Since You've Been Gone

But none of this changed the fact that I missed him in my life. I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to rely on him, how often I’d text him throughout the day, how much I needed his perspective on things, how boring my iPod seemed without his music.

With all the time I had on my suddenly friendless hands, I tried to be productive. I had dropped off both of the disposable cameras to be developed. I’d organized my closet, taken Beckett for a haircut, and finally read the first book in the series Doug was always going on about.

And every so often, I would go to my dresser and pull out the list. I had done it—every single one.

1. Kiss a stranger.

2. Go skinny-dipping.

3. Steal something.

4. Break something.

5. Penelope.

6. Ride a dern horse, ya cowpoke.

7. 55 S. Ave. Ask for Mona.

8. The backless dress. And somewhere to wear it.

9. Dance until dawn.

10. Share some secrets in the dark.

11. Hug a Jamie.

12. Apple picking at night.

13. Sleep under the stars.

All these things that had shaped my summer. I’d finished her list. I was done.

So where the hell was Sloane?

I’d started this believing that, somehow, when I finished, I would have the answers I needed. I would know what had happened to her. But now that I looked at it, I wondered if this had just been a distraction. I’d been avoiding questions like why my best friend had just left me without a word. I’d been thinking, hoping, that this would lead to something. But maybe it was like all her other lists, full of things she must have known, deep down, I would be too scared to attempt.

As I looked down at it, at her careful handwriting, at all my flaws that were exposed on the page, I found myself getting furious. I crumpled the list into a tiny ball, and for good measure, picked up the envelope and crumpled that too. Then I grabbed my keys and took the stairs two at a time, throwing the list and the envelope into the kitchen trash, yelling to my parents in the TV room—my dad scratching his new beard, my mom working on her macramé project—that I was going out.

I drove around town for hours, until the sun went down and the first stars began to shine. I wasn’t going anywhere in particular; I just felt the need to be in motion. I was driving past places I’d gone with Sloane, places I’d gone with Frank, and feeling the loss of both of them so sharply. How was I supposed to keep living in this town when everything I saw reminded me of someone I’d lost?

There was a party going on at the Orchard—I could tell from the cars lining the road. I pulled in, but left my car running, looking at all the people there with their friends—and remembering that, not so long ago, I’d been among them. I turned the car around and left, realizing I should probably stop in for gas, since in my aimless driving I’d lost sense of where my car was with fuel. There was also the fact that I no longer knew who I could call to help me if it died again.

I stopped by Route 1 Fuel, and when I walked into the mini-mart, saw that James was behind the register once again. He was leaning against the back counter, reading a thick book entitled Mastering Sudoku—For the Advanced Player. I hadn’t seen him since I’d hugged him, and hoped this wouldn’t be awkward as I handed over twenty dollars. But he just smiled at me as he put my bill in the register, then nodded out at the Volvo. “Check your oil?”

“Oh,” I said. I wasn’t sure he would have offered if I hadn’t hugged him, but I wasn’t going to turn this down—especially since I had no recollection of the last time it had been checked. “Sure,” I said. I walked outside and he followed, then waited while I tried to figure out how to pop my hood.

“So when were you in South Carolina?” he asked, wiping off the end of the dipstick with a rag and then dipping it into my oil gauge.

I looked over at him and realized he had been reading the bumper stickers along the side of the car. I scanned them, trying to see what he’d seen. “Why do you ask?”

He tapped one I’d hardly noticed, a dark-red sticker, half peeling off and mostly faded. Save the SC Sea Turtles! it read. Next to this was an image that looked familiar—a palm tree and a crescent moon.

“I wasn’t,” I said, turning my attention back to him. “The stickers came with the car. I’ve never been.”

He nodded. “Too bad. It’s really pretty down there.” He closed the hood and patted it once. “You should be okay for another few hundred miles.”

“Great,” I said. “Thanks a lot.” He nodded, gave me a quick smile, and headed back into the store.

I looked at the bumper sticker until a car pulled up behind me, engine idling, clearly desperate to get this specific pump. I pulled out of the gas station and headed for home, trying to sort through why I was sure I’d seen it before. It was in my mind, but just out of reach, until I paused at a stop sign and remembered.

The envelope.

I sped home, barely pausing at stoplights, screeching into the driveway and parking at an angle, not even locking my car as I ran inside and straight to the kitchen. I went directly to the trash, and started digging through it.

It was still there, only halfway down, and thankfully not covered in anything disgusting. I smoothed out Sloane’s list and then the envelope, feeling my heart thud in my chest as I looked at it. There, where the return address was supposed to be, was the same image on my bumper sticker. The image that meant South Carolina.

I took the list and envelope with me as I headed up to my room, needing space and quiet to try and figure this out, not wanting to have to answer any questions. I sat on my bed and stared at the envelope until my eyes burned, trying to make it make sense.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I felt like I was too close to something. Sloane had an aunt in South Carolina. I knew that. But I couldn’t exactly go knocking on every door in the state, could I? I closed my eyes, trying to think. The answer was there—somewhere—I just had to adjust my eyes to see it properly.

I was waiting outside the CVS when a tired-looking employee holding a to-go coffee unlocked the doors at six a.m. It was likely there wasn’t anything to be found in either of the cameras. But I was all out of other options, and around five, I’d woken up with this, the closest thing I had to a plan.

The photo department wasn’t even open yet, but after the night I’d had, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to wait until ten, and I convinced the employee to get my pictures for me. I suspected he did it mostly so that I’d leave the store, and him, in peace, but he rang me up, and I left the store clutching the two photo envelopes.