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“I went over to see if he could fix my TV remote and I had the greatest four-hour chat with him.”
They miss you. They might have even been your friends.
I grab Jackson’s shoulder and pull him away, mumbling that I have to steal him away for something. Jackson is shaking, and I wrap my arm around his shoulders. Everyone quiets. They watch us walk toward the building, and they must be confused as hell, possi
bly mistaking my friendship for intimacy—but the only thing I care about is making sure Jackson doesn’t collapse, especially not before we go into your room to pack up your belongings. At least we’ve figured out a way to turn my running away into something constructive. Even my parents approve. We have to decide what’s okay for Jackson to keep and what should be sent back to your family.
Jackson leads me through the halls. The endless doors are identical, except for some with the occasional flyer or decoration, but Jackson never loses his way. There are still times where I get confused getting home if I go a different route or get too lost in my head or whatever song I’m listening to. But Jackson could probably find his way to your room blindfolded. I know it’s West 10 from all the mail I sent you—but if I’d somehow forgotten and was here without Jackson, it would’ve been easy to figure out by what’s outside: bouquets of flowers, candles, and mourning notes taped to the door.
The lump returns. I can’t read what people say about you; it hurts too much. Jackson and I aren’t the only ones hurting. I don’t know when you gave Jackson a key to your room, but he unlocks it and lets us in, and we’re careful to step over the flowers.
“Here we are.” Jackson’s voice is shaky. “It feels like a ghost town.”
I only know this room through photos you and Jackson posted on social media at the beginning of this semester because you were celebrating being roommate-free for sophomore year. On your desk is your laptop, your iPhone dock-slash-charging station, the pirate bobblehead and coloring books I sent you in my first and last care package, and a Star Wars mug with pens inside. The single bed is unmade. It’s so small, and whenever Jackson slept over, you two must’ve been forced to really push up against each other so no one fell off the edge. I have no idea when you and Jackson had sex for the first time, but the first time you casually mentioned it to me was a couple of months after you were already dating him, a little joke as if you were testing the waters to see if I would laugh. I did, but I knew you could tell it hurt me, because you never brought it up again. Either that or you and Jackson stopped having sex, which, let’s be real . . . I know you.
“I’ll be back in a minute. I’m going to go get a couple of boxes,” Jackson says softly, leaving me alone.
I hate that you’re not resting in that bed right now, asleep, or with your headphones, listening to a song you would recommend to me. I go to your desk and pick up the pirate bobblehead. I flick his cutlass, watching him shake his head around and smiling the biggest smile. It’s as if he’s the sole surviving pirate who didn’t get infected by the zombie virus, who’s now in possession of maps to everyone else’s buried treasures, setting sail to collect them all. I keep flicking and flicking until Jackson returns.
“Do you care if . . . do you care if I keep this pirate?” I ask him. I know I got it for you, but I don’t know if Jackson has a connection to it too; weeks ago I wouldn’t have even asked.
“That’s yours,” Jackson says, setting down some boxes.
“Thanks. Theo and I had this ongoing joke about pirates.” I sit down on the bed, still flicking away in twos.
“The zombie-pirate apocalypse, right? He told me about it.”
The pirate turns me into a kid—a crying, confused kid. Jackson sits beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. I bounce the pirate across my leg, like he’s walking the plank, and send him diving into the ocean, into Jackson’s lap. Jackson winces and laughs a little while pulling me closer. It’s unsettling how nice the body contact is. I wonder if he’s feeling the same way. I shift a little, hoping to burrow into his side a little more closely, but he lets go of me completely, possibly mistaking my movement for discomfort.
Maybe he’s not feeling the same comfort I was. Maybe I was pushing myself past a line I shouldn’t be crossing.
We work on packing your room up. Jackson packs away shirts and jeans I don’t recognize into one box; I clear out your desk and drop it all into the second box. It’s a task that takes a little less than twenty minutes and no more than two boxes.
I’m still crying a little when we’re done. I can’t believe your entire life out here could be stored away in two boxes.
I can’t even pretend I’m tired because of jetlag like any other guy crossing time zones for the first time. It’s only day one of the Theo Tour, but it’s exhausting me in ways I didn’t predict. Jackson is the same, obviously. He’s been quiet since we got on the highway. He completely ignored my backseat-driver request to turn on the music to try and cheer him up.
The spy pen on his rearview mirror catches my attention again, so I ask him where he got it, even though I suspect it’s from you.
“Seventeenth birthday present from my dad,” Jackson answers, taking a second to look at it before returning his focus to the road. “He knows I got over birthday presents somewhere around thirteen or fourteen, but he still picked this up for me at an airport in Chicago anyway because I was really into spies as a kid. I lied to Theo last year and told him his collector’s edition Daredevil action figure was my favorite gift ever, but it’s actually this spy pen.”
I’m sure the action figure was a close second, Theo.
“That’s actually really awesome,” I say. “No offense to him, but that’s not what I would expect based on everything I know about him. I know he’s generous with free flights and stuff, but this is different.”
“Exactly,” Jackson says. “That’s why I got over birthdays, I think. I kept getting all these presents from my mom and dad, and every time it felt like they were buying me. I got the master bedroom and my car from my mom. I got a really nice laptop from my dad. Then my dad picks up this spy pen, which is basically just a flashlight that can also write in invisible ink, but it reminds me of when I was a kid and my parents worked together to create missions for me with fun codes to crack.”
I let this all sink in. “You’re happy they split though, right?”
“Yeah, they hate each other. But something as small as creating spy games for my entertainment reminds me of the teammates they could’ve been.”
“If you’re going to tell me you keep it on your rearview mirror so you can always look back on those times, I will punch you in the dick.”
Jackson laughs. “Don’t punch my dick. I’m not that philosophical. I keep it on my rearview mirror because it will get lost anywhere else. Besides, with all the back and forth, the car is really my only constant thing.”
“You’re dangerously close to the edge of philosophical bullshit.”
“Okay, fine, fine. I keep it in my car at all times because I sometimes have a thought so private I need to whip out the pen and get it off my chest, but with invisible ink so no one will ever read it.”
