The text came from his buddy Andy while David was eating tasteless Ethiopian food that he knew would be bad because the menu prices were just too high. Caleb is dead. Then the floodgates opened. Caleb died. Did you see the news? I’m fucking crushed, bro. I didn’t see this coming. This is tragic. He logged onto Twitter, the place he met Caleb, and saw the real-time eulogies, a hundred forty characters each, bloated aphorisms and peacocked anecdotes. Check on your friends. A pure soul. A dense pit formed in his stomach. He thought about it all in silence, the only sound his unhinged jaws chewing the spongy bread and formless mush, his girlfriend across the table, her sympathetic eyes glazed over the gaggle of lamb and lentils and injera. It was her idea, this girlfriend-funded lunch date, to celebrate the halfway point of his minimum wage internship, his first job ever that did not include mopping the floor at the end of the night. It consisted of formulaic busy work in an austere and empty cubicle of which David was convinced was in the direct line of a constant stream of cold air. Along with the windowless walls, this felt like the way they pump the A/C at Vegas casinos to make you forget when and where you are. This job provided no money for discretionary dining— only TV dinners and ramen with an economical dollop of kimchi if he was lucky— but a job it was nonetheless. Not like he wanted this job, though. He wanted to write. And Caleb was the one who accepted his first pitch. He brought David up to heights he dreamt about. Caleb would mingle with movers and shakers in online indie literary circles, spouting the good word about David’s writing, a generous benefactor. David didn’t even believe in himself, at least not as much as Caleb did. He never had anything to say.

            His downcast eyes refused contact with his girlfriend. He looked at his phone instead, navigating to his text messages and pulling up his conversations with Caleb. Except they weren’t really conversations. For the last few months it was one-sided, unanswered and desperate shouts from Caleb into an ever-growing void. David had begun to ignore him. How are you doing? I miss you dude. Call me back, man. Do u hate me or something? Is this weird? And now he’s gone. For the rest of his life, David would have to accept that he never responded. Not only was there no closure, he couldn’t help but think a simple text could’ve kept Caleb alive. Anything. Instead there was a paper trail of his detached insolence, a testament to his bad friendship, his ignorance to the signs of mental deterioration. He typed I’m sorry into the dialogue box but felt stupid, erased it and exited out of the Messages app and put his phone back into his khaki pocket. He stared out the window and saw the blistering summer heat waves warping the uneven parking lot outside. The food began to smell rancid.

“Are you OK?” his girlfriend asked.

“Caleb died,” he said. His wistful and avoidant eyes wouldn’t look away from the glass.

“Who’s Caleb?”

“You know Caleb,” he said. “My internet friend.”

“All you have is internet friends,” his girlfriend said, gritting her teeth.

“He’s the one that shopped the piece about my grandpa and got it published. You know he’s the only reason it actually came out?”

“Don’t start with that bullshit self-deprecation again. How old was he?”

“Twenty-seven or something like that.”

“The twenty-seven club!” she said.

“Really?” David did not feel like joking.

“I’m sorry,” she said, straightening. “Are you going to eat the rest of that injera?”

“All you,” David’s mind was elsewhere again. “We’ve known each other for, like, almost a decade at this point.”

“Since you were twelve?” she asked, rolling the spongy bread into a cylinder and scooping up sour yellowgreen slaw.

“Something like that. I don’t know, exactly.”

“That’s pretty young,” she said. “How did he die?”

“I don’t know,” he hesitated. “But, uh, based on the way he was acting, I don’t have a good feeling.”

“You talked to him recently?”

“No, uh, but he— he talked to me.”

“Did you answer?”

“Hey, how about we go to a park or something?” David said. He could feel sweat gathering in his armpits. The small dining room suddenly felt tighter. Was the air conditioning broken? “It’s so warm in here. I’m not hungry. Too much coffee this morning. Could use a breeze or something.”

As they walked the slim path that surrounded the pond between the highway and his office, his girlfriend spoke. He watched the fountain in the middle spout water at irregular intervals and could barely hear anything she said. Something about her parents and their work visas and how they expired and that she was scared they were going to get pulled over and deported or something. David didn’t care. He could not be present. His girlfriend, a couple steps ahead, stopped walking and turned.

“Do you not care?” she sneered. Her hazel eyes looked bright like the yellowgreen slaw.

“About what?”

“Exactly.”

“No, I mean, I was listening, I’m just asking what you think I don’t care about.”

“I’m worried my parents are going to get deported and you’re just staring off into fucking space like a mute.”

“What am I supposed to do about your parents?” he asked. He felt bad after the words came out of his mouth.

