B00B9FX0F2 EBOK (7 page)

H
ey, buddy! Did you get a haircut? You look great!” Whenever Jason Skyped with his dad, the first question was always about his hair. He wore it the same way day in and day out, with a trim every five weeks, but that didn’t make a difference. It was always “Did you get a haircut?” or “I see you’re growing out your hair,” or once a knowing point to his own head and a suggestive, “Trying something new there, eh?” His dad hated that they only saw each other in person a couple times a year, but Jason wished he’d come up with a better way to express it than commenting on the brown mop Jason did his best to ignore.

“Nope, same hair I always have.”

“Well really, it looks great,” he repeated. “How’s life? How’s school? What’s new with you?” The barrage of questions was also standard operating procedure for their video chats.

“Life is okay. School is fine. There’s not much new.” The answer was automatic, and most days it was even true. But a lot had changed in the last week.

“‘Okay’? ‘Fine’? ‘Not much’? Come on, bud, what’s new? What’s been going on? How’s Rakesh? How’s
Lacey
?” Jason had forgotten he’d mentioned Lacey to his dad. He hadn’t meant to, but a couple weeks ago he’d been so fired up after a particularly great back and forth they had just had regarding Taylor Swift’s songwriting abilities (normally averse to all bubblegum
pop, Jason had a soft spot for the country star. Lacey was convinced she had a staff of songwriters responsible for her best work) that he dropped her name accidentally when his dad asked what was making him smile.

“Rakesh is good. Colleges keep contacting him about squash. He’s thinking about Stanford.” Jason didn’t know if it was true or not, but he knew his dad wanted him to go to college in California.

“Stanford! That’s a great school! I’m in San Francisco all the time for work.”

“If Rakesh goes there, you can see him all the time.”

“Well, you know how much I like Rakesh, but you’re the one I’d like to see all the time. What else is new? What have you been up to this weekend?”

Oh, just visiting my girlfriend’s memorial — you know, the one she has because everyone thinks she’s dead. I’m getting to know her friends, who like me, and her family, not so much. She won’t tell me what’s going on, but she is following me and texting me weird messages from strange numbers, so I’ve got that going for me.
“Um, Rakesh and I went to a party last night. I talked to this dude in my class about surfing for a while.” He switched gears. “How are you, Dad? How’s work? How’s Emily?” Emily was his dad’s girlfriend. Jason would never tell his mom, but he genuinely liked her.

“I’m all right. Same old, same old at the office — sales calls and meetings and trips up north. Between you and me, I think Emily might kill me if I work late one more time this month. But we’re getting by. Are you still thinking you’ll come out and visit over spring break?”

“Yeah, but I’ll probably have to work for most of the trip — school has been crazy busy.” Jason filled his dad in on his classes and listened to him describe a gourmet business dinner he’d had in Napa. Their conversations were always like this — strained at first and then settling into something more comfortable. Jason still wished his dad lived on the East Coast — especially whenever Mark commented on his clothing or tried to bro down with Rakesh — but the hour they spent talking to each other every week was a lot healthier and happier than the relationships some of his friends had with their dads.

When they said good-bye, Jason’s head was clear. Feeling inspired, he picked up his notebook, flipping to the back pages where he’d been jotting down lyrics.

He’d pressed his pen to the paper before he fully realized he wasn’t on speaking terms with the girl he’d been writing about,
because the girl he’d been writing about didn’t exist anymore. It wasn’t that she was dead — Jason didn’t believe that, despite the obituary — but Lacey had a secret, a big one.

At the bottom of the page he’d written

He could hear it in his head. This was how he’d been planning to end the song, but now all he could think about was the blonde hair he’d seen in the darkness the night before.
Just until Monday, I swear. Do you trust me?
It was 4:45 on Sunday afternoon. It would be Monday in no time. But Jason couldn’t wait any longer. He tossed away his notebook and opened a new document on his computer.

Lacey,

I don’t even know how to say this, but I Googled you last week. I know, I know, kind of stalkerish, but in my defense, I really like you and I just wanted to know more about you. Not the point. You probably know where this is going … I found your obituary. And then I found your memorial Facebook page. And then I visited your actual memorial in Brighton Park. And then I called your house.

