I spent the next fifteen minutes before school walking the halls, looking for the photographer. I saw girls with similar hair or similar clothes or similar features, but never at the same time. Either she wasn’t here, or she was hiding, or I wasn’t looking right.
I had no way to know.
12A
When I walked through the halls, I thought of you. I wondered what you thought of this school now. This building. Was it a shelter against everything else? Could you be happy here? Or was it just another form of prison, just another place where you felt the weight of all the stones, all the people, all the thoughts?
I wish I’d known what was wrong with you.
I still wish I knew what was wrong with you.
12B
I felt weird asking my friends at lunch about another photo, when I’d just cross-examined them about Sparrow the day before. So I decided to wait.
Fiona, though, brought the whole thing up.
“Did you find Mr. Mohawk?” she asked.
“I think he’s in California,” I mumbled.
“You sent the detectives all the way to California?” Charlie joked.
“No, I found him online.”
That should have been the end of the conversation. And it was—for everyone except Fiona.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. Then I stood up from the table. “I have to run to the library. I almost forgot.”
Fiona looked at my tray. “You haven’t eaten anything.”
I shrugged. “I’m not really hungry.”
12C
Really: I was hungry. And I was remembering one of the things you had said. Not the last day in the woods, but maybe three days before. Everyone was supposed to hang out together, but you didn’t want to go.
“Why?” I’d asked.
“I don’t trust any of them,” you’d said. “I don’t trust Fiona. I don’t want to see them. They think they know the truth, but they don’t. I know the truth. They don’t.”
The truth. Really the Truth.
I should have been concerned. But then you’d said, “You’re the one I trust. You.” And that’s what I felt. That’s what I remembered.
12D
The day it happened, the week after it happened—those were not times I wanted to go back to. How I felt like I was trapped in a chamber of my own noise. Sitting in class and not being there at all. Sitting in a chair and fragmenting at the same time. Clutching to the random facts. Thinking the concept of a fact was itself a fiction. Because we live in a blur. All of us live in a blur.
I was starting to feel it again. Only this time no one was really watching.
12E
“What is the answer, Evan?” Ms. Granger asked.
Giraffe, I wanted to answer. It was on the tip of my tongue. Giraffe.
This was in math class.
12F
“Where is your homework?” Mr. McNulty asked.
It’s with Ariel.
“There is no such thing as homework,” I said.
“What?”
“I mean, I left it at home.”
12G
If the photographer existed, I had to be able to find her.
But I couldn’t find you, could I?
12H
You existed. You existed now as a fractal.
Definition:
A fractal is generally a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be broken into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole.
Maybe I was a fractal. Maybe the photographer was a fractal.
Maybe we were all fractals.
12I
Matt was talking to me. For a moment I didn’t recognize him.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I don’t know what okay is,” I said.
“What?”
“I mean … I don’t know what okay means. No, not what it means. Where it comes from. Where does okay come from?”
We looked it up.
The answer: Nobody knows. They think it is a misspelled variation of all correct—either oll korrect or ole kurreck—but they’re not really sure.
Meaning divorced from origin. And it’s okay.
“Weird,” Matt said.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
He never noticed that I hadn’t answered his first question.
12J
I wondered if this was how you’d felt.
I wondered if I was making myself feel how you’d felt.
I knew it wasn’t a choice. It was just what my mind was doing.
Although I could’ve been fighting it more.
12K
What if Jack is right? What if all these things that appear connected aren’t really connected? What if none of us are connected?
Then I opened my locker after school and found another photo waiting for me.
13
13A
On the back, someone—presumably the photographer—had written 4:00.
Was that when the photo had been taken?
Or was that when I was supposed to be there?
I saw the skulls on her vest.
A coincidence?
A sign?
I had to find Jack, then find out.
