Authors: Samantha Schutz
The air in here is stale.
I need to get out.
Marissa will be here in an hour,
but I can’t wait that long.
On my way out of the house,
I pass my mother’s bedroom.
Her door is open.
Her bed is perfectly made,
unslept in.
Outside, the late June air
is heavy and hot,
but it’s better than in my room.
I’m not sure where I’m going,
but when my flip-flops hit the sidewalk,
I know.
I walk down the street
and take a right turn.
I go two more blocks
and find myself at the cemetery.
It doesn’t take long before I hear it—
the sound of dirt and rock
sliding against metal shovels.
There are men digging Brian’s grave.
They are digging a hole
in the cool earth, on a hot day
for the boy who has occupied
my thoughts and my heart
for the last three months,
for the boy I lost
my virginity to,
for the boy I think I loved.
I’ve heard these guys dig before.
I’ve heard these guys talking,
but today I want to scream
them into silence.
I want to tell them
to have some respect
and not talk
about everyday things,
like how hot it is
or how much more
they have to dig.
This
is not
every day.
I was watching a special about the pyramids
when my cell phone vibrated angrily
against my dresser.
I looked at the phone and was surprised
to see Marissa’s name.
I flipped open my phone
and cautiously said,
“Hey…what’s up?”
“I have to tell you something.
It’s about Brian,” Marissa answered.
There was something
about how she said it
that made me think
she was finally going to apologize
and say she had been wrong about him.
But instead she said,
“Something happened today
while Brian was playing basketball.”
An injury, I figured;
he had a broken leg or something.
But what was with all the drama?
And why was she
calling to tell me?
We hadn’t talked in weeks.
Marissa said, “No one knows
exactly what happened yet.
But he died, Annaleah.
I am so sorry.
I hate that I am the one
telling you this.
Especially after…”
I stopped listening.
My whole body was shuddering.
Uncontrollable.
“What?” I said.
It was the only thing
I could say.
“My dad was walking the dog
by the playground
and saw an ambulance.
He asked who was hurt
and they told him it was a teenager
named Brian Dennis,
and that he had suddenly died.
My dad came home and asked me
if I knew who Brian was.”
“What?” I said again.
“He collapsed on the court.
The paramedics said
he died on the spot.
There was nothing
they could do.”
Not possible, I thought.
Brian was healthy.
Seventeen.
Just finished his junior year.
How could he be playing
basketball one minute
and then be dead the next?
How could there be no in-between?
No treatment.
No drugs.
No surgery.
No hope.
No nothing.
Not possible.
“Annaleah, are you still there?”
“Uh-huh.”
I couldn’t even make real words.
I thought, I need to call someone.
I need more information.
But who could I call?
Brian and I didn’t have
the same friends.
I could call Joy or Parker,
to tell them what happened,
but they didn’t know Brian
other than from my stories.
I could call my mom, but I never
told her Brian and I
were together.
I could call Brian’s house
to see if his parents knew more,
but I bet the last thing they’d want
is to talk to a girl
they’d probably never heard of.
“Annaleah?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna go.”
“Do you want me to come over?”
“No. I’ll talk to you later.”
I hung up the phone
and looked around my room.
There were pages from magazines
and posters on the wall,
photos of friends,
piles of dirty clothes,
and all of it seemed absurd.
It was absurd
that I had dirty laundry
and that Brian
was dead.
That’s what the
Ledger
said
was the cause of death.
The wall between the chambers
of Brian’s heart became thickened
and blocked the flow of blood.
The article said there was no way
to prevent it,
that there would have been
no symptoms,
and that it would have happened
lightning-fast
and without any pain.
They saw IHSS clearly in the autopsy.
There was no doubt about it.
All the rumors that Brian had overdosed
or that there was an outbreak of meningitis
were ruled out.
The thought of Brian on an autopsy table,
cold and alone,
except for a doctor,
makes me want to throw up.
The thought of someone
looking inside of Brian,
holding his heart,
is surreal.
How can a person be
filled with life
and then be empty?
Where does it all go?
how many people
are walking around
with something silent
and terribly wrong inside them.
Our bodies are so complex.
So many opportunities
for something to go wrong—
it’s amazing that people
aren’t dropping dead
on the streets all day long.
I wonder if Brian knew
what was happening.
Was he scared?
Was he in pain?
Did he see his life
flash before his eyes
like in the movies?
I wish I had been there
to hold his hand,
brush the dark hair
away from his cloudy blue eyes,
whisper to him over and over
that he was loved.
But I doubt my face
was the very last one
he’d wanted to see.
on the first really warm day in March.
The kind of day where you feel
as if your bones are thawing out,
and all you want to do
is be outside.
So I went for a walk
and found a sunny spot by the bay,
where I sat and stared at the water.
I don’t know how long I was there,
but it was a while.
When I finally got up,
I heard someone say,
“But I’m not done yet.”
