“Killing Rye Popper,” the title of Ryan's to-do list, was followed by a series of crossed out chores: Yearbooks. Concert Shirts. Posters and tickets. Ryan took a pencil and crossed out “CDs”. Then looked at the last: Long hair.

“Hell,” he said to the naked room. “It’s too cold out. I’ll do it tomorrow.” He crumpled up the list and threw it at his messy beige bookcase. It almost disappeared against the cold white wall. A migraine from the early blast of winter was brewing.

He missed the posters, the loud color, the sound of the Mall Rats pounding his eardrums, destroying the world. He missed the memories. Nostalgic poisons.

Mind hazy, he showered. When finished, he pulled on his new wool sweater, but kept his worn jeans. The awful quiet pulsed, then burst with a phone’s angry ring.

This Ryan Popper answers his phone instead of listening to messages. He sighed and grabbed the receiver.

“Hello.”

“Happy Birthday!”

He winced. “Hey, Stu. Thanks.”

“So, big plans tonight?”

The ball lay crumbled on the floor like a snow-white asteroid. “Not so much.”

“Then you’re in luck. Got a blind date that can’t go wrong. Carrie’s roommate Samantha. She’s on the rebound.”

“Super.”

“It is, you idiot. She’ll probably just want to get laid, and lord knows you’re probably backed up like the Hoover Dam about now.”

“Classy, Stu.”

“So can I tell her you’ll be coming with us to the Bistro, and you’ll wear something other than a Doughboys tour shirt from 2001?”

Ryan smiled. This Ryan Popper is getting laid. “Of that, there is no doubt.”

He hung up with his hands shaking, and repeated the mantra on the bottom of his list. “Live as if you’d died, come back, and gotten a second chance. This time, don’t fuck it up.” Rye Popper was dying quick, a new one being grown. Shivering, he put on the kettle.

The phone’s antique bell erupted again and he picked it up.

“Yeah?”

“I … hello?” A woman. Nervous. “I’m trying to find Ryan Popper?”

Shit, this Samantha moved fast. He smiled. “Bingo, you succeeded.”

“ … Rye?” His lips trembled. A mischievous voice tittered on the other end. “Oh, gawd. That’s you.”

Ryan dropped on the chair as his smile failed and pulled his ponytail. “Amanda.”

“Bingo!” More laughter. “Long time, Rye. And happy birthday.”

A blood-deep hum eased his headache. “Thanks.” His lips curled to a smile again, but froze. “So. Haven’t seen you since … since Massey High.”

“I know, I know. Seems like yesterday we’d be ditching class to drink at Mercy Park.”

“Yesterday and a year and a half.”

She coughed, then came back as chipper as before. “Well, I’m coming your way, birthday boy. One night only. Oh. Are you free?”

He felt empty and weak, as if he’d been kicked in the stomach.

“Rye? Hey, wake up! This isn’t Mr. Bevin’s math class.”

“Still here.”

“So. Are you free?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Sure.”

“Fabulous! Oh, gawd, this is gonna be great. Just like old times.” Her voice softened to a purr. “I … really have missed you, Rye.”

The hum ran through his bones. He gripped his knee.

“I’ll be there around—”

“What about Peter?” The kettle hissed, but he stayed put. The wet whistle sputtered before screaming. “Amanda?”

“Peter’s gone.”

He smoothed the crumbled handprint on his thin jeans. “Good.”

He gave her directions, said goodbye, and then grabbed the screeching kettle. Holding the hot, black cup of coffee, he wondered, Am I still this pathetic?

He walked into the bright, bare living room and stared at the crumpled list. No. I want closure. I’ll wait until she’s in close range. Where she can’t run. Then I’ll grill her before heading off to my date.

This Ryan Popper gets answers.

***

He opened the door. She leaned on her left leg, shaking flakes of snow from her tangled red hair, what she’d called hurricane chic. Her face egg-white, jacket black, jeans grey. “Stupid snow flakes …” then she took a deep breath. “Rye?”

He rammed his hands in his pockets. “Amanda.”

She hugged him fast, tight, and hard, trapping his arms at his sides. Snow in her hair melted under his breath. She smelt raw and sour. But in the thick embrace, that old hum warmed them. Heartbeats synchronized. She slowed. He raced. She gave a big squeeze, and he almost grunted. “Gawd, you spooked me. That hair, just like always. But I didn’t recognize the outfit.”

