I’d used one of his absences to send a message to my mother’s cell. Charlie had figured out how to do this years ago, but I’d never done it until now. It meant that a voice mail showed up on her phone without it ringing. Charlie was sure that Mom had never figured out her cell had this feature, as she always just assumed that she had missed the call. I didn’t think I was up for having a conversation with her that would either involve a lot of uncomfortable truth telling, or would be a parade of lies. I knew that I would probably have to tell her the truth soon—we were supposed to be in Indiana at the moment, and we were pretty far from Indiana. But I tried to tell myself that maybe we could make up the time by driving all night, or something. I also wasn’t exactly excited about the prospect of being in Connecticut in a day or two—I didn’t want to have to start that life yet. I also hadn’t seen my mother in a month, and the thought of seeing her again made me nervous, for reasons I didn’t want to explore.
I took a sip of my cream soda and checked my watch, now adjusted to mountain time. It was getting close to seven, and it felt like we’d been in the car for a very long time. “Well?” I asked, propping my feet on the dashboard and looking over at Roger.
“Sorry,” he said. He picked up his phone, looked at it, then set it back down in his cup holder. “Um. Is he alive?”
“No,” I said, glancing over at him again. “And you asked that already.”
“Sorry,” he said, giving me a quick smile, then turning back to the road, which was getting windy again. “I think I’m just a little … distracted. Want to just put on some music?”
“Sure,” I murmured, trying not to feel hurt. It was just a stupid game, anyway. I turned up Roger’s mix, and we drove the next six songs without speaking.
I started seeing Colorado Springs on the signs that told you how far you were from various destinations. And when we were about sixty miles outside it, it was like we joined the world again. We must have been through the mountains, because the landscape was more open, and there were suddenly three lanes of traffic we could drive in, then four. The sense of remoteness fell away, and there were Targets and Wal-Marts and Starbucks and fast-food restaurants on the side of the road again. All those things I’d missed on Highway 50 that now seemed too big and brightly colored. I found myself missing the little mini-marts.
We stopped for gas when we were about twenty miles outside of town. While Roger filled up, his cell rang—I was squeegeeing the windshield, which had turned into a dead bug graveyard, and I could see it, lighting up and dancing around as it vibrated in the cup holder. I opened the passenger door and grabbed it, seeing the display read
BRON CALLING
. I had no idea what this meant, but I handed the phone to Roger, who suddenly looked very nervous. I put the squeegee back, even though the window was only half-cleaned, and got back in the car so I could avoid hearing Roger’s conversation. But I couldn’t help slouching down a little in my seat to see him in the side mirror. I could only see him in profile, but he didn’t look too happy. Even though he was smiling, it seemed a little forced. It struck me, a moment after I thought this, that I could now tell the difference with him.
Roger got back in the car and slammed his door a little harder than necessary. He didn’t put the keys in the ignition, just played with them, resting on his knee. He looked tired, and some of the energy that was always humming around him seemed to have faded a little. “You okay?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said to the keys, still not looking at me. “So I have good news. I got a place for us to crash. It’s one of the houses off campus. It’s the International House during the year, but right now, it’s just for people who are taking summer courses.”
“Great,” I said. I looked at him more closely. He did not look happy. “That’s a good thing, right?”
Roger just sighed. “So here’s the thing,” he said. I immediately felt myself tense up. “I should tell you something. I should have told you before, actually.”
“Okay,” I said, really beginning to get worried now. Was he sick of me, and just planning on staying here with his friends? Was he backing out of the trip?
“So the reason we’re here,” he said, still not looking at me, “is that … I heard Hadley was here.”
“Oh,” I said. Suddenly it made sense that Roger had been so focused on his phone all morning. “Is she?” I asked, as casually as possible.
“No,” he said, and I felt myself relax a little bit. “I’d heard from one of my friends that she was here taking summer courses. But apparently, she’s back home in Kentucky.”
“Oh,” I said again, feeling out of my depth.
“She hasn’t been returning any of my calls or e-mails. So I just thought that maybe if I came here, and saw her, we could talk, and we could maybe …” His forehead creased. “I don’t know.”
Amy! would have known exactly what to do here. She wouldn’t have felt so tongue-tied and awkward and annoyingly young. “Um,” I finally said. “What … I mean, what happened with you two?”
