Chapter 1 - Five Days After Graduation

There was a man on the roof, a lean silhouette framed against the dark sky and salt-sprinkling of stars. He wasn’t particularly tall. His features were erased by shadows. I saw movement in his fingers, tracing the air. Sometimes his fist would clench and unclench. The motions were so subtle, though; it could’ve just been a glitch in my vision. I would’ve been tempted to snap a photo of this—it felt naturally staged to be one—if my rented camera wasn’t zipped up in a bag at my old high school. Zipped up in a moment from six days ago. 

I was outside the diner, in front of the back wall, next to the sour stench of the industrial-sized dumpsters. I was making eye contact with a spray-painted, graffitied face, the ink of its skull melting down its concrete neck. The restaurant was the only lit-up structure in a giant, grassy expanse. Occasionally, cars would drive out of the unmarked parking lot, their beaming headlights drifting over the side of the building. 

I could hear faint, vague voices in the distance–too murky to understand what they were saying. 

Mosquitoes brushed against the exposed part of my knee where my sister’s lace-up black boots ended. They didn’t fit me all that well, squeezing my calves and stiffening my legs, but I had been wanting to borrow them from her for years.

I was going to ask that one night last fall, but I could tell she was already wearing them by how her footsteps ricocheted against the hardwood. I remembered how she stepped into my room, those boots announcing her arrival. She whipped the car keys out of her purse like a switchblade, asking if I was ready to go to the final football game of the season. That was back when the excited anticipation of just spotting Ronan across the bleachers was enough to make the air feel electrified. 

That was also the last time I saw my sister in person. I stared at her contact name on my phone screen. She didn’t call on graduation day. 

The ceremony was over, and we had just gotten home. I breathed in the scent of damp humidity, potted marigolds, baked asphalt, grass clippings–the smell of summer break–which was usually comforting to me. But the soft strands of the tassel were grazing my cheek. There was the gentle pressure of the cap pinned to my scalp. The fabric of the gown against my bare arms. The laminated diploma in my hands. And now each inhale of that familiar scent tightened my lungs and hung solid in my chest. The dried mascara made my eyes itchy. The foundation and concealer had gone sandy, sinking into the cratered pockmarks on my face. 

My mom set the cake—my favorite flavor—on the table. My dad brought the present—a brand new camera of my own—downstairs. Malcolm made more sarcastic comments than usual, signifying that even he understood the significance of the day. 

Except it didn’t feel all that significant. I crossed graduation off my agenda with a fading pen like any other task, and that was it. Maybe if my sister had shown up after almost a year, that would’ve made it feel as climactic as I expected it to be. But she didn’t, and it wasn’t. 

That was five days ago. 

I didn’t want to look at her name anymore, so I looked at the man on the roof instead. He was kneeling down, his arm moving along the ledge. The movement was controlled, like writing, but seemed more effortful than just using a marker. Maybe he was carving something into the concrete. 

Those vague voices were louder now, though still unintelligible. I could just barely discern a static crackle humming beneath the sound, as if it were being played from a tape recorder. The graffiti face didn’t change. 

Another car passed by me, and I wondered if anyone at the table was curious why I had been gone for so long. We all went to high school together and would be going to the same college in a couple months. Kaylee Welsher couldn’t resist the urge to plan a dinner for us. Maybe I was still used to seeing her as the Editor-in-Chief to my lowly photographer role. Or I just didn’t want to deal with her gritty, charcoal-lined glare if I rejected the invitation. Her features would be delicate if she didn’t apply eyeliner so harshly, late-2000s style. I guess that was the point. 

I messaged her back that I was looking forward to going. That was four days ago.

I left the house intentionally late so I wouldn’t be the first one at the diner. My driving was tentative, like usual. Fields of tall, skyscraper corn stalks blurred outside my window. 

I pulled into the parking lot as the last bright embers of the sunset were dimming. I cut the engine, my nerves flaring as soon as it stopped rumbling. I quickly let my parents know that I had arrived safely–no auto insurance nightmares here–and stepped out into the sticky heat. 

I passed Kaylee’s sleek, compact car as I headed toward the entrance. I didn’t see his truck, though. My nerves settled a little, but not completely. 

 I saw flashes of my reflection as I threw open the glass door. My torso, slightly plump and soft in the middle. A pale arm. A leg in my sister’s boot, dirt-scuffed.

