk?”

“You mean did I fuck her when she was passed out? Jesus, Cody, I’m not that big of
a shitbag.”

“You’d be surprised how many people are.”

And I tell him. About Meg’s other first time. That party, sophomore year. She’d done
a bunch of Jägermeister shots and had been making out with Clint Randhurst. Things
went too far too fast. And though she didn’t exactly say no, she definitely hadn’t
said yes. To make matters even worse, Clint must’ve been the one to give her mono.
Because after that was when she got sick.

After Clint, Meg swore that she was never going to do
that
again unless it was with someone she truly cared about. Which is how I know she cared
about Ben, even if maybe she shouldn’t have.

“So it wasn’t you. You weren’t the reason she cried. Or if she did, it was happiness,
or relief maybe. She clearly
liked
you. Maybe that’s
why
she cried.” I tell him this to unburden him—or maybe to unburden me; at Meg’s insistence
I never told anyone about Clint. But if anything, Ben looks more cut up. He shakes
his head, looks down, and doesn’t say anything.

When the Do-Gooder Van pulls up, Stoner Richard sees Ben’s downcast eyes and looks
at me. “What’d he do now?” Richard asks.

“Nothing.” I climb in the van.

“If you find anything else on her computer, will you tell me?” Ben asks.

“Okay.”

He closes the door behind me and knocks on it two times. And then we drive away.

13

Harry works on the computer all night. And then the next morning. When I wake up,
early, his light is on and I’m not entirely sure he’s been to sleep.

“I’ve almost got it,” he says, eyes gleaming with excitement. “This was such an unusual
encoding. Did Meg do it herself?”

I shake my head, shrug.

“If she did, then I mourn her loss even more.” Now he shakes his head. “We could’ve
had so much fun geeking out together.”

I smile politely.

“You never know people, do you?” he asks.

No. You don’t.

x x x

Alice wakes up a few hours later and tackles me in a hug like we are best friends.

“Where
were
you yesterday?” she asks.

“No one was here. I went to Seattle with the guys.”

“I waited for you and then you didn’t come back so I went to the movies. Never mind.
You’re here now. I’m going to make us French toast!” she declares. “With homemade
bread.”

I follow her into the kitchen. She goes to slice the loaf of bread but can’t get a
knife through it. I suggest we go out instead.

We go back to the diner I spent the night in a few weeks ago. Alice doesn’t like it
because the eggs aren’t free-range, but I like it because the breakfast special is
two ninety-nine. Alice gabs on about her term, her upcoming finals, summer back in
Eugene, which she says, if the weather is nice, is like living in Eden, including
the nakedness in some circles. She invites me to come down before she goes to Montana
for her summer job. I put on a tight smile. I’m not sure what else to do, because
she’s acting like we’re friends, and we’re not friends, we are mutual acquaintances,
only the person we’re mutually acquainted with is no longer.

“Why’d you go to Seattle yesterday?” she asks after a bit.

“To see the kittens.”

“And Ben McCallister?”

“Yeah, he was there too.”

Her eyes flicker up. “He’s pretty hot, right?”

“I guess so.”

“You guess so? He and Meg had a thing, right?”

I think of Ben’s tawdry description of it.
I fucked her,
he’d said, so full of distaste, for Meg, for the act, for himself, I wondered why
he even bothered. “I wouldn’t classify it as ‘a thing.’”

“I wouldn’t mind a piece of that thing.”

Alice seems so sweet, so young, so innocent. What would happen to her after she’d
been used and abused by Ben? It’s not a pretty picture. “Yes, you would.”

When we’re finishing up breakfast, Harry texts me.
Cracked it.

I pay for both breakfasts, and we hustle back to the house. Harry is waiting for us
on the porch, Meg’s computer in his lap. “Look,” he says.

I look.

There’s a document open. It has a professional letterhead reading
Hi-Watt Industrial Cleaning Company
and some numbers.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a business license.”

“Why would she have that on her computer?”

“You need a license to buy this.” He clicks over to another window. It has a list
of lethal chemical agents, where to procure them, how to procure them, expected physical
effect, and “success rates.” The poison Meg used is listed. It has one of the highest
success rates.

I start to feel sick to my stomach.

“There’s more,” Harry says. He opens another document, this one a sort of checklist,
the kind of thing you’d get in a class. But when I peer closer, I see the items in
the left-hand column are a sort of syllabus for death. Order poison. Pick day. Write
note. Clear email/browser cache. Email note on time-delay delivery.

“Oh God . . .” I begin.

“Cody,” Harry says, with an edge of warning in his voice. “There’s more.”

He opens a simple text document. In an almost breezy tone, it congratulates whoever’s
reading this on making the
brave and ultimate step toward self-determination
. It goes on to say:
We have no say in our births, and generally little say in our deaths. Suicide is the
one exception. It takes a brave soul to choose this path. Suicide can be a sacred
rite of passage
. The note continues, listing sickening specific details on the best places and times
to do it, how to conceal plans from loved ones. It even offers tips for what to write
in the suicide note. Portions of the sample note are Meg’s, verbatim.

I lean over the porch banister and throw up into the wild tangle of lavender hydrangea.
Alice is crying, and Harry is looking mildly panicked, like he has no idea what to
do with either of us.

“Who would do such a thing?” I gasp.

Harry shrugs. “I did a little more digging, Googling some of the advice from the notes,
and it turns out there are a lot of ‘suicide support groups.’”

“Support groups?” Alice asks, confused.

“To encourage suicide, not prevent it,” I say.

Harry nods. “They used to be more active online, but now there are only a few left.
Which might explain all the cloak-and-dagger secrecy. This literature seems to come
from one group in particular. The Final Solution. Nice name.” He shakes his head in
mild disgust. “Whoever originated these files clearly didn’t want to get found out.”
Harry smiles, then seems to remember he shouldn’t. “The irony is, if she’d kept the
files unencrypted and thrown them away, they wouldn’t be on her hard drive anymore.”

“How do you know for sure it’s this Final Solution group?” Alice asks.

“Meg cleared her browser history, but didn’t empty her cache.” He looks at me, then
at the computer. “The Final Solution was in there.”