Meet Me Here

FOR NORTH CAROLINA,

WHICH IS IN MY BONES

This is supposed to be the best night of my life. That’s what all the cards say, what every person at this party believes as they yell and raise their hands in the air, high-fiving while some cover band tunes their instruments in the corner of the living room. And when people come up to say hello—to wax nostalgic—of course I smile. I clink the beer I’m not going to drink against their red cups, nodding intently as they wish me the best—when they ask me about my brother.

These are the final hours. And nothing—not graduation, or Jake, or even a natural disaster—can stop me from getting in my truck and disappearing once the sun comes up.

No answers, no hesitation—just
gone
.

Another well-wisher is strolling toward me when the entire room gasps, one collective mouth yelling, “Daaaammmmn!” I turn with everyone else, just catching Mallory Carlson’s hand coming back and her boyfriend holding his nose, looking like he’s going to cry.

The entire party stops moving. We’re all waiting to see if he’ll really start bawling or maybe if she’ll drop him with another right. His lip is wavering and her fist is still cocked and everybody—every single person at this party—is certain of one thing: Mallory’s going to put him down. Instead, she looks around the room, skimming from face to face until she finds mine.

Mallory doesn’t hesitate. Walks right up to me, hands still fists, looking ready to punch me, too.

“Do you have your truck?”

I stare at her.

She thumps me on the chest once, ignoring the yells and the laughter, focusing on me and speaking slow. Like I’m stupid and she didn’t just try to KO her boyfriend.

“Your
truck
, Thomas. I need you to drive me home.”

This girl’s a ghost, a legend I used to believe in; if I were to reach out and touch her, there wouldn’t be anything there.

She sighs.

I was six and she wanted my swing; that’s how it started. When I went home, my dad almost looked proud that I’d gotten into a fight. He held my face in his hands, studying the only black eye I’ve ever had. I didn’t tell him it was a girl, and we spent the night in the driveway, practicing how to throw and, in my case, dodge a punch. That next day I tried to avoid her, but Mallory came marching up to me on the playground. I had my hands up, protecting my face like Dad showed me. All she did was shake her head.

People laugh. Somebody yells, “Watch out, Bennett, you’re next!” I expect her to whip around, offering both middle fingers to the party—to steer an already grand graduation story into legendary territory. Maybe drop a few more bodies in the process, anyone unlucky enough to be close.

She closes her eyes and says, “Please, Thomas.”

That’s it. No explanation for why she just hit Will or why she can’t get any of her other friends to take her home. Why she decided to talk to me tonight for the first time in seven years. Just “Please.”

I used to live for every half-cocked idea that came off her lips. When we were kids, it was me and her and
nothing else. My dad always said it wasn’t right for a boy to be playing with a girl that much, and what were we even doing anyway? It didn’t help that I could never account for those hours. How the day would end and we never saw it coming, running home as fast as we could, cackling like mad.

But how many chances like this have we explicitly avoided? How many times has she walked by me in the hallways, suddenly becoming really interested in the lockers or a phantom stain on her jeans? And fine, people move on. Things change. It still doesn’t explain why she’s here in front of me now.

Before I can say a word, she holds up a hand and says, “Whatever. I’m sorry I asked.”

And then she’s gone.

It takes one second for me to feel like an asshole. Two more before my feet move, trying to catch Mallory as she slips through the crowd.

The catcalls start—“Get it! Yeah, boy!”
—
and I want to stop the music, the chatter, get the attention of the entire party and explain how inseparable she and I used to be, how there was a time before high school, before middle school, when the idea that we wouldn’t talk for a day—let
alone seven years—would be inconceivable.

How do you describe a constant companion? A person who knows everything about you, no matter how big or small? As she disappears out the door, I wish I still believed that fundamental parts of your life couldn’t change in a moment.

When I finally get outside, she’s halfway across the yard, cussing loudly and pulling off her shoes. I jog to catch up, calling her name. When she sees me, I expect her to tell me to get lost. Call me an asshole or worse. She reaches down, barely stopping to rub her heel.

