Page 31 of What’s Left of Us

“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.