13
I floated around in the water with Jas for a while, but my heart wasn’t in it, and finally I trudged up the stairs to the third floor, shutting the creaking door of the turret room behind me. I was about to pull my shirt over my head—I needed a shower after my little beachfront excursion with Holiday—when all at once I straightened up, my hands getting suddenly clammy and my gaze darting wildly around the room.
It almost seemed like—
I mean, if I didn’t know better—
“Don’t be an idiot,” I said out loud, the sound of my own voice reedy and unfamiliar. With some effort I forced myself to keep getting undressed, tossing my shirt in the corner and fumbling at the drawstring on my still-wet basketball shorts. Still, the more I stared at the scene before me, the more undeniable it was: the face wash and loose change slightly askew on the dresser. The T-shirts neatly stacked inside my open duffel, even though I was pretty sure they’d been spilling out onto the floor when I left. The doorof the empty closet cracked just a few inches, the slice of darkness inside a sharp contrast to the bright white trim.
Someone had been through my stuff.
I sat down hard on the edge of the mattress, trying to think clearly even as my vision started to spot. It was possible Birdie had come upstairs to put laundry away—the Kendricks insisted it was fine, that she did everyone’s, and though the idea of her washing my dirty socks made me deeply uncomfortable, eventually I’d given in—but even as I tried to talk myself into the thought, I knew in my gut that wasn’t what had happened here.
So who, then? Jasper, dicking around harmlessly in search of a lighter or a pocketknife? Eliza, annoyed that I’d blown her off and wanting answers?
Or someone else altogether?
I stood up again and dug my phone out of my pocket, snapping quick pictures of everything that looked even remotely out of place. I’d already opened up my messages to send the photos to Holiday—sure, I’d literally just told her there was nothing to investigate, but clearly, I’d been wrong—when all at once I stopped, setting my phone back down on the nightstand. What good could possibly come out of me texting her right now? The whole thing made me feel paranoid, first of all, on top of which, knowing Holiday, she’d blow it completely out of proportion. She’d probably have me spending the rest of the day combing through the rug with tweezers looking for evidentiary fibers, and for what? Even if somebodyhadbeen poking around up here—and that was a bigif—what did it matter? It’s not like there’d been anything to find.
Everything matters,I remembered Holiday saying, then pushed the thought out of my mind. All at once I felt exhausted, the heaviness of the last few days weighing down on me like a beach bag full of wet sand. I didn’t want to deal with it. More to the point, I didn’t want to deal with Holiday.
Shower momentarily abandoned, I crawled under the covers, doing my best to ignore the creeping feeling of being watched. I didn’t think I’d sleep—I was way too edgy—but sure enough, the sound of my phone ringing woke me a couple of hours later. “Hi there,” my mom said when I picked up. “This is Suzie Linden. I think this used to be my son’s phone number? Tall kid, kind of handsome if you squint. If you happen to run into him, could you possibly tell him to call home?”
“I’m sorry,” I told her groggily, laughing in spite of myself. I’d been ignoring her calls and answering her texts as vaguely as possible for the last few days, not for the sake of being an asshole who was too cool to talk to his mother but because I honestly didn’t know what to tell her about what had happened with Greg. I didn’t want to lie, but somehow I couldn’t imagine explaining it to her: the details of what had happened, yeah, but also the fact that I was still here at all—and that everything at August House, down to an elaborate picnic at Illumination Night, was still proceeding as normal. “I’m a jerk.”
“Oh, you’re not,” she said easily. “I’m just teasing you.” She wasn’t the type to get worked up about stuff like that; she wasn’t the type to get worked up over much, really, with the notable exceptions of social justice and bad TV. “I’m glad you’re having funwith your friends. The only reason I’m calling again is because I wanted to see what your plan was for this hurricane.”
“Oh,” I said, slightly taken aback. For a second I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but as my sleepy head cleared, I vaguely remembered there being something on the radio yesterday about a storm rolling up the coast from the Bahamas, and I thought I’d heard Birdie mention a run into town to stock up on supplies. Still, for some reason I hadn’t actually made the connection that an impending storm might be something that had any bearing on my plans. “It’s not going to hit until this weekend, right? I’ll be back by then.” Even as I said the words, they sent a little shock through me. It felt like I’d just arrived at August House, though when I thought about everything that had gone on since I’d been here, time seemed to take on a warped, fluid quality, stretching in some places and contracting in others.
“Okay,” my mom said, though she didn’t sound satisfied; it was the same tone she got sometimes when I called from Bartley, like there was a part of her that was worried I might be swallowed up entirely into some new life at any given moment, never to return. “Just let me know if you want me to grab you at South Station.” Then, her voice just a little too casual not to be put on, she continued: “Hey, have you run into Holiday at all?”
“Uh, yeah,” I admitted, not sure why my impulse was to be vague about it. Well, no, that’s not true, I knew exactly why my impulse was to be vague about it: first, because my mom had always cared way too much about whether or not I was still friends with Holiday, and second, because what the fuck was I going tosay?Oh, totally, we spent a little time poking around an attempted murder together, it was a real warm and fuzzy reunion? “A couple of times. She says hi.”
“Oh good,” my mom said, seeming to know better than to ask any follow-up questions. “I’m glad.” She paused for a moment, like she was debating her next move. “There’s one more thing, Michael,” she admitted, and for the first time in our entire conversation, I thought she sounded uncertain. “I got a call from Coach Lydell yesterday.”
Right away, I sat upright on the mattress. “He called you?” I asked, my temper flaring. “Why didn’t he call me?”
“I mean, Iamstill your mother,” she pointed out reasonably. “He just wanted to see how your ankle was holding up, how your physical therapy was going. If I thought you’d be ready when practice starts.”
I looked down like an instinct, though my legs were still under the covers; I had a sudden mental image of myself as a doddering old man in a nursing home, a knitted afghan covering my withered knees. “Of course,” I insisted. “I’m good to go.”
“That’s what I told him,” my mom said quickly. Then, after a moment, “Did I lie?”
“I’mfine,Mom.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Okay,” she said finally. “Well, you’re the boss. Let me know what you decide to do about that hurricane.”
“I will,” I promised. “Don’t worry.”
My mom hummed, noncommittal. “I love you,” she finally said.
“I know.” I flopped back onto the pillows, a feeling like a hangover beginning to thump behind my eyeballs even though I hadn’t had anything to drink last night. My ankle ached underneath the sheets. “I love you too.”
Jasper had left a note to say he’d gone out to see Aidy, so I borrowed a bike and rode into town to clear my head. I took my time, dawdling in the coffee shop and the bookstore and the pharmacy to pick up some more ibuprofen for my swollen ankle; by the time I got back to August House, it was almost cocktail hour and Eliza was lying on the porch swing with her legs crossed, her hair golden in the late-afternoon sun. She was a third of the way through a different novel than I’d seen her reading this morning, something thick with yellowing pages and a serious-looking cover. She didn’t look up as I approached.
I leaned against the railing with my hands in my pockets, waiting to see if she’d acknowledge me. My ankle was still throbbing quietly, a dull constant ache. “You go through books really fast,” I finally observed.
“Oh, I don’t read them,” Eliza deadpanned, eyes still fixed on the page in front of her. “I just like to gaze at the words.”