He disengaged, awkwardly. “Just got it.”

She leaned against the door. “I like it.”

She was so bad at lying he almost laughed. “Well, you look the same as always, Miss Amanda Trace.”

She put a hand over her pink lip. “Really? Still gorgeous?”

“Bingo.”

Her hand dropped, revealing a Cheshire smile. “I always loved that.”

“Bingo? Being called gorgeous?”

She laughed. “I meant that you’ve always called me Amanda. Since grade school. Everyone else called me Mandy. Well not Peter. He—”

“Called you Trace. I remember. Come on in.” She did, limping. Feint blue veins flashed on her cheek when she walked. “What’s wrong?”

She waved off his helping hand. “This? Just a sprain from a dine and dash. Hey, recognize the boots?” Above the heel of her cowboy boots was a white stem etched in the leather that rose up under her jeans.

“I don’t believe it.”

“My sweetest sixteenth birthday gift.” She smiled, those veins gone. He still had the grease burns from that summer of burning burgers and fries, just to buy those black numbers with the white roses up the side. She’d kissed him that day. In private.

“Who would have thought they’d last?”

“I take care of them.” She took his hand. It was cold. Something is different. Her jeans are tucked over the boots. She always tucked her jeans in, to show off the roses.

She snapped her fingers and squeezed his hand. “Hey, wake up! My feet are not my best feature.”

“Sorry,” he said. “But.” Memories flooded the hum of his blood: long walks home, staring at the rose and thorns, the whispered conversations after midnight, drinking at Mercy Park where no one could find them, see them. One kiss in five years. The hits, not the misses.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, staring at her boots.

Her grin hitched higher and she grabbed him tight. “Ditto.”

He ushered her to the living room, still wearing her boots and jacket and sat on his tweed couch. She asked for a coffee and while he prepared it in the kitchen, she spoke. “Then I did some acting in Vancouver, but without an agent it was mostly extra work. Some big name films.”

The names meant nothing to him. “Sounds glamorous.”

“Ha! Nothing glamorous about getting up at four a.m., being on your feet for sixteen hours, and eating cold cuts and limp lettuce with a bunch of dirty bastards, young and old. Most exciting thing was catching a certain teen heartthrob doing coke in the men’s bathroom.”

“Do I want to know why you were in the men’s bathroom?”

“Sharing the good times with Mr. Snort.” She whistled. “Nice place. Prison chic. I miss the concert posters, though. You just move in?”

He poured two cups. “Last September. I’m going to Queen’s now.” Ryan put two sugars into her cup and left his bitter. “Haven’t decided on a major yet.” He talked about his philosophy class, how much he’d liked it, but his professor was almost too intense. “He made us read Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl’s a Holocaust survivor. Blew my mind. No matter how shitty your day was, it’s kinda hard to feel sorry for yourself when you read about people enduring hell on earth.” He heard his mantra, paraphrased from Frankl, run through his head and watched the steam from his cup, live as if you’d died, come back, and gotten a second chance.

“Wow,” she called from the living room. Her tone was unmistakable. Miss Amanda Trace was bored. “I always figured you’d own your own CD shop. Speaking of tunes, got any? I’m jonesing for some of Rye Popper’s obscure and beautiful music. Where’s your collection?”

“In the bank,” he said. He stirred the sugary coffee until a vortex appeared, then added milk. The color swirled and changed into uniform brown as the coffee settled. “Needed the dough when I moved out to buy books and clothes.” He sipped his coffee. “Wore all my concert shirts until the wheels fell off, and I’m not pretty enough to go to school naked.” He smiled and entered the living room. She sat dead centre on the couch. She took the steaming cup from him. Ryan stepped back and leaned against the wall. “Pretty chilly for October, huh?”

She nodded, nose red. When she inhaled the aroma and sipped from the cup, her whole body eased. “Mmm. Two big sugars and one slow drip of milk, poured in to a swirling cup. Just like you’d make me at Coffee Hut. It’s perfect, Rye. I love it.”

His smile flickered. What the hell am I doing? Jesus fucking Christ, what’s next? Doing her English papers again?

