Page 42 of The Five Year Lie

When I open it up, the cake of shaving soap is dried up, but the scent still clobbers me. Sandalwood and lemon. I hold it in both hands and slowly inhale, until tears spring into the corners of my eyes.

I read once that scent is the strongest trigger of memory. I don’t know if that’s true, but for a shining moment Drew seems so close again.

But it sort of backfires when I exhale. Once again I’m very much alone, sitting on a bed with a dead man’s things that haven’t been touched in years. Nothing saysdead and gonelike leaving your shaving soap behind for someone to sniff and cry over.

Get a grip, Ariel, I tell myself.If he left us without a backward glance, he wasn’t worth it.

I put everything down on the bed and pick up my teacup. I don’t know why I expected Drew’s possessions to make sense of his life. If anything, I’m more confused than I was this morning. Why did he leave these things behind at all? Why was he in such a hurry to clear out of Portland that he couldn’t be bothered to take his shaving soap, and his favorite photo?

I thought he left town to get rid of me. And maybe he did. But the haste gives me pause.

The box is almost empty now. The last thing inside is a cigar box I recognize. It sat on his desk, but I never knew what was inside.

I lift the lid and find a mishmash of objects, some of which Bert might have tossed into the box when he cleaned the apartment. There’s a steel ballpoint pen. There’s Drew’s razor—a heavy thing that screams quality.

The box is cluttered by a bunch of paper receipts. Their ink is faded, but one of them is from Holy Donut. I recognize the barely-there logo.

When I push the receipts aside I find some foreign coins. Silver with a gold ring around the edge, and a script I can’t read. There are eagles on them.

Syrian, maybe?

There’s also a single key on one of those floating key rings that fishermen use. The key is the normal size for a house key, and darkened with age.

I pick up the cigar box and give it a little shake to see if there’s anything else hiding amid the receipts. Two cuff links slide into view. They must be silver, because tarnish has blackened them. But I can see theMinscribed on them easily enough.

MforMiller?

I never saw Drew wear cuff links.

When I shake the box again, one more lumpy object thunks against the side. I push the receipts out of the way and find a small felt pouch, the kind that’s meant to be used as a shoe-polishing mitt.

My stomach drops the moment I lift it out, because the weight of glass is so familiar in my hand. And when I tip it out onto the bedspread, my heart breaks right in half.

It’s the shot glass Drew made in the studio with me.My artisan lump, he called it when I gave it back to him the following weekend.

We’d had a magical night when this was made. I’ll never forget it. But he left it behind, too.

I don’t know why that makes everything worse. It just does.

14

On Friday morning I feel sad and dull. Like I have a hangover, even though all I did last night was obsess about Drew’s belongings and then stare at the printout Zain gave me.

The more I read, the more irritated I became. I’m not equipped to understand the techy jargon in that file. It gave me flashbacks to my childhood—my father shaming me for getting A’s in art and English and C’s in math.

At ten o’clock I follow Zain to the coffee maker for a whispered conversation, and I fill him in on the strange box I recovered from Drew’s apartment.

Zain is so riveted by this that he forgets to brew his coffee. “What guy leaves behind his razor? That’s justweird.”

I reach past him and press the button.

“Thanks. What if he was running from something other than you?”

“Likewho?”

“Like thepolice.” Zain’s expressive eyebrows furrow together. “I’ve never broken up with a girl. But a guy doesn’t run out on his whole life just to get out of a relationship. He must have had bigger problems, and he didn’t want to admit it to you.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure that makes me feel better. Any news for me?”