The Saddest Song - By Susie Kaye Lopez Page 0,3

was a pretty silver necklace with a heart charm on it and a note from Garrett telling me everything he was too afraid to say in person. Since I’d been harboring a crush on him since the day we met, I was pretty excited. Excited is stating it mildly, I was jumping up and down and screaming if I remember it correctly. But I was composed and shaking when I called him that night. The rest is history and our senior year of high school was just about to start. Still, that night I was angry, and like I said, he couldn’t stand it when I was angry. So, he hitched a ride back home to San Diego, with Jordan’s older brother and two guys from his fraternity, all dead now just like Garrett.

“Can I come over there Max?”

“Now? It’s too late for you to be out, and my parents would freak out if they woke up and I was gone.”

“Okay, I’ll wait until daylight. Can I come then? I want to be with you and I need to see his room, maybe I’ll be able to feel him there. I can’t feel him, Max.”

“I get it, Rainey. I’m lying on his bed. Trust me, he’s not here.”

“I still want to come over.”

“Yeah, I want you to. You’re all I have left of him,” he said, his voice breaking.

“That’s how I feel about you. See you soon, Max.”

The call ended and I stared at my cell phone, wondering if I had the strength to listen to Garrett’s voice mails. I saved them, his text messages too. I wasn’t brave enough yet. I knew it wouldn’t be enough to simply hear his voice, I would want more. I would wait until I wasn’t raw. Maybe that day would come. Somehow, I doubted it.

I reset my alarm clock to the proper time and laid back down on my bed. I closed my eyes and tried to think of absolutely nothing. It must have worked, because it was light when I opened them again. I had made it through another night, and had to begin another day without Garrett. It had been less than two weeks since I had last seen him, but it felt like so much longer. Looking over at my clock, I was irritated to see it was again flashing red. I reached for my cell, and saw it was only 6:45. I took a long shower to pass the time until I could go see Max.

Before I left I took a look around my room. It was like a shrine to my relationship with Garrett. There were countless photos of us posing at school dances and smiling together on trips we had taken to San Francisco, Palm Springs, and Hawaii. I sat on the edge of my bed and was overwhelmed by the realization that there would be no more pictures. I would never again drive him crazy with my obsession for documenting our every move. The thought felt unreal and uncomfortable, so I shook it off. I absentmindedly reset my clock and then silently left my room, closing the door behind me.

Max

After I called Rainey I fell into a deep sleep for three hours. That was the longest stretch I’d slept since the accident, and the rest almost made me feel like myself again. I headed downstairs to wait for her. The house smelled stale, like wilted flowers. There were several huge floral arrangements dying around the living room. Seemed like a backwards tradition to send something that would wither and die to people who had just had a loved one do the same. Mom was sitting at her desk going through the sympathy cards that were piling up and didn’t notice me slip out the door. I decided to let her be since she wasn’t crying at the moment. Waiting on the front porch would give me some fresh air and also keep me from having to answer the door. For obvious reasons, doorbells would probably haunt me for quite awhile.

I sat down on the porch and watched a golf cart go by. We lived on a golf course that had six different housing developments scattered from one end to the other. My family lived near the 16th hole while Rainey’s lived near the 2nd. Our homes were about a mile apart. Garret and I had met Rainey right out here while we were playing basketball in the driveway. We heard her calling for her lost dog