She held the mug tight with both hands. “Must have broken your heart to sell your collection.”

Ryan ignored the tension in his veins. “Nothing to break since I didn’t listen to most of them. I think I got caught up in collecting for collecting’s sake. Filling your life with stuff you don’t need, just so you have a reason to go outside. Kind of stupid.”

Her forehead crinkled “But what about … oh, gawd, what was their name? The band you thought ruled the world?”

Rye rammed a hand in his pocket and brought the warm mug to his lips. “Not sure who you mean.”

“No way, Rye. Stop fucking around.”

He shrugged, and blew off the steam.

“Fine, fine, I’ll play along.” She closed her eyes. They popped open. “The Mall Rats!”

“Right, right.” He sipped.

“I think I had every song of theirs on those mix tapes you made me. What was my favorite? The acoustic one? We used to sing it at Mercy, drunk out of our heads. Remember?” Her face brightened.

He shrugged, ignoring the hum. “They had quite a few albums.”

She flinched. “Okay, professor, I give up. I never did have the memory for songs like you, so just go grab that Lord of List binder of yours. I probably put a smiley face next to it on your top ten songs of all time.”

“Pretty sure that binder is mulch by now.”

She brushed her hair behind her ear. “Oh. Okay.” He hated to admit it, but he enjoyed watching her squirm for the past, reaching for things that weren’t there, knocking down every attempt to snatch the ghost of memories. “Hey,” she said, “Do you remember—”

Someone knocked. She whispered with a playful smile. “Don’t answer. Can’t we pretend we’re alone?”

Together. Alone. Just like always. “Coming,” he yelled and went to the door. “Yeah?”

“Open up, birthday boy. I’m freezing my nuts out here!”

Ryan forced himself to open the lock.

Stu’s baby face grinned at him, Dad’s old rugby jacket shiny with snow. “Hey hey, bro! You ready yet?”

Ryan blocked the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Thought we might have a few before tonight’s festivities, give you some pointers about Samantha.”

“Can’t. I’m busy. Come back in an hour.”

“Bro, if you blow off this sure thing—“

“I’m not blowing anything off! Just come back in a fucking hour. I’ll be ready then.”

Stu squinted past him. “Fuck no.”

Amanda stood behind Ryan in the kitchen, balanced on her left leg. “Hi, Stu. Remember me?”

He snorted, then looked at Ryan. “That whore’s back in your life?”

He gripped Stu’s shoulders. “Leave.”

Ryan followed him into the frigid October wind. Stu spun and poked Ryan’s chest. “Christ, Ryan, she looks like a junkie. She’s probably stealing your laundry money right now. Are you still this blind, or just desperate?”

Ryan held himself. “Neither. I just want answers.”

Stu sniffed a few times. “Smell that? Fresh bullshit.”

Ryan crossed his arms. “I’m not following her around like a goddamn puppy anymore. That guy is dead. I’m coming out tonight, aren’t I?”

Stu wiped the snow from his face. “I guess.”

“Right. Let me clear this up. Come back in an hour. She’ll be gone to stay.”

Stu’s Grand-Am drove off into the light snow, and Ryan ran inside. Amanda was back on the couch, mug in her hands. He rubbed his arms, leaning against the bare wall. A hint of old vinyl hung in the air. She traced the mouth of the mug with her finger. “Kinda had that coming, huh?”

He pulled his ponytail. “I want to know.”

“Know what?”

“Knock off the Socratic shit. I’ll never forgive Mr. Garret for introducing you to it.”

She smiled. “He gave me an A.”

“He liked your tits.”

She stuck out her ample chest. “And my one-woman rendition of Julius Caesar.” She threw up an arm. “‘Cowards die many times before their death; the valiant never taste of death but once.’” Her smile brightened, but was not returned.

“Why did you leave?”

She slowly retracted into herself. “You got the note I left Mom. To be an actress.”

He pulled out a strand. “But why out west? Why with Peter? Why are you back? Jesus, why …”

The blue veins on her cheek flared. “Do we have to talk about that? Can’t we reminisce?”

“Look, Amanda, I’m broke.”

Her hands tightened on the mug until Ryan worried about broken glass and blood. “Trying to tell me something?”

