GetLit is a semimonthly series featuring works of fiction and creative nonfiction submitted by New School students. Each month has two opportunities to submit: an open call and a themed call. To submit your work or find more information, please visit GetLit’s submissions form.
September’s theme was “First Impressions.” This month’s themed call fiction selection is “Left Hanging, or how to open a lock without a key” by Lydia Chiu.
Lydia Chiu (any/all) is a fourth-year, undergraduate illustrator and writer from Virginia pursuing a BFA in illustration and a BA in literary studies for fiction writing. Lydia would say they enjoy telling character-driven stories about community, youth, and family, but it’d be easier and more honest to say that everything they write is about grief.
i.
I meet you on the schoolyard. There’s a blacktop area at the bottom of the field that separates it from the playground, but we like to stay at the top by the water fountains and just talk, except for when it’s summer and we can tromp past the field and into the greener area, walk through the trees and pluck honeysuckle to suck the sweet from their centers. We don’t run around much, especially since the last time the boys roped us into a game of tag I tore my stockings and bloodied my knee.
There’s no more honeysuckle these days because the air is starting to chill and the trees branches are falling barren, but you tell me you need to show me something secret and we scamper past the water fountains, around the back of the school, and down the sidewalk of the part of town my family never goes down.
“Look what I found!” you proclaim. We’re both winded, faces numb with chill but flushed, and you’re beaming, your red hair frizzing around it making your face seem even brighter.
I look around. This street isn’t one I know since my house is on the other side of town, but I like how cute the streetlamps are and how there are a million little shops.
“Ice cream?” I ask, pointing at the little parlor. There’s a large painted ice cream statue outside of the door with the cutest rainbow sprinkles.
“No, no! My mom says that’s too much money anyway. Look over here—look at this!” You pull me to look the other way. On the side of the sidewalk not facing the street, there’s a chain-link fence, adorned with locks.
There’s a moment where we don’t say anything, we just stare, eyes wide, at the locks, some of which hang higher than we can reach, in different colors, different sizes, with different amounts of rust and wear.
“Whoa,” I say. “Cool.”
“Yeah,” you say, nodding. “And look—” You lift one of the locks to show me the back, and there are two initials engraved with a plus in between them. J + H.
“Isn’t that so cute?” you ask, giddy.
I just nod eagerly. “I want one,” I say. “For us! ‘Cause we’re best friends.”
“Well good, ‘cause I found this in my house’s junk drawer,” you say, unzipping the front pocket on the chest of your coat. “Look!” You proudly present an unlocked padlock. It’s a metallic sort of purple. “And!” you exclaim, going back into the pocket, “I have this, to write something on the back.” You hand me a marker. “My mom doesnt let me use them ‘cause she says they’re permanent so it’s perfect!”
I’m grinning. You always have the best ideas. “Let’s do it.”
We hook the lock through a little diamond in the fence and click it shut, only to realize with giggles that we can’t turn it around to write on it very well. We decide to just flip it up and write on it upside down, doing our best with frozen, fumbling fingers to pen our names and proclaim, like the lock, the forever of our friendship.
ii.
It’s yet another cold season, but for the first time ever, I’m on college winter break, finally back after a semester. I don’t do ballet anymore so I’ve started going on walks, and I take the time in the early evening to enjoy the quiet of being back in smalltown America.
I’m walking past the gate of locks when I hear laughter and across the street, streaming out of the ice cream parlor. I see red braids tucked into a hat. I call your name. Once, unsurely, but then again, so you might have the opportunity to hear.
You look over. Your friends do too, but recognition doesn’t wipe the judgment off their faces the way it does with yours.
You squint, call my name back.
“Hi!” I say, a bewildered sort of pleased, jogging across the street to meet you. We went to different middle schools, different high schools, and it has been far longer than a semester since we last saw each other. “How are you?”
“Good, good, how are you?” you respond. You glance over your shoulder at your friends who linger awkwardly behind you. I don’t recognize any of them.
“Yeah, good, crazy to see you,” I say with a smile. Our breaths puff out in the cold between us. “I know, yeah, it’s been ages,” you say. One of your friends checks his watch.
“Are you—”
“Have you—”
We speak simultaneously, then stumble over apologizing.
“You go,” you say.
“Oh, I was just—” I gesture behind me. “The gate back there? I just walked by.”
“Oh, yeah, the lock,” you say. “Is it, uh…”
“Yeah, still there.” I nod. Probably too many times. “Still there.”
“Cool, cool,” you say. Glance over your shoulder again. “Look, sorry, but I gotta…” You back up, shrug over at your friends. “We’re catching a movie now.”
“Oh, yeah, of course,” I say. You press your lips together in some sort of smile, one that might be made to look guilty.
“Good to see you though!” you call over your shoulder. Your friends flank you again as you walk off, and I hear laughter soon ease out of everyone as you start up whatever conversation I interrupted.
“Yeah, you too,” I call halfheartedly. It doesn’t really matter if you hear me anyway.
iii.
It’s hot out, enough for each ray of sunlight to feel like it’s ten pounds, aching down my neck and shoulders. It’s definitely too hot to be wearing black, but there’s nothing I can do about that.
I sigh. The chain-link fence is hot, but its pressure against my forehead feels kind of good. My head has hurt a bit recently, yet I don’t know why.
I’m sorry for some reason. I think about saying it out loud since everyone acts as though you’re around in spirit somehow. I feel bad, though, for some other reason, and don’t even know if I’d want you to hear me if you could. How could I explain why I left the funeral early, why I didn’t feel right being there?
I look down at all the locks between where my forehead rests and my feet.
Your mom had been happy that I was there, yet again for some unknown reason. I’d assumed she didn’t remember me, but she pulled me aside and cried over my shoulder ‘cause I was your first best friend. It made me feel sick. I hadn’t cried back. Because when I really thought about it, I hadn’t even known you at all.
I was just a stupid kid when you were a stupid kid, and we knew each other when we knew nothing. I hardly knew you then. How could I mean anything now?
I crouch down, look at the locks. I don’t really know why I’m here except for the fact that maybe it makes me feel sentimental. Maybe being here makes me feel like everyone at the funeral thinks I should feel.
I scan the locks. All of them are speckled with tarnish but otherwise gray.
I flip them, looking for our message, looking for our initials, for some trace of purple. Nothing. What’s worse is that I don’t even remember what it said on the back.
iv.
I still think of you, but mostly only when I come to visit Dad.
Only when I go on my walks, think about my past, go across town.
And only a couple times a year, too, like when the ice cream parlor closed down the street, or when I drove home the other day and passed by the school, or when, on a cold day, I happen past that gate and find they’ve sawed all of the locks off.