What You Left Me Read online

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  Copyright © 2018 by Bridget Morrissey

  Cover and internal design © 2018 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design and illustrations by Maggie Edkins

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

  sourcebooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Morrissey, Bridget, author.

  Title: What you left me / Bridget Morrissey.

  Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Fire, [2018] | Summary: After four years of passing in the halls, Petra and Martin meet at graduation then, when a car accident puts Martin in a coma, Petra is left to keep the connection going in hopes he will awaken.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017046008

  Subjects: | CYAC: Interpersonal relations--Fiction. | Coma--Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M675 Wh 2018 | DDC [Fic]--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017046008

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part One

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  Part Two

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  Part Three

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  Part Four

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  Part Five

  39

  40

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  For Mom and Dad

  Part One

  1

  FRIDAY, JUNE 8

  Right here in the middle, with 867 other sweaty kids herded like cattle around me, I want to die. End it all on the football field. Burn up into ash and leave behind this hideous robe. There’s no way I’m spending my afterlife wearing yellow polyester.

  The first thing I did when I walked out here today was make an official announcement to everyone in my general vicinity. “In this gown, I am a disgrace to the McGee family name,” I said.

  I can’t have my classmates thinking I don’t know how ridiculous I look. I know, okay?

  I know.

  I’m not the most ridiculous person here though. That award goes to our valedictorian, Steve Taggart. There’s no refund on the six minutes of my life I’m currently donating to his speech about how we’re all birds taking flight. Dude, I’m not a bird. I’m Martin McGee. I’m hot, I’m bored, and I don’t have anyone to talk to right now. Forgive me while my eyes glaze over as I drift off into oblivion.

  If I counted, and I mean if I got really specific, I’d say I know about four hundred of the people graduating today. That’s including, like, the drug dealer who sits at my study hall table, that super tall blond who has a cross-country picture on the wall by the main entrance, and the girl who threw up before picture day in first grade. I don’t see any of them right now. Based on the amount of random people around me, this could straight up be my first day of school.

  Okay, maybe I don’t want to die, but I could go for teleportation. I’d find Spits and talk him out of our bet. When this is all over, I’ll need my ten bucks for a celebratory meal. It’s the only money I have to my name, and, well, high school will be done.

  That calls for a sandwich.

  • • •

  Oh, Steve Taggart. Sweat has painted circles through his yellow robe. The random smattering of claps that follow his final sentence must be more for his underarm artwork than his terrible speech. My personal applause is for the end of Steve Taggart’s reign as smartest kid in school. See you in hell, Steve Taggart! Or at Notre Dame, but maybe the universe will grant me one kindness and make it so we never cross paths there.

  At the rate I’m going, it won’t be a problem.

  Steve walks back to his spot, smug and sweat-drenched, and settles into the innermost aisle seat of the front row. The rest of the top ten sit alongside him in order of class rank. The chosen ones.

  I’m in the miserable middle, plain old Petra McGowan of the M section, sandwiched between my alphabetical neighbors. Three different middle schools merged into our high school, and while there are faces nearby that I’ve known my whole life, there are also faces I swear I’ve never seen before. Like the two complete strangers on either side of me. For four years, we’ve coexisted, sharing walls and desks and hall passes and gossip without ever managing to cross paths. When you try hard to be good at this whole school thing, you end up with the same group of people in every class. As the years tick by, the numbers dwindle. No one ever randomly decides to take an AP course. This is the first and only time we’ve all been united; a bunch of squirming and vibrating cells being observed by the microscope that is the high-noon sun, waiting for this pomp and circumstance to end.

  Steve Taggart’s speech marks the end of one part of the ceremony and the beginning of the next—the ever-important receipt of the diploma. It begins with the parade of our most intelligent: Valedictorian Steve, Salutatorian Marissa Huang, third in the class Jay Cattaro, and then, my favorite mouthful of a name, Cameron Catherine Elizabeth Hannafin-Bower.

  Cameron’s wiry auburn hair engulfs her profile until she becomes nothing but a moving ball of energy, all warm colors and excited twitches. She turns to face the crowd and flashes her most vibrant gap-toothed smile at me. Or in my general vicinity. I’m not sure she can see this far back. Rank eleventh like me, and there is no fanfare. You’re deep among the plebeians, permanently imprinting your lower half into a foldout plastic chair while waiting for your spot in the alphabet.

  At least I was blessed with McGowan for a last name, not Prabhu or Stetson. Poor Aminah and Daniel. It’ll be hours before they get to graduate. P a
nd S may not seem very far from me, but I’m almost positive a third of our graduating glass has an M last name.

