Free You Are Not Here by Samantha Schutz Page B

job.
    I don’t want to talk,
    so I send a text instead.
    Got job @ renzos pizza
    on richardson & park.
    Come visit if u want.

Joy texts back immediately.
    OMG! Thurs?
    Im gonna make u work
    4 yr tip!
    Parker texts the next day.
    Waitress? For reals?
    Will try to come by soon.

On the way to work,
    I see a dead bird
    lying on the sidewalk.
    It isn’t a translucent chick,
    fallen from its nest.
    It isn’t flattened
    from the impact of a car.
    It is perfect.
    Yellow and brown,
    with waxy feathers,
    a full round body,
    and an open eye
    looking right at me.
    I wonder where this bird came from.
    I wonder how it got here.
    It’s not even near a tree.
    I wonder how it died.
    It looks as if it
    were flying one moment.
    Then the next,
    struck down from the sky,
    dead.

I dream
    my cell phone rings.
    Marissa is calling.
    She tells me
    my mother is dead.
    Suddenly, Marissa
    is in my room.
    Her arms and legs
    are wrapped around me.
    She is holding me.
    Rocking me.
    She is my skin.
    If she lets go,
    my body will fall apart.

“Who’s that guy?” Joy asks
    as she sits down in a booth.
    “What guy?”
    “The tall one behind the counter.”
    “Oh. That’s Ethan.”
    “He’s hot,” she says as she adjusts
    the absurdly large silk flower in her hair.
    “I guess.”
    “You don’t think so?”
    I lean back
    and take a good look at Ethan.
    “Yeah. I guess he’s cute.”
    “What’s his deal?”
    “I don’t know.
    He just finished his first year
    at Woodson.”
    “Does he have a girlfriend?”
    “I don’t know.
    I don’t think so.
    He hasn’t mentioned anyone.”
    “You should totally go out with him.
    He’s looked over here
    like a million times.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Why not?”
    I pause.
    “Because of Brian.”
    Now Joy pauses.
    “Really? But Brian—”
    “I better get your pizza,”
    I say as I get up.
    I don’t need her
    to finish her sentence.
    I don’t need her
    to remind me
    what Brian and I were
    or weren’t.

“I wonder
    how long grief lasts.
    Will there be a day
    when I don’t feel like this?
    When I don’t think about you?
    I wonder
    how long that will be from now.
    Weeks?
    Months?
    Years?
    Will I be thirty and still miss you?
    Will I always wonder
    what our life
    could have been?
    Maybe we would have
    only lasted another few weeks.
    Maybe I would have
    gotten angry enough
    to demand that I be
    your actual girlfriend.
    Or maybe you would have
    ended things with me,
    found someone else
    you’d rather be with.
    There are so many endings
    that our story could have had.
    But I will never know
    any ending besides this one.”

The death book wants me
    to create an obituary for Brian.
    It says to focus on positive things
    like his talents and pastimes.
    Brian Dennis was seventeen.
    He was kind
    when he wanted to be.
    Funny
    without even trying.
    He loved music,
    especially hearing it live.
    He liked to draw.
    He was a great kisser.
    I stop.
    I’d like to be able to
    write about his relationship
    to his parents or his friends,
    but I can’t.
    I’d like to be able to
    write what was really important to Brian.
    But I don’t know that either.
    Apparently, I don’t know much.

Here we go again.
    9:00 a.m.: Alarm goes off.
    9:15 a.m.: Get out of bed.
    9:18 a.m.: Shower.
    9:25 a.m.: Pull wet hair into ponytail.
    9:29 a.m.: Put on white shirt, black pants, and sneakers.
    9:33 a.m.: Dab on concealer, brush on mascara.
    9:40 a.m.: Eat bowl of cereal.
    9:50 a.m.: Walk out front door.
    10:00 a.m.: Arrive at Renzo’s.
    This is a new sort of routine.

Somewhere in between
    the late lunch and early dinner crowd,
    I ask Ethan about college.
    He says,
    “I might major in sociology or anthro.
    Not sure which yet,
    but definitely something
    that involves studying people.
    Have you thought about college?
    It’s about that time, right?”
    “Yeah, it is.
    I should be thinking
    about it this summer,
    but I’ve been distracted.
    I might just apply to some state schools.
    Or maybe take another year to