The binoculars hang from my hand. “Are these yours?” I ask, not quite meeting his eyes.
“Oh,” Max says, reaching for them. He lifts them to his face, but the string is still wrapped around my hand. “Maybe. I think so. Where did you find these?”
“In his room,” I say, and Max’s gaze fixes on my own. “You didn’t give them to him?”
He shakes his head. “No.” His eyes narrow on the binoculars, and he says, “The last time I saw these, I think they were still in my car.”
The moment hangs between us, all the unspoken things filling up the space around us.
Things changed after the day in New York. The way Caleb looked at me. The way Max looked at me. Each the inverse of how it was supposed to be. At the river; at Julian’s graduation party; at the beach.
In August, Caleb went on vacation, a family trip. This was after Sean left, and Eve pulled Caleb in closer, relying on him a little more. They went away to a cabin in the Poconos, where there was no cell reception, and no Internet. Caleb was just gone.
In August that same week, I ran into Max at the mall—Julian had driven, and I said I’d call if I needed a ride later—and we hung out just like we would’ve if Caleb were there. Going to a movie, hanging out in the food court, all normal things, it seemed. Unless you paused to think about it. Unless you noticed the part that was absent.
It was me who suggested going somewhere else, who didn’t want the day to end, who said Ice cream, and then, when it turned dark, Did you know you can see Saturn tonight?
The day had been a string of moments that I didn’t want to pause, or stop. There was a pull of momentum, and we had to keep going. “There’s too much light,” he said, staring up between the streetlights by the ice cream shop.
It was Max who suggested grabbing the binoculars from his house. He left me in his idling car while he ran inside to get them. They were small, the type I’ve seen people use at ball games. But it was me who suggested driving out to the fields behind the school, now abandoned. Who found a spot to sit in the middle of the goalposts. The night air cooled and the grass tickled the backs of my legs as I raised my finger and pointed it out.
I took his binoculars and tried to focus on the object in the sky, but everything blurred as I moved them too fast.
“I mean, I think that’s it. Maybe we should look it up,” I said, laughing to myself.
Max took out his phone, pulled up some night sky app.
“Wait, you have a night sky app?” I’d asked, pushing his shoulder, teasing.
“Oh, yeah, let’s all make fun of Max until nobody can figure out where Saturn is.”
He realigned his phone, scanned it across the horizon, moved my arm to point in the other direction. “There,” he said. “You were nowhere close, Jessa. Seriously.”
Max’s fingers circled my wrist, and we were both looking at the bright spot in the distance. We didn’t need the binoculars at all—everything in the universe feeling suddenly so vast, and so possible, all at once.
It was me who turned my face first. It was me who talked low enough to make him look, whose eyes drifted shut first, who leaned closer.
But he put a hand on my shoulder firmly, stopping me—my face hovering an inch from his, so close I could feel his breath.
“Oh God,” I said. “I’m sorry. I just…” What? I was thinking this was how it should be, with the clarity of the night sky and the boy I liked beside me. Only it wasn’t Caleb beside me.
He shook his head, not looking at me, and stood abruptly.
I was on my feet, even though the rush of blood from my head made me dizzy. Max had his car keys out already. “Oh God,” I said again, because that about covered it. “Please don’t say anything. Please, Max. You’re my friend too.” I was begging him at this point; this wasn’t how to break up with someone, by breaking their heart in the meantime.
He wouldn’t look at me. “Okay,” he said.
“Max,” I said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I was still holding the binoculars on the way home, wrapping the cord tighter and tighter around my hand, winding and unwinding. Until he pulled up in front of my door, and I left them on his passenger seat, neither of us saying a word as I left.
Now, Max is still staring at the binoculars, as if remembering the same moment I am.
“Had Caleb been in your car? Since then?” I ask, not wanting to elaborate on then.
“Yeah, sure. Plenty of times. Even borrowed it once or twice. I think there was some sort of issue with his car. He probably saw these and figured he’d borrow them, too. It’s not like they’re expensive or anything. Where were they?” he asks.
“Hanging from the back of his bed.” Hidden, I want to say, but I’m not so sure if that’s true. “Why do you think he took them?”
Max shrugs. “Anything, I guess. A ball game?”
“Was he going to a ball game?”
“I don’t know Jessa,” he says. The frustration on his face evident. “Did he say something to you?”
I throw my hands in the air. He told me nothing. His actions don’t make sense. He was going to see you, Jessa. Like always, his mother said. Nothing makes sense.
I can’t reconcile the two Calebs.
The one who was lying to me, in places he kept hidden. And the one who took me to the library, kept the seashell, unwrapped the ribbon on his box. The expression on his face. That wasn’t a lie. It couldn’t be.
I can’t reconcile the two Maxes, either. The one who drove us carefully to the game, the one who came back for me in New York; the one who tore through Caleb’s things, in his anger.
But if I’ve learned nothing else, it’s that nobody was who I thought. Everyone had secrets. Trust is a luxury for fools. The more I discover, the less I trust my own memories, even.
“Max?” a woman’s voice calls from upstairs. “Is someone here?”
Max looks at me, backs away. “No, Mom,” he says. As if he’s pushing me back once more. Reminding me that there’s a line between us, that I’ve forgotten.
I hear her steps coming downstairs, and I step back. I’ve barely turned around when I hear the door latch closed behind me.
This is a story of losing more than Caleb. This was where I lost Max, too. This was the boundary never to be crossed, not then and not now. If anything, it was worse in death. I would always be Caleb’s girlfriend. I could be nothing more.