How Does That Make You Feel?

I remember meeting you. I was nervous in my own way, but I didn’t really show it. My mother told me to go out and make a friend, and so I did. The grownups were talking, but they were so far away from my tiny head they might as well have been on a different plane of existence. I focused my attention on you, who focused your attention on me and subsequently hid behind your mother. You were shy, was I supposed to be shy? Would I be more approachable if I ducked my head and hid my body, glancing out slightly to show interest, but portraying an abundance of caution? My mother was rather shocked when I hid behind her as well. I never really thought about it much, but it was then when I realized I was an outgoing child, so I stepped away from my mother and offered you my hand.

It’s been so long, most of that memory is probably as good as false, twisted with so many afterthoughts from looking back so often, but I like to believe the main truth of it is that when I met you, I knew myself as much as I knew you. We were fast friends, but so are most friends of such convenience. I bothered to be there when other people found you too different. Because your skin was darker in a white neighborhood surrounded by kids who’s mothers still hung the sun, you were alone and I found solace in someone who wore their loneliness on the outside.

I remember going to your house and being introduced to a colorful culture and new food that felt a lot like a home should be. You wore gems on your forehead and showed me how to wear one too as we ran around ignoring everyone but ourselves because in a house full of two large families made up of a lot of people made mostly of legs, it was easy to see yourselves as the only people in existence. Later, we covered our flaws with stickers and gems, but despite the amount of things on our face, it didn’t make it feel any better than having that one little gem on my forehead.

I will doubt to the day I die that my little mind was awed by the ease in which you shared my culture and in such a nonjudgmental fashion. I hadn’t yet been introduced to the thought that cultures must stay within their people, or the notion that cultures could be used for personal gain. I believe I was just in awe that you would share this part of you with me, who looked so different than you. I knew our differences strongly, I was reminded of them when I went over to the toy box and was barred entry because I was friends with the girl who cried every time her mom left the preschool. The teacher handed me toys instead, but they were heavier in my hands than I remembered.

I remember looking at you and realizing your eyebrows were longer than other people’s. I would look for that trait on other people afterwards. When I was introduced to the word monobrow as an insult, an undesired trait, I felt like I had been lied to. I consider it my first sin against you, the moment I let someone else decide if you were beautiful. I remember the teacher standing up to you, but I no longer know if it’s a real memory or if I made it up to give you a savior when I couldn’t be one.

When we were older, we drifted, but never very far. We went to different schools, but came home together. I would wait for your bus and you would wait for mine, and if we were lucky, they came around the same time. It was an upsetting day when they fixed that scheduling error. We had a swing set at the church near our house, and when our parents weren’t looking we would escape through the broken fences separating the sister path from our street and swing for as long as time allowed. We were caught more often and not and scolded individually, but it was okay because for those small moments we felt free.

Then we grew up, and I started going to the swing set alone. Your new school had a very different schedule than mine, which I only learned after I had waited for you one day and you never came. I remembered loneliness that day.

Then you moved away, and we only saw each other once a year, until we no longer saw each other anymore. To be honest, I don’t even know if you live in the same house you did the last time I saw you. If I ever send this, it might still be in vain. Who am I kidding? I would never send this; I’d never send any of these. I can’t even burn them like I’m supposed to for the tiny shred of hope that sending these would somehow make everything better. As if having all my fears and flaws in the open would be a good thing.

I miss you,

James Williams

“He caught me just in time, my parents are moving in a month and I’ll be going off to college after the summer.” She said, sitting on her bed twisting her hair into a clean bun with obvious skill. “There’s nothing in here that leaves any clue, unless maybe he left something by the swing set?” I muttered, more to myself than to her. “We could check,” she shrugged. “We? Aren’t you in the middle of packing and weren’t you very certain your boyfriend would bury me at a crossroads if I was caught anywhere near you?” I reminded a bit harshly. “That was before I knew Jamie was missing. I don’t remember a lot from our childhood, but I remember he always cared. I never felt alone with him,” She swung her feet around the foot of her bed uncomfortably before hopping up and grabbing a bag somewhere off to the other side of her bed, “If what you told me is true, it’s likely he ran off somewhere, but I don’t think he would have gone far; he must still be in Kingstree.” I stared her down, but I could tell there was no stopping her.

