“Too skinny,” Margo puts in.
“That’s how some of us like ’em,” Soo-Jin says. “If he were my boyfriend I’d slap some skinny jeans on him and he’d be perfectly presentable. But you know the type—cargo pants and wrinkly flannel shirts. Work boots. A little stubble.”
Margo’s right; that could describe half the guys in town. I try not to show my frustration on my face.
“I know he goes to your school, though,” Margo says suddenly. “Last time we saw him was mid-August, and he came in with his class schedule to show her. I got a glimpse. Didn’t see any of the particulars, but it said MERRILL HIGH right across the top.”
“That’s something, anyway,” I say. I’m already running through images in my head, trying to match someone I’ve seen in class or in the halls to their description. Nothing’s ringing a bell. “Could I get your numbers? You can text me if you think of something else, and I can let you know if I hear anything that’s not on the news yet.”
“Yeah, that’d be great.” Soo-Jin takes my outstretched phone and types her info in, then hands it to Margo, who does the same. When I take it back, I message both of them so they have mine.
“Thanks, guys.” I slide my phone into my pocket and pick up the coffee. Its heat is comforting against my chilled fingers. “We’ve gotta get to school, but I’ll let you know if I hear anything at all, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Soo-Jin looks at us a moment, then pulls a couple of muffins out of the case and pushes them across the table. “On me, okay? Let us know if there’s anything else we can do.”
“Yeah, be careful out there,” Margo says. She gives a little wave as we head down the hall.
I don’t register how quiet Ingrid’s being until we’re back in the parking lot, unlocking the car. She’s got the cellophane-wrapped muffin in one hand and keeps looking down at it with an odd expression on her face.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Huh?” She looks up at me over the top of the car, her face strangely blank. I’m about to repeat my question when I hear a text from my phone.
It’s from Margo.
Just remembered the guy had a metal cuff bracelet. Silver tone. Something engraved across the top. Never got a good glimpse of what it said.
I slide the phone back in my pocket. When I look up, Ingrid’s in the car, seat belt buckled, searching through the radio stations. I climb in and start the car, my mind already running over all the boys I’ve met, all the guys I’ve passed in the hall, trying to remember if I’ve seen a glint of silver on their wrists.
It’s not much . . . but it’s something.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I SLIDE INTO YEARBOOK just as the bell rings. On the chalkboard Ms. Yi has scrawled Independent work period. She’s in the back of the room, talking quietly with some kids about the different parts of a camera. Other kids sit at the computers, working through tutorials or just messing around on social media.
Tabitha’s lying with her head in her arms on the table in front of her. Marcus looks like he’s been up half the night, too, and Jeremy’s not even there. I set my muffin on the table and lean in toward them.
“Do either of you know a guy who wears a metal bracelet?” I whisper.
Marcus frowns a little and shakes his head. Tabitha lifts her head up a little, looking blearily through stray locks of hair. There’s a smear of unwashed mascara under her eyes, and there’s still a faint whiff of alcohol coming off her.
“What are you talking about?” she croaks.
“I just went to the Cup and Saucer.”
“Ugh, I hate those bitches,” she says. “They talk shit about everyone.”
I ignore the irony. “They seemed nice enough to me.”
She just presses her lips into a smirk. “They used to try to get Zahra to stop hanging out with me. They always acted like I was the stuck-up one, but they’ve been nasty to me every time I hang out with them. They have all these little in-jokes and they act like I’m too stupid to get them.”
I just nod. I can only imagine how those meet-ups would’ve gone. Tabitha getting territorial, jealous, hating that she had to share Zahra with these other girls with their inside jokes and easy rapport; Margo and Soo-Jin baffled by Tabitha’s resentment and laughing off her attempts to pull rank.
“Well, they said there was some guy who used to come hang out with Zahra on her lunch break,” I say.
She raises one narrow brow. “That’s not exactly breaking news, Ruthless,” she says. “Everyone knows about that by now.”
