12. now
now
“Damn. You didn’t mention he was rich.” Hayden cranes her neck to look up at Atlas’s apartment.
It’s on the nicer side of Aberlena, far from the crappy place she and I share.
Rather than peeling yellow siding and dying grass, Atlas’s building looks new.
Shiny. The yard is not only green, but neatly trimmed with purple and yellow flowers beneath each of its trees.
I shift the car into park, but remain seated. Breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. I wonder what he has of Nat’s. Is it something I’d even care to have?
Of course.
“Relax. I’m joking.” Hayden removes her seatbelt and opens the door, only to stop. My hands remain on the wheel, all color gone from my knuckles.
I’d done something similar when I came here the first time, but it feels much more embarrassing with an audience. From my peripheral, I can see Hayden’s concerned face. Her mouth is doing that thing where it’s trying but failing to form a word.
“It’s probably something stupid.” I stare at my knuckles instead of her. “Like, an old T-shirt or maybe her retainer.”
“Why would Atlas have her retainer?”
“Well, his sister.”
“Why would his sister have her retainer?” Hayden laughs then grabs my nearest hand, prying it from the steering wheel.
She shakes my fingers and waits until I look at her.
“If it’s her retainer, we’ll take it and go home.
If it's a T-shirt or a smelly sock or her secret stash of thirty million dollars, we’ll do the same thing.
It doesn’t matter, right? It’s Nat’s, so we’re going to get it. ”
I manage a nod. The tightness hasn’t eased in my chest, but it’s probably not going to. Stalling certainly won’t help. It’s just going to give me more time to dwell and spiral and—
“Come on.” Hayden releases my hand and climbs out of the car. “Chop, chop, Violet. I don’t have all day. Unlike you, I have a very eventful life.”
She’s trying to make me laugh. Usually, it would work.
It doesn’t now, but it’s at least enough to get my ass out of the car.
I fidget with my hair and clothes as we walk through the building and take the elevator to the top level.
There are only nine stories, but there’s something grating about the fact he just waltzed into my town and got set up in one of its nicest apartments.
“You have to stop.” Hayden grabs my hand, gently pulling it away from my hair. “You look hot.”
“I wasn’t—”
“It’s okay. I’d be fussing too.” The elevator opens, and Hayden gestures for me to lead the way. I’m typically forgetful. If this were anyone else, I’d have to consult my texts from Derek to confirm the apartment number. As it is, I walk straight to apartment 907 and knock.
This time, Atlas is the one to open the door. He’s wearing a dark blue T-shirt that makes his eyes look otherworldly. He smells good. Whatever his cologne, I’d like to bathe in it. Preferably with him.
God. No. Stop it.
He smiles when he sees me, but it’s more tentative than it’s been. His hair is standing up in the back, like he’s just rolled out of bed. He must have been taking a nap. My fingers twitch, desperate to touch him, to smooth down that hair, to feel the short scruff on his unshaved jaw.
The facial hair is new.
“Violet.” He glances between me and Hayden. “Do you want to come in?”
“Oh hey, you’re back,” comes another voice.
I tilt my head to peek around Atlas. His roommate is on the couch, legs spread with his elbows on his knees.
From the sound of it, he’s playing that video game Derek likes.
Yellow Light, I think it’s called. He presses a button before throwing his controller onto the coffee table. It’s no longer a cardboard box.
“New table?” I ask, nodding at the upgrade.
“Yeah, the other one was not nearly as sturdy as we hoped.” Atlas lets out a self-deprecating laugh. He steps back, opening the door wider, welcoming us inside. To Hayden, he adds, “It’s Hayden, right?”
I walk past Atlas and stop at the kitchen counter. A bag of mandarin oranges sits atop a pile of unsorted mail. When we were kids, Atlas could eat about six of them a day. It feels impossible he hasn’t shaken the habit.
“...her roommate.” Hayden sidles up next to me.
“Does she still snore?” Atlas asks, right as his roommate joins us at the counter. The roommate barks out a laugh, and my jaw falls so hard it almost breaks right off my face.
“Atlas.”
His eyes spark in challenge as he looks at me. They’re impossibly green. If I hadn’t known him since we were kids, I’d think they were contacts.
“Do not answer that,” I snap at Hayden. She rolls her lips together, barely holding back a smile.