13B
It was like the day hadn’t happened. Or that it had only happened to me. He was out on the patio, talking to Miranda. She was laughing. He was smiling. They looked like they were happy vulnerable flirting together. It stopped me. In my mind, they were kissing, they had their hands all over each other. But then I blinked, and they were just standing there, talking. It was nothing. I didn’t want you to know about this. I watched for another minute. They didn’t do anything wrong. I knew I’d be interrupting, but that didn’t seem wrong, either. Jack would want to know.
“Hey, Jack,” I said, stepping close enough for him to hear, but not in their space yet. “Hey, Miranda.”
“Hey,” Miranda said.
“What’s up, Ev?” Jack asked.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” I said, leaving the alone implied.
Miranda heard it.
“I’ll just go get my stuff, okay?” she said. “Good to see you, Ev.”
You didn’t even know my name, I thought. You’re just repeating what he said.
When she was gone, I took out the picture.
“It was in my locker. It has a time on the back. I think we’re supposed to meet her or something. It’s three now. We have an hour.”
“Whoa, Evan. Just stop for a second.”
I never said a bad word about him. The whole time the two of you were together. Not one bad thing.
“I know,” I said. “It’s a long stretch of railroad track. But I think she wants us to find her, so it’s probably close by. And if you look in the back, there’s a spot where the brown dirt turns into gray gravel, and there’s also a kind of green post on the left side. We can look for those.”
“Come on,” Jack said. And I honestly thought we were setting off right away. But instead he was taking me to the ledge of the patio and sitting down. He patted the space next to him.
He was attractive. I knew that. And I knew that attractive people always got away with things. But I never said a bad word about him.
“I think we need to talk,” he said.
Because he meant something to you. He did.
“Because I think you need to let this go.”
“What?” I didn’t understand.
“I said, I think you need to let this go.”
He had been there.
With me.
He had been there with me.
“Not now!” I argued. “We’re so close.”
He shook his head. “I have something else I have to do.”
“What?” I said. Then I pointed to the direction Miranda had walked off. “Her?”
“Not just her. Life, Evan. We have to go back to life. We have to let this go.”
“Let go!” sh
e screamed. “Let go of me!”
I wanted to cover my ears.
Jack went on. “I’m genuinely worried about you, Evan. Whoever’s doing this with the photos is playing a sick joke on us, and you’re falling for it. It’s messed up and it has to stop. But it’s not going to stop until we act like we don’t care. It’s not going to go away. We’re not going to be able to move on.”
“What?” I yelled back at him. “Do we just forget that she ever existed? Forget what happened?”
Jack shook his head. So sad. “No. That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean? Letting go. Do you really think it’s there because we’re holding on to it? Do you really think it’s that easy? I’m not holding on to it, Jack. It’s holding on to me. And it’s holding on to you, whether you ignore it or not.”
Jack’s right hand curled into a fist. Not to hit me—just to be a fist.
“Look, Evan—I wasn’t good at this with her, and I’m not good at it with you. I can’t fight you over it. I can’t. Call me whatever you want—heartless was a favorite of hers. And you know what, I’ll have to take it. But I’d rather be called heartless than keep living in this mess she created. I thought it was going away, and now this evil girl is doing whatever she’s doing with the photos and trying to pull it all back. But I can’t play that game. It’s a game, Evan. And sometimes you have to walk away. Don’t play it.”
“You’re not heartless,” I said. “She never called you heartless.”
The fist unclenched, then went back to being a fist.
“Of course she did, Evan! I was there. There are times you have no idea about. You weren’t always there. Just like I wasn’t there when she was alone with you. She would disappear in front of me. And then she’d reappear and she’d say the most awful things—about me, about herself. Mostly about herself. Of course, now I know what it was, but I didn’t know then. I was too caught by it. It hurt to hear those things, Evan. She would tear it all apart to find her ‘truth.’ If I tried to hold her, she’d tell me to get off. And if I just sat there, she’d say, ‘Why aren’t you holding me?’ Long hours of this. And I’d be afraid to go, and I’d be afraid to stay. ‘Just moods,’ she’d finally say. ‘I’m sorry—I was in a mood.’ Well, yeah. That’s what we both thought. That’s what all of us thought, right? Because we didn’t want to believe anything else.”
