“I know. I mean I understand,” he says, and I start shaking my head and he says, “No really, I get it and it’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? I’ll see you…”
I press my lips together and nod.
“It’s okay,” he repeats. He grabs my hand and forces a smile at me. “Eddie, seriously. It’s okay. Nothing has to be different.”
I nod again, and then I stay there, under the streetlight, and watch him go.
I think Milo is becoming the biggest liar I know.
It’s hard to sleep. It eventually happens and when I wake up again it’s late, close to evening late. An entire day passed me by and I’m tired. I am still so tired.
My phone buzzes on my nightstand and I answer it without looking at the number because I’m sure—so sure—it’s him.
“Milo?”
“No.” My heart stops at the voice, the familiarity. I shiver; someone walking over my grave. A memory of a different kiss drifts into my head. “Will you meet me?”
Culler.
We decide to meet at Chester’s.
When I ask him what time, he tells me he’s ten minutes away and my stomach flips, nervous, excited. I was in bed, sleeping, and he was making his way to me that whole time.
That’s amazing.
I change into jeans and a hoodie, even though it’s too hot for a hoodie. Now I need an exit strategy. Mom and Beth are downstairs. The sun is dipping into the horizon and neither of them has seen me all day. Neither of them has come for me. I’m afraid I’ll never forgive my mother for all the times she didn’t come for me. But whatever.
I don’t need to think about that now.
I go out the window and sneak away with my bike and more time slips by and I’m afraid he’ll leave before I get there, but that’s stupid. He came out all this way to see me.
I love that thought. It pushes every thought of Milo out of my head.
My heart beats funny when I get to Chester’s. The place is busier than I’ve ever seen it and Culler’s station wagon is parked at the far end of the lot. He’s not in it, though. I wipe my palms on my jeans. I just want to be cool. Basically.
When I step inside, I’m met with a blast of cold air. Santo and Johnny’s “Sleep Walk” is playing through the speakers and it’s like I’ve walked into a movie or something. I spot Culler at the back of the room. He waves me over and I cut a path to him through the din of farmers eating and talking, imagining I can feel all of their eyes on me as I do.
“Who’s Milo?” Culler asks as I sit across from him. He has a sloppy-looking canvas bag next to him. “Boyfriend?” Before I can answer, he says, “I hope you don’t mind, but I ordered for you…”
I don’t know which question to answer first, so instead I end up mumbling, “I’m sorry if I kept you waiting…”
“I didn’t give you a lot of notice.” He gestures to my face. “New haircut.”
My face turns red. “Yeah.”
“It really suits you,” he says.
The waitress walks over then, with two Cokes and two plates of fries. She sets them in front of us and Culler actually looks kind of embarrassed.
“I figured nobody hates fries, right?”
“Oh, it’s fine,” I say. “Milo and I always get the cheese fries when…”
Or maybe: shut the fuck up, Eddie.
“Boyfriend?” Culler asks again.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say. I stare at the fries and try to imagine eating after saying that. I think of Milo’s mouth on my mouth, but I don’t want to think about Milo’s mouth on my mouth so then I think of Culler’s mouth on my mouth and then I feel my face going red again. “He’s my best friend…”
“Best friend? What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing.” It comes out a little stilted.
“I’m just joking.”
I pick at my fries. “I’m not that great.”
I hate that I said that in front of him. I hate how it sounds.
“Not hungry?” Culler asks.
“No,” I say.
“Me neither.” He pushes the fries away and rummages into his book bag. He pulls out a point-and-shoot digital camera—not the nice SLR he usually travels with. He turns it on and gazes at the LCD screen.
“I took the photographs out of the frames. Your dad’s photographs.”
He looks at me. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to give him my blessing or whatever and I try to think of a nice way to say I don’t care what he does with the photos. If he burned them, I wouldn’t care. The last thing my father left meant nothing to me, didn’t tell me anything. And I feel like if I think about that too hard, I’ll do something drastic.
“Oh.”