“OK, whatever, fuck you,” said his girlfriend. She reached her hand into the massive purse she always carried and after a few seconds of awkward fiddling, fished out her keys. “This is enough. First you won’t take my mom to her doctor’s appointment while I’m at work, now you won’t even listen to my problems. Sorry your fake internet friend died. You never even met him in person. This is real life shit I’m dealing with, you know. You don’t know what it’s like to have parents like mine. Your white, rich family never had to deal with that shit. All of them born here. You always whine about your parents getting divorced. You were already out of college when it happened. Boo-fucking-hoo. I’m done. You’re welcome for lunch.”

And with that, she hastened toward the parking lot, stranding David alone at the pond. She was already about a dozen yards away when David mouthed to no one in particular, “I couldn’t take your mom because I was working.”

He walked back into his office fifteen minutes before his lunch break ended. He couldn’t fathom another month and a half of inputting text he didn’t come up with on his own into spreadsheets he didn’t create. He hadn’t adjusted particularly well to college life but at least it provided something interesting. He often fell asleep at this job and thought nobody noticed. But today the agonizing shock kept him awake. But he still couldn’t do his work. He just stared at his phone with wide eyes and scrolled again through all his messages with Caleb. How does one reconcile this? The radio silence. They say when someone kills themselves it’s never your fault, but the timeline lined up too clean. Maybe one extra text would’ve saved him. Or if it was inevitable, maybe a call would have at least prolonged it, helped him deflect the blame. Something simple and innocuous. Just letting Caleb know he was there, still.

But David felt alone and scared. How could he tell anyone about this? Internet friends aren’t real friends. They might not even be real people. Caleb’s death was the only incontrovertible proof he ever existed. David was always sure of his existence, but that was only a feeling. He’d been wrong before. Plus, there was just too much about his relationship with Caleb to really explain to anyone. The empty spaces between the words, the distance of online relationships, the screens, the hundreds of miles of space. All this should have made it feel like Caleb was no different than a movie character who died, or some C-list celebrity. Instead it struck David to his core. Was it selfishness? Or was it true? Caleb always made Atlanta feel so close to Detroit. Now they felt like different planets. It’s weird, he thought, that someone can just die like that. No pageantry or ceremony. Gone in an instant. It was true, it felt like he never existed. In fact, he basically never did, in the grand scheme of things. None of us do.

As the day wore on, David began to feel better, or at least feel less. More texts poured in. I know you guys were really close. How you holding up man? We’re thinking about you. Give us a call sometime if u need us. It’s not your fault. He even started to get work done, the mindless spreadsheet entry the perfect antidote for any sort of sentient thought. Couple buttons, enter, tab, click, type, repeat.

He usually drove home with the radio on, volume up, windows down. Today he rode in silence. He could hear his brake pads grating against something in the bowels of his car but he didn’t know what. Bare, down to the rotors, maybe. A good car would last longer than David and Caleb knew each other.

He got home and ate in silence. His mom made fajitas. His younger sister sat next to him, barely eating, scrolling her phone. Usually his dad spoke at the table about his day at the office. He worked at the same place as David. In fact, he got David the job. David didn’t really want the job, but knew he couldn’t say no. And now here he was. But his dad didn’t speak any more at the table. He hadn’t since the divorce. Maybe he would talk again after the papers were finalized and he finally moved. His mother sat at the other end with a small portion of food she hadn’t touched. Nobody made eye contact with each other.

“Caleb died today,” David blurted, breaking the uncomfortable silence. For a moment, the room remained quiet.

“Who’s Caleb?” his sister said. She didn’t look up from her phone.

“My friend.”

“You don’t have a friend named Caleb.”

“Yes I do,” he said. “From Twitter.”

“That’s not, like, a friend friend.”

“Yes it is!”

“No it’s not. Those are weird internet people. Have you tried making real-life friends?”

“Fuck you, Rachel,” David said. “I have real-life friends. Have you tried getting off your phone at the dinner table?”

“You’re not my mom!”

“Mom?” David said, turning to his mother. “You see this? You have anything to say about it?”

His mom sighed. She folded her napkin and neatly placed it on the table. She got up to take her untouched plate to the sink and said, “Your sister is right. You need some friends.”

“What are you talking about? I just told you. I have friends. And I have a girlfriend in ‘real life’, whatever that means.”

“Girlfriends don’t count,” she said, raising her voice as she walked to the opposite side of the kitchen and scraped her food into the trash. She turned on the sink to wash her plate. “If you have a girlfriend and no friends, you get too dependent. You don’t want to be too dependent. Look where it got me.”

“One of my best friends just died and you guys can’t stop lecturing me because you don’t understand the internet?” David felt his ears getting hot.

