I didn’t want to go after dark, but Jack’s practice schedule left us no choice. There is no such thing as no choice. There is always a choice. The only question is whether it’s a bearable one. The cemetery wasn’t that far from where he lived, so I met him at his house. I stood awkwardly in the doorway as he made excuses to his parents, in the same way he’d made excuses to head out with you.
“Are you two inseparable now?” I asked you.
You laughed. “Don’t you know, Evan? People are always separable.”
I wanted to say I had once thought the two of us were inseparable.
But that would have only proven your point.
We didn’t talk on the way over. All the things I didn’t want to ask him and all the things he didn’t want to tell me added up to an unhelpful silence.
For a second, I pictured the two of you kissing. One time I saw you. It was Gabe Weismann’s party and you’d skipped to the backyard. I had gotten you a drink, even though you hadn’t asked me to. I was looking for you, just to give you the drink. I didn’t see you in the shadows at first. You were kissing. It wasn’t anything more than that. I felt so invisible. Because neither of you was seeing me. You were lost in each other. Not just the sight of each other. The feel. The taste. The contact. I was outside of it.
I wondered if Jack remembered that. I wondered if things like that haunted him now. I wondered what happened to kisses when they were over.
It’s not like I could ask him this.
Finally, as we passed through the cemetery entrance, I said, “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“The story. You and Ariel. The first kiss. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
He sighed. I was sure there were moments when he hated me. “It seems like a really long time ago, right?”
I nodded.
“But I remember it. I don’t know if that matters now.”
“Tell me.”
Why was I being so insistent? Mostly because it was making him so uncomfortable. Mostly because I’d never been sure if he’d registered any of it. I always felt it was unfair that even though both of us did what we did, I was the one who took on the suffering afterwards. Do you blame us equally?
“There’s not much to tell you,” he said now, leading me to the gravestone in the picture. “She was having one of her up nights—she was all energy, bouncing around and telling me how happy she was. It felt good, you know? To be the guy making her happy. We’d gone to the movies, and then she said she’d walk me home. When we got to my house, she said she didn’t want it to be over yet. She asked me what was around, and when I told her the cemetery, she said that was perfect. We got in here—just hopped over the wall; it’s not that high. And she started running around, reading all of the inscriptions to me. Beloved wife and mother, that kind of thing. I tried to catch up with her, but when she was in one of those moods, it was impossible to catch up with her. Right? I’d chime in every now and then, but mostly it was her show. Then we got to this one, and she got quiet.”
We were in front of the gravestone from the photo now. I tried to read it, but I couldn’t. Time had worn away all of the words. Some light green moss grew on it instead.
“You can’t read it anymore,” I said. “That’s what upset her.”
Jack nodded. “She kept saying, ‘What’s the point? All this, and what’s the point?’ And I don’t know—I just wanted to kiss her so much then. I wanted it, and she needed it. So I held her, and I kissed her, and we just started making out in the middle of a graveyard.”
“That’s so romantic,” I said.
“What do you know about romance, Ev? I mean, really.”
It took me by surprise, his anger. I hadn’t realized he cared enough to be angry with me.
He took out a cigarette, looked at me for my permission, then lit it.
“Runner like you shouldn’t dabble in cancer,” I said, pressing my luck.
“You sound like her,” he said, then let it hang there, like the smoke.
I looked around the gravestone for another envelope, but didn’t find anything.
“Are you watching us?” I called out. “Anyone there?”
“This time of night,” Jack said between drags, “they’d need a flash.”
“He’d need a flash,” I said. “Or she’d.”
“Who is it, Evan? If it’s not you and not me, who is it?”
“Do you think there was someone else? Do you think she was cheating on you?”
“No. Did she have any other friends she would’ve told? Do you think she was cheating on you?”
Between us, we were supposed to know you. Between us, we were supposed to know everything.
“You have to help me,” I said to him. “We have to help her.”
“We would joke about it,” he continued. “That first kiss. How weird it was. I was going to find out whose grave it was. I was going to find out, and then on our anniversary, I was going to write the name back on. I thought she’d like that.”
I looked down at the anonymous stone. I couldn’t meet his eye.
“She needed help,” I told him.
“Shame we couldn’t give it to her.”
I lifted my head to stare at him in the darkness, over the gravestone.
“Do you really believe that?” I asked.
“Some days I do. Some days I don’t.”
“She was breaking,” I told him. “We had to.”
“I’m not convinced we didn’t break her more,” he replied.
“You can’t break someone by caring.”
“Are you really sure about that?”
“I don’t need your help!” you screamed.
“Yes, you do,” he told you. “Evan and I both think that.”
“You’re against me! Both of you—you’re against me.”
“That’s not it,” I said. “That’s not it at all.” But I wasn’t sure you could hear me over your own crying.
“They’ll be here soon,” Jack said. “It’s for the best.”
I was glad he sounded so confident. Because I was starting to wonder whether we’d done the right thing.
“I’ll kill myself. I swear, I’ll kill myself,” you threatened.
“We’re not going to leave you alone,” I said.
But we had to, eventually.
After all, people are always separable.
“Evan?” Jack said to me now. “You there?”
“As much as I ever am.”
I half expected him to follow up with You okay? But instead he started walking back home.
“There’s nothing for us here,” he called back to me. “I guess we’ll just see what happens next.”
“I’m not okay,” I said.
But he was already too far away to hear me.