Free First Comes Love by Katie Kacvinsky Page B

Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, where Amanda stopped every day for a Vanilla Ice Blended. We each order one and drive out to today’s most sacred destination spot: the Tracks. Gray makes me swear on Pickle’s life that I’ll keep its location a secret.
    We pass a warehouse district, and when the road dead ends there’s a rough gravel path, camouflaged inside a sandy field. You wouldn’t know it’s there unless you were looking for it. The gravel road loops around the back of an old concrete factory. We drive down the path, Pickle bouncing angrily underneath us, until we reach the bottom legs of a shallow bridge, built to allow railroad tracks to pass under the city streets. Gray says this is where he spent most of his weekends in high school. I don’t need him to explain why he’d want to hang out under a bridge next to railroad tracks. I get it. It’s an escape. Too much one-on-one time with reality is the fast track to despair. I open up the car door before he has a chance to say “We’re here.”
    We crawl up the steep concrete slope to a shaded ledge carved out where the support beams meet the road above. We sit down, perched high off the ground, and look out at the dusty railroad tracks below. Cars speed by overhead to remind us that life keeps moving. But under this dark shelter it’s easy to hold the world over your head so no one can watch you, no one can judge you. No one can say you’re doing it wrong.
    Gray tells me Amanda discovered this spot. It’s invisible from the street above, blocked by the warehouse buildings. This makes it completely private, open to only a few worthy patrons. This is where he came on the weekends with friends. For a brief period of time on a Friday or Saturday night, they called the shots, and no one could bring them down. Life was theirs to control, not structured and mandated by parents and teachers, coaches and schedules.
    He says after Amanda died, he skipped class sometimes to come out here by himself and smoke.
    “I didn’t even like smoking,” he says. “But I needed something to force me to breathe. Sometimes it took effort just to breathe.”
    “No one else comes out here?” I ask.
    “After she died it became a memorial. I still find letters left for Amanda, from the few people that know this place exists. People leave photographs and flowers. Once in a while they leave letters for me.”
    We’re quiet for a few minutes. The only sounds are cars speeding by overhead. But they feel distant, like memories, like we’re worlds away from everyone.
    “Amanda was cremated,” Gray says, his tone almost emotionless. We look out at the dusty tracks below us. The sun is blinding bright.
    “This is her tombstone to me,” he says.
    ***
    We grab a late lunch at a café
his sister loved called Gecko Grub in Tempe. We sit at the outdoor patio, where Amanda used to spend hours people watching. We order burgers and curly fries and milk shakes.
    “Amanda had excellent taste,” I say as I pop a fry into my mouth. I haven’t spoken very much today. I only ask questions. I listen. Learning about Amanda is like getting to know another side of Gray—his adventurous, ridiculous side. His happiest side. People become pieces inside of you. They can fill you up and make you whole. I think Amanda is his favorite piece, the one he is most proud of. Now I can understand why he caved in.
    “How do you feel about all this?” I ask.
    Gray picks at his fries. “I wouldn’t call today fun,” he admits. “But it wasn’t awful either. I didn’t know what to expect.”
    I nod slowly and wait for him to continue. He looks up at me and realizes there’s more to my question. He sits back in his chair and looks out at the street. Today was all about the past. It was about bringing Amanda back to life. But it’s time to come back to reality.
    Gray speaks slowly, like he’s trying to hold himself together.
    “I’m just trying to figure out how to live without her,” he says. “That’s