All The Shadows We Made

Chapter 32 - April - Maggie

April

Maggie

I don't know how long I've been walking. It could be fifteen minutes, it could be a million years. I barely know where I am. I've walked these streets every day since I was off to my first day of kindergarten, and I know every stop sign and every sidewalk crack, but my eyes slide past everything and nothing registers. Is that a house? A trailer? An apartment building? Who knows? Who cares?

The only thing that matters is that he's gone. Mickey's gone and he's never coming back. And I have no idea what I'll do without him.

I end up behind McDonalds. The bench is still there, the smell of old cigarettes and fast food is still the same, and it makes me so angry I want to scream. Here, right here, is where he asked me if I had a light. Here is where we'd stand under the stars with one of his arms holding me close, the scent of Old Spice making the other smells bearable, and we'd dream of everywhere we could be instead of where we were. Inside this building is where he wrote his number on a receipt and changed my life. How dare it all still be here when he's not?

I hear footsteps crunching up behind me on the gravel. They're heavy, weight of the world dragging them down heavy, and I know who it is without even turning around. I'm not sure how he found out so quickly, or how he found me, but his steps sound like I feel. Part of me is glad that Jamie's here, but that part is small and weak. Most of me just wants him to go away, wants everyone to go away forever. That's what I want to do right now. Just go away. Even turning around feels like too much effort.

I slide myself down onto the bench and stare at the dark outlines of cigarette butts and the crumpled double cheeseburger wrapper by my feet. The bench creaks a little as Jamie settles onto the other end. A cigarette pack crinkles as he removes it from one pocket and I hear his Zippo ding open and the little whoosh as the flame catches. The smell of smoke as it drifts over to me on the breeze breaks my heart all over again. Mickey would wait for me here, sitting just where Jamie is now, and that smell was always with him because he chain-smoked until it was time to take me home.

He'll never take me home again.

I don't even know where home is anymore.

I didn't realize I'd said the last bit out loud until Jamie's hand covers mine. I don't remove it. It's not a sexual thing, not a come on or anything stupid like that. I know that without looking at him. It occurs to me that maybe Jamie feels the same way. Maybe Mickey was other people's home, the same as he was mine.

We sit there long enough that the motion detector lights go out. Neither of us seem to care. Jamie smokes and I stare at the stars that now seem so far away. Both engulfed in our own little worlds of pain, with no way to bridge the gap in between.

I don't think I want to, anyway. It's better this way, isn't it? I'll never be able to feel this way again if I'm all alone.

You know that's not true, baby, the little voice says, but it doesn't sound like the usual little voice that tells me I'm wrong and calls me on my shit. This one is deeper and louder and sounds like the boy who just earlier today told me how much he loves me. Loved me. You need them now.

Them? I reply. What them?

But I know what he means, and I can see him in my mind's eye, shaking his head and then fixing me with that deep green stare. You gotta make your amends, love, the voice says.

I don't want to, I tell it, tell him, but the voice doesn't say anything else. It doesn't have to. We both know that's a lie.

Jamie clears his throat and I turn to look at him for the first time since he got here. He has a question on his face he's afraid to say out loud. I wonder if he has a Mickey voice, too.

"She doesn't know," I say. Jamie nods. "She has to know. We have to tell her."

Jamie doesn't ask me who "her" is, and he doesn't argue. He just crushes the butt of his last cigarette with the heel of his boot. I see the outline of a bottle in his pocket. "Do you have your cell?," he asks, and I shake my head.

He gets up and heads off towards his house without waiting to see if I'm following. "We'll go get mine."

For a minute I almost don't follow him. The urge to stay right where I am, to not change anything else, to not communicate, is so strong that even though it was my idea, I want to call Jamie back, tell him I was wrong, tell him we don't have to do it.

But then I think of all those times when Kat was the only one I had, and how she stood by me when no one else even cared if I was alive, and I know I can't let her find out any other way. I just can't.

So I drag myself off the bench and match Jamie's footsteps beat for beat until we reach his front door. His dad's truck is parked on the grass.

"Wait here," he says, and I nod, even though it doesn't make any sense why I can't come in, and I sit down on his porch steps and feel the chill from the concrete seep into me until he returns, cell phone in hand. "Sorry," he says, handing it to me. He nods toward the truck. "Wasn't sure how my dad would be."

I nod again, because some part of my brain registers that that does make sense now, and then stare at the phone. You'd think I'd never seen one before. Eventually, I dial in the only number I've known by heart since eighth grade. It turns out I could have just typed in her name. All this time and Jamie hasn't deleted her number. It rings and the sound is so loud that I jump and almost drop the phone. Jamie's hand lands on my shoulder, warm and yet weirdly clammy, too. I realize he hasn't spoken to Kat in nearly three months.

It rings once, twice, three times, and I'm suddenly terrified that I won't be able to get ahold of Kat after all, that Charlotte will just let the phone ring and ring and ring because she knows it's me. For some reason that thought makes me want to cry. The ambulance didn't, Chuck's voice didn't, but that single thought is enough to bring a burning to my eyes. I swallow down the big lump that has appeared in my throat. Just the thought that maybe I can't tell Kat, that Charlotte might try to stop me, has suddenly made this the most important thing I can do.

There's silence on the other end, and then I hear one simple sentence that makes the lump grow so big I can barely breathe.

"What did he do, Maggie?" Kat asks, and I have no idea how she knew it was me and not Jamie or how she knew something happened to Mickey, and I find that I don't care. All that matters is that Mickey was right after all. I need my friends. I need Kat. I need her more than I ever have in my life.

"Kat, he did it. He's gone," I say. And then I start to sob.