When to Let The Little Things Go

I never thought myself to be the sentimental type, but sweeping through my home town one last time is making me reconsider my connection to physical things. There’s a certain melancholic comfort in reaching out and touching something that’s been in your life forever, or driving down a road you’ve driven hundreds of times before. I can’t pretend like leaving it all behind is easy. But I feel like I have to, because if I don’t, the end of it all might actually start to get to me.

The gray sky is casting a monochromatic haze over the world, like an abandoned ‘60s sitcom long devoid of laughter. No more simple problems to be solved in thirty minute stints. No more working televisions, period.

I’m usually sitting shotgun, but that seat is occupied by a big, crushed up cardboard box, belted in so its contents won’t go flying if I hit the brakes hard. It’s an abundantly cautious measure considering there should be no reason to stop abruptly. There are no other cars, no children to wander into the streets, and no family of ducks crossing at the wrong moment. Everything is empty and quiet. The sputter of my car engine is so uncontested in volume, I bet someone in the next town over could hear it if they listened closely, assuming there was anyone left.

I’m taking the long way just for the hell of it. This is the way Sam and I took to and from school, so we could stop for coffee on the way there, and on the way back. The two of us were always tired. Classes were killer, and dealing with peers even moreso. Home life was just as exhausting. Ironically, I feel more awake now than I ever did running on caffeine. I suppose nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

I’m instinctively slowing down as I pass Midbury high, even though the town is abandoned, and it’s Summer. Or, at least, I think it’s Summer, because it’s been hot and humid these past few days despite the cloudiness. I can’t confirm one way or another. I don’t count the days, and all phones and computers are long drained of battery. Whatever the case may be, I pass slowly.

Sam and I met junior year. We had last period gym together. I was being harassed by Ryan Jones in the locker room, and it wasn’t at all how teen dramas portrayed it to be; it was an ugly screaming match, and the only reason I wasn’t beaten senseless was because Sam stepped in. He was this mellow, friendly sort of guy who you’d never expect to involve himself in something like this. He and Ryan both played varsity soccer, but that was about where the similarities ended.

“Yo, Jones, let’s cut this out, okay?” He asked casually as he pulled up his shorts, and slipped on his shoes with ease. His nonchalance struck me first as pretentious, but I figured I shouldn’t be judging this cute, shirtless Soccer player who was sticking up for me when nobody else was.

“Your friend here’s watching me change, Sam,” Jones lied.

“I was not—” I started, but Sam shot me a glance with blue eyes brighter than anything else in that dingy locker room. I froze, half realizing he wanted me to shut up, and half engulfed in his ocean eyes.

He grabbed his shirt off the adjacent bench, slipping it on over his head as he spoke.

“Dude, get over yourself. You’re not that hot. Nobody’s watching you change.”

Sneers arose from their teammates, which flushed Ryan’s cheeks red with a cocktail of embarrassment and rage. He closed the gap between himself and Sam.

“This doesn’t involve you.”

Sam chuckled. “Y’know, for someone who’s picking on the gay kid, you’re getting pretty close to another dude right now, just sayi—”

Ryan punched Sam in the face and shoved him up against a locker. Despite bleeding from the lip, I could tell Sam was preparing to get another snide comment in, like calling Ryan “kinky," or something along those lines. But their teammates had pulled Ryan away before he got the chance. Ryan continued spouting off all sorts of hateful bullshit, but suddenly he seemed powerless and small. Sam knocked him down a peg without laying a finger on him.

I wanted to take up the fight for him, as if we were some sort of anti-bully tag team, but the bell rang and Sam ushered me out of the room before I could.

I bring my car almost to a halt, because I can practically see Sam and I crossing the street ahead of us, him leading the way.

“You could’ve punched back, or let me punch him, or… or something!” I said, feeling both guilty and grateful at the same time.

“Yeah, but didn’t it work out better this way?” He asked.

“You got beat! And Ryan got away with his bullshit.”

Sam turned around and started walking backwards.

“You know how many people were recording that? At least six. That footage will make the rounds, and Ryan will get kicked off the team. Probably suspended, too. If we fought back—”

“We would’ve gotten in trouble, too,” I finished for him.

“Exactly.” He stopped walking, and I bumped into him. He almost fell backwards, but he grabbed onto my shoulders to steady himself, then played it off as if he meant to do that.

"Sometimes, you’ve just gotta let some things go,” he said to me.

We stood quiet for a moment, his hands still on me, before he spit out a glob of blood onto the ground. The silence resumed, more awkward now than before, until finally he asked:

“Wanna get coffee?”