“The obvious. You’ve kept your jacket on. You sure as hell aren’t interested in my life.”

“I am too!”

“Fuck the act. It won’t work. Not with me.”

Her face soured.

“You ditched me. On grad night. Not a day before, not a day after. All your mom and I got was a note. Sure, I understood that you were in love with that fuckwad, but what the fuck does ‘I need to be free’ mean?”

She was China-doll still and silent.

“Know what? I don’t care.” He looked at the crumpled list. It had unfurled from a boulder to a jagged mouth. “I’m not that guy anymore, the one you kept in the shadows, secret, and ignored in the halls, the rest of your time spent fucking every goddamn skid with a car. That’s high school bullshit and I’m past it.” He closed his hands. “So why don’t you just disappear, again, and leave me the fuck alone? I got plans tonight."

She stood awkwardly, coffee spilling. “I’ll tell you, Rye. And why I came back. Just not here.”

He shook his head. “Listen to me, Amanda. Leave.”

She limped toward him, mouth tightening a little as she walked with her wounded leg, hand dripping with coffee. “Rye. Please.”

His heart ached, then bristled. Blood hummed as she got close. The crumpled list sat like a ruined flower on the edge of his vision. “Don’t call me that. Go. I’ve gotta go get a haircut before my date.”

She nodded, leaning on her left leg. “Fine. Don’t know that it matters, but I am—”

He turned his back and opened the door.

“I am sorry.”

Pain cracked through his skull. Stars burst white and drowned in darkness as he caught a whiff of sugared coffee.

***

Hissing woke him. Hot air brushed his sore face, and the tang of old coffee bit his nose. His whole body leaned forward against a strap. Her voice opened his eyes. “Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back,” she sang to the theme of Welcome Back, Kotter, and then laughed quietly at the old joke.

They were in a parked truck. The dashboard heater was breathing on him, and he pulled back, grunting, and touched his head. He imagined his skull as a shattered lamp, hastily glued together. Coffee stink filled the cabin. 

Thick flakes pummeled the world outside. The windshield wiper cleaned the scene just long enough to see bent tree limbs and dark shapes, burdened with snow. Almost familiar. She warmed her raw hands. “Sorry about the mug smack.” He grabbed the buckle and she shook her head. “It’s minus fifteen degrees out there now and dropping. Snow is ankle deep and rising. I don’t think you’d make it.”

Cold pulsed through the thick glass and stung his cheek. “I’m broke.” 

Shadows of snowflakes fell across her face. “I don’t want your money. I just want—”     

“What, Amanda? To fuck me up some more?”

The veins were back, forked black-lightening across her pale cheek. “I want you to see something.” She whispered. “The blue harvest moon. Only happens once in a, well, blue moon. And I …” she swallowed hard. “I want to share it with you. You and you alone.”

“Alone,” he muttered. “Just like old times.” In the silence between them was that low hum in his blood, easing the surreal into the familiar. “This has to do with Peter.”

Her knuckles almost burst from her skin as she gripped the wheel. She nodded curtly. “Broke my ankle. In half.”

The urge to reach and hold her swelled. He moved his head, and the pain destroyed it. “You sure know how to pick them.” Tears ran silently down her face. He held still. “Sorry.”

She took a long, deep breath and wiped her nose on her jacket. “No. You were right. He was a total shit. And so was my life. I … didn’t last as an extra.” Her breathing slowed. “We were on the street. So Peter, well, he did what he did best, trolling the underground. We ran with a wild crowd. Crazy fuckers. But you know me,” she said dramatically, nose dripping. “I’ll do anything once.”

He rubbed his face. “Once.”

Webs of black veins stretched across her cheek like cracks in thin ice. “These … people became my family. We, I mean I … did some rotten, sick, twisted shit. You’d never believe it.” She covered her mouth, whole body shaking. “And I can’t run from it. Those memories. Peter made sure of that.” She closed her eyes but tears escaped.

“Why did you leave?”

She wiped her face in anger. “Because tonight, they’re going to change. All of them. For good. One way trip. Never turning back to fix anything. Erase the past. Live only for the wild moment. Killing anything that fucks with them. They only get one chance.” She sniffed, trying to regain her self. “On the night of the blue harvest moon.” She jammed her shaking hands into her armpits. “When they told me the date, my heart sunk.”

