“And?”
I thought forbidden thoughts about her and asked her to go flying and stared off into the vast winter darkness of the sky. I watched her body cut through weight like a knife, strong-tight-proud. I watched a whole new kind of sunrise in her eyes.
Those I keep to myself. Those rare, precious things. They’re too much for words and too private for love songs.
So I admit to Syd and myself and the universe, “I really like her.”
But I can’t like her. I might be broken. He might have broken me.
Syd flinches. She smiles. Then she says, “Now you wanna tell me what’s going on with the bruise?”
THAT SECRET I KEEP. AND IT’S HARD, BECAUSE halfway through a double-cheese light-pepperoni, my phone chirps.
Sprawled out on Syd’s bed, I can’t even figure out where I put it. I sit up like a startled prairie dog, looking this way, that. Since I’m with Syd, that has to be Mom
(no could be Hailey might be Hailey what if it’s Hailey?!)
trying to find out where I am. I should have texted her; I just promised that I would. And I didn’t, because Syd wanted to perform an autopsy on every single emotion I’ve had about Hailey and when things started and what made it happen, and she’s just making it so BIG.
Because something feels like it’s forming between us, Hailey and me. But it doesn’t have an official start yet, does it? Or was my lost glove the start? I have no idea, because the last week of my life has been the most screwed-up one I’ve ever had. (Since.) Highs and lows, peaks and valleys. All the cacophony in my head makes it hard to pull out single notes.
Especially, especially, because I’m leaving out everything about Jane. My other new friend. My brand-new friend, who’s more like me than anyone I’ve ever met. My friend who walks in the shape of my footsteps, who barely leaves a trace of her own. My friend who understands the way my brain rebels when I’m trying to think private, sexy thoughts. My friend who keenly feels the betrayal of a body when the brain is horrified.
No, I haven’t told Syd much about Hailey, and I’ve told her nothing about Jane, and that’s how it is. That’s just how it’s going to be. Except that’s not the way the universe rolls. Syd finds my phone first and reads the notification.
“Who’s ‘1LostMarble at gmail’? That’s not Hailey, is it?”
Impaled on the spike of a secret I can’t afford to set free, I shake my head. “No, it’s my mom. They got mad at her for using her work email for private stuff, so she got a gmail.”
Smooth. Smooth like vanilla, like the surface of a duck pond. Smooth like Hailey’s wrist. I take my phone from Syd and unlock it. I can pretend this email is from my mom. I can pretend that, no problem. She can’t hear the quake in my chest. She doesn’t taste the sharp tang in the back of my throat.
Screen open, notification touched. Email takes a second to load. The subject line burns into me like a brand.
SUBJECT: You have my phone.
Rubbing my lips together, I open the message. It’s worse, so much worse when I see my own name at the top.
Ava Parkhurst—
I want my phone back. Leave it at the customer counter at the Red Stripe in Caribou. Tonight. They close at 11. Don’t make me come find you.
1LostMarble
A murderer wants his mobile back. A murderer is telling me where he’ll be and when. A murderer just gave me everything I need to confront him. Catch him. Keep him from the next Jane, the Jane after next.
(or at least figure out who he is.)
(so I can tell the police?)
(there’s a police car in his gallery: to avoid? To escape? Why, why, why?)
(sidenote, dummy: a murderer just threatened you. wake up!)
Something like shock sparks all through me. Adrenaline, like he’s right in front of me and I can reach out and grab him.
I will catch him. I will be the breakwater he crashes on. I will not be the next girl in the woods.
My hands shake faintly; I shove the phone in my pocket. This time, I do need a plan. I didn’t mean to run into him in the dark; that’s why it went to hell. This is a chance. A specific, deliberate chance. I’m not about to let him track me down. He doesn’t get to hunt this time. I’m going to scent him. Take him out.
(somehow)
The Red Stripe is just a little local grocery store. There’s nothing special about it. There’s no reason to go there specifically, so if I need a ride there, I need the why.
Why there instead of the Sav-a-Lot? I don’t want this to be interesting for Syd. I need her to stay far away from this. But I need her to take me to Caribou. But, but. But.