“They were numbered on the back,” Culler says. “I mean, they were ordered. It went from the barn, to the school, to the gazebo, to the empty house, to the church, to Tarver’s. One, two, three, four, five, six. But we were at Tarver’s first.”
He hands me the point-and-shoot. It’s a snapshot of the back of one of my father’s photographs. There’s a number on it—scribbled in his handwriting. Three. The school.
“Okay,” I say.
“I decided to go to the barn, because I can’t keep going to Tarver’s, right? It’s about twenty, thirty miles outside of Haverfield. I took some photos. It was the first time I’d been there since…” He leans forward. “It was almost spiritual, in a way. I can’t describe it. I felt like something bigger than me was going on. Have you ever felt that way? I used to feel that about my photographs but this was even more than that—it was that, but it was something else…”
There’s only one time I can remember feeling that way.
“What?” Culler asks, sensing it.
“When he died … I felt that…,” I say. Culler reaches over and squeezes my arm, but I still don’t get it. “This is what was important? I don’t…”
Culler takes the camera back from me.
“I didn’t want to leave,” he says. “I took photographs of every corner of that barn.” He pushes a button on the camera and then hands it back to me. “And I found this.”
I stare at the tiny screen.
At first, I’m not sure what I’m looking at, and then—I am.
I am looking at words, carved, etched, clawed, into a rotting piece of wood. I put the camera down and cover my mouth with my hand.
The diner feels very far away.
“Eddie,” Culler says. I can’t speak. He says my name again. “Eddie.”
I shake my head. My eyes sting. My lower lip is trembling. I turn my face to the window, so no one else in the diner can see how fucked up I look right now. Culler gets up and sits beside me, taking the outside of the booth so no one can see me. I keep my face turned from him. I don’t want him to see it any more than he has to. He leans into me.
“Okay?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not okay.”
I turn to him. He is so close, I can see his eyelashes. His lips are close.
I hate myself for thinking that now.
“You think … he put that there.”
“The photos are numbered,” he explains, his voice quiet, careful. “They’re like a map. We know he put his initials on the door in Tarver’s. That was the last photo he numbered. The barn was first—and I find that there? I mean … I guess it’s possible it’s the weirdest, cruelest coincidence on the planet, but I don’t think it is…”
“Secrets on City Walls,” I say. “That’s what it reminds me of…”
“Yeah,” Culler says. I notice his voice is shaking, like he’s ready to give too—this is that hard for him. And then I feel terrible, because of course this would be that hard for him. “That’s what I thought too. If the photos are a map, we’ll have to go to each place … see if we can find—”
“Him?”
I wish I could take it back as soon as it’s out of my mouth, but I can’t. Culler freezes, deer in the headlights, and then slowly sinks back in his seat, like I’ve taken his essence and what’s left can’t keep itself upright. I don’t know what to say. And then he laughs and it cuts through me because it sounds like he’s about to break.
“It’s fucked up that I was thinking that too,” he says. “I miss him … so much.”
“Me too,” I say.
“I can’t work. I can’t sleep. This is—I think I’d take any answer.” He takes a shuddering breath in and out. “Just any…”
He rests his head against my shoulder and I bring my right hand to his face, awkwardly, my palm against his cheek, my fingers at the edge of his hair. I sense people looking at us, but I don’t care. I let him stay like that and I try to be the one who is together.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Culler, I’m so sorry…”
We stay like that for a long time and I feel his grief, the way this is all on him and I know I don’t feel that with Milo, who doesn’t feel this like Culler and I do.
Culler exhales slowly and raises his head. He looks like he’s going to cry. We are so close, even closer than before. He leans to me for a minute, and I think he’s going to kiss me but then he moves back and runs a shaking hand through his hair.
“The second photo is the school.” His voice is strained. “I’m going to go there, see if I can find something. If there’s nothing there—”
“Then it’s nothing,” I say.
But it has to be something. It has to be. I don’t know what to call it. A note. An explanation. Art. The last thing he wanted the world to know. Me to know. His family.
My thoughts are racing, my pulse is racing.
This is what I have been waiting for.