Jesus, typing this stuff out it seems crazy, and it has FELT crazy. I want to trust you, really, I do, and I want to give you all the time and space you need to figure things out, but you have to admit it’s
kind of, um, insane? That everyone thinks you’re … dead? You’re not dead, right? Because this would be REALLY weird if you were dead. Haha. Sorry, that’s probably not funny.

Look, I’m sure you have a good reason for all of this, and whatever it is, I swear, I will be there for you. I can’t even imagine what things must be like for you that you need to keep these secrets — I hate the idea that you’re in trouble or something. I think you’re great, and I don’t want to lose you, but you have to tell me what’s going on or else I don’t know if I can do this anymore.

So, um, that’s it. I’m worried about you, and I want to help you. I hope you write back soon.

— Jason

PS: Were you following me at the bridge last night? Or am I just insane? Not sure I want to know the answer to that one….

Before he could lose his courage, he pasted the message into Facebook and pressed send. He felt a rush of relief that was just as quickly replaced by anxiety. What if there was a simple, reasonable explanation for her obituary? She would think he was bonkers. Jason’s deepest fear was that the message would scare her away for good. He couldn’t bear the thought of never talking to her again.

He made it all of five minutes without checking to see if she had responded. She hadn’t. He tried to read
Hamlet
, but his eyes kept wandering up to his computer screen. Sensing he wasn’t going to get anything done, he shut his laptop and
padded downstairs. His mom was sitting in the den reading a magazine. He plopped down next to her.

“Hi, cupcake,” she said, looking up at him. “Whatchya doin’?”

“Nothing.”

“I’ve barely seen you this weekend — are you doing okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Is this going to be one of those conversations where all you give me are one-word answers?”

“No.”

“But you see my point, right?”

“Mom.”

“Because I’m happy to go back to reading my magazine.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, you do one word questions, too?”

“Mom!”

The worst part was that arguing with his mother was still preferable to checking for Lacey’s reply. He took a deep breath. “Do you need any help with dinner?”

She eyed him suspiciously. “I know what they say about looking gift horses in the mouth, but are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, I’m
fine
.”

“Well you can set the table. And if you want to eat a salad, you can make one.”

He didn’t especially want a salad, but chopping cucumbers was something to do. As he worked, he pictured his MacBook morphing into a cartoon mouth, the screen flapping toward the base as it laughed at him, the keys sprouting into jagged rows of teeth.

“You have one new message,” it threatened.

An almost-girlfriend everyone thought was dead, dreams about typewriters and quills, shadowy figures in the dark, sketchy text messages from anonymous phone numbers, and now a laptop that could play the villain in a Pixar movie.

Jason wasn’t sure how much longer he could live with the sense of creeping dread, with uncertainty about everything, but at least those things had displaced boredom, and Jason didn’t much miss his old companion.

I
t turned out he had to live with the uncertainty for about fifteen hours. He checked Facebook before bed and as soon as he woke up in the morning, but there was not a word from Lacey. And then after chemistry on Monday morning, Jason used his lunch period to duck into the computer lab. There were fifteen Macs there, but three were out of service and four were so old everyone joked they still had dial-up. One of the new ones was free, and Jason plopped down in front of it, greeting Ben Rosenfeld as he settled in.

“Mrs. Kimball’s project?” he asked, pointing to the sepia image of Abraham Lincoln he saw on Ben’s screen.

“Yeah,” Ben said, a bit dolefully. “She gave me a B on the last paper even though I pulled an all-nighter to finish it. I need to ace this one.”

Jason nodded sympathetically. He’d gotten an A- and been thrilled, but he knew better than to say anything about it. “She’s such a tough grader. I feel like Cynthia’s the only person who she consistently gives As to, and that’s only because she likes her so much.”

