Page 9 of The Significance of Moving On

I choose to go inside Casey’s house where I can sleep the rest of this horrible day away. If the universe allows me to wake up, I’ll try again tomorrow.

On the day he offered me to stay with him we started clearing out the guest room, lugging boxes up into the attic until I finally had an actual bed to sleep on, which I flop down on. Still with my shoes on. Still in my plain black dress slacks Casey rescued from my closet in Tom’s snarling beast of a house. No more old sofa for this girl, not that I’d complained. The very idea that he’s brought in a complete stranger to live with him makes him my best friend for the rest of my life. I just hope he hasn’t any hidden torture rooms or bodies buried out back. There’s no skin suit in his basement waiting to be finished. That might be a deal breaker.Ha!I made a joke. My brother’s dead and I made a joke. I’m a horrible human being.

Morning teased my eyelids open before I even remembered I’d fallen asleep. After seeing the For Sale sign out front of the house left little room for coping, basically I blanked out. The rest of the world could’ve crumbled down around me apocalyptic style—asteroid collision or massive earthquake—and the vegetable state probably would’ve remained constant.

At some point he replaced the bedding. Softness and spring scents try to lure me back under, especially while I tuck the sheet around my chin and ears. But Casey’s out there, and I feel the need to apologize for my little episode.

When I walk into the living room, because the way the house is set up, Casey’s room is the largest and the first you come to right off the front door, then there’s the wall the sofa rests against, and finally the doorway to my smaller room. No hallway—not any in the whole house. All the lights are still off as is the TV. Casey doesn’t usually sleep in this late, but he has been dealing with a whole lot of Chantal drama lately.

If he is asleep, having the entrance to the kitchen right off my room certainly helps as I pad quietly in to get some breakfast. Food actually sounds not horrible this morning. Pulling a bowl from the dish drainer and a clean spoon from the utensil drawer, I wonder, maybe I should learn to cook so Casey doesn’t have to do it all the time. Where he makes pancakes, eggs and bacon, I only excel at cereal and toast. Pathetic for a eighteen-year-old, I know.

Sitting on the middle of the kitchen table, propped up by a platter of sticky buns that I’m not sure how I missed given the fantastic aroma swirling around, he left a note:Off tarring roofstoday. Casey left his cell number with instructions to call if I needANYTHINGand he left a house key. Said he’d be back by dinner.

Sticky buns and a house key? Could this guy be any more perfect? Tom wasn’t even this attentive when I came home for the summers.

I drop into a chair, making sticky finger smudges on my phone screen because no matter how many times I lick my fingers while eating, the sticky sticks. There are seriously at least a hundred unread emails from my friends at school. I should contact them. I need to contact them. But what kind of email is that to greet you on a Thursday morning?

Hey, how’s your summer been going? My brother Tom killed himself and I found the body. Now I’m living with a complete stranger. Oh, and I won’t be returning to school in the fall.

Take care, Al

Really, who’s going to send something like that? But still, these have been my closest friends since sixth grade. I owe them something. Especially Kelsey. God, I can’t even imagine never getting to see my best friend again.Huh, calling Kelsey my best friend feels familiar, but in all the years of our friendship, I can’t remember ever being as raw or as real as I have been in these few weeks with Casey. Calling him my best friend just feels natural.

Without reading any of the other emails—I swear I’ll get to them, just not right now—Kelsey gets a carefully drafted letter explaining why she hasn’t heard from me. After rereading the damn thing like fifteen times deliberating whether to send it or not, because once I hit send, there’s no going back. I’ll be the talk of Edgewood Prep.

What the hell?

Send.

It was an email, right? Not an IM or text? Because maybe a minute after I hit the send key my inbox dings informing me of a new email. From Kelsey. All it says is: I’m coming. Be there tomorrow.

Classic Kelsey.

I should argue. I should tell her just to stay home, but honestly, the thought of recapturing even a smidge of normalcy is just too powerful a thought for my fingers to type out what they really need to type. Instead my betraying digits replythank youand hit send.

