Every You, Every Me by David Levithan

said.
    “Yeah, but she kept a picture of him, Evan. You don’t keep a picture of a total stranger.”
    “It was in her drawer. It’s not like she had it up.”
    “But maybe she wanted to keep him a secret, okay? Maybe he’s a secret.”
    No, I wanted to say. She was ours.
    “There’s no way he goes to our school,” I said. “Even with two thousand kids, you’d remember that hair.”
    The air was getting dark; night was blooming. I opened the rest of the drawers in the room, more gently this time, but couldn’t find anything else. No image. No word.
    “We should go,” Jack said. “Clean up and go.”
    Go go go go go go go go. Why is it such a short word? Shouldn’t it be the same length as STOP ?
    I held up Sparrow’s picture.
    “People will remember him,” I said. “Someone will recognize him. He’s the key.”

10
    I never kept a calendar.
    I had no idea what I’d been doing on 11/11. Or 11/14.
    Had I been with you? For at least part of it? Had you seen Jack? Were you off with people we didn’t know? Or people we did know?
    I tried to remember other people. I tried to remember other people in your life. “My secret girlfriend,” you joked. But nothing was there. Nothing I could reach. Or was it “my secret boyfriend”?
    I was starting to think I was making up memories, just to have answers.
    Our brain does that sometimes.
    Or at least mine does.
    You were never able to trick yourself like that, were you?

10A
    What had I given you that you could keep? Not photographs. Other things.
    Words and words and words and words. Mostly in person, or on the computer.
    I should have given you my own ink.
    Why? So you would have had more to leave behind?
    I hadn’t looked in your room for the roses, but I figured I would have seen them if they’d been there. Do you remember? It had been our arbitrary anniversary. Last year, near the end of the school year, so probably June.
    “We don’t have an anniversary,” you’d said as we walked home from school. “We should have an anniversary.”
    “How about today?” I said. “If we’re going to have an arbitrary anniversary, it might as well be today. We’ll be celebrating the anniversary of the day we came up with our arbitrary anniversary.”
    You’d smiled. “I like that. I like that a lot.”
    We gave each other two hours to plan. Then we’d go to Brookner Park to celebrate.
    I’d never given anybody flowers before, but I’d always wanted to. So I went into town, to the florist, and I got roses. I didn’t want red ones, because it wasn’t like this was a romantic anniversary (“except in the poetry sense,” you would have added) . So I went with a dark yellow—the color of the sun just before it turns orange. I had them wrapped, and signed a card and everything. After that, I went out and bought some of your favorite foods—peach salsa, lemon yogurt, almond cookies. Then, since I’d covered the anniversary, I stopped in a couple more stores for the arbitrary part. Salad tongs. A gobstopper. Birdseed. Somethings.
    I was ten minutes early to the park and you were ten minutes late. This was about our usual ratio. You were rushed, flustered.
    “I stopped at home and—oh my God—it was like I couldn’t get back out, because Mom was home early, and she was asking me about homework, and it’s like she thought I was still in seventh grade, so when I went to go back out, she was all like, ‘Where are you going?’ and I told her I was going out, and she was like, ‘I can see that,’ and I just didn’t know what to say, you know? I knew there was something to say, but I just didn’t know what it was. So instead of making it better, I left, and I’m sure when I get back, she’s going to be seething. I swear, that house keeps getting smaller and smaller. Soon it’s going to be an exquisite birdcage.”
    You were quiet with other people. This wasn’t your usual talking. This was you with me.
    I held the flowers out to you.