You Are Not Here Read online

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.

  Idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis.

  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?

  I wonder

  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.

  Brian and I met

  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.

  Our first date

  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 ha
ving

  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.

  At home, I can’t stop

  looking in the mirror

  at the circles under my green eyes,

  the splotchy skin, matted curly hair.

  Today is definitely not

  a day for mascara.

  It’s not even a day

  that I should be thinking

  about my face

  or what I am going to wear.

  I look in the mirror again

  and think, Brian

  will never cry again

  or have red eyes.

  He will never laugh

  or kiss

  me again.

  We had our first kiss

  on the sidewalk

  in front of my house.

  As Brian leaned in,

  things disappeared

  one by one.

  The trees.

  The houses.

  The cars.

  The sidewalk.

  Gone.

  There was just

  my breath

  and his.

  His lips

  on mine.

  I’ve never been to a funeral,

  unless you count all the times

  I buried pet hamsters

  or baby birds that had fallen

  from their nests.

  But I’ve been visiting this cemetery

  since I was little.

  I don’t know how old it is,

  but the oldest date legible

  on the gravestones is 1831.

  Some stones are so old

  that I can’t read the writing—

  time has rubbed them clean.

  I like running my hands over those,

  and wondering

  what they once said.

  But it’s different

  when I see gravestones for babies

  that had barely lived.

  When I see those,

  I can’t stop thinking

  about how tiny and light

  the caskets must have been

  or how their mothers must have sounded

  as they watched those caskets

  disappear beneath the earth.

  It’s getting late.

  I need to take a shower

  and get dressed.

  The shower is a good place to hide.

  You can’t hear the phone ring in there

  or see that you have seven new texts

  and four new voicemails.

  Your friends cannot ask how you are.

  They cannot look at you

  with their pity faces.

  They cannot hear you cry.

  No one can see your tears,

  not even you.

  Brian is the only person

  that I’ve ever taken a shower with.

  It hadn’t occurred to me

  how different it would be

  from being naked while lying down.

  In the shower, the lights are on,

  your makeup is running off,

  your hair is flat against your head.

  There is nowhere

  and nothing

  to hide.

  After a few minutes,

  I got over it

  and we took turns under the showerhead,

  splashed water at each other,

  and washed each other’s backs.

  It reminded me of being a kid at the pool—

  the playfulness, the games,

  the water in my eyes

  making everything blurry.

  When Brian looked at me

  and said, “Turn around,”

  I did, but I was wrong

  about what he wanted to do.

  I could feel his mostly hairless chest,

  warm against the back of my shoulders,

  as I waited

  for something to happen.

  I was surprised to hear the sound

  of shampoo squirting out of the bottle

  and to feel a cold blob of it

  landing on my head.

  I turned around and gave Brian a squinty look.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  I asked playfully.

  “Turn around,” he said with a smile.

  How could something I do

  almost every day without thinking

  be so amazing

  when someone else did it for me?

  “That feels nice,” I said

  as he massaged my scalp

  and lathered the shampoo

  through the tangle of dark hair

  that fell to the middle of my back.

  “Lean your head into me,” he said

  as he guided my head under the water

  and rinsed off the shampoo,

  being careful

 
; not to get soap in my eyes.

  Next he put in the conditioner

  and combed it through with his fingers.

  He rinsed my hair again, then wrung it out.

  He did this

  without saying

  a single word.

  But I didn’t need any.

  I understood his silence.

  After my shower,

  I start to get dressed for the funeral.

  I know I’m supposed to wear black,

  but that seems too ordinary.

  Everyone will be wearing black

  and I

  am not

  everyone.

  I start with underwear.

  I open my drawer and see

  the light blue ones with bumblebees.

  I smile.

  Brian liked those.

  That was one of our jokes.

  The first time we really hooked up,

  he was wearing boxers

  with lobsters on them.

  The second time,

  he had on ones with polar bears.

  I couldn’t stop laughing

  because I thought he only wore

  boxers with animals on them.

  He swore it was a coincidence

  and that those were his only two,

  but I always made fun of him for it.

  I look in my closet

  and settle on wearing

  a dark purple skirt, a black shirt,

  and the bumblebee underwear.

  Marissa is waiting for me

  in front of my house

  so we can walk

  to the funeral together.

  She’s way more freckled from the sun

  than the last time I saw her.

  She is wearing a black skirt,

  black shirt, and sporty silver sandals.

  Her thick, straight, blond hair

  is pulled into a simple ponytail.

  I bet she didn’t have to think

  about what to wear.

  She’s a pro.

  Both her grandmothers died last year.

  I push open the screen door

  and walk outside.

  Marissa has been meeting me

  at my front door

  since we were little.

  But never

  for something like this.

  “Annaleah…

  are you ready?” she asks.

  I hang my head down,