“Right? It’s so unfair. Are you doing stuff for Kimball’s class, too?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jason said, eyeing Mr. Hughes, the school’s graying technology director. He sat at the entrance to the lab, policing kids who brought open water bottles in and quieting
them down when they got too rowdy. He also made sure students only used the computers for official school business. Hughes was tall and skinny. Jason had never seen him wear anything other than khakis, a button-down, and a rumpled tie, and he rarely smiled. Jason navigated to one of Lee’s letters, but when he was sure Hughes was fully absorbed in the fantasy scores Jason had seen him checking when he first walked in, he opened a new tab and called up Facebook.

Since freshman year, Facebook and Twitter and any other sites they might actually want to visit had been banned, but it was easy to get around the blocks the school had set up. Jason had been one of the first kids to figure out the trick for getting onto Facebook. When he logged in to his account, there was one new message.

There was no greeting, no playful “what up, dawg?” She was serious.

You weren’t supposed to find out this way. I don’t want you to get hurt, but now that you’ve seen what you’ve seen, I need your help. I didn’t disappear because I wanted to. Someone made me, and they will destroy you if they know we’re talking.

I know you met Jenna yesterday. I know you didn’t tell her anything about me, but I think she can help us. You have to find out if she’s my real friend; if we can trust her.

Jason, I’m sorry I lied to you. But you have to know that what’s between us is real — the realest thing I have right now — and as complicated as everything else is, you can’t doubt that.

“Hey, Jason.” Ben’s whisper startled him. Expertly, he toggled back to the history page he’d opened, but Ben shrugged as if to say, “I don’t care.”

“Do you know how many pages our report is supposed to be?”

“I think eight to ten?”

“Thanks. I wish she wasn’t so strict about the fonts.” Before Jason could reply, they were shushed by Hughes. Jason turned back to his computer, sneaking glances over his shoulder until he was sure Hughes was no longer paying attention.

He reopened Lacey’s message and tried to parse it sentence by sentence. She was trying to protect him, but he still didn’t understand from what or what was so dangerous. His cheeks burned with shame as he remembered the utter sadness in her father’s voice; he wondered if she knew about that, too. He hoped not. And despite all his confusion, his heart swelled as he reread the last lines.
What’s between us is real — the realest thing I have right now
. His stomach flipped a little, the way it did before things had gotten so messy, when a message from Lacey was a treat in itself.

He read it again. She didn’t say anything about the bridge. What if Lacey hadn’t sent the text message he’d gotten on Saturday?
Before you start digging around, remember I’ve got more experience hiding in the dark than you.
There was something menacing about it, something that didn’t sound like Lacey.
They will destroy you if they know we’re talking.
Jason felt sick to his stomach. Worrying about Lacey was bad enough, and now there was some mystery third party he had to steer clear of. Who had done this to her? And
what
exactly had they done?

The noise of the bell startled him, and he quickly logged out of Facebook before the other students in the lab could see the letter on his screen. The kids he saw in the halls every day suddenly seemed like potential enemies. Now that Jason had a secret to keep, he wondered what each of them was hiding.

Lunch was his first opportunity to catch up with Rakesh, but as soon as they had settled into their seats in a corner of the cafeteria, Molly Mara attacked. Jason hadn’t seen her coming, but when she interrupted his hushed reenactment of his visit to the memorial, he noticed a table full of her girlfriends staring at them and giggling. He flushed, though it was obvious he wasn’t the main attraction.

“Hello,
Rakesh
,” she said purposefully.

He avoided eye contact. “Hi, Molly.”

“I thought we were going to Skype yesterday.”

Jason thought of getting up to leave, but he knew Rakesh was desperate not to be left alone with Molly. He’d spent the entire car ride home from the bridge complaining about how she followed him around like a lovesick puppy. More than wanting to support him, Jason wanted to finish his story, so he sat through Rakesh’s excuses about the broken camera on his computer, having his phone confiscated by his parents, and getting caught up in a Vince Vaughn marathon on TV. Finally, Molly skulked back to her still-gawking friends. When he was sure she was gone, Rakesh exhaled, adding an exaggerated eye roll.

“Dude, why don’t you just tell her you don’t like her?”

“I do like her,” Rakesh protested, “I just don’t want to go to the spring formal with her.”

“So tell her that.”

