Route 262

~10~

We're sitting in the cafe that's in the center of town - the kind where the baristas make up different drinks with puns in the titles on the daily. Sydney is drinking an extra-large Americano; I'm drinking coffee with cream and sugar. Steam is rising from both of our mugs, and she's wincing at the taste of hers whenever she takes a sip. Her hands have nearly stopped shaking by now, and her eyes almost seem human, if not a little puffy.

"I'm sorry," she finally says, after minutes of us sitting in silence. "If I'm a little... much. I don't mean it."

"It's okay," I say. "I'd be doing the same thing - worse, if I was in your boat." Except hearing myself say this out loud hurts a little bit, because I feel like I am in the same boat, without the cushy memories of a relationship with him to ease the pain a little bit. We're really both pretty similar actually - annoying, in love with James, drinking bad coffee.

"If," and she clears her throat, "if you like aren't offended - what did you and James talk about that day? You don't have to answer," she says quickly, "but I just feel like - like there's so much that I don't know."

I nod. "I think he was going through a lot. I think there was stuff underneath the surface that no one knew about, no matter how close they were to him."

She's looking over the rim of her mug now, staring into the cold day. Her hands are cupped, her wrists covered in an oversized sweater. For a couple moments, she doesn't speak.

At last, she says "You know, they keep telling me that. The police, my parents, everyone. That there must've been so much that he never told anyone. That there must've been this other side to him. And it just makes me think - I didn't know him at all, did I? He never let me know about any of this stuff. I might as well have been dating a mannequin."

I'm not even sure how I can respond, besides nodding. "I think - to be fair - that you guys had only just started dating. I'm sure that if you had stayed with him longer, you would've learned more about each other."

She doesn't even turn her head towards me. "Maybe," she says. "But I think we never would've gotten there at all."

And now she finally looks at me. "You're sure he didn't leave you any indication of where he went - any idea at all?"

And that brings me to the white slip of paper in my pocket, the one that I've nearly forgotten about till now. "He - he did leave something for me," I say, trying not to stutter as I get the words out. And Sydney's face leaps too, and I realize that he didn't leave anything for her, that I'm the closest person she has to him right now.

I fumble around in my pocket for a second, scared that I've lost it, and then I find it. I pull it out, all folded and crumpled up, the tape from where it was stuck to the guardrail still on it.

"What does it say?" Sydney says a little maniacly, before she catches herself, and her face falls a little bit. "Sorry - you can read it first. He left it to you, after all."

It's a full sheet of paper, with scraggly writing on it in light pencil. Nearly unreadable, but I hold it up close to my face.

I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused. I just can't stay here in a place where I feel trapped.

"What does it say?" Sydney says, and I can feel myself trying to mask my confusion, my disappointment. And she just looks so hopeful, and I'm thinking about everything she just said, and I decide to tell a white lie.

"It - it's blank," I lie, and I feel simultaneously like a hero and an asshole.

Her face falls, but she nods, and she presses her lips together. She shrugs. "I guess... I guess it's true then."

She takes a look at me, and takes a deep breath. "You know, he wasn't worth all the stress he makes me feel."

And she walks out the door of the cafe like it's the last time she's going to let herself think about it.