“Look,” I say, snagging Nat’s phone from her hand and shining it above us to illuminate what’s left of the signage. “Pot pie, Salisbury steak, burgers, and coleslaw… We must be in the old kitchen.” We were standing where the food lines were, and each one had a different sign. It’s fascinating to me that this place is in ruins, but some things, like the menus and even some old light fixtures, have been well-preserved.
“Guys, over here,” Dash says, sounding far away. I follow his voice and find him standing on the old grandstand that overlooks the dirt area where the track once was. As I get closer, I hear crunching with every step and look down to find—
“Is that…?” I ask, lifting a foot.
“Bird shit.”
I jerk my head at the sound of Asher’s voice. It’s deeper than I remember, and it cuts right through me. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that I’ve been missing that voice for three years, and the first words he says to me are bird shit. I shake my head and trek through the piles of mummified poop and stand in the open air, trying to make out the stables through the glassless windows, to no avail.
“I wonder what happened to the windows,” I muse aloud. They run the entire length of the grandstand, and every single frame is empty.
“They blew them up in that Charlie Sheen movie,” my brother offers. “I saw it on YouTube.”
“Yeah, and killed thousands of pigeons in the process. Pissed PETA off real good,” Asher adds. I feel my eyebrows pull together as I try to decipher his tone. He isn’t amused, nor does he seem particularly saddened by the fact. Just…cold ambivalence.
“That’s disgusting,” Nat says, tiptoeing toward us—like that’s somehow going to help her avoid the droppings—with her nose scrunched up like she just smelled something foul.
“That’s sad,” I argue.
“Why, because you weren’t there to give them a funeral?” Asher says snidely.
When I was eleven, I found a dead pigeon on our lawn. The bright, crimson blood coming out of its eye a stark contrast to the light gray feathers. We were coming home from Dash and Asher’s swim meet, and I cried and begged my mom to let me give it a proper burial. She screamed about it being full of diseases, ordered me to stay away, and called my dad to dispose of it. By the time my dad got home, he said the bird was gone. Later that night, when Asher snuck into my brother’s window, he whispered into my ear not to worry. He’d buried it near a bush in our yard. Sure enough, the next day I saw the little mound of dirt and expressed my gratitude, but still thought something was missing. It was so plain. So sad. Everyone deserves to be buried by something pretty, I’d told him. Even a stupid pigeon. He laughed, the way he always did when he thought I was being a bleeding heart, and plucked a big, purple succulent, also known as a desert rose. The colors were beautiful. The middle was made up of a vibrant purple and faded into a lighter shade. Succulents weren’t your typical funeral flower, but I couldn’t have loved them more. “Is that better?” he said as he squatted down to place the flower atop the dirt, ever so carefully. Almost tenderly.
I
remember thinking how surprising it was to see this gorgeous, rough-around-the-edges bad boy doing anything with such care, much less tending to a flying rat. Correction: a dead flying rat. That was one of the first things that drew me to him. I knew it was just a bird, but I cried all night thinking about it, unable to get the image of its bloody eye out of my head. And Asher… He knew it bothered me. He’d listened. And he’d fixed it. Clearly, that Asher is not here today.
Dashiell’s eyes dart between the two of us, no doubt wondering what could’ve possibly caused tension between us already. I look down, afraid my guilty eyes will give us away. Asher scoffs and walks off. Dash shoots a look to Nat, and she holds her hands up in mock confusion before following suit.
“He’s been through some shit, Bry.”
I shrug, feigning indifference. “Okay.”
“He’ll come around.”
“If you say so. When did he get back?” I can’t help myself from asking.
“Couple of weeks ago?” he guesses, running a hand over the top of his sandy blond hair.
“Oh.”
I don’t know why that feels like a punch straight to my gut, but it does. He’s been here for weeks—plural—and he hasn’t come to see me. Not once.
“Why are you guys here, anyway?” I ask. I know they didn’t come to hang out with a bunch of high school kids.
“I really don’t know. Asher asked me to meet him here, and then your friends showed up.”
He had plans with Ash, and he kept them from me.
“I would’ve told you sooner…” he trails off, looking uncomfortable, and I know more is coming.
“But?”
“But, he asked me not to tell you.”
Okay. Ouch. That hurts more than it should. I feel tears starting to well up, and I hate that I’m still affected. I’ve shed enough tears for Asher Kelley over the years. I vow to myself, right here and right now, that these are the last ones.
“Look, I know you guys were close, too. He was like a brother to you.”