After emptying the rest of the middle drawer, I move on to the last.
The top drawer is in disarray, as I had expected. There’s the calculator to the side, a heap of papers, ticket stubs, receipts. All thrown in, one on top of the other. You can work your way down to the bottom, like moving back in time.
Except there’s something wrong with the chaos. The receipt on top is from a year ago, covering the concert tickets from last spring. I piece through them gently, so as not to disturb the balance.
Near the bottom, completely out of order, I find two ticket stubs from a Yankees game, his and mine, a secret my parents still didn’t know about. I wasn’t supposed to be in New York City at all. I wasn’t even supposed to be off the school grounds.
Late April. Max and Hailey and Sophie. A guy named Stan who lived in the city, who Max knew. Hailey’s brief failed date with Craig Keegan. All of us bursting with energy on the train station platform, skipping out on school.
Max had gotten bleacher seats through his friend Stan, twelve bucks apiece, a perfect outing on a sunny April afternoon. It was unofficially senior skip day, so half the school would be missing anyway. Julian was visiting the UPenn campus for the long weekend, and my parents were driving him up and spending the day. Skipping school was not something I did often (or ever, really), and the day buzzed with the added adrenaline.
We took the train into the city, switched to the subway, riding it out to the Bronx. Holding on to the bars overhead in the packed subway car, holding on to each other. Taking the stadium ramp up and up and up until we emerged to the sunlit arena, the green and brown of the field, the players moving like miniature figurines in the distance.
I don’t remember much about the game itself. I do remember the hot dogs, the pretzels, the ice cream. How far away we were, in the bleachers. The players indistinguishable below. Three hours laughing with Caleb and Hailey, and Hailey giving me a look about Craig Keegan, like, This is so not happening. Craig had spent most of the time asking Stan what other tickets he could get. Max was the only one who seemed to be paying attention to the game. The rest of us were just there for the thrill of it.
On the way home, we got caught in the exit rush, streams of people funneling back down the ramps, out into the street, down into the subway station. Caleb and I had calculated how much it would cost for four subway rides, and put the money on a card together—not realizing the card itself had a purchase fee.
Not realizing until that moment when Caleb handed me the card to use after him, as he slipped through the turnstile, that the card wouldn’t work. Me left on the other side, with a huge crowd waiting behind me, pushing up against me.
“You need to put more money on the card,” the man behind me said, shoving me aside as he went through. I turned around. There was a swarm of people in the station, surrounding the card machines and the turnstiles. My friends were on the platform, running toward the arriving train, pushed along by the chaos.
We had been a trail of people connected hand to hand, dragging each other through the crowd. And then I wasn’t. I stepped aside, the sickening knot back in my stomach. The line for the card machine was endless. I didn’t have cash to add onto it, and I felt a lump in my throat, thinking This was all a mistake, such a mistake.
I’d have to use my credit card, stand on the line for the one working credit-card machine, miss a train or two, and hope they waited for me at Penn Station before heading back to New Jersey. I took a deep breath, realizing there was a good chance I’d be alone the whole way to Penn Station—and maybe all the way home. I felt a flash of anger and resentment as I stepped away from the turnstile.
It was Max who appeared, pushing back through the crowd. Calling my name. Shoving a five-dollar bill at the woman behind me, begging her to take it and let me through with her card. She didn’t smile, but she took it. Swiped her card once, and Max pulled me through, hands linked together so we wouldn’t lose each other. We were practically sprinting, weaving around clusters of people, and I was so sure we would make it—like a race we would win.
But by the time we made it to the platform, it was empty. I heard the rumble of a train fading into the distance. Everyone else was gone. My calls to Caleb and Hailey went straight to voicemail, and I figured they didn’t have service between stations. I sat on the bench, closed my eyes, rested my head on the wall behind, and let out a shaky sigh.
Max sat beside me on the bench, tensely put an arm around my back, and let me rest my head against his shoulder. “We’ll catch up at Penn Station,” he said.
“I just thought we would make it,” I said, hoping he understood. I wasn’t upset or sad; it was more a disappointment, a hope cresting and then falling—a bell curve.
I had felt, in the span of a day, the freedom of adulthood—the freeing feeling that I was independent—and then the crushing other side, the alienation of being left on my own. The big, big world moving on without me. My friends not waiting for me here, not in the hustle of the city.
“At least the game was good,” he said.
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” I said. “I think I missed it.”
I felt his shoulders shake in laughter. “You didn’t watch any of it?”
I laughed. “I really didn’t.”
“Travesty, really. Not even the double play down the third-base line to end the game?”
I looked up at him. “Not even that. I’m scared to admit this around you, but I’m kind of sick of baseball.” I’d been subjected to the world of Julian’s games my whole life, listening to game prep the night before and then rehashing it in the days after. Julian’s a pitcher, so it wasn’t just the outcome that had to be discussed, but the choices, the game strategy. God forbid he lost, and then I’d also have to listen to the intentions and errors and never-ending second-guessing. I had only been there today because Caleb was going, because Hailey was going, because I wanted to say I skipped school, took the train into the city, caught a ball game, no big deal.
“I figured you liked baseball. I mean, I’ve seen you at hundreds of games.” It was true, we were a baseball family to the core—but it wasn’t because I loved it; I’d come into it by default. Julian was a great baseball player. My parents were great baseball parents. My mom, unofficial team parent; my dad, cooking for team get-togethers; both of them, driving Julian all over the place for years, to tournaments, clinics, and games. And I would accompany them everywhere. There was always a role for me too—scorekeeper, stat keeper, burger flipper, navigator. But it was Julian’s world, and I was just a part of it.
“Yes, turns out at this point I know too much. I’ve seen it all.”
Max opened his mouth in feigned shock. “Jessamyn Whitworth, you have never been so wrong. There are infinite possibilities, with infinite outcomes. An infinite number of potential variables in every game. It’s always exciting.”
I rolled my eyes, laughing at his unrestrained excitement. But while we waited for the next train, I listened as Max recounted the game. I saw it play out in my head, thinking that maybe I would’ve enjoyed watching it. I didn’t notice the change in scenery as we boarded the next train, changed lines, or as I let him drag me through the crowd. All the while leaning closer to hear him over the voices in the car. I didn’t notice the missed call that came through. Not until we got off at Penn Station, and found Caleb and Hailey, Stan and Craig, all gathered in a circle, staring at their phones.
Caleb gave Max a look when we returned. Max gave one right back, a small shake of his head. I didn’t hear what Caleb said. But I did hear Max. “You just left her there,” he said.
I feel those words again. Feel them even stronger.
The birthday card I gave him is below the tickets, even though it was in the summer, months after our trip to the city.
None of this is in the right order. It usually looks like chaos, but it’s really an organized chaos. It took a little while to understand that about Caleb—the system in the disorder. And unless he was looking for something frantically, I know: I am not the first person in this room.
The ticking of the clock grows louder in the silence.
Everything changes.
A shadow passes underneath the closed door behind me, but then it’s gone, and I’m not sure whether I imagined it.
I look over my shoulder again, staring at the darkness underneath the blue door, holding my breath. As if I am not alone after all.