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Whatever’s Left
By Nikki Archer
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JaneRest in Peace, my friend.
This one’s for you.
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Chapter 1
February 2008
Summer
I handed the bouncer my fake I.D, still not entirely sold on the idea of subjecting myself
to this level of torture. I’d taken two busses and a train to get from UMass to this shitty little
venue in New Jersey, and of course it was now that the anxiety kicked in.
But I had to see it for myself. I’d tried a thousand times to imagine Chris, who’d grown
up in the dirt just like I had, as a famous musician, but couldn’t do it. So there I was, hundreds of
miles from home, having emptied most of my checking account for the chance to see him one
more time.
As soon as the doorman nodded me inside, I made a beeline for the bar. Not only did I
need a drink, but it had the added bonus of being in a darkened corner of the club. Being seen by
Chris would make this little outing exponentially more painful.
When the bartender came over I ordered a beer, resisting the urge for something stronger.
He winked at me as he pried the top off and slid it over. Maybe another time, sweetie. Tonight,
I’m not going to be such entertaining company.
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I checked the clock on my cell phone—five minutes before show time. And six texts
from my roommate Julie telling me what an idiot I was for going through all that trouble to see a
guy that I insisted meant nothing to me.
And maybe he did mean nothing to me by that point. After six months of silence, you
couldn’t even say that I knew him anymore. You couldn’t even say that I was the same person
who’d been his best friend before he left. But the guy he was before he left, the guy whose life I
ached to be a part of, meant everything to me.
The already dim lights of the club flicked off, pitching the entire place into darkness for a
split second. I drained half my beer, waiting for the inevitable moment, staying stoically silent
even as the entire place erupted in cheers.
The spotlight hit him as he reached the mic stand. I recognized the old Gibson that he
picked up, deftly swinging the strap over his head. I’d lost count a long time ago of how many
bonfires that thing had attended.
He strummed a few random chords as the rest of the guys got settled. His fingers moved
over the strings as his eyes roved over the crowd. I ducked my head down further, letting my hair
fall into my face.
The speakers whined with feedback as Chris leaned in to the mic. He gave his audience a
charming grin in apology, and tried again. “Hey y’all.”
Painfully feminine screeches answered back.
“We’re Goodbye Crusade, and this here’s a song you might know. It’s called ‘Summer’s
Song,’ and it’s been on the charts for a few weeks now. It’s named after the girl I left behind
back home, who never got the goodbye that she deserved.” He dropped his eyes for just a
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moment, allowing the sympathetic hum of the crowd to die away. “If y’all sing it loud enough,
maybe this time she’ll hear it.”
The band launched into the familiar melody, one I’d listened to and dissected a thousand
times too many. I slid a ten from my wallet and tossed it on the bar, pinning it under my empty
beer bottle. And Chris, accompanied by his adoring fans, sang the first verse of the song he’d
written for me, the song that was supposed to make up for everything he took with him when he
left.
There’s another side of summertime,
Where you’re alright and I’m just fine.
The rain, it pours on this broken town
But you’re long gone and I’m not around.
The bartender came back around as I slid off my barstool. “You don’t wanna leave yet,
honey. Trust me. I saw these guys back in Charlotte, they’re awesome.”
I chanced a look at the stage, where Chris was wrapped around the mic stand, eyes shut,
belting out line after line of apologies. “Yeah, I know. I’ve got someplace to be though.”
He spun my empty bottle between his hands, watching all too intently as I pulled on my
leather jacket. “Come on, stay for one more song. I’ll even make you a drink on the house.”
If I could’ve shut the music out, I would’ve considered it. I would’ve stayed all night and
drank for free and gone home with this nameless bartender. But with Chris’s voice all around
me, with him literally fifty feet away, it was unthinkable.
“Sorry,” I said. “But I really can’t stay here.”
I shoved my way through the masses of cheering people as the song ended. It took all of
my self-control not to look back over my shoulder, to meet his eyes across the venue. But there
was no point in doing that.
I wouldn’t find the person I’d come looking for.
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Chapter 2
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May 2007
Summer
I took the corner at well over fifty, laughing as Chris slid across the softened leather seat
and into the passenger side door.
“Jesus, Summer, take it easy. Amanda and I have dinner plans tonight, and she generally
likes it when I show up in one piece.”
I dropped it into third and let the speedometer drop down to forty. “I can’t exactly
damage her impression of me at this point. You and I both know that she hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She just thinks we’re abnormally close, is all.”