So now I’m nervous. How will Casey react? He’s been good about everything. How much more is he willing to give? I should clean or something, to show how grateful I am for his kindness, then maybe he won’t regret his decision to take in the stray. In the back pantry off the kitchen is where he keeps the vacuum and Lysol wipes. Casey had already cleaned the trash dump’s worth of pizza boxes within the first couple of days after Tom. I’m not sure of the exact day because I just didn’t get up for a while.

Secretly, I love vacuuming. It’s that electric smell—that hit of ozone when it first powers up—and the calming Zen quality of the constant hum, the rocking back and forth—push pull, push pull. It’s stupid, but these little pieces of normal, these normal moments are what I crave more than anything.

So despite having to tell Kelsey and being Casey’s lost puppy, I actually feel okay right now, even though I’m alone. Okay enough to finish vacuuming. Okay enough to dust. Okay enough to tackle my bedroom, I mean this bedroom.

He’d retrieved my suitcases from Tom’s house, but I just didn’t have the heart to unpack. Unpacking makes this whole situation too real, feels so permanent. But today, maybe it’s the house key or maybe it’s Kelsey, but today just feels right.

Chapter Five

My bedroom has a small cedar-lined closet just big enough for my blousy tops and maybe a dress or two if I should want to indulge at some point. Cedar’s another smell I just love, cozy, homey, welcoming.

The rest—pants, shorts and unmentionables—get folded ready to be put away in the seen-better-days, peeling-walnut-veneered dresser next to the closet.

Unfortunately, the dresser isn’t empty but full of papers, like the personal kind. And photos. Little Casey’s beautiful blue eyes look pained even then. The one that stands out the most, the one I can’t seem to put down is of four shirtless young boys, arms linked around each other’s shoulders, cut off jean shorts, green grass and sprinklers in the background. One of the boys is black, one looks mixed race of some sort. Those boys flank the ends. Casey has the same face as now. It’s not hard to pick him out, but the little boy directly to his left, although about two inches taller with hair much darker, has those same beautiful, pained, blue eyes. They look too alike not to be brothers. Casey’s missing his two front teeth. I’m not crying, but stupid tears do sting the ridges of my eyes because I’m almost jealous from how happy they look. Of how much fun they seem to be having. Why can’t the reality of life be like this picture?

There’s an empty plastic bin sitting at the bottom of my tiny closet. I pull it out and begin carefully placing his pictures and important papers inside. The last paper I pull out is still tucked safely in its envelope. I haven’t read any of the papers this whole time, not my business. But this envelope, this envelope’s return address is the county coroners. My head pleads with my fingers to just drop it in the bin like a good girl and put my stuff away. My fingers though, they give my head a dirty look and do what they want to do anyway, pulling the paper out and unfolding it. Lucas Davenport. The name on the document is Lucas Davenport. Age seventeen. It’s dated six years ago, that would’ve put Casey at, I’m guessing, fifteen? Cause of death: Suicide.Suicide.Suicide.

The words jump out at me,suicide by strangulation. So, like, he hanged himself? I want to crumble the paper or rip it apart or better yet, burn it, anything to make the words go away, to erase them from this house, to erase that kind of searing pain that can only come from this kind of loss, this kind of betrayal. But I don’t do any of those things. Instead I carefully fold the paper, replacing it neatly back inside the envelope, and the envelope inside the bin. Now I understand why he took in the stray puppy. That beautiful little boy with the even darker hair and beautiful, pained blue eyes took his own life.

Dammit if I don’t start crying to full-on ugly cry. I hate being emotional all the time. Will I ever feel normal again? Real tears spill down over my lashes, real sadness breaks my heart even wider open than it’s been. I don’t want to call Casey, but Ihave to,need tocall. Not for me, or, notonlyfor me, but for that little boy missing his two front teeth who’d lost a chunk of his world, same as me. Cell phone in hand, I run into the kitchen and dial his number.

“Hello?” He answers on the second ring. “Tally?Is that you? Is everything okay?”

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