  Mister tenth in the class—the last of the spots that could have been mine if things had been different—walks across the stage, ending the stream of academic overachievers getting their only moment of priority over the athletes.

  How nice it would’ve been to get that single candle flicker of justice.

  The march of the mundane begins with Alex Abraham. His mom breaks the rules and uses a blow horn when his name is called, sending a much-needed jolt of energy through our class. The boy next to me jumps out of his seat.

  • • •

  Alex Abraham’s mom uses a blow horn. I jump out of my seat.

  “Aw, c’mon,” I say to myself. And kind of to the girl next to me. She turns a little, brushing a piece of her hair out of her eyes to see me, so I keep going. “Alex Abraham’s gotta be angling for some kind of last-ditch recognition as a rebel or something. I swear I’ve never heard that kid say more than five words in my whole life. Now he’s got the family bringing out blow horns? Let it go, kid. It’s over.”

  The girl does something halfway between laughing and shrugging. We aren’t supposed to talk, but it’s a rule without consequence. It’s not like they’ll take away our diplomas now.

  I pass time by trying to list every Cubs manager I can recall, in reverse chronological order. I’m all the way back to Leo Durocher (1966–1972), when I catch sight of Spits shuffling into his seat. He’s arrived right in between the graduations of Bryant Carpenter and Eduardo Carrera, and he’s causing a tiny commotion while making his way down his row. The other graduates yelp as he trips over their feet. Spits just laughs.

  “He’s such a loser,” I mutter, half laughing to myself.

  “I’ll say,” the girl next to me quips back.

  I’m stunned. I shoot her a look, but she’s got her eyes right back on her hands, the smallest trace of a smile hanging on her lips.

  A paper airplane crashes into the lap of the dude on my other side, who has somehow managed to stay asleep through the horn blowing. Good for him. I look around for a culprit—it’s Spits of course, his metal mouth on full display, grinning like he took a hit seconds before and is riding the high. Classic. He points to the airplane.

  bet you can’t get that girl next to you to come tonight.

  also get my ten bucks ready.

  —spitty

  “Wanna hear something funny?” I ask the girl. Might as well make one last friend before I dance across the stage, grab my damn diploma, and keg stand my way into a victorious summer. “My buddy, uh, Spencer, bet me ten bucks that my mom will yell out Marty McFly when they call my name.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Because my name’s Martin McGee.”

  “Then who is Marty McFly?”

  “You have to know who Marty McFly is.”

  “A sports guy?”

  My laugh is the blow horn now. It scares her. “Come to my party tonight,” I say. “I’ll lend you Back to the Future.”

  “Where’s it at?” she asks. It looks like one of her cheeks gets red, but it’s hard to tell when she’s facing the other direction. Her hair’s curled in that way all girls seem to do for special occasions, pieces of it twisted like coiled ribbons around her head. She wraps one strand around her finger until it becomes a perfect brown spiral.

  “My place,” I tell the girl. “Mama Dorothy lets me use our basement for parties. Everyone has to put their car keys in a bowl and promise to spend the night if they drink. I live right behind the school.” I point toward the trees beyond the field. “Ugly orange house with a basketball hoop in the driveway. You can’t miss it.”

  “Cool,” she says. She puts her hands in her lap and starts chipping off the sparkly stuff on her nails.

  • • •

  This whole ordeal is supposed to be my last punishment, closing up shop on the era that will someday be known as the time Petra just graduated. Emphasis on the word just, as if plain graduation is a disease to be contracted, because there isn’t anything to follow it with, such as in the top ten, like my sister Jessica, or even better, as the valedictorian, like my sister Caroline.

  Just graduated.

  But here’s Martin McGee. Interrupting me.

  “Gotta kill the time,” he says, “or this thing is gonna kill me.” He has the delivery of a stand-up comedian, every word crackling with extra flair so that no sentence sounds ordinary.

  “I hear you,” I respond, wiping away the newest beads of sweat forming along my hairline. I spent half an hour curling my hair just right, and the heat has been trying its hardest to undo all my work.

  Our principal cuts in front of the man reciting the names. “In the interest of time, we ask that everyone refrain from making any noises for the remainder of the ceremony. Thank you.”

  Someone boos in an act of defiance.

  “Wow. Gotta love this town,” Martin mutters under his breath.

  I’ve never understood why you’re supposed to feel this unfounded disdain for where you come from, as if it is the unclassiest, most smothering place that ever existed. “I like it just fine,” I say to him.