Touche. She had a point there. Chris’s mom had babysat me practically from the moment
I was born up until the end of middle school. So consequently, Chris and I had been attached at
the hip for years. And him having a girlfriend didn’t change that too much.
“Yeah, but she aint lookin’ at you when she says so. She hates me. Stop trying to
euphemize it into something that sounds nicer.”
Chris tapped his fingers on the dash and looked out the window as I took another corner
at well over the speed limit. “Okay, okay, don’t get your panties in a bunch. Besides, it won’t be
a problem much longer.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Meaning . . . ?”
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He fidgeted, not meeting my gaze. “Meaning, she’s been dropping all these hints about us
getting married after graduation and maybe I realized that I can’t see myself having that kind of a
future with her.”
Oh, God.
I happen to think that it’s one of the world’s worst cliché’s to be in love with your best
friend. Unfortunately, that had been my life for the past four years; I was a walking cliché, in
faded jeans and a ponytail. And Chris was about to break up with Amanda, the girl who’d had a
monopoly on his attention for most of our high school years.
“You’re breaking up with her?”
He winced at my harsh tone, probably mistaking the emotion behind all the shock. “I
guess. Though I can’t figure out how the hell I’d even start that conversation.”
I snickered. “You should write her a song.” Taking my eyes off the road for a brief
instant, I looked back at his old acoustic tucked safely into its case in the Camaro’s back seat.
“What’s a synonym for ‘stifling, controlling bitch’ that rhymes with ‘Amanda’?”
Chris groaned, covering his eyes with his hands.
And apparently my window for having fun with it was over. “Alright, alright, seriously
then. For real. What are you gonna say to her?”
“The truth, I guess. That I just don’t want to marry her and do the whole small-town
farming family thing.”
Even I winced at how harsh that sounded, and I hated Amanda. “Couldn’t you just tell
her you’re gay or something?”
That at least got half a chuckle out of him before he reverted right back to looking guilty
and ashamed. “She’s gonna cry, isn’t she?”
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“Oh yeah. And then she’s gonna want to know why you’ve suddenly decided she’s not
good enough for you.”
“I don’t think she’s not—“
“Doesn’t matter. Try convincing her otherwise. I dare you.”
Chris heaved another big sigh.
“So . . . If you don’t think you’re too good for her then why the sudden one-eighty?” I
eased the old Camaro over the dips in Chris’s dirt driveway.
He didn’t bother to reach for the door handle. Instead, he dropped his face into his open
palms, making his answer come out muffled. “That’s just not the future I want.”
I looked out over the acres and acres of farm that Chris’s family had owned for
generations. “Then what do you want?”
His broad shoulders lifted and fell in a hopeless shrug. “Options, I guess.”
I shifted uncomfortably, feeling the presence of my letter of acceptance from UMass
Amherst in my back pocket. I’d been on the fence for weeks, trying to decide whether or not to
go. Lately, I’d taken to carrying the letter around everywhere I went, hoping that a decision
would come to me by osmosis.
But that was the thing: I had a choice in the matter. Chris didn’t. His birthright was his
obligation; he couldn’t decide not to inherit his family’s farm.
“I can understand that.”
This earned me a small smile from Chris. “You can?”
I nodded towards the door, shifting the Camaro into drive. “Yeah, but you’d better hope
that Amanda does too.”
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Chapter 3
June 2007
Summer
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I padded up the stairs to my room, breathing heavily and exhausted from my daily run,
but refreshed, and much calmer.
Endorphins kick ass. I always loved the way I felt after a good long run; sort of loopy and
unfocussed. I grabbed my bath robe off the hook and kicked my shoes into the closet before
heading into the shower.
I turned on the water and let it run cold at first, dipping my feet in the stream and feeling
the temperature of my skin slowly return to normal. I tugged the elastic from my hair, letting the
dark brown waves fall down around my back, and eased the dial over until warm steam started
filling the room.
My sweaty shorts and tank top fell in a pile on the floor and I slipped into the hot shower.
As I let the water stream over my face and shoulders, skin already turning pink from the heat, I
thought of Chris. I tipped my head back and smoothed my hands over my hair, smiling and
picturing his strong-jawed face and curly brown hair.
I’d imagined myself with him in a thousand different futures over the few years we’d
known each other. My imagination wandered for a few minutes, recalling how he looked when
he was plowing one of the fields, wearing a Stetson hat and looking right at home on the big
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green John Deere tractor. I pictured him shutting off the engine and hopping down, stretching out
his arms and walking over to wrap me in a hug. Imaginary-me nestled my face into his chest and
breathed deep.