“I’m Kolt, by the way.” The roommate starts peeling an orange, pausing to toss one to Atlas. He glances between me and Hayden. “Do you guys want one?”
“Where’s Nat’s stuff?” I ask, talking over Hayden as she confirms she does, in fact, want one.
Then it’s the three of them peeling their oranges and me, shifting irritably on my feet. By the way Atlas’s mouth quirks, he is well aware that I’m about to lose my shit. It’s too much. The familiarity. The teasing. The massive elephant parading around his living room.
I twist away from the counter and take off down the hall.
“Which one is yours?” I call over my shoulder. I don’t wait for his response before pushing open the first door. A bathroom. Minimally decorated. No rug. No hand towel. Only a bottle of soap that I’d bet my life savings (a whopping twelve hundred dollars) is empty.
“Hey!” Atlas reaches me just as I arrive at the next door.
This one is already ajar, and it’s clearly Kolt’s.
Workout clothes litter the floor. Several half-filled water bottles line every available surface: the window sill, the dresser, the desk.
There’s a stack of books on the desk chair, and the bookstore receipt is draped over the top.
“That one’s—”
“Kolt’s, yeah.” I take off again. Atlas remains a step behind me as I open the next door. This one is a closet with wire shelving. It’s empty. No extra towels or bedding or…ugh. Men.
“What’s the rush, Vi?” he asks as I reach the final door. The bed is unmade and the laundry hamper is almost overflowing, but Atlas’s room is far cleaner than his roommate’s.
“I have no interest in playing catch-up with you or sharing oranges or whatever else you were expecting.” I spin around, hands on my hips.
Atlas is closer than I expect, and my nose almost brushes against his T-shirt.
I stumble backwards, craning my neck to look up at him.
I don’t remember the height difference between us being this dramatic.
He’s grown, I decide. At least an inch since the wedding.
“We don’t have to play catch up,” he says softly. “But you don’t have to go storming through my house. We were best friends for years, Violet. Is it so terrible to have one conversation with me?”
“It’s worse than terrible.” I spit out the words, not caring how petulant I sound. “Every time I look at your stupid face, I think of what you did. And I hate it, Atlas. I hate it, and I’d prefer to never look at you again.”
He reels back as if I’ve struck him. Those beautiful green eyes dull, and his smile falters. He tries to hide it. Looks away from me. Shoves his hands into his pockets. But I can see it all the same.
“All right.” He doesn’t look angry. Just hurt…and that’s undoubtedly worse. I’m not a mean person. I’m not cruel. At least, I didn’t think I was. Right now, I’m not so sure.
“Atlas—”
“Let me grab it.” He moves around me, careful not to touch me. He rummages through the mess on his desk—it’s clear he, at least, has used the textbooks he purchased.
He finds what he’s looking for: a simple blue folder. It’s the expensive kind, glossy and thick. When Mom took us back-to-school shopping every year, she’d let us buy as many of these folders as we wanted. Nat and I would carefully pick to ensure we didn’t get any of the same colors.
This one though, I recognize for a different reason.
It’s not labeled for biology or calculus or AP literature.
The front is decorated with stickers from every era of Nat’s life.
Unicorns and smiley faces from when she was young.
Branded stickers from her favorite clothing lines and coffee stands as she got older.
And in the middle, written in her fourth-grade handwriting and slightly-smeared black ink:
Natalie Joanne Preston
Bucket List
(AKA: to do before I die)
It feels like someone poured sand down my throat.
I can barely breathe, barely think. I’m just staring at this relic from a life that feels simultaneously ancient and current.
I close my eyes. I can picture it too easily.
Nat, curled up on my bed, using her knees as a table to write down her year’s list. Nat, carrying that folder on every vacation, field trip, sleepover.
Nat, reading her list to me at the end of each summer, right before the first week of school.
She didn’t read it to me for her senior year, and by the time she was out of high school, I assumed she’d grown tired of her bucket lists.
When she disappeared, I wondered what happened to them.
I looked through all her boxed belongings until I was crying too hard to see.
And then, after I was sure this folder wasn’t there, I felt a strange surge of relief.
She had taken her bucket lists with her. Wherever she was going, she was still Nat. My Nat, the one who craved adventure and a beautiful life and…
All this time, she’d left it behind. Not even with me, but with Phoebe.
Atlas stands in front of me. He opens the folder and snags a white envelope from the left pocket.
He tucks it under his arm and offers the folder to me.