“Sure,” I answered a bit too eagerly.

I wish I had more memories from high school to reminisce about, but most of them are as bittersweet as that one. Sam and I never got to go to prom together before the world went numb. We never got a special slow dance beneath the neon lights. The closest thing we had was square-dancing at the Midbury Spring-fest. Coincidentally, I’m passing the fairgrounds now.

While school never felt like it did on TV, that night felt straight out of a romantic comedy. He convinced me to go on all the fast rides, and I convinced him to waste his money playing rigged carnival games to win me prizes. There was this big stuffed panda at one of the balloon popping games, and he knew I wanted it before I said a word. Twenty dollars and a subpar display of hand-eye coordination later, I walked away with a tiny plush dog that I loved even more than the panda, and Sam’s arm wrapped around my shoulders.

We knew we wanted to share our first kiss that night, but we didn’t outright say it. There was this unspoken tension that pulled us together and pushed us apart in waves. The moments you’d think were most timely passed by without either of us having made a move—the top of the ferris wheel, the ecstatic game victories—all coming and going without results.

And then we square-danced. We were not very good. Our motions were clunky, and out of step with the beat, and all-in-all it was clear we’d never done this before. But there was something beautiful about the awkwardness—like a baby deer standing up for the first time. It was a natural mess, during which we shared our first kiss, laughing the whole way through. Once the initial shock settled and we caught our breaths, he said to me:

“Don’t let go,” and before I could answer, we were kissing again.

The fairgrounds pass me by. As does the cemetery. And the coffee shop he took me to after the locker room incident. Now, we’re passing over the bridge where we had our accident. I stop the car, and I’m trying not to relive it, but I can’t fight back the memory.

I was driving him home. We were arguing. It was the first and last time we’d ever fought. He sat shotgun, holding the same cardboard box that sits in the seat now. I made him take it, because I was so petty I didn’t want it anymore. I can’t even remember what we were fighting about; it’s easy to let things like that go when they’re dwarfed in significance by something like a car accident, or the end of the world.

I remember taking my hands off the wheel for a second, because when I’m angry, I gesticulate. But, incidentally, a second was enough. Everything was suddenly cut into jarring motions—still frames of chaos that passed by in slow motion. The box spilled its contents everywhere as our bodies flailed. I’m trembling just thinking about it. I can’t think about it anymore.

I open my door and scramble out of the car, letting my limbs shake out until I am calm again. I take a deep breath, and reach back in for the box. I carry it over to the ledge of the bridge and let it rest there. There is no wind, or any other external force to alter its balance. It only goes over if I let it go.

I part its flaps. Inside are relics that have been weighing heavily on my mind since I started driving. The tickets to the Spring-fest. Plastic square-dancing medals on thin ribbon lanyards. The little plush dog, with its limp legs and smushed up nose. His black orb eyes sadly reflect the dim light of the sky. I take a deep breath and sift my hand through the rest of the items, seeking out anything worth bringing with me that won’t bring sad memories with it. There’s no such thing, so I close the box back up and give it a gentle push. It falls and floats downstream, getting smaller, and smaller, until it’s gone.

Finally, I feel tired. My eyelids are fighting a battle to stay away from each other, but I can tell my vision is fading fast. I open up the back door and give the man sprawled out on the seats a gentle shake.

“Wakey, wakey,” I whisper.

His eyes drift open, revealing their calm blue.

He mutters, “Hmm? Are we there?”

“No, not even close. I made a few stops in town.”

He spills out of the car onto his feet, using me for balance, and we kiss. His mouth is as gross as anyone else’s after a long nap, but I accept it all the same. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices the empty shotgun seat.

“Oh… your box?”

“I let it go. It was taking up space we don’t have, and, well… I don’t need it. I just need you.”

We kiss again.

“Can we trade off for a while?” I ask, and he’s climbing into the driver seat before I finish the question. I take shotgun, as usual. The old leather car seat accepts me back into its specially contoured form, and I feel that pang of familiar comfort again. The same sensation I get whenever Sam and I touch, or lock eyes, or anything of the like.

He starts driving, and the quiet hum of the car is lulling me to sleep. We’re in the next township, now, and everything seems brighter. The sun is emerging from behind the clouds, and my vision is reverting to its full range of colors even as I drift into unconsciousness. The last thing I clearly see is Sam—the one thing I’ll never let go of, because even though the world has ended doesn’t mean our world has.

My eyes are closing, turning the light to darkness.

Everything gets smaller, and smaller, until it’s gone.