I shut off the water and wrapped myself in a towel, padding back to my room to throw on
a pair of sweats and a tank top. Downstairs, I could hear the familiar sounds of my mother
cooking dinner; pots clanging together, drawers opening and shutting.
I set only two places at the dinner table, one for myself, and one for my mother. I did so
in silence, knowing by the tense set of her shoulders and the way she allowed her hair to fall over
her face, that I shouldn’t yet ask what happened. The fact that she was trying so hard to shield
her eyes from view communicated well enough that I'd missed another of their fights.
When I sat down across from her, I glanced at her face, taking in her glistening eyes and
the pink tinge to her nose. Whatever I'd missed, it had been bad.
When I was younger, I used to pull my parents’ wedding album from the bookshelf while
they screamed at one another, running my hands over pictures from nearly a decade before.
They’d been crazy about one another at one point in time, long before I was old enough to
wonder about it. As their voices swirled together beneath my feet, I’d smile over the photo
showing my mother smashing cake into my father’s face, laughter lighting up her face.
In subsequent years, I’d abandoned the book, preferring not to pretend anymore that
things were normal within the boundaries of my family.
My mother was poking at her dinner, moving lettuce and tomatoes around on the plate in
front of her. My job was to be her distraction, anything to take her mind off of what my father
had said or done to upset her. So I opened my mouth and let whatever words were there fall into
the space between us, offering them up to her like a gift.
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“I was thinking of going to Target this weekend, you know, to start picking up things for
school.”
She nodded at her salad, still lost in thoughts that were no doubt replaying yet another
painful conversation.
“I already wrote back to the admissions office at UMass. The first tuition payment’s due
in September.”
She nodded again, tucking her hair behind her ears. The same tell I had for when I was
upset.
My mother and I were alike in so many ways. For starters, I looked more like her clone
than her daughter. We had the same big, brown eyes; "Bambi-eyes" my father called them. I'd
also gotten her quick temper, her love of animals, and her addiction to the Discovery Channel.
Sometimes, it seemed like I could literally feel when she was hurting. So I pushed my
plate over, to the spot where my father would sit on the nights he actually came home for dinner.
I took my mother's hand and pressed it to the cold wood of the dinner table, covering it with my
own.
“It’s gonna be awful lonely around here once you’re at school, honey.” She gave me a
small smile through her tears.
Some days it was so hard not to hate my father for their collective problems. I tried to be
objective; I tried to stay out of it. But I was inevitably the one left to try and soothe my mother's
wounded heart night after night, and couldn't help thinking that I was standing in his place,
saying the words that he should've been saying, fixing the mess that he'd helped make.
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June 2007
Chris
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I broke up with Amanda three days before graduation. And I’m not proud to say that I
took the coward’s route.
Instead of hanging around the bonfire with everyone else, I took her by the hand and
asked her to go for a walk with me. She protested at first, but I was persistent.
We only went far enough to be out of earshot of everyone else—Amanda hated the
woods. When I stopped walking and spun her around to face me, it was hard to miss the
expectance all over her face.
She thought I was about to propose.
“Listen Amanda . . .” Those icy-blue eyes were killing me. “I know we’ve been together
a long time, but I think things need to change.”
The smile perched on her lips fell immediately away. “What?”
I dropped my eyes to the ground. “I just . . . I know what plan you have for your life—for
us—and it’s not what I want my future to be.”
The tears were already welling, and as she spoke, they spilled over. “Why not? What did
I do, Chris? What did I do wrong?”
Jesus Christ. “You didn’t do anything.”
With a hearty sniff, she narrowed her eyes at me. “It’s Summer, isn’t it? I always knew
there was something between the two of you.”
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“It has nothing to do with her, Amanda. It’s just about me, and what I want.”
“Of course it is.” She held out her dainty palm. “Can I have my keys?”
I fished around in my pocket for them. “You’re leaving?”
“I’m sure as hell not gonna sit around here all night. I don’t need a front-row seat to you
and her getting together.” She snatched the key-ring away from me and stomped off, her
crashing footsteps aimed towards the light of the bonfire.
And I was left standing alone, wondering whether Amanda had just pin-pointed the
reason we couldn’t be together better than I had.
