When Lee texted me in late August, asking me to meet her at the café on a Saturday afternoon, I almost didn’t reply. I’d hoped our last meeting would be it—the last time I’d ever have to see anyone from that awful town ever again. But in her message, Lee promised that this would be the final time she’d ever contact me, and I don’t know, I guess I was intrigued. So I went.
She was there with Miles, that quiet kid with the beanie. They were sitting side by side, looking at each other’s face in that way that feels disgustingly intimate. When I pulled out the chair across from them, I made sure the legs scraped loudly against the floor, and they both looked up.
“What do you want?” I asked, sitting down and folding my arms over my chest.
Lee didn’t bother with the small talk, which I appreciated. In fact, she didn’t say a thing as she reached into her pocket and removed a small object. When she passed it across the table to me, I realized it was a dark blue USB drive.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Our stories,” she said. “Denny, Ashley, Eden, Miles, and me. They all wrote letters, telling their stories, and I put them all together.”
“And you’re giving this to me why?”
“After I saw you in the spring, I didn’t know what to do,” Lee explained. “I had these letters, because I thought telling the truth would help. But then I talked to you and I realized that … that it maybe wasn’t my decision.” She looked down, shame coloring her cheeks a bright shade of pink. “I was confused, so I decided to figure things out by writing it all down—everything I’d done. I’d hoped putting it on paper would help me figure out what to do. And it did.”
“Spit it out,” I said.
“I figured out that I wasn’t the persontofigure it out,” she explained. “You are.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Believe me, she’s not,” Miles said. I almost didn’t understand him at first. The kid really doesn’t speak clearly.
“You can destroy it if you want,” Lee said. “Or you can publish it. Or anything. It’s yours now. I asked, and all of the others gave permission for you to use it—or not use it—however you choose.”
“Allof them,” I repeated.
“Yes, even Ashley,” she said, answering the question I hadn’t asked. “She’s still upset with me, but … I think she feels bad about what happened to you.”
I rolled the drive between my fingers, watching the light from the café window gleam off its plastic casing. “Why do I get this? Why not someone else?”
“Because,” Lee said, “of all of us, you’re the one who has suffered the most.”
“Don’t pity me.”
“I don’t,” she said. “But I do feel guilty. We all do. We saw you being silenced, we saw your voice get taken away, and we didn’t do anything to help. So this is our way of trying to give you control of your story again. Use it or don’t. We’ll be okay with whatever you decide.”
“Lee, we better get going,” Miles said, checking the time on his cell phone.
“Right.” She stood up, pulling her purse over her shoulder. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us. We’re making a road trip to California,” she added to me, as if I cared about her plans.
I glanced out the window, at the old pickup truck I recognized from the last time we’d met here. Now the bed appeared to be loaded with what I could only guess were boxes and covered with a blue tarp. “You’re driving across the country in that piece of junk? It looks like it might break down at the next exit.”
Lee smiled. “It’s tougher than you’d think.”
As she and Miles moved toward the door, I called after her. “Lee.” She turned and looked at me. “You said this was the last time you’d contact me.”
She nodded. “I promise.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And … have a safe trip.”
She smiled, waved, and stepped out into the parking lot with Miles at her side. I watched through the glass as her truck pulled away, fading into the distance as it headed west.
***
I’d thrown the thumb drive in a drawer when I got home and told myself to forget about it. I considered destroying it, smashing it with a hammer or tossing it into a fire in some symbolic gesture. But I didn’t own a hammer, and I wasn’t sure if a hard drive would burn or how long it would take. So instead, it ended up in the drawer at the bottom of my desk, where the old batteries, unused cables, and slightly cracked cell phone cases went to die (because apparently I’m a hoarder who never remembers to just throw things away).
And I did forget about it. For a while.
