I Left Long Before You Looked novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Not Here

Sadie and Brody find Wyatt at Chicago Union Station. He refuses to wait for her any longer and she presses the medal into his hands, saying none of her promises were made for him.

I was on a bench in the Great Hall at Chicago Union Station, with four hours left before the westbound train, when I heard her say my name.

Sadie came across the marble floor in a gray hoodie with the sleeves pushed up and pajama pants still dark to the knee.

Her hair was stiff and tangled. It smelled of the harbor from ten feet away.

Brody was three steps behind her, in a clean polo, holding his phone out in front of him.

"Found him," Brody called, to nobody and to everybody. "Turtle made it all the way to Chicago. That's a record."

A few people on the benches looked up.

Sadie stopped in front of me.

She didn't touch me, and I saw her decide not to.

"You blocked me," she said.

"I did."

"I called your mother. I called the marina, the hospital, the harbor patrol." Her voice broke on the last one. "I thought you were in the water, Wyatt."

"I'm not."

"I can see that!" She laughed, and it came out wrong, and she wiped her face with her wrist. "Why would you do that to me?"

I looked at her wet pajama pants.

I should have felt something clean and righteous.

What I felt was tired.

"You were on a boat," I said. "That was your text."

"It was one night! It was a work thing for my mom, I told you I would make it up."

"You always do."

Brody lowered his phone half an inch and grinned at me.

"Buddy, she drove three hours in wet pajamas. Some of us would call that love. Say thank you."

I didn't look at him.

"Stop filming," Sadie said.

"It's for the group chat. Everyone's worried." He turned the phone back on me. "Where's the big getaway, Turtle? Let me guess. A little place near home with a ramp, so you can see it from the car."

A woman across the aisle laughed into her coffee.

It was a small laugh, polite, the kind you give a stranger's joke.

I felt every head in that row turn toward me, waiting to see what the slow kid would do.

I had a lot of answers for that. I'd had them since I was twelve.

I stood up, with my bad leg first, and picked up my duffel.

"I'm not slow," I said to Brody. "I'm just not going your way."

The woman stopped laughing.

Brody's mouth stayed open for a second, then he said, "Wow," and looked at Sadie to see if she'd back him up.

Sadie didn't look at him.

She was looking at the duffel.

"Where are you going?" she said.

"Seattle. School. I got in in April."

"April." She said it softly. "That was two months ago. Why didn't you..."

"I wanted you to ask."

That landed on her face before it landed anywhere else.

"Ask what?"

"Anything. If I was okay. What I wasn't saying." I shrugged the duffel up my shoulder. "You promised you'd always wait for me, Sadie. You didn't even notice me getting on the line."

Over the loudspeaker a man began reading out track numbers.

"I'll wait for you now," she said. "I'll wait. I'll do whatever you say."

"You can't wait for someone who's already gone."

"Then I'll come to you."

"No."

She dug into her hoodie pocket and pulled out a white envelope, creased from the lake.

It had my name on it in her handwriting.

"Take it," she said. "Please."

"What is it?"

"Your medal. Your mom let me in the house. You left it in the drawer, and I couldn't..." She pressed it against my chest until I took it. "It was never supposed to stay in a drawer."

I felt the weight of it through the paper, a small round coin on a ribbon.

The town gave it to me when I was eleven, in front of the whole school, for saving her life.

I had never worn it once.

"You keep it," I said.

"I can't."

"Why not? I did it for you."

I heard Brody make a small sound behind me, the beginning of a laugh he swallowed.

Sadie took a step back.

Her eyes were red and wide and absolutely steady.

"Wyatt," she said. "Every promise I ever made you, I didn't make it for you."

"Then who did you make it for?"

She opened her mouth.

Then she looked at Brody, and the phone in his hand, and the whole hall waiting.

"Not here," she said. "Please. Not here."

I should have asked her again.

I was too tired, and the westbound was boarding in an hour.

I put the envelope in the bottom of my duffel and walked to the gate on my slow leg.

I did not look back.

At the gate I opened the envelope, because I could not stand the weight of it.

The medal was there, and it was wrapped in a page torn from a school notebook.

On the page, in pencil, in a child's handwriting, someone had written a long note and scratched it out so hard the paper tore.

I could read only the top line.

It said: Wyatt, I'm so sorry.

I figured she was sorry I had to save her.

I put it back in the envelope and boarded the train.

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