“Yeah, but they actually saw the guy,” I say. “They gave me a description. White guy, skinny, brown hair. It might help lead us to—”
“Jesus, would you knock it off with the Nancy Drew shit for, like, five minutes?” She slaps the table with both palms. Then she closes her eyes and rubs her face. “You’re so fucking relentless.”
I recoil a little.
“Yeah,” I say shortly. “I am. I want to find Zahra. I want to bring her home.”
She doesn’t say anything for a minute. Her eyes dart down and to the left, a twitchy motion like a scurrying animal. She’s scared, I think. She’s scared to talk about this.
But when she speaks, her tone’s belligerent.
“You really think you’re going to find something the cops missed?” she asks.
“I don’t know. But they’re so focused on Ben—what if this other guy is the one they should be looking for?”
Marcus’s eyes widen. He looks from me to Tabitha. “That could help clear Ben’s name,” he says. “If we could find him.”
Tabitha slouches back over the table, bracing up her forehead with her hands. “If there is some other guy, they’ll find him, okay? They’ve got her phone now. They’ll be able to see whoever she’s been texting.”
“That could take forever,” I say. “Forensic stuff like that takes time. Time Zahra might not have.”
She stands up and gives an exaggerated shrug.
“Do whatever it is you’re going to do, all right? But Zahra’s the one who walked away that night. She was the one that left us.” She strides over to Ms. Yi. “Can I go to the nurse? I have a headache.”
I sit dumbly while Ms. Yi fills out a hall pass for her, then gives her a quick hug. Tabitha shoots us one more angry look, and then she’s gone.
What the hell was that about?
“Don’t mind her,” Marcus says softly. “She’s . . .”
“Drunk,” I say bluntly.
“Well, yeah,” he admits. “But she’s also really freaked out.”
There are a hundred things I could say to that. I could tell him that I’m scared, too, that I’m struggling to keep hope alive, that I have been alone so many times in my life—as alone as Tabitha, rattling around in that big empty house. I could describe the way my fears work—the strange automaton I become, the way I go small and silent inside, the way it cuts me off from everyone around me. I could point out that Zahra’s life is on the line, and Ben’s, too, and that we have to be strong for the people we care about. But I don’t say anything. I just shrug.
“But I think you’re right,” he says. “We should be looking for that dude. And I’ve got an idea.”
He pushes off from the table, rolling his chair over to one of the computer stations. I follow, scooting behind him more slowly. He’s already logging on.
“We take pictures all throughout the year,” he says. “We upload them to this program that sorts and lets us tag them. See, if I put in Zahra’s name . . .” He types her name into a search field, and about forty thumbnails spring up, her face small and lovely in the preview. “It looks for everything that’s been tagged with that word.”
There are a bunch of candid shots of her—in the classroom, listening attentively; in the crowd at a football game, red and black face paint on her cheeks. One of her
sitting out on the lawn during lunch. In one she leans over to Ben and whispers something in his ear while he grins mischievously. In another, Tabitha sprawls across her lap and Zahra pretends to look annoyed. Somehow that one, in particular, hurts.
“We try to index as we go, but it always depends on who’s uploading stuff. Some people get lazy, so there might be pictures without labels. So it’s not the most efficient way to look. But . . .” He shrugs. “What else have we got?”
“No, it’s a good idea.” I clear the search field, and just open the folder for September. There are 903 photos in that month alone. This could take a while, and yield nothing.
He gets on the computer next to me. “I’ll start looking through last year’s pictures, see if there’s anything there.”
We work in silence for a while. All around us, kids are talking, working, messing around. Ms. Yi doesn’t seem to have it in her to crack the whip today. She moves gently around the room, checking in with people, asking how everyone’s holding up. I scroll through image after image, past swim meets and concerts and lectures, past shots of people horsing around in the hallway or sitting on the tailgate of a truck with a cup of hot cocoa in both hands. Every time I see something on a guy’s wrist I zoom in. It’s almost always a watch.