“Fine, I’ll let you tag along, but you’ve gotta give me a good reason. It’s been years since you’ve last seen James and you said yourself, you barely remember him,” I point out. She looked me up and down, really taking me in with a gaze like this was the last few seconds of a job interview and she was already deciding I wasn’t what the company needed. “I follow him on Instagram and Tumblr, he never knew and I never really made any effort to talk to him, I just wanted to figure out what he was doing and how his life was going. His last few posts on his sideblog made me worry for him, but I was so far removed from his life and everything, I didn’t do anything. I was scared that if I contacted him, he’s realize it was me and think I was stalking him or something and I’d lose my little window into his world. Maybe if I talked to him, he wouldn’t have run off. I’m worried about him, I got the feeling there was something even darker going on in his mind, I’m pretty good at reading people you see, and I fear that he’s making a really bad choice right now.” I nodded in melancholy understanding, “the way it sounds he made more notes. Maybe he’s sending them as a last ditch cry for help. If we bring this note to the authorities they could track it somehow, or maybe any more that come in.” “Isn’t that like, disrespectful to James? This is obviously extremely private shit; I only showed it to you because I know you guys are close. What if he’s just wanting someone to find him?” She asked rather accusingly. I could see her point, plus James had some bad experiences with people calling the authorities over his mental health as a way to get him trouble. It wouldn’t help if we find him, only for him to think one of the two people he went to for help turned away from him. It would be a betrayal in his eyes, which is a look I wanted to forget. I nodded, “you’re right, let’s do some digging first, but if at any point, it looks like his life is in danger, I’m sending you home and calling the police.” “Sounds good to me,” she held out her hand and we shook on it, “I have to let my parents know I’ll be heading out for a while, I’ll meet you in the car.” “Okay, we can grab lunch on the way back,” I said, as we headed out of her room and down the stairs. She yelled a few things in a language I didn’t understand, nor recognize, before giving me a thumbs up, “Mom’s giving us snacks for the road to. Knowing her portions, we wont even have to stop somewhere.” “Awesome,” I returned her thumbs up with equal enthusiasm.

My car was going to smell like Indian food for at least a week, but I wasn’t complaining. Apparently “snacks” meant full on meals in little takeout containers and everything. Mrs. Khatri had even given me a bottle of something definitely alcoholic to give to my parents, though with the wink Namya gave me, I doubted it would make it to them. We drove the first half hour in silence, until Namya pointed out a sign for a garden centre.

“I remember James always thought it was a travesty that all our houseplants in the old house were fake. We would replant weeds in drinking cups and leave them around my house as a poor mans solution. Finally, my dad took us to the grocery store and bought us one of those small little plants they would have outside sometimes. We replanted it in a cute little pot and set it by the windowsill. It was our little baby and we named it George. The problem with having two little kids look after one plant is that both of us would water it, so eventually poor little George drowned. I had forgotten all about that until now, it crushed James so much that he devoted all his free time to learning or telling me about how to care for plants. He became such a nature boy, it was adorable.” I thought back to the few times I had been into James’ house, “his room was always filled with herbs and decorative plants, he never grew out of it. One time, I came in and found him talking to his plants. I poked fun at him for it, but it was cool to see how much he cared for them, you never really saw that side of him much.” She nodded, imagining the scene for herself, “It definitely sounds like him. One of the only times I saw him cry was when George died.” I didn’t respond; I felt like adding my two cents would ruin the memory, so we sat there in silence, my eyes glues to the road as hers wandered to other car windows and various signs along the road. It was an awkward silence, not very comfortable at all. Tracking your missing friend with dubious notes and no return address will do that to you. Any silence pervades with the fact that there was someone missing in our lives right now.

James hadn’t been to school in a while, his blog moved at a snails pace associated with his miserable queue, and the only update to his other social media ran from the app he had running that would tattle on whoever unfollowed him every few weeks. I rode over to his house to check on him after his last message he sent, I didn’t really believe the rumours that he had disappeared until I was met with his mother’s face at the door, hoping her son had come home.

“What would you do if I was gone?”

The question was sent out on the third week of his disappearance. Everyone in the school got the message, even people who didn’t have his number. It was revealed someone hacked the school’s database, which turned a small disappearance into the talk of the town overnight. The detective assigned to the case did jack shit though; he was old, too old to be still working in the police force for anything more than antique interior decoration. To him, this was a case of a cry for attention by a boy with a troubled past who was just running from the future.

A week later I had gotten a message from a Xnamyabusiness0. The letter Namya received came in the mail a few days after the text message was sent out. The return address was missing, and our shit job at fingerprinting brought up nothing. We tested for any writing indentions not part of the original letter; you know the thing you see in movies where they scratch the paper to reveal a previous note? All we found were the faint traces of a math problem from our calculus homework. For someone thinking about a criminal justice career, it really wasn’t looking up for me. Then and only then, did I read the letter. It felt like I was invading a very personal space made only of a memory. The writing reminded me of the wispy moods that sometimes overcame James late at night.

“It’s funny, how the only happily ever after is death. It’s the only end you get. Characters get finality to their lives. Finding The One ends up completing them in ways only found in fiction, slaying the demon actually sucks away all the evil they faced, its really not fair. Any imagined ever after’s end with an end, which is more than we could ever dream of getting before our final breath. Sure, one assumes the characters face the hardships of life, but they always go back to that state of ever after. They get their happy ending, while we barely get an illusion of it. It’s not fair.”