“My birthday.”

She looked awful, trying to regain her composure. “You wouldn’t get out of my head. How you looked when you’d asked me to the grad. You should have seen yourself. I’d never seen you so … and all I’d said was one word. Nothing else. Your face, that happy, goddamn face followed me, and I knew I was fucked. I’d broke something and I had to fix it so I told Peter to …” Her pinched face snorted. “You don’t believe me.”

He put his hand above the heater. “You’re talking crazy,” Ryan said quietly. “But I believe you.”

“No you don’t.”

“I do.”

“Why the hell should you, idiot?”

“Because you’re ugly.” She fidgeted. He wet his dry lips, pain thumping his head. “Grief is the only thing that ever made you ugly. I’m probably the only one who has ever seen it. At your dad’s funeral.” He’d held her for the whole day, just the two of them at Mercy, in silence, until the streetlights came on and it was time to head home. “And you can’t act this good. So I know you’re not lying.” 

Her face eased, but the black veins remained. She sighed. “You want to know why I left you hanging.”

“No need.”

“Stop being so goddamn nice.”

He kept silent and warmed his hands, watching the pummeling snow. “Fine.”

“You made me calm.”

He faced her. “Huh?”

Her eyes shut. “I know. It sounds like nothing. But it was bliss. When we were alone, I could be still, think, dream. Being with you, I thought I could be anything. Go to university, become an actress, that hard work would pay off if I just stuck to my guns, blah, blah, blah.” She swallowed. “But as soon as you were gone, I felt the itch and urge to move, keep moving, run to the edge and jump.”

“Just like Peter.”

She smacked the wheel. It bent. “Don’t you get it? If I’d stayed, I’d have fucking brutalized you. You’d have paid for caring. You always did. No matter what scum-fuck I let touch me, I could count on you and it was killing you and it made me hate and love you so much I …”

The wipers moaned against glass. The sky was clearing. Snow drenched jungle gyms and fur trees sat on the horizon and he knew where they were. Mercy Park.

“I couldn’t change, Rye,” Amanda said. “I knew if I left a trail, you’d follow me. Unless …” Tears dribbled off her chin. “Unless I broke your heart and left without a clue. Then you could get on with your life. And now that you have, I want you back, and you’re gone and I steal you anyway. God, I’m so fucking selfish. I never fucking change!"

Ryan ran his hand over his head, pulling his hair until he winced. Blue light emerged from the clouds and the veins flexed under her thin skin. “It’s starting. I can feel it.” Her face tensed. “I wasn’t strong enough to stay. Now I’m too weak to run. I’m sorry, Rye.” The clouds thinned at a fantastic speed, and she huffed. “Sorry. Ryan.” The whiteness all around shone electric blue. She was shaking, almost in a fit. She unlocked her door. “I can’t join them with my ankle broke. And this is gonna hurt so bad … I don’t know what I’ll be. Leave the truck running and drive away. God. I’m sorry.”

She gripped the door handle. He looked outside at the blanket whiteness over their old haunt. He saw his void apartment, the sucking silence, the crumpled paper. Live as if you’d died, come back, and gotten a second chance. This time, don’t fuck it up.

He undid her seatbelt.

Stunned, she gawked at him with spit shaking from her crooked mouth.

He pulled her across his lap, her boots carefully across the seat. She was lighter than he expected. He held her close. She was frigid, fragile, and shaking. His throat clenched. He kissed her.

“Just hold on,” he said as calmly as he could. Her tight arms complied. He felt the tear escape as the clouds broke.

A regal blue moon shone above, huge and demanding, blotting out the sky. Blood hummed in his ears.

“Thanks, Ryan.”

“Rye. Just for tonight.” She put her face against his chest and breathed warm and ragged.

“That song, by the Mall Rats? ‘Handful of Thorns.’ Off their second indie release, the one that got them noticed by Warner Brothers.” He babbled music trivia until her breathing eased, and they began to sing. Off-key and mumbling to know one. Alone at Mercy. Just like always.

Distant howls circled them as he felt her bones shake, her body crack. They sang and held on until the blue light went dark, then Ryan hummed in the stillness.

END