I’m so transfixed on the folder, I almost don’t notice the envelope.
I might have ignored it entirely, were it not for my name boldly written on the front.
I’m about to ask what it is, when my eyes catch on the opened folder.
NAT’S BUCKET LIST
AGE 19
“I didn’t know she was still doing them,” I whisper. I peel the front paper slightly, revealing a list for her senior year, then her junior, sophomore, and so on. My eyes burn until I can’t contain it anymore. Tears leak down my cheeks, and I taste salt between my lips.
“Phoebe found it at the diner. She’d been the one to clean out Nat’s locker.
” Atlas speaks kindly, but his words are distant now.
Back when Nat disappeared, she was working at the small diner near our house.
Phoebe worked there too, though only during college breaks and summers.
I never considered Nat left belongings there.
“I guess she held onto it all this time, assuming she’d give it to Nat someday. Phoebe thought you might want it.”
The unspoken, because Nat isn’t coming home to get it, hangs in the air. Atlas holds the folder toward me, and I take it, hugging it to my chest. Once again, my eyes catch on the envelope beneath his arm.
“What is that?”
“Nothing.” He says the word too quickly, like he’s trying to end the conversation before it even begins.
“If it’s from Nat—”
“It’s not,” he says firmly. He hesitates, then flashes the front of the envelope toward me. My name, written not in Nat’s neat handwriting, but in his. Blocky, all letters capitalized.
“What is it?” I ask again, because I’m a masochist, maybe.
Because now that I have this gift in my arms, the guilt feels suffocating.
I’ll never forgive Atlas for what he did, but I didn’t need to be cruel.
Especially not when he’s given me this missing relic.
Not when he came all the way to Aberlena to check on me, misguided as he was.
“Nothing.” Quick again. He shoves it into his back pocket. Out of sight, but definitely not out of mind.
“It has my name on it. You were going to give it to me.” I hold out my hand, keeping the other firmly wrapped around the folder.
“Yeah, well.” That’s it. No further explanation.
And it’s fair. I get it. What I don’t get is why I can’t move my feet from the floor, why I suddenly feel frozen with an unfamiliar sensation coursing through me. Why this moment feels critical. Like one wrong move will change the trajectory of my entire life.
“Can I see it?” I ask. My hand hovers between us, palm up. “Please, Atlas?”
His eyes flutter shut, like my voice is causing him physical pain.
I count the seconds as I wait for him to open his eyes. When he does, he doesn’t speak. He fishes the envelope out of his pocket and places it in my hand, his warm fingers brushing mine. The envelope is heavier than I expect. Not a letter then, but something thick. Something that feels like…
I peer inside the envelope. Gasp. Hold it back to Atlas, pressing it to his chest when he doesn’t grab it.
“Why were you going to give me money?” My voice is too soft, too scared. I clear my throat roughly and try again. “What’s this for, Atlas? It’s not from Nat, right? You promise?”
Lord only knows where she would have gotten that much money. There has to be a thousand dollars in there. Maybe more.
“It was from me.” He shifts on his feet, and for the first time, it looks like he’s going to cry.
I’ve seen many emotions from my ex-best-friend, but this tortured sadness is too much.
I hate it. I want to scrub it from existence.
Never have to feel the ebbing hurt again.
“I know it doesn’t…I know it doesn’t change anything.
I just thought, someone should finish her lists, you know?
It felt like you should do it, but some of the stuff is expensive, and I figured… ”
He trails off, swallowing, and I stare at his shoulders instead of his face. I can’t bear to meet his eyes, even as I feel their weight all the same.
“Nat will finish it,” I whisper. Pathetic, because I know as well as anyone it’s not true.
“Okay.” His voice is hoarse. He hasn’t moved to take the money.
“Take it, Atlas. Please.”
He does. As soon as the envelope is in his hand, we both step back and it becomes the slightest bit easier to breathe.
“Thank you,” I tell him, hoping he knows how much I mean it. “For the folder. For…the offer.”
“You’re welcome.” He speaks so quietly I can barely hear him. His next words are somehow even softer, only spoken once I’ve turned for the door. “I never meant to hurt you, Violet. I lost her too.”
I freeze. Tears prick my eyes, but I don’t let any more fall.
“You didn’t lose her.” I tilt my chin higher. Force a steady breath. “You chased her away.”
I don’t look back as I leave, too afraid of what I might see.