“What if he was a catfish?” said Rachel. She snickered. “Like what if he actually was some big fat chick obsessed with you? And maybe he, or whoever it is, didn’t die. Maybe they just didn’t want to keep being a fake person online.”

“You know he was a published writer? Like, I’m not the only one who knew him. You guys just don’t understand the communities I’m in online. I honestly don’t feel like I should even have to defend myself right now.”

“We’re not attacking you, honey,” his mom said as she came back to the table to collect more plates.

“He was probably a creep,” Rachel mumbled under her breath.

“Dad,” David said. “You understand. Help me out here? They’re being mean.”

David’s dad, who still hadn’t said a word, was slathering sour cream on flour tortillas and filling them with an array of grilled peppers, onions and marinated chicken in a silence anything but serene. He took a big bite of his fajita, set it down, wiped his hands on his napkin and took a swig of the beer on his table, ostensibly for effect. He then turned to David with those sharp beady amber eyes and spoke with his mouth partially full. The thin hair combed over the bald spot on his head stood up. “I think we have more important things to talk about, son.”

“More important than someone dying?”

“Well, more important for this family.” As his dad looked on, David could feel his penetrating gaze.

“You already told us you’re getting divorced,” David said. He was at his wit’s end. He felt Rachel’s eyes look up from her phone. “What else is there? Family’s gone, my friends are gone, we don’t ever talk at dinner. It’s just a whole bunch of nothingness. What could possibly be at stake?”

“John tells me you’ve been slacking off at work.”

“Oh, give me a break. That guy never liked me.”

“You know how corporate politics are. He wouldn’t tell me if it wasn’t true.”

“You don’t even like the guy!”

“But I trust him.”

“Well,” David’s voice faltered. “What’s his proof?”

“He said you’re sleeping at your desk.”

David’s mother gasped. He wanted to tell her to shut up. He wanted to stand up and throw his plate across the room and watch it shatter and point at her and tell her to clean it up. “That’s not proof,” he said. “That’s just what he’s saying. Different from proof. I’m not sleeping at my desk. That’s crazy. Besides, he works on the other side of the building. How would he even know?”

“He said multiple people have sent him pictures. You’re going to get fired, you know.”

“Alright, that’s fucking it. Witch hunt!” David shouted and stood up dramatically. He pushed his chair so hard it fell against the wall behind him. He stomped toward his room. “I don’t even care!”

“Where are you going, honey?” his mom pleaded.

“You didn’t ask to be excused, bucko!” his dad bellowed.

“I’m twenty. I’m not a child. I can do whatever I want. I can move out if I want!” he yelled as he walked down the hallway and slammed the door behind him.

“Well,” said his dad, forcing a chuckle, calmer but still tense, to the rest of the table. “He doesn’t have the money to move out, or we’d make him. I’m worried about him. Hey Rach— how’s your food?”

“Mmm,” she said. Her head was back down in her phone.

On the other side of his door, David stood in the silent darkness of his room, the only light coming from the flickering street lamps outside. He wanted to scream but the doors were so thin. His parents would barge in, or scream, or both. He walked in the dimness to his small corner desk and opened his laptop. No responses from any literary journals to whom he sent in pitches. He wished he’d had sent Caleb some of his manuscripts, Caleb would’ve gotten those in the hands of someone who liked them. David was kicking himself; he hadn’t sent any to Caleb because he didn’t want to be rude. If he wasn’t answering any of Caleb's texts, how could he ask him to send his stories to publishers? His diminishing returns with publications had become so bleak that at this point he appreciated it if they messaged back at all. A pleasant and thoughtful no, as shallow and flimsy as it may be, gave him more hope than radio silence. He thought maybe it was easier for them to ignore him than to say “No, we don’t want you. You’re not good enough.” David knew all too well how hard that was to say to another person.

He shut his laptop and walked over to his bed and flopped down, burying his head into his pillow, still dressed in all his work clothes. He fumbled with his sheets and awkwardly pulled them over his head. He just needed someone to talk to. He dialed his girlfriend’s phone but it just endlessly rang. He suddenly remembered their fight, her running off, the overwhelming sense of finality in her voice. But this had happened before. She was always coming back. She never held him truly accountable. He was sure she’d come back again. But for some reason, the ceaseless ringing gave David a sinking feeling; the thought occurred to him that the only certainty was death. He called again. This time it went straight to voicemail.

He buried his head down in his pillow again and cried a long, deep, guttural cry. He tried to shut his eyes hard to stop the tears but the pressure made him see stars in the blackness of his eyelids. He sniffled and choked. He heard footsteps outside the door and assumed his mom was listening in. A hush fell over the house, save for his cries. At some point he drifted into tempestuous sleep. He was woken up by the vibration of his phone beside his head. His eyes opened and he shot up, thinking his girlfriend returned his call. It wasn’t her— it was his friend, Andy, the one who’d first broken the news to him. David hated talking on the phone to anyone but his girlfriend and his dad. He answered.

