Laura Miller - For All You Have Left

“I see dead people,” he whispers low and mysteriously.

His expression is as straight as it can be. Mine, on the other hand, goes completely blank, and it stays like that until I see his lips start to crack across his face.

“Jorgen,” I exclaim. “You can’t joke about things like that with me. I’ve met people who really do believe they see dead people.”

He starts to laugh.

“Really?” he manages to get out.

“Yes, and people who believe that people come back as cats and…”

“As cats?” he interjects.

The way he sounds so honestly surprised makes me laugh too. “Yes, cats.”

“Like in an afterlife?” he asks.

I nod my head in confirmation.

“Who believes that?”

He asks it as if he still doesn’t believe me.

“I had a neighbor in college. All four of her cats were on their second lives.”

He stops laughing, and it almost looks as if he’s going to be successful at regaining at least some composure, until he cracks, and the laughter just starts pouring from his lips again. His laugh is raspy, deep, kind of sexy and also kind of contagious.

“One was even a TV meteorologist,” I say, holding up a finger.

He rubs tears from his eyes. I, on the other hand, manage to gain control of myself and take another bite of pizza.

“It’s true,” I say.

He eventually calms down and takes a drink. Then, he slowly sets the glass back down onto the coffee table.

“M&M’s,” he says.

I look up. “What?”

“Every Sunday, I go to the same gas station down the street and buy a pack of M&M’s, and I eat all of them except for the green ones.”

I feel my eyebrows instinctively furrowing.

“Why?” I ask.

“It goes back to when I was a kid,” he says. “When my sister and I were little and my parents would stop at the gas station, they’d always let us get a bag of candy to share. And we’d always get M&M’s. Then, once we got in the car, we’d divvy them up. She got the green ones. I got the rest.”

“That doesn’t sound very fair.”

“That’s all she wanted,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “They were the best, evidently.”

“Okay,” I say. “So what do you do with the green ones now? Do you just…throw them away?”

He stops and shakes his head.

“No, I mail them to my sister the next day.”

I start to laugh but then notice his face is completely sober.

“Wait.” I cover my mouth. “You’re serious?”

“As a heart attack,” he says.

“So, your sister gets a bag of green M&M’s every week?”

“Yeah,” he says, chuckling. “Pretty much.”

“That’s kind of cute,” I say. “Strange, but cute.”

He shrugs his shoulders.

“Your turn.”

I feel my chest rise as I take a breath and think about it for a second.

“I don’t know,” I say.

His eyes find mine, and one side of his mouth turns into a crooked grin. It’s kind of endearing. “You do everything backwards.”

I feel my eyes narrowing and my eyebrows slowly making their way toward each other again, but I don’t say anything.

“You eat your pizza crust-first,” he continues, eyeing my half-eaten piece of pizza.

I look down at my plate. Sure enough, there’s a little triangle left — with no crust.

“You read your newspaper backwards,” he goes on.

I cock my head to the side.

“When I first met you, you turned to the back page first. Even your name is backwards,” he points out.

I bite the side of my bottom lip. “Those aren’t so strange, are they?” I ask, timidly.

He laughs.

“Nah. Now, when you start walking backwards, I’m taking you straight to live with that cat lady.”

I laugh, and at the same time, try to keep myself from blushing as I force my eyes back to the television screen. We both watch the show on it for a little while longer then until his voice breaks my concentration.

“Look,” he says, pointing at the TV. “What did I tell you?”

On the screen, there’s one woman left standing in front of the judges, and her arms are covered in tattoos.

My smile starts small and eventually stretches across my face. I’m starting to believe he might be on to something.

* * *

“Thanks for letting me come over.”

He’s standing on the other side of my door now, three steps from his own.

“Pizza’s a lot better when it’s not so quiet,” he adds.

I push out a laugh. “I agree.”

And just then, he brings his face so close to mine that his lips are nearly touching my ear. My heart starts racing, and for the first time around him, my stomach seems to do a somersault. It feels like butterflies, and it’s terrifying and a little sad, I think. But I can smell the soft, sweet scent of his cologne, and it seems to calm me somehow. I know I should be weirded out right now — I have no idea what he’s doing — but this feels good, and I can’t stop smiling this nervous, happy, strange smile.

“They were reruns,” he whispers, his breaths trailing over my skin.

I freeze as my mouth falls open and surprise quickly devours my face. “I didn’t believe you for one second,” I say, shaking my head.

He shoots me a suspicious look. “Not one second?” he asks, backing slowly away from me.

I try my hardest to scold him with my eyes, even though every other feature is betraying me.

“Good-night, Miss Cross,” he says, sliding a key into his lock and pushing open his door.

I lower my eyes and softly laugh to myself. “Good-night,” I say.

“Coming,” I call out from across my apartment.

I don’t even bother looking at the peep hole this time. I figure its either Hannah or possibly Jorgen. For all I know I left my keys in the door again. But when I pull open the door and look up, I freeze.

“Amsel,” I manage to get out.

I don’t know when I started calling him by his last name to his face. Somewhere along the line, it just kind of happened. I step back to let him inside.

“I can’t stay long,” he immediately says, taking a step forward. “I really have to run. I just, um, found something I thought you might want.”

He holds out a photograph.