Jane waits in the dark glass of Syd’s window. She could say something here, but she doesn’t. Instead, she stares, her eyes sockets and her expression grim. No thumbs-up, no guiding whisper. It’s just her, waiting. Full of some kind of expectation. The weight of that presses into me, and I refocus. How. Do. I. Do. This?
Okay.
It’s easy to lie to people; it’s easy to lie to yourself. It’s easy to end up somewhere you shouldn’t be. Grocery store in another town; lying on the half shell next to the Aroostook River. If people can’t tell when I’m falling apart inside, who says they’ll know when I’m plotting?
Syd folds another slice in half, letting the grease drip out on her paper plate before taking a bite. “S’up?”
“Can you drop me at the Red Stripe?” I ask. I try to sound annoyed and distracted. Rubbing a hand against my sleeve, I set off my new tattoo. It burns; it glows like a brand. Things I can’t. Things I can’t. “My mom wants to meet me there.”
Syd makes a face. Both incredulous and reasonable, she asks, “Why?”
Like a marionette, I wave my arms too expansively. My head bobbles, exaggerated in its shaking. “I don’t even know. That’s just what she wants.”
“O-kay,” Syd says with a shrug. “Did she say when?”
Before eleven is not an answer. That reminds me, I’ll need to lie again—to my mother. One at a time, though. Let’s just get through this, step by step. Lie first to Syd; lie to Mom next. Hopefully, no more lies. Seems unlikely, but it’s organized, anyway. I glance at the clock on my phone and say, “Like, in half an hour?”
“We’re gonna have to go, then,” Syd says.
“Yeah, sorry,” I say.
I am sorry. I really am. She bolts down the rest of that slice; I put on my coat.
Jane doesn’t move. She combs her hands through her hair, then twists it into a knot on the top of her head. I’ll meet you there, her expression says. She knows what I’m going to do. Sometimes, I think she knows everything. Knows me better than I know myself.
We’ll see.
SYD DROPPED ME OFF, BUT SHE DIDN’T REALLY WANT TO.
Since we didn’t see my mom’s car when we got there, Syd offered to wait. She pointed out that the tunes in the car were a thousand times better than the Muzak in the store. It was warmer. Cleaner. A little less skeezy.
Caribou is a small town, just like Walker’s Corner, but it’s big enough to have a good side and a bad side. A comfortable side versus a desperate side. Prime cuts of beef on sale against overpriced chuck roast, $6.99 a pound. The Red Stripe lives in the desperation, and it shows.
Worn, grey—the store looks like it’s exhausted. Dingy paint fading in places, the windows marked up with oil-penned, advertised discounts—the store sits in a pot-holed parking lot where only two of the overhead lights work. This is extremely relevant, because it’s going to be dark soon.
Uneasy, I considered Syd’s offer to stay. I considered telling her about Jane and my non-plan. Syd would have ideas; she’d be passionate and furious. It was possible she could fill in the spaces I’d left empty.
But Jane was mine. Mine to protect, mine to save.
Swearing, promising, insisting that I’d be all right, I finally convinced Syd to drive away. She didn’t like it, but the last thing I said was the best lie: a truth that simply wasn’t going to happen.
; I’m meeting my mom, I’d said. She’s not going to make me wait here long.
So, reluctantly, Syd left. But you know what? It was nice that she didn’t like it. She’d wanted to wait with me, and that felt like a warm fire on a cold night. We’d fixed things; we can sail on toward the horizon without fear.
Really, I don’t blame her for being mad at me. I blame her for the way she acted when she was mad, absolutely. But the anger makes total sense. Best friends don’t keep secrets from each other. Best friends means keeping secrets together. Betrayal ran both ways: I’d felt the same way when I found out she got a tattoo without me.
Wait.
That new tattoo without me. That silent, secret breakup with Meghan.
That happened before Hailey.
Before.
On unsteady feet, I push into the store. Skimming past Customer Service, I don’t even consider stopping. As if I were really going to just drop off a killer’s phone. Not a chance. It’s my chance to find him. Tail him. Figure out who he is so I can—
There’s no end to that sentence. Because I realize, I don’t even see it when my best friend is shining me on. In a dance with intricate turns, Syd turned me away from my questions about her. She’d made it about me. My secrets, my silence. Me.