I quickly turned around.
Not twenty feet behind me
was a guy about my age.
He was holding a sketchbook
and smiling.
He was cute,
really cute,
with dark brown hair
and blue eyes.
I couldn’t believe
that I hadn’t heard him
come up behind me.
I couldn’t believe
that he had been drawing me
the whole time.
I suddenly became self-conscious.
Had I done anything embarrassing
while I was sitting there,
like pick my nose
or fix a wedgie?
I walked toward him
and looked down at his sketchbook.
There I was,
sitting in profile on the hill.
It mostly looked like me.
The only thing that was different
was that he had put
an imaginary gust of wind in my hair
so that it floated behind me.
“I’m Brian,” he said.
“Annaleah,” I replied.
He asked which way I was walking,
and I pointed in the direction of home.
“I’m going that way too,” he said.
As we walked, we talked.
We were both juniors.
He went to the nearby high school
and I told him that my school
was a few towns over.
We tried to see
if we knew people in common,
but it didn’t work.
Most of my friends
were from school and didn’t live nearby.
Most of his friends
were from the neighborhood.
Before we split to go different directions,
he asked for my phone number.
I couldn’t believe
how easy this was.
Guys in my school acted
like I didn’t exist.
And random guys this cute
never asked for my number.
So I gave it to him.
But he never called.
The next time I saw him
was kind of like the first.
We ran into each other
two weeks later by the bay.
It was only sort of by accident.
After we met,
I started taking walks by the water,
hoping to run into him.
When we talked this time,
it was as easy
as it had been before.
We discovered
that as kids we’d both been obsessed
with Arlene’s, the local candy store,
that had since turned into a travel agency.
I told him, “During the summers when I was little,
I hung out at the pool with my friend Marissa.
We were always wandering around barefoot,
and sometimes, without even realizing,
we’d start walking and end up
at Arlene’s, more than half a mile away.
That place was magnetic.”
“I know. That candy was like crack.
They had everything: Sugar Daddies and Babies,
Charleston Chews, Laffy Taffy, Swedish Fish—”
“And candy lipsticks and cigarettes,
Now ’n’ Laters, Nerds, Fireballs, jawbreakers—”
“The Lemonheads were the best,” he said.
“I was more of a Candy Button girl.”
“Gross. You ate paper,”
he said, giving me a little shove.
I tried to imagine an eight-year-old Brian.
He’d have been scrappy.
Rail thin with scabbed knees.
“Maybe we fought
over the last Laffy Taffy,” I said.
“Maybe…”
This time when we parted,
he promised to call
and he did.
wasn’t much of a date.
Not that Brian ever actually
used the word “date.”
When he finally called,
he asked me to “hang out.”
That afternoon, our conversation
was like an epic road trip—
but with no map to guide us
and all the time in the world
to get where we were going.
We meandered, lost our way,
doubled back.
It was nice not having
any friends in common.
I felt like I could be me
without all the crap
that came with me.
I could just show Brian
the parts of me that I wanted.
So I didn’t mention my dad,
or that my longest relationship
had been for three weeks
in camp to a boy who kissed
like he was searching my mouth
for something he’d lost,
or that even though senior year was looming,
I had only skimmed the college catalogs
my mom had been stacking on my desk.
Instead I said,
“I’m reading
The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath.
But it’s going really slowly.”
“Why?” he asked. “Too boring?”
“No. The opposite.
It’s so amazing that I have to stop
every few pages to read passages twice.”
The topic of crazy people reminded Brian
of the hysterical laughing fits
he has while watching
Family Guy
.
“I can watch that show for hours
without even taking a bathroom break.”
“I’m that way about documentaries—
especially ones about ancient Egypt or the ocean.”
That led us to talking about vacations.
“A few years ago, my mom and I
went to Mexico, and while I was snorkeling,
I got the worst sunburn of my life.
A few days later, my back started peeling.
I looked like a molting reptile or something.”
“That’s freaking disgusting.
But get this: I was at a concert last month
and this huge, tattooed guy
had an iguana on his shoulder.
I almost barfed up my beer.”
“Do you go to concerts a lot?”
The only concert I had ever been to
was the
American Idol
tour a few years ago.
And that was with Marissa and both our moms.
Not something I wanted to brag about.
“Yeah. I try to.
Nothing’s better than leaning against a speaker
and feeling the bass vibrate
through my body.”
Which eventually led him to
“This one night, my friend Peter and I were
at a show in the city and missed the last train home.
So we wandered around the Lower East Side,
bought bread still hot from a bakery oven,
and watched the sun rise up over the East River.
I think it was one of the best nights of my life.”
That afternoon felt like
one of the best days
of my life.
Brian and I went on like that for weeks.
We’d go for walks or hang out
at whoever’s house had no parents.
We’d listen to music,
rarely do homework,
and mostly hook up.
He never drew me again
after that first day at the bay,
and I always wished
he had.