James told me that after we had escaped one of Tristan’s parties. I don’t know what brought it on either, considering it was a bit out of character even for James. The moon had been at it’s fullest that night, so the night was slightly more illuminated. We could never see the stars very well, but on the roof of Tristan’s three-story nightmare house, we had felt like we could see for ages. It was like touching the sky, as sappy and poetic as it sounded. Then again, two drunken teenagers on the roof of a probably haunted house looking at an empty night is kind of begging for one of us to start waxing poetic.

I remember the clawing at my chest coming back with a passion. It only ever happened around James and high places, and right then I was faced with both. I used to say it was because I was scared of both, but I only ever half believed myself. Most of the time, I was scared for James. He wore his heart on his sleeve, but fought tooth and nail to keep people away from it. I drew a heart on his arm once, right where I imagined it would be. Then I turned it into one of those “I Love My Mom” tough guy sailor tattoos and never talked about it again. He laughed and posted it on instagram, immortalizing the last time I’d seen him.

“We’re almost there. I remember this road, take a left,” Namya spoke up quietly. I had almost forgotten she was a passenger, getting lost in the endless road. “Pass the river and down this road a little while and you’re there.” I nodded; James had taken me to the swings once after a particularly bad bout. I never went without him, considering it very much his territory despite the park being public. He told me about breaking fences and how his sister found every hole big enough to crawl though a fairy portal. He told me how sometimes he tried to believe her. On the way back he crawled through the hole from a newly broken fence while I just jumped it expertly.

I pulled into the parking lot rather harshly, parking with the same force. Namya didn’t seem to mind, too busy searching for her phone in between the seats. We walked along the parking lot, empty besides my lone little vehicle. The sun was threatening to fall, but it would be hours until the first signs of dusk actually hit. Namya immediately jumped into one of the swings and smiled at the sky, kicking off widely and just allowing herself to remember. It was a bit too manic pixie for my liking, but I joined her anyway. I kicked off softly and didn’t swing very hard. Mostly, I was searching for clues. The rubble used to line the play area had long since become obsolete in favour of overgrown weeds hardly ever cut down. A few grew through the planks on a picnic table, which I made a mental note to check out later.

“This reminds me of so much I thought I had forgotten!” Namya laughed beside me, full on belly laughter. “Always makes me confused, being here. Everything James did with me had a backstory, but I never knew much about the one he shared with you, and I’ve been here a lot. He always had a different story every time, never the one about you,” I confided slowly. I was beginning to think our search would be in vain, the ghosts of the past that stood here not showing me any more than their memories. Namya fell silent, and I had the annoying suspicion I might have hurt her feelings. “We should start looking for clues,” Namya spoke after her swing slowed. Mine had been halted for a while, so I jumped off as she did. “Check the things you remember,” I instructed, “I’ll do the same.”

That’s what let me to the broken and probably infested picnic tables. The weeds growing through it were a harsh reminder of colour against the muddy brown of the tables. I plucked a flower from one and turned it over in my hands. James would always give me a look when I picked flowers. It was something to do with my hands while James and I talked. I picked flowers, pulled leaves, tore grass and basically made it my duty to wreck any natural fauna that made the mistake of growing near my general vicinity. James hated it, especially when he began to pick up the grass tearing habit. Really, when you’re sitting in the grass talking about life and feelings on the threshold of a fairy portal, you’ve got to tear up something or you’ll get your man card revoked. It’s in the rulebook, page 37. James had laughed when I told him this, but his eyes wandered in questionable contemplation as he fell silent. We had just sat in the company of two leaning trees, two trees I stood under right now. On one side, you overlooked a graveyard; the ground warped in the way you only ever see in the presence of buried bodies. Turn around and you saw the church almost hiding the playground, the large steeple touching the sky. It was the “Threshold of Life and Death,” James had said one day, just out of the blue.

“Did he ever take you down the path?” I called to Namya, who was standing in front of a shed, probably contemplating breaking and entering. “A few times, though we frequented the swings more than anything,” she called back. “I’m going to head that way,” I called, heading off down the path, not waiting for Namya. I couldn’t hear her footsteps, meaning she wasn’t following me. I didn’t want her to anyway. I winced, hearing my mother in my mind scold me for leaving a girl alone out in such a wide empty place where anything could happen while I had my back turned. It got to me enough that I turned back and tossed her my keys, “Just in case.” I went to walk away again, freezing for a second time to call, “please don’t steal my car,” as if that would stop her if she really wanted to. I doubted it was any plan of hers, but I wouldn’t put it past her considering I came back to find her trying to kick down the door to the shed. I guess I kind of did put it past her though, fuck.

