In memory of Nicole Lewanski

Where were you then
?” I screamed.
He shifted from one foot to the other. “Candela knows why I wasn’t there,”
he retorted. “I don’t have to answer to you.”
“You’re going to screw up her life again.” Tears of anger welled up in my
eyes.
“Oh shut up, Audrey,” said Candela. “Seriously, I am so sick of your shit.
Why can’t you both just leave me alone?” She hurled the duffle bag on the
ground at our feet. “I don’t need a single damn thing from either one of you,
okay? Come on, Dirk. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

---

Twenty-six
D
AYS
AFTER
C
ANDELA
’
S
departure, I found myself sitting at Rad’s kitchen table
staring at a black metal box—the one I’d come across on my first visit to his
apartment. He was out, and I wanted to tidy up before I left for an interview
with author Elsa Reed.
I came across the box tucked away in the back corner of his bedroom closet
when I was putting away some laundry. It beckoned to me, like Pandora’s box.
So now I was sitting here, staring at it with a mix of curiosity and dread. The
sunlight streaming in between the slats of the window highlighted a paper clip,
already complicit in my pending crime. Its silvery glint drew my gaze the same
way a raven is mesmerized by a discarded bottle cap.
For some reason, my mind dragged up a memory of Candela from a long time
ago. It was one of those warm summer days that shone like a beacon flickering
somewhere in the dark chambers of my mind like a photograph taken with a
pinhole camera. We must have been no more than thirteen. We were sitting on
plastic seats suspended in the air by metal chains, kicking the tips of our matching
white-and-blue Converse sneakers against the asphalt, in a local park where we
used to play.
I still recall that day like a scene from a movie or a tattered picture book with
edges blunted and pages marred by crayon scribbles. Candela’s long dark hair
swung back and forth like a silken sheet; her beautiful green eyes were framed in
thick, curly lashes. She was more like a boy than a girl, with perpetually scraped
knees and a steely determination.
Her head was turned sideways, and her gaze was fixed on the seesaw in front of
us where on one bright yellow seat someone had left behind a scrunchie made
from a pearly white fabric with red polka dots. “Let’s play confession,” she said.
“What’s confession?”
She went into a detailed description of the process, right down to the lattice
screen that hid the priest and the smell of stale varnish in the confessional. She
asked me if I had anything to confess. I thought long and hard, but I couldn’t

---

think of anything impressive. When it was Candela’s turn, she rattled off a long
list of things. Money snuck from her mother’s purse, cigarettes in the girl’s
shower block at summer camp, and going to third base with the boy who lived
next door. “What does it feel like?” I asked about the boy, my voice dropping to
a whisper. She shrugged, her eyes still pinned tightly to the red-and-white
scrunchie.
“It doesn’t feel like anything.” Then she began to cry as I watched, feeling
strangely removed.
“Candela, don’t cry.”
She turned to look at me, her tiny hands wiping furiously at her tears as if she
was trying to punish them for betraying her. “Audrey,” she said, her glassy eyes
staring straight into mine, “I’m going to hell.”
Shaking off the memory, I picked up the paper clip; with a little
encouragement, the silver lock clicked open. I sat there for a few more minutes,
drumming my fingers on the glass tabletop, my heart fluttering like a panic-
stricken bird inside my chest. I was hoping to find a stack of Garbage Pail cards,
like Rad had said, but the feeling of dread in my stomach told me otherwise.
After drawing a deep breath, I flipped the lid open and carefully withdrew the
contents, placing them on the table before me. I knew right away the box was a
time capsule of his relationship with Ana. There were concert tickets, pressed
flowers, and other keepsakes, each with their own mysterious significance.
Photographs of Ana and letters to Rad written in her impossibly tiny
handwriting. Pictures of the two of them, smiling, his palm flat against her back,
their heads turned to greet the camera.
I wondered whether he still looked through this box. Did he sift through its
contents on those whiskey-fueled nights he spent here alone? I wondered
whether she came to life again for him in these photographs.
I picked up a piece of wrinkled paper—a receipt from a stationery store—and
turned it over. On the back was a poem in Rad’s messy scrawl.