I come up empty.
Of course I come up empty.
Did I throw out everything that would remind me of him—of Zach?
There are so many gaps in my life—missing pieces. There always have been.
And I barely even noticed. How is that possible?
It’s past nine, late enough that I could conceivably go to sleep, but I’m sick of lying awake at night, tossing and turning.
I want answers.
My mother is upstairs in her room, talking to Bruce on the phone, so it doesn’t take much to escape the house unnoticed.
It’s dark out, night creeping in where evening was, and though the roads are icy, I drive faster than I need to.
Without having a particular destination in mind, I wind up at this park my parents used to bring Caleb and me to when we were little. I would hang upside down, pretending to be a bat, and stare up at the sky, which was the brightest shade of blue. I’d stay that way till I felt the blood rushing to my head, and then I’d pull myself right-side up, and even without the pumping and swirling of blood between my ears, there was never a doubt in my mind that I was alive.
The park is completely deserted. I climb out of the car, snow crunching underneath my shoes.
The too-small swing is wet, and I wipe it down with my sleeve. It sinks from my weight when I sit. Instead of actually swinging, I just close my eyes and twist and twist around, the chains that hold up the swing wrapping around themselves.
Eyes closed, I spin and spin and spin until my head feels light and my stomach turns. The air is so cold it makes my ears hurt.
I hum a song with a melody that feels like getting lost, every phrase a new path, and none of them lead back home. Then “Air on the G String,” the piece that I think first made me see the boy. In my mind, in the night of my closed eyes, I imagine that I’m playing it instead of humming. Feel the weight of my viola underneath my jaw. My bow, weightless, as much a part of my body as my own fingers.
Zach.
I don’t need to say it out loud.
I plant my feet on the ground, pulling myself to a stop, though the world continues to spin around me, the park whirling like a merry-go-round, circling me.
On the first turn, I see a red-haired boy with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans.
On the second turn, he grins at me and steals all the night.
On the third turn, I breathe in, adjusting to the still world.
“Are you okay?” he asks as I try to refocus on him.
How are you here? Who are you? Why do I feel this way withyou?
“Zach,” I say out loud this time, slowly, matching his face to the sound of his name, the cadence of the person in front of me.
He smiles at me, his gray eyes wide. “That’s it. That feels like mine.”
I know he can’t really make that call, that it’smymind confirming that the face of this boy I’m seeing fits the name I’ve been given. A flicker, maybe, of my memory.
A wave of loneliness rushes over me then, because there is no Bus Boy. There’s only me and my mind and what it’s been trying to tell me all this time, without finding the words. The details. The facts.
But the air is still warm with his breath, and his eyes catch the moonlight, twinkling at me. He stillfeelsreal to me.
This invisible boy is still here, to me.
Even if he’s a figment of my imagination.
Even if he is a ghost, gone, just like Rory.