Large, spinning ceiling fans cooled the inside of the diner. A buzzing case held baked goods, nested in wax paper alcoves. An arcade machine, dust coating its blank screen, stood in the corner. The tables were crammed pretty close together, only a small pinch of space between each one. 

Brea Blaise stood up from her seat and waved me over. Kaylee was sitting next to her, Xander Braswell across from Kaylee, Lucas Deven next to him. The sixth invited person wasn’t there, and I didn’t know if he was coming at all. My nerves dissolved fully, relieved by the sight of his absence. 

A new mosquito bite on my knee insisted that I itch it. The breeze blew the decaying scent of garbage into my hair. The man on the roof was motionless now, his frozen frame blending into the dark. The tape-recorder voices were still indiscernible. The graffiti face’s expression remained the same, lips parted in protest but hooded eyes drained of any fight.  

I moved my hand to scratch the bite, the glitter pen on my knuckles glinting in the moonlight.

“Wait, the ink still hasn’t come off?” I asked Brea, gesturing at the silver drawings sketched on the copper tone of her arm. I remembered her absentmindedly illustrating her skin with a glittery pen during the late nights of editing Rivercreek High School’s yearbook. That ended weeks ago, though.

“Those dollar store gel pens could give tattoos a run for their money,” she chuckled. “They’re equally permanent, it seems.” 

“Hey, it’s a memento from surviving the finalization process of that yearbook,” Kaylee teased. I laughed along with them like I understood, but I knew my role wasn’t nearly as important or demanding as theirs were. Kaylee as Editor-in-Chief and Brea as Creative Director–such official titles, capitalized. I was just an assorted photographer, not capitalized. 

Across the small table, Xander and Lucas were in a heated debate over what cryptid monster they thought they could take in a fight, as if it were a serious political topic. 

“How much can it bench?” Lucas asked. “I can do about 240 easily.”

“240 ounces?” Xander joked. Before this, I had only ever seen him through my camera lens, when I was covering news about the theater department for the school magazine. He was the tap-dancing, baritone lead when we did Golden Age musicals and the slapstick supporting actor when we did Shakespearean plays. He also got cast in childish roles a lot because–short, scrawny, and with a youthful face–he looked boyish. 

“Here, let me prove it,” Brea said, pulling the pen out of her bag and uncapping it. 

“You just carry that around at all times?” I watched as she started to draw a couple waves on my knuckle bones. 

“Well, but it can put on illusions,” Xander pointed out. 

“Doesn’t mean a damn thing. I’m not falling for it,” Lucas countered. I knew even less about Lucas than Xander. I used to get glimpses of him when I exited the school building through the southwest doors, even though that exit was technically out of my way. 

If I got lucky, I’d catch Ronan refilling his water bottle outside the weightroom alone, and sometimes he’d be willing to talk to me. Eventually, Lucas and a couple other guys would come hulking over to the water fountain, sweat-soaked and dehydrated. Ronan would always say a quick “see you around” to me before turning to them. 

On the days I ran into Ronan, Malcolm would have to wait at the middle school a little longer than usual before I arrived to pick him up. He’d make the same comment every time, hopping into the passenger seat: “So, they just let anyone have a driver’s license, huh?” 

With a final swoop, Brea finished the last star she was sketching above the waves. “There, now you’ll see my struggle. Good luck washing it off.” 

I pulled my fingers away from the puffy circle on my knee, the skin now swollen. The trash kept rotting behind me. The man on the roof was pacing back and forth, a moving piece of the sky as I gazed up at him. The voices seemed to pulse in my ears and throb in my head, the beginning of a headache emerging in my skull. 

I clicked out of my sister’s contact, and the phone showed me a preview of my text thread with Ivy. Our conversations had been fizzling out a lot lately. My mind went blank when I tried to think of something to send her. That never used to happen before we graduated. 

The most recent message, just a silly comment, sat unacknowledged on the screen. That was from three days ago. 

“Thank you?” I laughed, inspecting the ink on my hand. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Lucas glancing at Brea’s drawing. 

