Sarah Durst - The Lost

“Okay.”

He looks at me. “So, can you help me?”

I take a deep breath and meet his eyes. “You pretty much just confessed to causing an innocent girl’s death. I don’t know what I can find that will fix that.” He hangs his head, and I wish I hadn’t been so harsh. He’s a kid. He screwed up, yes. But he’s a kid, and what the hell kind of right do I have to judge him? Besides, maybe there’s more to the story. More gently, I ask, “What will you do if I succeed?”

“See if the other girls are okay,” he says immediately. “I keep thinking...I can’t undo it for her. But those other girls, yeah, maybe. I owe something, you know? And I can’t pay it back here.”

I nod. “I’ll see what I can do. No promises. I’m new to this. If there’s any hint you can give me as to what you expect me to find...” I can hear a voice inside my head screaming at me that this is not my responsibility! This is not my problem! I have my own problems, thank you very much. But Claire’s right—if I can win over the townspeople, I’ll be safer. And I did find the star sapphire ring and the 1986 newspaper.

“Her.”

I’m not sure I heard him correctly. “She’s dead.”

“So are some people here.”

I think of Tiffany. “But...” I don’t know how to phrase it nicely. I don’t even know if I’m right. “But if she intended to die, then she wouldn’t be lost. She’d be exactly where she wanted to be. Dead dead. Not lost-dead.”

He shook his head so hard that his bandana slipped. “She can’t be. She has to be here. I need her to forgive me, or else I can’t ever return. You have to find her.”

I don’t know that she’ll be willing to forgive, even if I could find her. After all, she killed herself. That’s about as unforgiving and stuck-in-pain as it gets. But I don’t say that. His eyes are so pleading, so young, so hopeful and helpless and hopeless all at the same time. “I’ll try.” I rise. “I need...”

“What? I’ll get it for you. Anything.” He jumps to his feet.

“Just...need my bathing suit. Wait here, okay.”

He sinks down.

I scurry into my room, shut the door, and change as quickly as I can. I then head to my window and open it. I look out at the ocean, the empty boats, the blur on the horizon. I can’t do this. What was I thinking? A shape swings down in front of my window. Jumping backward, I bite back a yelp as Peter, upside down, grins at me.

Opening the window, I let him inside. He swings in and lands on his feet. “So...you’re saving them now?”

“Am I being stupid?”

He shrugs. “If you are, then I’m stupid, too.”

“Why me?” I ask. “Does the void like me? Or—”

He curls his hand around my cheek, his fingers in my hair, and he kisses me. Instantly, the rest of the world dims and fades, and the only sound I hear is the crash of waves hitting the back of the house. He tastes like the salty air.

I’m kissing the ocean, I think.

He releases me and then launches himself out the window without another word.

Wrapping a towel tight around me, I walk back to the living room. I lift the window and climb out. I drop down into the sand softened by the waves. The water curls around my toes. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Colin.”

“Seriously?”

“My mom really liked The Secret Garden. ”

“Mine read me that book, too,” I say. Mom used to read to me all the time, through a lot of elementary school. We both liked to read. Spent a lot of high school curled up on couches side by side reading books. We’d trade them back and forth. I used to keep a steady supply of bookmarks in the house because she liked to grab whatever was nearby to mark her place—a tissue, a napkin, a straw, a plate, a pencil, her glasses. I wish she were here, reading on this couch, in our little yellow house.

“Yeah, stupid book,” he says. Quickly, he adds, “Unless you like it. Been a long time since she read it to me. Maybe it’s good.”

“Help yourself to any of the books on the shelves. Just use a bookmark.”

“Right. Okay. Good luck.”

I toss the towel over the windowsill and wade into the water.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

I pause. For some reason, I don’t want to tell him. Maybe it’s what Claire said, about needing to seem wise and mysterious. Or maybe I just don’t want to share. “I’m the one who’s going to help you. I think that’s good enough for you to know, don’t you?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

I immediately feel like that was totally cheesy and want to shout back that my name is Lauren, but I don’t. Instead, I turn my back on him and hurry into the water. It splashes around my legs, and I lurch forward to belly flop into the surf. A second later, I think I should have done that more gracefully if I’m impersonating some kind of oracle or savior, but whatever.

A minute later, I spot the familiar silver dorsal fin in the water. I swim to it with overhead strokes that I remember from the summer I thought I might train to be a lifeguard, until it occurred to me that lifeguards spend most of their time out of the water, watching, when what I really loved was being in the water and tuning out the world. I swim to the dolphin, and I stroke its side. It chitters at me. I grab its dorsal fin, and it shoots through the water. I feel the waves splash into my face. Salt water sprays into my eyes, nose, and mouth. I taste the salt as I breathe. Closer to the void, I release, and the dolphin veers away to safer waters. But I keep going. I swim directly into the void.

The water fades, and I lower my legs. It doesn’t feel quite so lonely this time. It’s oddly peaceful. The dust wraps around me, warm and soft on my skin. I walk through it. It’s not unlike pushing through water. I focus on Colin, think of his story, wonder if he’s told me everything, if it’s really forgiveness that he needs, and what happens if he never gets it. If I fail here, with all those people outside...I don’t think they’ll be forgiving, either. I try not to think about that, and instead I picture Colin, his face, his eyes. He did a horrible thing that had an even more horrible consequence, one he didn’t intend of course and maybe there were other factors in this girl’s life that led to her quitting life, but I believe he was a factor. More important, he believes it.

But if forgiveness isn’t possible for him...

I don’t know.

I quit trying to guess. Instead I just walk and think of Colin, whom I’ve known for all of five minutes but want to help and not just because if I fail, it will be bad for me. But because he sat in my living room—me, a total stranger—and tried to articulate where his life had gone wrong.

I can articulate when mine went wrong: Mom’s first diagnosis.

She came to my apartment after work and brought Chinese food. She set the table as I unpacked the food. As I unpacked it, I began to notice she’d ordered every single appetizer on the menu. No lo mein or fried rice. But fried dumplings, spareribs, egg rolls, crab rangoon... This is a woman who never orders appetizers at all because she doesn’t believe the cost-to-food ratio is worth it. If you want small portions, she’d say, you order regular and save the rest as leftovers. “We’re either celebrating or mourning,” I said.

“Just wanted something special tonight,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

Why hadn’t I let it lie? Why had I pressed it? She would have told me when she was ready, when she thought I was ready. This was for herself. She wanted this nice meal with me. But I didn’t let it go. I was like a dog that had grabbed one of those spareribs. I teased, begged, cajoled, pestered, and demanded.

Ovarian cancer.