“What about this guy?” Marcus asks. I look over his shoulder, shake my head. It’s a silver bracelet—looks like a MedicAlert band—but the wearer is heavy-set and wearing a crisp button-down shirt.
“Our guy’s skinny,” I remind him. “And kinda scruffy.”
We keep looking, the second hand sweeping across the clock. I wonder if Tabitha really did go to the nurse, or if she just decided to skip. I wonder if she’s in the bathroom, curled up and crying, or if she’s on her way back to that big empty house.
And then I see it.
It’s a picture from a chemistry lab. In the mid-background, there’s a girl watching the procedure. Foregrounded is an Erlenmeyer flask set up under a long glass burette. A hand rests on the table next to it, a silver cuff around the wrist. This close I can clearly make out the inscription.
EVEN DRAGONS HAVE THEIR ENDING.
There’s no image of his face. But there is a caption:
LIZ CHRISTIANSEN AND SEB COLLINS CONCENTRATE IN MR. VILLAFUERTE’S FIFTH PERIOD.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
HE’S ALREADY AT HIS locker when I get there after class, shoving a textbook onto the narrow shelf. I watch him for a moment before I approach. His locker is almost bare—there are no pictures inside, no stickers, no notes. Nothing but a small stack of books and a lunch bag. He’s wearing that same ratty hoodie I saw him in the other day, the sleeves pulled down over his wrists, so I can’t see the cuff.
But as he swings the door shut I see a flash of silver.
He jumps as he turns and sees me there. I give him a tiny smile.
“Seb, right?” I ask.
“What do you want?” he asks.
“I want to talk about Zahra Gaines,” I say. My voice rings out loudly over the hallway. No one seems to notice, but his eyes dart around wildly.
“Don’t even know her,” he says, walking around me. But I stick to his side, double-stepping to keep up.
“You know what her favorite book used to be?” I ask. “Actually, her favorite book used to be Akata Witch. But a book she also used to love is The Hobbit.”
He doesn’t say anything, but a patch of red springs up across his cheeks. That’s all the proof I need.
“What’s the line she used to quote?” I say, tapping my lip with my fingertip. “‘Even dragons have their . . .’”
He grabs my wrist, hard, and pivots to the left, into a stairwell. I let him pull me along, then jerk my hand away as soon as we’re alone.
“What do you want, Ruthie?” he asks again. His eyes are pale green flames, somehow both burning and cold. I force myself to stand up to my full height.
“I want to know the last time you saw her,” I ask.
“It’s none of your business,” he spits.
“Yes. It is.” I cross my arms across my chest and stare up at him. We’re only a few inches apart. “But maybe you’d rather talk to the cops.”
He walks two steps away, then pivots and walks back, clutching his hair. I don’t move. My muscles sing with tension, but a familiar calm takes hold of me. I have control of my body and my feelings and my fear, and I won’t flinch.
The curve of his mouth is tight and bitter. He gives a short, sharp exhale.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” he says. “The police have her phone. So they’ll see every single thing we’ve ever said to each other. That’ll be a lot of fun to have made public.”
“So you were texting her,” I say.
“We were friends.” He sits down on the bottom step of the stairs. “We used to text a lot.”
“But you don’t anymore?” I ask.
He’s quiet for a long time. He picks at a hole in the knee of his pants.
“Last year . . . my mom left my piece-of-shit stepdad,” he says. “I don’t know what finally did it, because she didn’t leave him when he broke my arm, and she didn’t leave him when he smashed a broomstick over my head, and she didn’t leave him when . . . well, you get the idea.” He leans forward with his forearms on his knees. “Whatever, she finally figured it out. We were staying at the shelter.”
I give a little “ah” of realization. The domestic violence shelter—where Ingrid and Zahra did their Key Club project together.
“I hadn’t seen Zahra in a long time. We’ve moved a couple times. So when I kept seeing her around the place I almost didn’t recognize her,” he says. “I mean, she looked the same, but . . . she acted so different, I just, I wasn’t sure.”