#
Summer sat next to me as our friends tossed logs into the bonfire, and cheered and
prodded along with everyone else when Jeff thrust a guitar at me, instructing me to play
something. I finally gave in, laughing as everyone started to sing along. I looked over at
Summer, her eyes reflecting the dancing flames of the fire. Her hand dropped to my knee,
tapping along with the melody.
When the last verse was over, everyone started calling out their personal favorites, songs
I’d played over and over on a thousand different occasions. I played them all again, picking
chords until my fingers were raw.
An hour later, I finally handed the guitar back to a protesting Jeff, and pulled Summer
over to sit in my lap, feeling yawn after yawn stretch down her back. The end of high school I
could deal with, but there was something so final and sad about finishing that last song, and the
need to have her near me was too strong to fight.
I watched the logs in the fire turn to glowing embers, illuminating the faces of my
friends, people I’d known my entire life. I saw them as if through two separate sets of eyes: as
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they were tonight, figures perched on the edge of adulthood; and as ghosts of themselves, young,
vibrant kids, running across football fields and jumping wildly into swimming holes.
My friend Ryan passed behind me, wordlessly handing me a Bud Light, and suddenly I
was remembering us as wiry, energetic ten year olds, playing hockey on the frozen pond behind
Ryan’s house, and the day that Ryan managed to knock out his own tooth by accidentally skating
into the goal post.
Across the fire was my cousin Paul, who had called me at 2 a.m. once, begging me to
drive out to the trails and jump his car, which had died because he and his girlfriend had left the
radio on while rolling around in his backseat and lost track of time. I almost chuckled to myself
as I remembered teasing him about how any points he had gained by setting the mood he had lost
by being an idiot.
I took a long drink of beer and closed my eyes, remembering the first fight I’d ever gotten
into, the state championship football game my sophomore year, and the first time me and my
friends had managed to get our hands on a significant amount of beer. I remembered the hideous
tie my mother had made me wear to the eighth grade formal, the first girl I ever kissed, and the
girl who’d become my best friend.
I stroked her hair softly, so lightly that she probably wouldn’t feel it even if she were
fully awake, and thought about the day I taught her to ride a horse. I’d lifted her onto Chip’s
back carefully, afraid that she might fall trying to get into the saddle, but she settled in as
naturally as anybody who’d grown up riding. She held the reigns gingerly in her hands, and
looked at me apologetically as she asked me what she was supposed to do next. Swinging myself
onto Avalon, I nudged him over towards where Summer sat atop Chip. She stroked the horse’s
chestnut coat absentmindedly, lovingly.
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I remember thinking then that I couldn’t imagine a more perfect girl for me than one who
could go through life tripping over everything, including her own feet, but who could look
completely at home on a horse the very first time she got into the saddle. At the time the thought
had been fleeting, gone too quickly for me to realize the weight it held. But now it came back to
me, ten times more powerful.
The fire popped loudly, stirring me out of my memories. She had her head rested against
my chest, her back curved against my stomach. The light wind tousled her hair and it fluttered
against my neck. I swear I got chills every time a part of her touched me. I rubbed her arm softly,
feeling her drifting into sleep.
Chad came up to me not long after, tapping me on the shoulder and beckoning for me to
follow. I eased Summer off my lap, letting her head come to rest on her friend Emily’s shoulder,
pausing for a moment to watch as their breathing synchronized. Chad led me down a path, away
from the fire before he started talking.
“I’ve got some big news, man.”
I might have written it off as excitement over graduation before, but now I saw that
Chad’s anticipation was about something else entirely. Something much, much bigger.
“We sent out a demo CD to an agent a few months back and she just called me yesterday
to offer us a spot on a tour.” His hands fluttered against his thighs as he built up momentum.
“Sammy can’t go, though, he just got offered a full ride to M.I.T and there’s no way in hell I’m
letting him turn that down.”
I thought I knew where Chad was going with this but I didn’t want to assume, so I
waited.
“I need a new lead guitar,” he said, grinning hopefully at me. “What do you say, man?”
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It took me less than an instant to decide. Chad had just offered me the chance I’d been
waiting for; the opportunity to leave this same-old same-old place and actually go somewhere.
“I’m in. When do we leave?”
Chad slapped me a high-five, a wide smile splitting across his face in relief.
He threw an arm around my shoulders, talking a mile a minute about the band we’d be
opening for and the cities we’d hit over the next twelve months. Amid the names of people and
places I’d never seen, I caught his answer: two weeks.