With deft fingers, she’d plucked out the truth about Hailey. She’d strummed my nerves and made me an instrument to play. Her instrument, played like a symphony over New York slices.
And the whole time, she’d made me feel like I was in charge.
Maybe you’re surprised I didn’t see it.
You shouldn’t be, and I’ll tell you why.
I rely on routines. I’ve built my life into this framework of hours. I always go to school. I always hang out with Syd. I always avoid crowds. I never deviate—doing the same thing the same way all the time makes me feel safe. It means I’m in control; nothing happens unless I want it to happen.
Until this very moment, I’m sure that I’m the architect of all things in my current life.
Only it turns out, I’m not.
I didn’t plan for Hailey. I didn’t expect Jane. I don’t know what I’m going to do about 1LostMarble. Everything that seems woven tight unravels. My edges fray; my thoughts tangle. Then I move through a space someone else stood in. It’s happened to you: you feel the warmth of their skin on a doorknob or you catch the scent of their perfume.
Here, in the produce, there’s asparagus that smells earthy and green, and there’s aftershave. Blue, spicy aftershave. The scent crashes into me, an out-of-control train. Everything so orderly, neat, and carefully curated in my head explodes at once.
Unwanted thoughts spill everywhere, and I slip back in time. Back to that summer, to rotting underbrush and hot asphalt and Aqua Velva. That moment goes on and on; the beginning, the end. The aftermath. Walking home, walking fast, and feeling so stupid, so incredibly stupid for talking to a stranger—and angry: at myself. At me, at little me, because I should have somehow known better, and bargaining.
Again, bargaining only with myself: tell no one, say nothing, and it will all go away (except you deserve it, if it doesn’t all go away). Crying, dirty, ashamed—trying to hide what he did to me: I feel that all the way down in my gut. It’s all real again; it’s now.
It’s raw nerve instead of careful detail spreading over me. There’s the ugly, heavy weight lower than my stomach, lower than my navel. Invasion. Violation. Hot, mint breath in my face. The sweet, shocking notes of leather, of aftershave.
Sensation has no edge, and emotion is every color. And this time, Jane doesn’t rescue me. She doesn’t whisper, “It’s fine.” Her face doesn’t float up in the gleam of chrome shelves.
On my own, I have to shake there and swallow the bile in my throat. I have to hold oranges. I have to watch the Customer Service counter without really seeing. I have to wait for my body horror to work itself out and climb back in its box.
Shuddering, I put the orange down. When the past loses its grip, it’s time to scrape my skin clean again. To bleach my brain and remind myself, not my fault, not damaged, not used up, not spoiled.
I push my cart. I sharpen my gaze and stare at the Customer Service corral deliberately. 1LostMarble is going to show up and ask for his phone. I’m going to follow him. I’m going to put this down.
Because I survived. I got to go home; I got to build my walls and cages and keep going. I get to have moments that aren’t about this one, terrible thing. Yes, it comes back. It sneaks up and spoils me again, but there are times without.
Jane will never get to have the times without. Her worst day is her last day. All she’ll be is the way she died. To everyone but me, she’ll just be a body.
(BODY FOUND NEAR AROOSTOOK RIVER
POLICE INVESTIGATING BODY FOUND IN SHALLOW GRAVE
BODY OF MURDERED WOMAN STILL UNIDENTIFIED
HOMICIDE DETECTIVES FIND FEW CLUES ABOUT DUMPED BODY)
Picking up a pear, I ponder its mottled green surface, then raise it to my nose. It smells sweet, at the edge of sickly. The flesh is soft; it’s ripe today, but tomorrow, rotten. And yes, I see how that applies. I do see it.
I do realize
(basket case)
what I’m doing is probably not ideal and probably wrong and mixed up and muddled, and I don’t even have an end point in sight. I get that. I do.
But I also know if I had given Jane up when I found her, I wouldn’t be thisclose to catching her killer in Caribou. I never even go to Caribou. I literally wouldn’t be here without that decision. Without Syd acting weird, without my needing a tattoo.
