12

AMAYA

Three Days before the Wedding

Spencer and Kaavi went outside to the garden, where they sat on a bench and talked in low voices. Kaavi looked a little irritated, but Spencer was visibly upset—running his fingers through his hair and gesticulating haphazardly. If it were me, I knew what I’d do to calm him down. I wonder if Kaavi knew it too? The way to let him vent, to get it out of his system. To say the right things, to do the right things, to bring him back to her.

My heart hurt.

I thought about going home but figured I should leave the box with the photographs in Kaavi’s room first. It would look strange to leave taking it with me, but more than that, I didn’t want them anymore. If any of my plans were successful, I would never speak to Kaavi again, and I didn’t need any mementos to remind me of her. She’d been cut out of my life, sure, but there was always that little spark of hope. What I was about to do would extinguish any chance we had of rebuilding our friendship.

When my father left and I asked my mother if she was sad, she smiled through her tears and told me that hope only truly disappeared when someone passed away. That’s the only thing that could destroy true love, she said. When two people belong together, someone had to leave this earth for that bond to be broken. And then she died, so I suppose she was right.

I slunk upstairs, unnoticed, and made my way into Kaavi’s bedroom. It was immaculately arranged—bed made, clothes put away. The roses from Spencer were missing. Kaavi probably got rid of them the moment they started to wilt. Nothing imperfect to be found here. There was a black-and-white picture of Bruce Springsteen that I hadn’t noticed before on her dresser. It made me inexplicably happy to see it. That this little part of her still existed. Kaavi had always been such a fan, even when I’d teased her about being a dork. Those really were the before-times.

“Too mopey,” I’d complained about the singer. “Too mopey and too whiny and not a beat you can even click your fingers to.”

But she had been obsessed.

“Listen to this,” she’d keep saying, trying to convince me.

“I still don’t get it,” I’d said, after she played me “Cautious Man.” The more obscure his music, the better it was for her back then. “Why would anyone get love and fear tattooed on their hands? That’s just weird.”

“So that he’d always remember that it was the same thing.”

Where was this wise sixteen-year-old now? Was she buried under her sophisticated wardrobe and designer handbags? Did the old Kaavi even exist anymore?

I could still see both of them down in the garden from Kaavi’s bedroom window. Kaavi was starting to stand up, but Spencer held on to her arm, bringing her back down to him. I remember that move. His passion, his intensity when he wanted something. My legs felt weak just thinking about it.