He was already large and beefy in general, but next to Xander, he looked massive. His arms appeared cushiony with fat, but then at certain angles, a well-defined plane of hardened muscle would reveal itself. He had a rounded face, but his features weren’t exactly soft. His eyes were sharpened in a way that made it seem like he was perpetually glaring, and his lips were set in a steely line. Even when he smiled, it was too crocodilian to be disarming. 

“Is he ever going to get here?” Xander said. “Why don’t we just order without him? I’m starving.” 

Kaylee was focused on rebraiding her stick-straight hair, even though the original braid had already been smooth and neat enough.“Well, he said he was planning on coming. It’d be rude to start eating when he’s not here yet.” 

“Not eating, just ordering,” Xander corrected. 

She hesitated before relenting. “Okay, I guess. I’ll just shoot him a message in the group chat to see where he is.”

I went up to the counter when it was my turn and ordered a chicken pot pie. Kaylee was still typing as she walked to go stand in line, her lithe figure passing me in a blur of floral perfume and strawberry blond plaits. My phone buzzed a few seconds later, and the group chat of five names–plus one unnamed string of numbers–lit up the screen. 

I had deleted that unnamed number from my contacts once before. 

Kaylee created the group chat a couple days after I had confirmed my attendance. I recognized her and Brea from magazine and yearbook staff. Xander and Lucas’ numbers were unfamiliar to me. I realized as soon as I saw his number that I must’ve had it memorized at some point.

I thought about all those nights in the early parts of high school, when he got his driver’s license before me and Ivy. He got a banged-up old truck shortly after the license, scarred with paint scratches and bruised with metal dents. He would be behind the wheel, his friend would be on the passenger side, me and Ivy in the backseat. The road would be so pitch-black that we knew if he switched off the headlights, there would be nothing but an inky abyss all around us. 

We weren’t doing anything other than soaring through the night, but to a group of fifteen and sixteen-year-olds, that was more exhilarating than we could possibly explain. 

The crooning guitar and frantic drums of whatever rock song was playing from the speakers would thump in my chest like a heartbeat. Back then, it never crossed my mind that I could listen to that music by myself; it seemed like something I could only hear on those late night drives in his truck. One of us would make a joke that probably wasn’t even that funny, but we’d all be laughing until our stomachs were sore. I’d sometimes crack up so much that I snorted in between giggles–ugly, piglike noises–but I was never embarrassed because I was just around him, Ivy, and his friend who was slowly becoming my friend, too. 

Then, he and I stopped being friends. Ivy didn’t have her own car, and I was never comfortable driving that late. So I didn’t get to soar under the moon anymore. 

I couldn’t bring myself to revive his contact, so I just left him unnamed. 

That was two days ago. 

The food arrived, and we started eating even though he wasn’t there. Kaylee kept glancing at the doors, but I could finally enjoy my meal now that it seemed like he wasn’t showing up. 

We were back on the subject of the yearbook, because I guess that was the only common ground we really had. For Lucas and Xander, the cryptid debate was somehow still going strong. 

“No, because getting the font aligned on that page almost killed me,” Brea lamented. “That editing software is a form of torture.”

“Is that why you were drawing on your arm like a prisoner counting down the days of their sentence?” I said lightheartedly. 

“Yeah, basically.”

“You can’t wrestle something with supernatural abilities,” Xander protested. 

“Then what’s even the point of this conversation?” Lucas argued. “They’re all supernatural!”

“Sorting through every single image was so exhausting,” Kaylee sighed. “We have so many talented photographers at that school.”

My fork paused inside the pie crust. Kaylee didn’t seem to realize the implication of what she had said, which made it worse. 

I had been too nervous to flip through the yearbook when it first came out. My photographs sweetened my world into snapshots, but knowing everyone else could see them left a bitter taste in my mouth. I knew I made a mistake waiting until after graduation day, though: the diploma severed my tie to all that came before it. Cracking open the yearbook felt like reaching across a gap that couldn’t be sealed. 

I saw the journalism room, knowing I wouldn’t be working in there ever again. I saw the stadium bleachers, knowing I wouldn’t get to go to another game with my sister. I saw Ronan, knowing that I could no longer search the hallways for a glimpse of him.

What I wasn’t seeing, as I turned glossy page after glossy page, were any photos I took. I finished the book, then combed through all its pictures again. None with my name attached. 

I had been in charge of touching up other photographers’ photos. We weren’t allowed to edit our own, of course. I had no idea all of mine had been cut. 

