My room was simple. Hardwood floors, windows dressed in fluttering white curtains with an eyelet trim, and a bed draped in my blue striped duvet set up against one wall that I hoisted my suitcase onto.
Behind me came the scrape of cardboard against cardboard. I whirled to find Wes opening the box he’d carried in.
“What are you doing?” I asked, swiftly moving toward him and shutting the flaps of the box full of CDs and rolled up posters.
“Helping you unpack?”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Hear you loud and clear.” He backed up, hands raised in surrender, crooked smile on his lips, as he stepped out my open bedroom door.
I sighed in relief, finally alone.
George and Dad’s laughter echoed down the hall as I opened the box again. Inside was my collection of CDs. iPods were starting to get popular, but I preferred my Discman. I liked the act of flicking through crystalline cases to select an album andlistening to it all the way through. I wasn’t a person who craved individual songs.
I wanted the full story. No shuffling. No skips.
Sitting on the floor, I started to pull out CDs, greeting them like old friends. The Eagles. Bowie. Dolly Parton.
Dolly was the perfect option. I was in Tennessee, after all. I slottedJoleneinto place, popped in my earbuds, and pressed play, welcoming the sounds of the title track.
After only thirty seconds of escape, my door pushed open, revealing Wes holding two paper plates with pizza.
“Your dad said you liked pepperoni. It was cold, so I popped it in the microwave for a minute,” he said, holding out a grease-stained paper plate, waiting for me to grab it. After a moment he nodded and set it next to me.
“Why is one pepperoni missing?” I asked, finally removing my headphones.
His fingers dipped to his plate holding up a red circle. “It’s the delivery fee.”
“You should have just gotten your own.”
“I don’t like pepperoni enough for a whole slice, so this is perfect.” He tossed it into his mouth, then bent to inspect my now open box. “Holy shit! You must have a hundred of these.”
“Just because our parents are friends doesn’t mean you have to pretend to care. We’ll be gone in a few months anyway,” I said.
Settle in. Soak up a new place. Move. Rinse and repeat. It was our routine. Making friends wasn’t something I did. I had learned that getting attached meant pen pal relationships that would fizzle out or promises that were impossible to keep. It meant being forgotten, while I remembered.
Caper and Wes were destined to be nothing more than an insignificant blip.
“Wow, you’re really fun, aren’t you?” His smile deepened, causing a single dimple to pop over the right corner of hismouth. “But don’t worry, by the time you leave I’m going to make sure I’m someone you’ll never forget.”
4
Wesley
August 2024
Iwake up on top of the sheets I never bothered to crawl under, my clothes wrinkled and stale from last night. A hangover hammers through my skull. I try to scrub the sleep from my eyes, but grunt in pain as I press into the raw skin of my bruise.
The sobering shock of pain causes the events of last night to flood my mind.
Avery.
I force myself to my feet and stumble into the living room to check that it actually happened and wasn’t a nightmare I’d woken up from. Sure enough, the papers waiting for me, untouched, on the coffee table make me wish it was a dream.
Avery was here to tell me she wants a damn divorce.
My phone lights up from where I abandoned it last night on a side table. I grab it, desperate for a distraction, to find a series of missed texts from my manager.