“You know I love you, Logan — Ada,” he quickly corrects.

My heart stings in my chest. There are two hands in the photo, each wearing a ring.

“I know,” I say, taking the photo and lowering my eyes to it.

We stand there for a while. I don’t even know how much time passes. We’re both so still. My eyes are on the photo. His eyes are most likely on me, watching for my reaction. I try not to react — for his sake and mine.

After a moment, he breaks the silence.

“Well, I’ve got to go.”

He reaches out and touches my hand.

“Take care, Ada.”

I look into his eyes. I love those eyes. I miss those eyes.

“You sure you don’t want something to drink or anything?” I ask, as he takes a step back toward the door.

“No, I’m sorry, I really am running late. I just found that yesterday and wanted you to have it.”

I look down at the photo again and sigh. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it.

“Okay,” I say, nodding my head. “Thank you,” I add.

I follow him to the door, and when he opens it, Jorgen is just opening his door across the hall.

I watch as Jorgen eyes Amsel up and down once, then steps outside and closes his door behind him. He waits there, facing us. He looks as if he’s not trying to make it obvious that he’s watching the two of us, but somehow, I know he is. Amsel too takes a good look at Jorgen. Then, he turns and glances at me.

I try to conjure up a faint smile to let him know it’s okay.

He glances back at Jorgen. There’s a look on Amsel’s face. I can’t tell if it’s simply a greeting or more like a warning. Either way, Amsel nods his head once and makes his way to the stairs.

I follow Amsel’s figure down the stairwell until he’s out of sight. And when I look back up at Jorgen, I realize he was doing the same thing — following Amsel. His eyes are still planted on the stairs. I take the opportunity to steal another glance at the photo, and then I quickly slide it into the pocket of my hooded sweatshirt.

“Who was that?” Jorgen asks, curiously.

It takes me a second to answer him. I have to retrieve my mind from a different time first.

“A friend,” I say, as I toss my gaze to the ground.

I look back up a second later, and Jorgen’s eyes are still on me. He looks at me like he wants to believe me. I think I look at him like I want him to believe me too.

It wasn’t completely a lie. Amsel is my friend, but he’s also a whole lot more than that.

Jorgen seems as though he wants to say something, but he doesn’t, until I turn to go back inside my apartment.

“Hey,” he says, stopping me. “I have this work barbeque tomorrow night. You maybe wanna come with me?”

I rotate around and catch his pleading blue eyes — the same pleading blue eyes that have no idea that at twenty-two, I’ve already lived one life and am now on my second. I feel my heart beating a hard, fast rhythm against my chest, but I think it’s his pleading, clueless blue eyes that make me nod my head yes in spite of my heart.

“Sure,” I say.

He slowly bobs his head up and down a couple times.

“Good,” he says, through what seems like a happy grin. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

I force my lips up and then push through my door and close it behind me. And before I know it, my back, minus any thought, is pressing against the back of the door. I feel my body slide down until I’m kneeling on my heels. And just like that, a familiar, warm liquid pushes past my eyelids and streams down my cheeks. I can’t stop it. I have no reason to stop it — alone and inside my apartment, tucked away from the world. I feel my heart growing heavy as I pull out the photo from my sweatshirt’s pocket and let my eyes search every detail — the little diamond, the two wedding bands, the scar on his middle finger from a run-in with a barbed wire fence when he was eleven. And I let my mind drift away until I feel breakable — like I could shatter into a million, tiny pieces right where I’m kneeling.

We spend so much of our passion on our first love. I’m not convinced that it — passion — is one of those things that you have an endless amount of — like happiness or sadness. I could be happy all day. I could be sad all day. But I’m not so sure I’ll ever love like that again.

I quickly wipe a tear off the photo with my sleeve and then let my head fall into my bended knees.

I think I used all my passion up on the boy who stole my first I love you…

A thunderous bang crashes in the heavens and then rumbles over the earth. We all look up at the sky. Huge, dark clouds are gathering right above us.

“Tut-tut, it looks like rain,” Hannah shouts from the outfield.

Andrew turns the baseball over in his hand and then rests it in his glove.

“Come on. We’ve got at least ten more minutes,” he shouts. “James, you’re up to bat.”

James looks terrified as he stares up at the dark sky and twists the barrel of his wooden bat into the dirt.

“Come on, James. Don’t be a little squirt. Get in the box,” Hannah shouts.

James’s chest rises and then falls before he slowly shuffles to the batter’s box and positions himself in front of me.

“It’s all right, James,” I say to him from behind my catcher’s mask. “Just hit the ball, and then we’ll all go inside.”

James nods his head and then slowly faces Andrew on the pitcher’s mound. Andrew winds up and releases the ball. It comes fast and whizzes right through the strike zone.

James swings, but the ball misses his bat and lands in my mitt instead. I stand up and throw the ball back to Andrew, and at the same time, feel a drop on my hand. I glance up at the sky and then down at James.

“Okay, James, you’ll get this next one,” I say.

I kneel down again and wait for the second pitch.

“I felt a drop,” Hannah yells from the outfield. “I’m outta here. I’m not letting this mess up my beachy waves.”

And just like that, we’re all watching Hannah sprint across the field and toward the house like a crazy person.