It’s like my history teacher parsing out when the “American experiment” began. If Richard III hadn’t murdered two kids to steal the English crown, then barely royal, on-the-wrong-side-of-the-family Henry Tudor would have never had a claim to the throne.
Without Henry Tudor taking up the crown at Bosworth Field, no Tudor heirs. No Henry VII means no Henry VIII, and thus, without Anne Boleyn, no Protestant revolution in England. Without a Protestant revolution in England, no Puritans, so bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, Richard III did, in fact, kick off the American experiment.
(There are so many other ways it could have happened, but it didn’t.)
So I had to find Jane. I had to keep her. And now I have to wait here, in this grocery store, under grey flickering lights, watching for the boy who killed her. And then I have to—
Do something.
That part of my plan remains fuzzy. What am I going to do? Gather evidence, maybe? Make the case? Who am I, Sherlock Holmes? I don’t know the first thing about investigating a murder. All I see is the end goal: he doesn’t get away with murder.
He doesn’t get to keep Jane. He finds out what it’s like to be stolen away from his life, to lose everything. To suffer.
But, again, it’s that middle piece I’m missing. My stomach roils at the prospect of giving Jane up to the police. They’ll touch her, cut her, break her down like she’s a deer, and throw all her insides back inside her when they’re done. They’ll defile her and pretend it’s for a good reason.
If I give them her killer before I give them her body, they might skip that part. I think? I don’t know.
God, what have I gotten myself into?
THE RED STRIPE SINKS INTO ITS OWN DEPRESSION AS night spills down around it. The people who come through the single working door are exhausted. Shadows leave smudges beneath their eyes; they walk with weary gazes and weights on their feet.
They come in wearing uniforms for other grocery stores, for McDonaldses, for pharmacies. Sometimes alone, sometimes with kids. The kids mostly sit in the carts, high enough to see and cry for all the things they want, loud as alarms when their parents buy staples instead of sugar cereal.
All these people, with their own troubles, their own lives, come and go. They select frozen pizzas and rotisserie chickens, instant mashed potatoes and thigh quarters, only sixty-nine cents a pound.
The employees congregate at the front of
the store. A guy in an orange safety vest drives trains of carts into the corral, then stops at Customer Service whenever the cashier drifts away from her register for a chat.
The cashier’s noticed me, for sure, because every time she comes back to her aisle, she looks me over with a deepening frown.
It’s not illegal to browse but okay.
Gliding on to frozen foods, the second-best view of the front of the store, I check my phone again. No new email. Just the one, demanding swift return of the cell in my possession . . . or else.
An overhead speaker crackles to life. “We will be closing in twenty minutes. Please make your final selections. Thank you for shopping Red Stripe.”
Twenty minutes, and he still hasn’t shown. He wanted it bad enough to give me a place, to give me a time, but he’s not here yet. Why isn’t he here yet? Even if he’s one of those always-late people who call and say, “Almost there,” when they’re still in their towel after a shower, he picked a time! A place! And threatened to find me if I skip out, so where is he?
He killed someone and I have all the evidence, but it’s not, like, urgent to him? I could have turned up at 10:58 or 7:14, and yet he’s not checking the counter? He doesn’t come up, again and again, asking, “Did somebody find my phone? Did somebody turn it in?”
I’ve been around and around this store, and fact: he’s not skulking in the produce. He’s not watching the counter, waiting for me to appear. There are no repeats, no lingerers, no twitchy guys in hoodies swooping in through the automatic door.
So, what, then? He’s just okay with his phone full of semi-evidence sitting in a drawer until he gets around to picking it up? He’s going to wait until tomorrow to retrieve his precious? I don’t think he’s a lot older than me; he should probably be in school tomorrow.
(THEN AGAIN, when trying to retrieve evidence that you murdered a girl and left her buried in the snow, possibly, just perhaps, TRUANCY is not actually an issue, Ava.)
My cart squeaks as I skim along cases of frozen pizzas. I feel more and more obvious by the moment. Is there a chance, is it possible, that he’s watching me? That the phone was bait, which I swallowed. He’s already killed one girl. He could have already picked out my grave.
All the Things We Do in the Dark Page 10