  “You might be the first.”

  We go quiet again.

  • • •

  Spits makes faces at me. You failed, he mouths, smiling of course, and pointing to the girl, who’s kind of pretending to ignore me by leaning forward and staring at the grass. I wad up the note and try to throw it at Spits, but it bounces off the head of someone who doesn’t even react.

  “My friend over there told me to invite you to my party. He thinks I failed,” I say to the girl.

  “How? You already invited me.”

  “Failing would be you not showing up.”

  “How does he know that I won’t go?”

  “Exactly. Orange house. Basketball hoop. Ten o’clock.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Who are you?”

  “The name next to yours in the yearbook,” she says.

  I try to get a good look at her, but the sun’s so bright she becomes her own kind of light. Her eyes are all I can make out. They’re brown, but a shiny kind, like maple syrup glistening on a pancake.

  Man, I’m hungry.

  “Guess I need to pay better attention to the yearbook,” I say.

  “Same,” she whispers.

  • • •

  When I open my mouth to speak, my voice crackles with Martin’s style of speech, one so easy to fall into, I do it without even realizing. My dress may as well be made of concrete. It blocks my exasperated air from releasing, shoving it into space around my rib cage.

  “We’ve got a whole list of things to do,” he says. “Number one, watch Back to the Future. I can’t sleep until you’ve met the real Marty McFly.”

  “You know I can stream it, right?”

  “You can?” His tone isn’t mocking, just playful. “My copy is special though. It’s the Marty ‘Fly’ McGee platinum edition. Extremely rare. Actually, one of a kind.”

  “Wow. What an honor.”

  “Please, please. It’s not a big deal. I don’t like to make a fuss. At the end of the day, I’m just a regular guy.”

  We share a laugh. As it tapers out, there’s a pause, like in the space between words, something has shifted. It’s almost awkward.

  Martin swoops back in to save the moment. “All right, back to my list. Number two, look at our yearbook. If I’ve missed you, my alphabetical neighbor I’ve never been put next to at any other school thing, who knows what else might be in there?” He pauses to smile at me. Mouth open, molars visible, so lacking in self-consciousness that I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from smiling too big in return. “Number three, I’m gonna need you to show me what there is to lo
ve about this place.” He takes out his phone. “So, Graduation Girl, how about a phone number for your new friend Marty McGee?”

  I shake my head no, because if there is one lesson I will take away from my four years here, one definitive thing I have learned, the hard way, it is to beware the smiling sweet talker.

  Stop while you’re ahead, Petra.

  You have more important things to accomplish this weekend.

  • • •

  Graduation Girl’s got her own set of tricks. No name. Won’t give me her number. Smells like that fancy soap store in the mall where all the girls get their bath bombs. “Seriously though, how have we never met?” I ask her.

  Ms. Hornsby, resident terrifying math teacher, walks by to shush us. Graduation Girl gets all flustered, which makes me laugh. “What can she do to us for talking?” GG doesn’t answer. “I’ve got a lot of bucket list items to cross off with you,” I say, trying to puff out my voice so it sounds bigger. More confident.

  “Martin!” Ms. Hornsby scolds. “Be quiet!”

  “Yeah, Martin,” GG jokes, “be quiet.” She plays it like she’s kidding, but I can tell she means it. Her chipped-off nail polish is all over the lap of her gown, and she’s going to town on the little that is left on her nails.

  My mind runs through all the ways I could get her to notice me again. There’s always flicking her arm. Eh. Being annoying doesn’t seem like the right move. I look around for another idea and accidentally make hard eye contact with Hornsby, which makes me sweat, which makes me overcompensate, which makes me start humming, which is actually the perfect solution. It’s not talking. It’s fair game.

  After a big throat clear and a good neck crack, I push air through my teeth to recreate the synthesized greatness of Van Halen. No human being can resist the musical mastery that is “Jump.”

  I check in on Graduation Girl. The ridiculousness of my humming should be at least a half smile’s worth of points from her.

  Nope. She is stone-faced. Royal guards would be jealous.

  I amp up my effort, hammering the song’s rhythm into my leg and humming louder. I did choir in grade school, so I know I’m nailing my pitches (boy sopranos represent!), but the end of the introduction is nearing, and the magic of the music doesn’t seem to be affecting her. Still, I hit the final majestic synth high notes, burying my head into my neck to give the kind of commitment the song deserves, and sweet-holy-patron-saint-of-Cubs-baseball-Ernie-Banks, I catch sight of movement on the ground.