“How so?”
He looks up at me sharply, and I realize I must sound eager. I swallow, tamp down the excitement.
“Serious,” he says. “Sad.”
I nod. He looks down again.
“When I recognized her I just kinda, like, ignored her. Pretended I didn’t know who she was. But one day she . . . she cornered me. She wanted to know what’d happened to me and my family. And . . . she wanted to apologize. For what you two did.”
I grit my teeth. I’m tired of the hints and insinuations, the conversation always so elliptical. “Seb, will you just tell me what you’re talking about? I’m sorry I don’t remember, okay? But what did I supposedly do that was so awful?”
“You really don’t remember?” The tone isn’t passive-aggressive anymore; it’s just sad. “God, what a joke. You two destroyed my whole fucking summer, and one of you doesn’t remember, and the other . . .” He trails off. “The dog? Mrs. Pigeon’s dog?”
The phrase stirs something at the back of my mind. I frown. Mrs. Pigeon had been an older lady a few streets down. I remember her in flowing caftans, hobbling around her garden. Mom used to go over to visit, and they’d sit on ancient plastic lawn chairs sipping sweet tea, Mrs. Pigeon smoking a Benson & Hedges and blowing the smoke toward the sky. Her dog was one of the littler breeds—a Shih Tzu maybe? But I still don’t know what he’s talking about.
He shakes his head. “Her dumb little dog went missing, and you told everyone in the neighborhood you’d seen me torturing it. You told all the other kids. They already thought I was weird. They were just looking for an excuse. I got the shit beat out of me every day that summer. And my little sisters—they heard the rumor and were hysterical. They believed it.” He runs his hands over his face. “I don’t know what it says about me that everyone believed it so quick. But whatever, I’m a freak, I already knew that. You guys just put the target on my back.”
His words trickle down my spine like ice water seeping through my shirt—soaking slowly in, the memory drifting up to the surface. I suddenly remember the dog’s name: Pepper. It was always getting out of the yard, trotting off to find
the nearest garbage can to knock over. But one day it vanished. Didn’t come back. A posse of neighborhood kids went looking for it. Everyone liked Mrs. Pigeon.
But the rest? I don’t remember that.
“Why would we do that?” I ask softly. I don’t really intend the question for him, but he laughs.
“I asked Zahra that. She said I’d been staring at you both.” He blushes suddenly. “I used to come by her house and you’d be out sunning yourselves on the trampoline. I just wanted to talk to you, but I guess it came off like I was . . . you know. Gawking, or whatever.”
I remember lying out on the trampoline in the early summer, before we started fixing up the playground. We’d pull up our shirts to the bottom of our bras so our bellies would get some sun, flipping through pages of whatever book we were reading. I remember a couple of neighborhood kids swinging by to harass us. Teasing us for reading so much. Most of it was probably just lighthearted, but at the time I didn’t react well. I remember getting so upset about it. Zahra always laughed it off. Did I start to go on the offensive? Or to overreact, if I thought I was being made fun of?
I stare at his face, trying to call up some image of him as a kid. The memory that stirs is vague and once again, I don’t know if it’s even the right one. A boy—short and bone-thin, one of those scrappy-looking kids that jeers and postures for some kind of attention. What’s that, another dragon book? he’d asked. Sounds awesome. Only the mildest tone of sarcasm. Hell, the kid hadn’t even had enough emotional juice to come up with a decent insult. But I remember my whole body going rigid, all fight and no flight. I remember sitting up and throwing down the book, taking him in, my lips forming insults before I could think twice. Why do you always comment on the cover art? Is that the only part you can read?
Seb’s still picking at the hole in his pants. It’s not one of those “distressed” holes that make jeans look cool. It’s the ragged-edged, uneven tear of clothes that have been worn all the way out. It’s the look of pants he can’t afford to replace.
I Know You Remember Page 13