There was a honk behind us, and I turned and saw a minivan waiting for the pump, clearly wondering what we were doing just sitting in the car. Roger started the car and steered us back onto the interstate. We’d been driving in silence for a few minutes when he started talking again. “I don’t know what happened,” he said. “If I knew that, I don’t think we’d be here.”
“Well,” I said. I wondered if we should do this like Twenty Questions, with The Reason Hadley Broke Up with Me being the answer. “So what did she say?”
Roger clenched and unclenched his hands on the steering wheel, his forehead still furrowed. He looked preoccupied and unhappy, which only highlighted just how cheerful he normally seemed. Like so much else, I hadn’t fully realized this until it was gone. “It was during finals. We were supposed to meet at the library—I was going to help her study for her history final. I’d made note cards,” he said, sounding disgusted with himself. “But she came to my dorm and …” Roger paused, and I noticed a muscle pulsing in his jaw as he clenched his teeth. “She said,” he continued, “that it was over between us. That she’d been feeling this way for a long time, and she needed to get it off her chest, because it was interfering with her studying.”
“She said that?” I asked, stunned.
“Yeah,” he said, with a small, unhappy laugh. “Hadley never really was one for sentiment. Well, needless to say, I didn’t do so great on my finals. And then she left me a voice mail saying that she was sorry about the way she left things, and told me when I could come by her sorority house, so we could say good-bye.”
“And?”
“Oh, I didn’t go,” said Roger, changing lanes. “I don’t say good-bye. And she
knew
that. I’d told her a hundred times.”
I sat up a little straighter. “You don’t say good-bye?”
“Nope,” he said. “Not since I was eleven. It’s a superstitious thing,” he added, a little unnecessarily. “Three of my grandparents died that year—bam, bam, bam. And each time, it was almost immediately after I talked to them. And said—guess what? Goodbye. So now I don’t do it. It’s stupid. But the one grandparent I have left is still alive and kicking and I haven’t said good-bye since. So there you go.”
“But,” I said, as Roger took exit 143 for Uintah Street/Colorado College, “what does saying good-bye have to do with it?”
“It has everything to do with it!” Roger said, some of his old energy coming back into his voice. Things were starting to look less developed now, and I could see the mountains again. And they were stunning. They were backlit by the setting sun, so I could basically only see their outlines—but the mountains actually looked purple, just like in the song. Roger was driving down what seemed like a main street—clothing boutiques and pizza parlors and record stores. It could have been Raven Rock—it had that college-town feel to it—except for the mountains in the background, which were far more impressive than California’s. “Saying goodbye is basically an invitation not to see a person again. It’s making it okay for that to be the last conversation you have. So if you don’t say it—if you leave the conversation open—it means you’ll have to see them again.” I just stared at him, and Roger looked over at me and laughed, a normal-sounding laugh this time. “I know it doesn’t actually make sense,” he said. “But it’s pretty much ingrained now.”
“But sometimes,” I said, feeling my throat begin to tighten, but forcing the sentence out anyway, “sometimes you don’t say goodbye and you never see the person again anyway. Sometimes that happens.”
“I know it does,” he said quietly, and from his expression, I knew he knew what I was talking about. “I guess it’s just my residual guilt for the grandparentcide.”
I felt myself smile at that. “You didn’t kill your grandparents.”
“I know that now. But you try telling that to eleven-year-old me.”
I looked out the window at the darkening purple mountains and thought about that. Good-byes didn’t seem as important to me as they once had—I’d found out that when you’re never going to see someone again, it’s not the good-bye that matters. What matters is that you’re never going to be able to say anything else to them. And you’re left with an eternal unfinished conversation.
“Anyway,” Roger said, turning down a street that was lined with small houses, most with Greek letters nailed to their doors, “I’m sorry to lay all this on you. I should have told you earlier why I wanted to come here.”
“It’s fine,” I said.
Roger smiled at me, then pulled the car over to the side of the street and parked in front of a dilapidated two-story house with peeling white paint and a half-inflated plastic palm tree drooping on the lawn. “Want to check out our digs?”
We found the common area of the Colorado College International House deserted, except for a skinny, shirtless guy sprawled on the couch. He had spiky black hair and appeared very involved in a video game. It seemed to be set in a forest and featured a much more buff version of the guy on the couch.
“Hey, Leonard,” Roger said.
“Hey, Sullivan,” the guy—presumably Leonard—said, raising one hand for a fist bump without looking up from the screen.