That must’ve been the choice of the Editor-in-Chief and Creative Director. Official titles, capitalized. I was just a photographer, not capitalized. And unpublished. 

I placed the yearbook in my drawer, next to my graduation present. I stared at the latter for a moment before picking it up. I turned the camera box over in my hands, the gift tag still pasted on, and salty warmth began to drip from my eyes. 

I shut the camera away with the yearbook and hit the lights. I climbed into bed, cocooned myself within my blankets, stared at the dim ceiling, and listened to the whirring lullaby of the air conditioner. My photos from last year were gone. And I could never take any photos of last year ever again. 

That was yesterday. 

The conversations continued without me. I idly stirred my chicken pot pie with the fork.

“You escaped your kidnappers!” Xander abruptly exclaimed. I knew who it was as soon as I saw Kaylee’s expression brighten. 

“Yeah, sorry I’m so late. Took me a lifetime to get here.” He sat down in the only seat left, directly across from me. 

Lucas reached over Xander to smack hands with him. “You can’t get anywhere quickly in that piece of shit truck, dude.” 

“Oh, c’mon, is the truck really that bad?” he said. 

“Don’t worry, some people think celibacy is admirable,” Xander quipped. The three burst into the kind of raucous laughter only teenage boys could. 

He greeted Kaylee and introduced himself to Brea. I was curious to see what he’d do with me. He met my eyes, his gaze lingering for a few seconds, then he looked away. 

The cryptid debate resumed, now with him in it, and it was almost unbelievable to me that they could be so invested in this for an entire evening. I had lost my appetite, but my sister usually ate my leftovers. That’s how I remembered I had been meaning to call her today, but I kept chickening out, and suddenly eating poultry felt too cannibalistic. 

“Do I have to go to New Jersey to fight it?” he asked. “Because that’s enough to make me surrender.” 

He tapped his fingers against the table, and I saw that they were just as scraped and callused as they had been since we were little kids. He would climb trees way higher than I did and would sometimes leap off the branches for the thrill of it. I was probably playing with him the day he got the pale scar etched near his temple, a snowy line arcing across tanned flesh. 

I excused myself to go make a phone call and walked to the back of the building. 

The tape-recorder voices were unbearable now. They swelled and crashed like violent waves in my eardrums. They overlapped with each other–gravelly, gruff, nasally, lilting, raspy, hoarse–a cacophony of fractured sentences. My vision must have been playing a trick on me, glitching, because the graffiti face seemed to be returning my stare. The lips parted further, mouth opening wider, jaw unhinging. The voices became screaming–that graffiti face was screaming at me–fluctuating between high-pitched shrieks and guttural growls. 

I couldn’t even tell what I was hearing anymore, my senses going numb. So I just decided what to hear. I chose to hear my sister’s boots stomping on the hardwood, heard her ask me if I was ready to go to the football game. My brother saying, “So, they just let anyone have a driver’s license, huh?” The rock music in his truck and my own snorting laughter. Ronan’s quick “See you around.” My house’s air conditioner singing me to sleep. 

The click of a camera. The zip of a bag. The closing of a drawer. 

Then the sounds were gone. My headache disappeared. The graffiti face was motionless. There was nothing but buzzing mosquitoes and industrial-sized dumpsters.

There wasn’t a man on the roof. 

My heart sank, because I hadn’t gotten a chance to take a picture of him while he was still there. But I didn’t have my rented camera anymore, and I couldn’t bring myself to unbox the new one.

There was no point anyway, I realized. I would never be able to capture enough in just a snapshot. Not the last time I saw my sister, or when summer break didn’t smell the same, or how that itchy makeup felt on graduation day. I couldn’t capture picking Malcolm up from school every afternoon, or what conversations with Ivy used to be like before we graduated, or the way late night drives exhilarated me when I was fifteen. None of that could be imprisoned within a picture. 

I scratched at my knee again, a pinprick of blood dribbling out of the irritated bite. I turned on my heel to head back inside, but my phone started vibrating in my palm. 

My sister was calling me. 

About the Author

Emily Reisman is an English & Creative Writing major at the University of Iowa, originally from Northern Virginia. When she's not catching up on reading assignments, she likes taking (amateur) photos, listening to rock music, and walking around new parts of campus. 

Cover design made using Canva design tools.