“Hello?” he grumbled, raspy. His throat was dry. He had no idea what time it was.

“Hey, bud,” Andy said. His voice was slightly southern, almost unnoticeable to those who didn’t know that he too was from Atlanta. David could never remember a time where they’d talked on the phone. “How ya holding up?”

“I mean, fine, I guess. As good as you can, really,” David said. “A little shocked.”

“Yeah. We all are.”

“Well, thanks for letting me know,” David croaked. “Although I guess I would’ve eventually seen it on Twitter or something.”

“All good. Caleb's brother wanted me to be the one to give the news. I guess it’s pretty hard on them. I just wanted to chat with you.”

“I appreciate that. It’s gotta be hard calling everyone.”

“No, I really just tweeted it,” Andy said. “You’re the only one I called.”

“Why?”

“Well,” Andy said. “Caleb's brother told me everything. We know.”

“What do you mean, told you everything? What’s to be told?”

“Well, don’t make me say it, dude,” Andy stumbled. His voice was shaking. “Like, like, the pictures he sent you, the plane ticket, all the gushy stuff, the long messages and shit, you know, shit like that.”

David’s heart sank. He could feel his body shaking. He didn’t want to talk any more. “What are you even talking about?”

“Look, man, it’s OK. I’m not trying to tell you to make you uncomfortable or anything. Christine and I, and Caleb's family, we just wanted you to know that we’re here for you.”

“What?” David could hear himself yelling, which was funny, because he felt like he could barely talk. It seemed like he was outside of his body, somewhere on his ceiling, floating, looking down at himself. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Look, man,” Andy said. You could cut the tension with a knife. “The cops saw it all. They went through his shit. You don’t have to play dumb. Plus, you told some of us already he told you that he liked you. You never thought that was weird? You were, like, fourteen, man.”

“That was years ago!” David yelled. He heard a knock on his door. “You don’t even, like, know. What are you doing right now? Wha- what’s the point of this?”

“The cops came to Caleb's house with a warrant, man,” Andy said. His voice was shivering. He sounded on the verge of tears. “He blew his fucking brains out when they came. They searched everything. They saw everything. You weren’t even the only one.”

David was silent. He didn’t know what to think, let alone what to say. He stared off into the darkness of his room. He could only make out vague outlines of the furniture. The dresser, the TV, the desk, the computer, apparitions of a life that suddenly felt so foreign. He felt like he wasn’t there.

“Are you still there?” the disembodied voice said through the phone.

“Yeah.”

“You OK?”

David sat in silence for another seconds. “We were friends, man. They have it all wrong. It wasn’t like that.”

“Alright, dude,” Andy said. Even through his numbness David could feel the weight of Andy’s voice. He hated the weight. It dragged him down. He wanted to talk about writing or basketball like they usually did. Preferably over text, too. “Just wanted to let you know we’re here for you, bro. We know it’s hard.”

“I gotta go,” David said, then abruptly hung up. He sat catatonic on his bed. He heard his mother’s voice through the flimsy door so mousy and quiet he couldn't make out what she asked. “Go away, Mom!” He said. But he didn’t want her to leave. He couldn’t talk to anyone, though. He stared at the blackness and the more he stared the more he could see. After a while he could even see the hands on the clock on his wall above his bedroom door. He watched the second hand tick and the minute hand move slowly and smoothly across the white face. He swore he could even see the hour hand moving. Before he knew it, it was two in the morning. He put on a light brown cardigan over his work clothes that he still had yet to remove and gingerly shuffled out of the house, sure to not wake anyone inside. He quietly latched the front door shut and walked around the berm-lined sidewalk in the clean moonlight to his old black Ford sedan. He started up the car and backed out of the driveway and off into the midwestern night. He drove out of the neighborhood, onto the main road and eventually onto the highway. He got onto I-75 and flew. No brakes needed here. Ninety miles per hour felt like a hundred fifty. There was nobody on the road as he bounded southward across the desolate pavement. His phone rang at about three-thirty as he crossed the Ohio state line. His girlfriend. He decided to answer. Her voice was hoarse; she was shrieking.

“Where the fuck are you?”

“What do you mean, where am I?”

“You know I have your location, right?” She was hysterical. “I can hear the fucking road noise. Why are you on the highway driving out of state? What’s your problem? Do I need to come get you? Are you about to do something really stupid again?”

“No,” David said. A sense of calm washed over him. The next words to come out of his mouth were the most confident words he’d ever spoken. “I’m driving down to Georgia. I’m going to Caleb's funeral.”