“These shoes suck,” she says, hopping once before starting back down the driveway.

Sounds of the party fill the night, bouncing off trees and car windows as I follow her toward the dark road. Mallory tiptoes around a broken bottle, detouring into the grass. I tiptoe around our history, everything else.

“I wasn’t trying to be a prick,” I say. “You surprised me.”

“Well, isn’t that the story of the night? Everybody’s surprised. Listen, all I need is a ride home. If you can do that for me, great. If you can’t, then fine. I’ll walk.”

She bends over to rub her heel again, cussing even
louder. When she stands up, she faces me. “Thomas, I’m sorry. I just—I can give you gas money if you want.”

“It’s like five miles. I don’t need gas money.”

What else can I say? I’ve seen her at school, of course. We were even assigned a group project during junior year. But Wayne was in the group, and he’s loud enough that I could sit there, not saying a word, listening and laughing as he flirted and carried on with every girl in the group, Mallory included. When we finally gave the presentation and I was back sitting in my seat, I swear it was the first time I took a breath in two weeks. Things went back to normal, both of us pretending the other didn’t exist.

Behind us, a voice calls Mallory’s name. Will is still wearing his graduation hat, the shirt and tie. All of it askew. One of his buddies follows him, stumbling down the driveway, a laughing shadow. Mallory starts walking. “Go back to the party, Will.”

He brushes past me and tries to grab Mallory’s hand. “Talk to me.”

“I did; you didn’t listen.”

“All I want is for you to explain it to me. Please.”

He sounds desperate, almost scared. The way my mom sounded a year ago, when she learned Jake’s unit had been
attacked. Like there was nothing she could do, least of all understand what the army officer was telling her about her son. Injured in action. A hospital in Germany. Lucky to be alive.

The first day I saw Jake after he was wounded, he didn’t look much different. Skinnier maybe. He’d been shot in the shoulder, but there were no missing limbs, no visible scars. When he walked into our house—the way he had thousands of times before—I was so damn happy. But he was messed up worse than any of us could have ever imagined. We just didn’t see it yet.

“Let’s go,” Mallory says.

At first I don’t realize she’s talking to me, that we can see my truck now, the same one she rode in as a kid. My dad was still driving it then. We’d hop in the back any chance we got, even if it meant suffering through a trip to the hardware store and my dad’s constant looks in the rearview mirror.

She grabs my arm and pulls me across the road, Will following.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks.

“Maybe you should talk to him,” I say, but Mallory ignores both of us, only letting go of my arm when we’re
next to the truck. She climbs up into the passenger seat, ignoring Will, who starts beating on the window and calling Mallory’s name. When I walk around to the driver’s side, Will meets me at the door. There’s a shadow of a bruise on his face, but it’s the way he scrambles toward me that really makes him look broken.

All he says is “Thomas, c’mon. I’ll talk to Mallory. You can go back to the party.”

That’s the smartest option. Get Mallory out of my truck and go back to the party, back to pretending that this is the best night of my life and in fact my brother—my entire future—hasn’t gone up in flames. But how long does that last? An hour? Maybe two? I still have to go home, still have to see Jake sitting there cold and empty. I still have to face tomorrow morning, when I finally don’t show up at the recruiter’s office. The moment everybody I’ve ever known will mark me as a liar and a coward.

I’m tired of pretending tomorrow isn’t a reckoning. That I’m not scared to death about what I have to do. Every last ounce of
pretending
inside me is gone.

Will couldn’t know this, of course. Couldn’t know that maybe the only thing he could say that would make me get
in the middle of a lovers’ quarrel tonight is “You can go back to the party.”

“Sorry, man.”

I push past him and jump in the truck. He starts banging on my window, telling me he’s going to do all sorts of things to me—that I’ll regret this. Threats without teeth, because as soon as I turn the ignition, his voice pitches up an octave.

“Are you kidding me?”

Will walks with us as I put the truck in gear and slowly pull onto the road. He even runs beside us for a few steps before I get out of first gear. But soon we’re moving too fast and he can’t keep up.

And then it’s just me and Mallory once again.