Chapter 35 Treasure
thirty-five
Treasure
I’m lying in her bed.
Alone.
It’s been a long time since she slept here.
The sheets smell like they were just washed.
I wish they'd left them from the last time she was in this bed. Mr. Robert’s friend is sleeping in the rec room.
No one suggested I sleep in Matt’s room.
I’m not sure if anyone has been in there since he left. It hasn’t even been three months.
I lie in her bed, staring at the glowing stars on the ceiling.
They’ve been here since Jess was a little kid.
I used to tease her about making a wish when they fell.
They're all stuck tight. No wishes for me tonight. I can’t sleep, so I get up and wander around the room—slide my hand over the curve of the headboard, pick up a pen she left on her desk, look out the window where I saw her watching me the first time I worked on her car.
I'm trying not to snoop. Wanting so bad to snoop.
I want to know what Jess left in this room.
There’s a picture stuck in the side of the mirror—Jess and her high school friends Jasmine, and Taryn. They have their arms around each other on some beach, shorts, sweatshirts, and bare feet. They must be about 16.
I lean in to study the picture closer and accidentally knock into a blue box sitting on the edge of the dresser. I try to catch it, but it falls on the floor. The lid comes off and the contents scatter.
I look around, feeling guilty, like someone heard the noise and is coming to see what I’m doing in here. I try to scoop everything up without looking. A little label on the lid of the box stops me. “Jessica’s treasure box,” written in a childish scrawl.
I change my mind. I’m full-fledged snooping now—going through the papers and the things that fell. I need to know what Jess’s treasures are. What they were.
She started this a long time ago. The first thing I see is a picture of her and Gage on a soccer team.
They were about six, maybe seven. There’s a running medal–Capitol Lake Marathon.
A picture to go with it, Jess and her mom, arms around each other, holding their medals.
Everything is mixed together, a 100% spelling test from grade school next to a picture of her college roommates.
Something silver slides out of a pile of papers. I pick it up, already knowing what it is. The locket I gave her, no chain at all now. There are patches where the silver has gotten dull from her rubbing it.
I think back to the day we moved away from here. The day I gave Jess the locket. I've spent a lot of time trying to sort out what happened that day. She used to follow me around like a puppy. “Hero worship,” my mom called it. But I didn’t mind.
There was always something about Jess. Even when she was a little girl.
She was tough. She never seemed to care what the other kids said to her, or how many times she got left out.
She kept coming back, kept trying to be part of everything we did.
It got to the point where I cared more about the teasing than she did.
I went after anyone who hurt her. When I found out we were moving, I bought the locket, but I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to give it to her until I found her crying in the barn.
And the kiss?
That one I’m still not sure about. I only knew that it would make her happy. When I saw her again, all grown up and beautiful—seventeen, I was worried that she would think of me as some creepy fifteen-year-old who stalked a kid four years younger than him.
She didn’t.
She told me the kiss was perfect. I wish I knew the perfect thing to do now.
Another picture catches my eye. We’re kids.
It’s a picture her mom took after we spent the day digging a hole in the ground to make a fort.
My idea. Me, Matt, Nate, Gage, and Jess are gray, covered in dirt.
Jess wasn’t afraid to get dirty. She'd do anything to keep up with the boys.
She never cried, even when she got really hurt. Gage would cry before she would.
Never cried. Never cries. Maybe she’s still trying to be tough.
I’m done snooping. I pick up a pile of papers and pictures and shove them into the box.
The next handful stops me. This time it’s a picture of us.
Grown up. My arm is around her, her head is on my shoulder.
She sent me an identical picture right after I left.
It's the only picture I have where we look like a couple.
I looked at it every single day in Iraq.
It was taken before we got together, the time I came over for Thanksgiving dinner and we played cards and bet on chores. I won breakfast in bed from her, something I'd hoped to collect as soon as I got back. Now I'll probably never get the chance.
The program from the memorial service is next.
Weird to see Matt and Gage’s name with the other two men killed.
Mom sent me a copy of this. I shoved it into my footlocker without looking at it.
Now I study it. Read every detail until the pain is replaced with numbness.
Then, I put it back in the box. I’m suddenly tired.
I scoop up the last of the papers. I doubt there’s anything else in here that I want to see.
I’m wrong.
Another picture—Jess and Lieutenant Stephens. His arm is around her. They both look flushed. They’re wearing parachute gear.
On the back it says,
Looking forward to our next adventure. I'll be thinking of you. Love Michael.
I figure it out pretty easily. He took her skydiving.
When?
Where?
How do you compete with that?
I study her face in the picture. She looks excited, happy. Beautiful.
Lieutenant Stephens is a big thrill-seeker. Skydiver, extreme skier, all of that. I study the picture. What happened after they jumped out of the plane? What was his next adventure? Her?
Looking at the picture makes me sick. Jess said she loved me, that she would wait for me, but I know too well how the heat of the moment can change everything.
Especially after something as adrenaline-filled as jumping out of an airplane.
Where did they go after this picture was taken? That will haunt me.
I put everything back in the box, establishing my own hierarchy. The picture of us and the locket on top. Stephens at the bottom. I resist the urge to rip him out of the picture completely.
I lie down on the bed and try burying my head in the pillow. Nothing but dryer sheet smell. No Jess.
I close my eyes and try to see her face. Now I see two faces. Her face and Michael’s, smiling, arms around each other. I can’t separate them in my mind.