“How’s Honour Quest treating you these days?” Roger asked.
“I made it to the Forest of Doom,” he said.
“I see that,” Roger said, leaning over the couch to look at the TV screen. “Impressive.”
“What are you doing here?” Leonard asked. “I thought you were in California for the summer. Are you here till school starts?”
“No,” said Roger. “Spending the summer in Philadelphia.”
“Bummer,” Leonard said. The virtual him stomped around a bit, waving his sword.
“So we’re crashing here tonight,” Roger said. “I talked to Bron and she said it was fine. Mind if I take the extra bed in your room?”
“Sure,” said Leonard. “The more the merrier, and all that. Just put your stuff anywhere. And I heard there’s going to be a little fiesta tonight at the Quiet Dorm. Should be pretty rocking.” He glanced up and seemed to notice me for the first time. “Oh. Hey,” he said. “Leonard Cho.”
“Amy Curry,” I said.
“Charmed,” he said, turning his attention back to the screen. “Whatever you do, Sullivan, avoid Conrad’s room. He’s been keeping a rabbit in his closet, and it’s turned on him.”
“A rabbit?” I asked, not sure I’d heard right.
“It’s
turned
on him?” Roger echoed.
Leonard shook his head. “It’s not pretty. Just do yourself a favor and avoid the whole sitch.”
“Sure,” said Roger. “Thanks, man.” He raised his eyebrows at me and headed into the kitchen. I followed, looking around. There were signs that a number of people shared this kitchen, and not all harmoniously, with charts on the wall for trash and cleanup duties, cabinets secured with padlocks, and the words
JUST EAT YOUR OWN GODDAMN FOOD AND NOBODY GETS HURT
painted on the wall.
“So,” Roger said, crossing the kitchen, “welcome to the International House. My friend Bronwyn’s the RA here for the summer, and she said we could crash for the night. She said you could stay with her.” He headed up a narrow, dark stairway with shoe treads worn into the carpet, and I followed.
“She won’t mind?” I asked, realizing that I now understood the
BRON CALLING
on his phone earlier. Roger stopped in front of a door with a whiteboard attached to it. It was covered in messages, most of which seemed to have to do with a rabbit.
“Not at all,” he said. “I’m across the hall in Leonard’s room.” He pointed it out. “He’s barely ever off the couch, so I’ll probably get the room to myself.” Roger opened Bronwyn’s door to reveal a small, messy room that seemed to be one giant closet—clothes were hanging everywhere, and the small set of drawers was overflowing and stacked with piles of shirts. There was what I assumed was a bed pushed against one wall, but it was hard to know for sure, as it was covered in clothing.
“Wow,” I said, looking around.
“I know,” he said. “She’s got a bit of a shopping problem.” He looked down at me. “Are you okay with this?” he asked. “I mean, we can always get a hotel if you’d be more comfortable….”
I shook my head. “It’s fine,” I said. It wasn’t, really. I didn’t want to have to stay with a stranger, some college girl who was probably going to resent the fact I was there. But this was so clearly where Roger wanted to be, I didn’t see any way I could get us out of it without disappointing him.
He smiled at me, seeming relieved, and I knew that had been the right answer. “Great. Well, I’ll go get the bags out of the car. Be right back.” Before I could reply, Roger was out the door.
Even without the stacks of clothes, it would have been a tiny room. The stuff everywhere just made it feel that much more claustrophobic. There was basically just the bed, a tiny space of floor next to it, and a desk with science textbooks piled around and on top of it. There was another bulletin board above the desk, and, recognizing Roger in a picture, I stepped inside the room to look at it.
“Hey there!”
I turned around at the sound of the voice and saw a girl standing in the doorway. She had long brown hair and bangs that swept almost into her eyes, and she was around my height and build, if maybe a little curvier. I assumed this was Bronwyn, only because she was wearing the outfit of someone who cared about clothes deeply, as the owner of this room clearly did. She had on jeans and a T-shirt, like me, but that was where the similarity ended. She seemed to have that thing that I’d noticed in girls at school—a way of putting together clothing so that everything just
worked
, and seemed special and pulled together but also casually effortless. Her white T-shirt was fitted but somehow also loose. She had a few delicate gold necklaces layered on top of each other, and these seemed to coordinate perfectly with her gold flats. I looked down and saw that on my own T-shirt, there was what looked like a blob of jam from the toast I’d had at lunch.