“When you meet your girlfriend in person and she can explain why there are obituaries for her everywhere, I will start taking your advice about my love life. Until then, how ’bout you let Rakesh do Rakesh?”

It was Jason’s turn to show off his exaggerated eye roll.

“So wait, you met her best friend? Why didn’t you tell me at the bridge?”

“I didn’t want to bring it up in front of Lloyd. But also …” Jason looked around them to make sure no one was listening in. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I couldn’t find you….”

“Yeah, because that one” — he stuck his chin in the direction of Molly’s table — “wanted to turn the fact that we kissed
one
time into some huge production.”

“Shh! Lower your voice. Can we leave your drama out of this for, like, five minutes?”

Rakesh held up his hands. “Touchy, touchy.” He wasn’t very sympathetic, but at least he shut up.

“
After
I couldn’t find you, I went into the woods. I just wanted some air, but someone followed me.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I couldn’t see them. I thought it was Lacey, but …”

“But Lacey’s dead?”

“She’s not dead!” Several heads swiveled around to see what Jason’s outburst was about. When he was sure no one was watching anymore, he resumed his hushed tones and described the message he’d just received. He told Rakesh about his phone
call to the Grays, how he impersonated Keith McKeller the guitar teacher and reopened a wound with them. “They definitely have no idea she’s alive.”

“Are
you
sure she’s alive?”

“She messaged me this morning.”

“What have our parents been telling us since the day we started using computers? It could be anyone we’re talking to online.”

“Okay,
Mom
. But this isn’t anyone. It’s Lacey.”

“If you say so. What are you going to do?”

“I have to help her figure out what happened. I’m going to do what she told me and Facebook Jenna.”

“Don’t you think she’s going to be a little bit freaked out to hear that her best friend isn’t so dead after all?”

“Not as freaked out as she’ll be if we don’t get to the bottom of this.”

Jason was too distracted by Lacey’s message to go to his afternoon classes. Instead, he snuck into the boys’ bathroom on the third floor by the music practice rooms. Between its out-of-the-way location and the easily clogged, rarely cleaned toilets, it was almost always deserted. Locking himself in the less disgusting of the two stalls, he took out his phone and logged in to Facebook.

Jenna had hidden most of her profile behind various privacy restrictions, but Jason was still able to recognize her from the thumbnail-size photo depicting her arms wrapped around the shaggy neck of a white sheepdog, her own smooth dark hair framing a huge smile on her face. The third friend that appeared
below the photo caught his eye. It was Luke Gray. Jason enlarged the image. He looked a lot like Lacey, but his tanned square jaw and confident gaze at the camera made Jason shrink into himself a little. You could tell he was the type to walk down the hall to class like he was some sort of movie star.

Jason heard footsteps in the hallway and quickly clicked the “Add Jenna Merrick as a friend” button, and then added a message to her.

Hey Jenna,

We met at the memorial in Brighton Park. There’s something I want to talk to you about, but I need to do it in person. Can we meet after school one day? I can come to Brighton. OK, thanks.

Jason

He wondered if she’d think he was weird for Facebooking her, if she’d even remember him. But that was the least of his problems. Jenna had the power to break the spell. He was certain the girl he was dealing with online was Lacey and that she was alive, but Jenna knew more about her than anyone in the world. What if she laughed him off? Or told him things about Lacey he didn’t want to know? Still, as Jason saw it, he didn’t have any other options, so he pressed send, watched the bar load on his phone, and then exited the bathroom and made his way to his next class.

Sure enough, when he got home from school, her response was waiting for him.

Hey Jason,

I’m glad you wrote. Maybe it’s just ’cause we met at the memorial, but I feel like Lacey would have liked you. Sorry if that is super weird to say … I think about her so much though.

Anyway, I will definitely meet up with you. Do you know Play It Again, Sam on Montrose? It’s a coffee shop — one of Lacey’s favorites. Can you come Wednesday at 4? I’ll meet you there.

Jenna

On Wednesday, Jason would go to Lacey’s favorite coffee shop and learn all about her life and share a little more about himself. It was just like he’d pictured their first date so many times. The only difference was that in his fantasies, she was there to see it.