Max

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“We shouldn’t see each other any more.” I flip open my laptop, walling myself off from Amanda.

“What?”

She’s going to make this hard. Same old song and dance: but why? Everything’s going so well. You were finally opening up to me.

“I told my parents about you.” She flings it at me like an accusation. “They wanted to meet you.” Her palms smack down on my blotter. A pencil rattles on the leather. “You’d have been the first. The first since college. Are you listening?”

Oh, yeah. I’m listening. I tap at my keyboard, pretending not to.

“This is how you’re going to do it? Who died and made you King of Passive-Aggression?”

I give her a sharp look. Her hand flies to her mouth, but her fingers never touch her lips. Can’t smudge that lipstick. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

I wave her off. “It’s fine.”

“No, really. Your friend. I wasn’t thinking. If you’d just—”

This has gone on long enough. “I said it’s fine. Say what you want to say. We’re already over.”

The breath catches in her throat. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her go still. Any second, now...any second.

She doesn’t run.

“Was there something else?”

Amanda scoffs, low and harsh. “When you get your head out of your ass, don’t call me.” And...there she goes. Walking instead of running. No tears; no dented furniture. Well, that went better than I thought.

I turn back to my laptop, for real this time. Dev’s obituary’s up. Passed away suddenly—I’ll say!—beloved brother and son...star of stage and screen.... Nothing I didn’t know. Nothing that would explain....

---

Hey, uh, Max? Guess you’re busy. It’s Dev. Uh.... I was calling, uh...this is fucked up. I don’t even—call me back, okay? The second you get this. Call me.

---

“I fucking did!” I sweep my arm across my desk. Manila folders scatter, contents flying. Not even a day—it wasn’t even a day, and by the time I called.... Was he on the roof, even then? Did he sit on the edge with his phone ringing and ringing in his pocket, till someone looked up and noticed him? Did he even have pockets, in those ridiculous shorts they found him in? Swim shorts, like he was about to take a dip. Why would he—why would he—

All I can think about is the lake. The raft. Kyle’s boat. Diver’s Rock. Dev floating on his back, squinting into the blue. He lived in his trunks from school closing to Labor Day. Always on the water, always smiling... Was he trying to get back to those times? Or trying to forget them? Was it summer break on his mind, or the one night we never talked about?

“Mr. Westbrook?”

I look up, embarrassed to find my eyes stinging. My assistant’s hovering in the doorway. “Miss White?”

“This came for you.” She holds out a FedEx pouch, like she’s scared to come up and drop it on my desk. Guess I am acting kind of psycho. I stand up and take it from her. There’s no waybill attached. No return address.

“Who left this?”

“I don’t know, sir. I went to dinner and came back, and it was on my desk.”

Weird.

“Sir?”

“Oh. Yeah. That’ll be all.”

I turn to the window to open it, as if something awful might tumble out. A flash drive plops into my hand, nondescript and unlabeled. The idea that it’s Dev’s suicide note occurs to me. I dismiss it just as quickly: that isn’t his style. Wasn’t his style. I switch to a virtual machine before plugging it in, but I needn’t have bothered. Nothing there but a pair of text files: 1.txt and 2.txt. Imaginative. I click on number one.

My mouth goes dry.

What the fuck?