The road curved down to an older graveyard past Tristan’s house and past the dusty path to an old pool that hasn’t been used in decades. It was a bit of a walk, but I jogged so it was okay. I contemplated going both ways, but something seemed to stop me from following the old pool path, a memory threatening to break free of its chains. I shook it away and followed the graveyard path, whistling a tune along the way. You would never catch me admitting it to anyone else, but it made me feel safer. When you walk down the graveyard road, you could almost swear you could hear the sounds of a large deer. Turn too quickly, and a web of antlers appear just out of sight, always behind you, leading you through the spirits that clung to the trees. When the wind picked up, you heard their whispers and dismissed it as coincidence when it starts sounding eerily like a name you hadn’t heard in a while. It was almost religious to take a walk down the graveyard path.

This time though, looking over my shoulders I could almost swear there was a familiar red jacket out of the corner of my eye. My breath caught in my chest as the whispering began. I ran the rest of way, ran from the ghost of a friend that couldn’t be dead. “James!” I yelled, almost desperately. I stood in the cul-de-sac clearing looking out among the graves. With my struggling breath and fearful mind, I could have sworn every single grave said James. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, it’s all just pretend, there’s no way James could be dead. James would never leave me like that, not with such finality. The familiar engine of my car and the rolling of cautious tire tracks took me out of my misery.

“Jesus Noah, with a yell like that I expected to come down here to a dead body,” Namya joked in bad taste. I could tell she immediately regretted her statement after she said it. She got out of my car and came to join me in awkwardly standing in the cul-de-sac clearing looking out among the graves. None of the graves said James; it was something James always found almost insulting. My name was in the graves, in the form of a Noah Campbell who served in World War II.

“He’s not dead,” She said solemnly. I chose to believe it, because what else would I have left if I didn’t? This wasn’t just an Oliver Jackson, sitting in the back of class bleeding from his wrists under scary amounts of gauze and tape. No, this was James, James Williams. James Williams has always been a broken man, but the one thing he never did was make a move on his own life. James Williams was a survivor; he was physically incapable of killing himself.

“You stole my car,” I said accusingly, as we stared out into the silent graveyard. “In my defense, I thought one of you might be in trouble.” She didn’t say he could be dead this time. Good. “Give me my keys back,” I sighed, holding out my hand. She pouted playfully, jingling them in the air before tossing them easily. I didn’t catch them though; they flew right by my hand. I rolled my eyes as Namya giggled incessantly, bending over to pick them up in a wide sweeping motion. I was about to turn us around and into the car when something unusual caught my eye. The wood planks that had once been a bench were sitting upright leaning against a tree. I hadn’t even noticed they hadn’t been on the ground, too caught up in my own world. It was weird, considering moving those planks were rather dangerous given how old and large they were. If it breaks, it’s taking you with it. I didn’t bother pointing it out to Namya, who was following my eyes looking for what unusual thing I could be staring at. I walked over, following the marks in the gravel where they must have been dragged. Right at the foot of the largest piece of wood was a notebook I had only seen once, but recognized instantly. I saw a page of it once, on one of the worse days where James couldn’t even speak. He had pulled the orange monstrosity out and we had communicated though pen and paper as he fought away the heavy burden. I look back on that panic filled moment and think of it as the simpler days now.

Pulling the poor book out of its hiding spot and dusting it off, I noticed a lot I hadn’t before. There was a layer of sharpied words and drawings all already conveying a broken mind, but with the dirt settling in the grooves and marks of the cover, I realized there was a second layer. Etched into the cover was a poem I recognized, one of the classics.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

It was one of those common poems, ones everyone quotes on some occasion but no one really knows the whole thing. I never knew it had any significance for James, I didn’t know he was into poetry at all.

“That’s the present I gave him before going away! I thought that maybe we could write to each other, I used to have one just like it, though with less scribbles on the cover. It was a last minute gift, we never actually ended up writing to each other,” Namya popped up over my shoulder. I opened the book slowly, already guessing what would be in it. I could hear a small strangled noise of surprise from Namya behind me as I uncovered pages and pages of writing, all to many different people. I flipped through it quickly, seeing notes from different ages, with so much variance between them. Some were written backwards, some were written in a crosshatch pattern while others were small and stiff in the middle of the page. Some were everywhere, leaving barely any room for the white of the paper and others had nothing but a few words and countless teardrops.

“It feels sacred, should you be touching it?” Namya reproached. I flipped back to the front page, where there was a list of people deemed worthy of opening of this book. “I have permission, right at the top next to Isaac. You’re not on it, sorry. You’re right though, this is basically a diary,” I mused, carefully shutting the book and tucking it at my side as the wind picked up again. “For the sake of finding him I’m going to look at it, but later. He obviously left it here right before he left, right? This is our clue,” I couldn’t stop a bit of excitement from seeping into my voice. There’s really a clue, he does mean for us to find him. He couldn’t be dead then.