Stay -2005- -

The year is 2005. The air smells of rain on hot asphalt, cheap cherry lip gloss, and the faint, sweet burn of clove cigarettes. You’re seventeen, and you’re standing in the gravel driveway of a house you’ve only been to twice before. His name is Cole. He has shaggy brown hair that falls into his eyes and a carabiner clipped to his belt loop, holding keys to a Jeep he rebuilt himself.

Instead, you pull out your silver Motorola Razr. The one with the scratched screen. “Give me your new number,” you say, trying to sound casual. Like your whole world isn’t pivoting off its axis.

“You’re really leaving?” you ask, even though you know the answer. The U-Haul is already half-packed. A futon mattress leans against a cardboard box marked KITCHEN – FRAGILE .

The three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. Stay -2005-

miss you already. stay who you are.

You type back with your thumbs, slow and careful: you too. don’t forget me.

You fold it into a tight square. Put it in your back pocket. The year is 2005

You look at the house. At the dented mailbox. At the porch light that’s been flickering since you were both twelve. Stay , you want to say. Just stay. We can figure it out. We can sleep in my basement. We can get jobs at the mall. We can—

He reverses out of the driveway. The gravel spits. He gives you one last look through the rear window. A half-smile. Then he turns the corner, and the taillights disappear into the bruised-purple dusk.

Later, you go up to your room. You have a blue portable CD player, and you put on the mix CD he made you last summer. Track four is “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” Track seven is “Since U Been Gone.” You lie on your bed and hold the folded paper over your heart. His name is Cole

You stand there until the streetlights hum on.

“I’ll call,” he says.

He writes it on a torn piece of notebook paper. The same paper you’ve passed notes on in Mr. Hendricks’s history class. Do you like me? Check yes or no.