“But, Jack—”
“No—let me finish. It’s time we had this conversation. Because I don’t think you’ve been angry at her yet—and you need to be angry at her. You think it’s about what you didn’t do and what I didn’t do and maybe what her parents didn’t do and what her other friends, whoever they were, didn’t do. You might even think it’s about what she didn’t do. But mostly it’s about what she did. Whether or not it was under her control, she did it. And if you’ve done any reading about it, you’ll know that there isn’t anything we could have done to stop it. It was inevitable. We were just lucky—or unlucky—enough to be there when all the pieces fell apart from each other.”
A fractal is generally a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be broken into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole.
“Evan, listen to me. I don’t want you to fall apart, too. You understand? If this photographer shows up, I will gladly put her in her place. But you can’t let it happen. And if you follow her, you’re letting it happen. You are.”
His voice was trying to be calm, but I could hear the fractures, I could feel him gluing the calmness together. I wanted to say I need you, but I figured you’d said that, too. I wanted to say This has to be done, but I knew it didn’t have to be. Not to him. Because he was separating himself. And I couldn’t.
“I’ll go without you,” I told him, gambling that he wouldn’t let me go alone.
He tilted his head, disappointed. Then he slapped his hands on his thighs before standing up.
“You’ll do what you’re going to do,” he said. “I’m not going to stop you. I just want you to realize that I tried. And that you can stop playing the game at any time. I can help you with that. But I can’t help you play it. Not anymore.”
“Is this because of Miranda?” I asked, not getting up.
“No,” he said. “I had to let go of some of it before I could even talk to Miranda. I don’t want you to think I got through this undamaged, okay? But I’m learning to live with it. Because otherwise, the damage is all you are.”
Now I stood up.
“I’m going,” I said.
“Fine,” Jack said. “Just do me a favor. Whatever you find—don’t let me know. Don’t. I’m done.”
I was still thinking he might come with me. Even after he left.
14
Heartless. Heartless. Heartless.
You’d never called me that. Never.
But.
I was there for you. I was the one you trusted.
But.
I knew you.
“You can’t know me.”
I did.
“You know one me. Just like I know one you. But you can’t know every me, Evan. And I can’t know every you.”
I didn’t want this to be coming back. I didn’t want to be having these conversations in my head.
“It’s not a conversation. You’re the only one here.”
I wanted to find the spot on the train tracks. I was walking along the train tracks. Looking for that spot.
“Fill your head with the right pictures of me. Fill your head with the ones you’d hang on a wall.”
Every now and then, a train would go by. But not too often. It wasn’t rush hour yet.
“I’m still here. I’m just unreachable.”
“Stop!” I yelled. “Just stop it!”
I knew Jack was right, but I also knew it didn’t matter.
I had to see it through to the end. Because the end could be better. It couldn’t be worse than this.
14A
3:30.
Walking.
3:45.
Blanking.
3:50.
Looking.
3:55.
There.
I didn’t even have to see the change from dirt to gravel or the green post.
Because there they were.
Photographs. Taped lightly to the rails.
3:57.
I was within a hundred feet. And then I saw it.
The train.
Coming.
I ran.
Because the train would destroy the photographs.
I ran.
The noise of the train.
The first photo.
I shouldn’t have taken the time to look. But I looked.
And then, written on the rail underneath:
I SAW
The second photo was four rails down.
I could feel the ground shaking.
The train coming.
I jumped over.
Underneath:
WHAT YOU DID
The train almost here.
The train.
The whistle.
The warning.
A screech.
The third photo.
The third.
In my fingers.
I could feel the train pushing the air.
Hear the howl.
I didn’t look. I just read underneath—
TO HER
—and jumped to the side.
Hit hard.
The train screeching by.
I rolled on the gravel. Pieces of stone in my skin.
Crushing the photos as I rolled.
Imagining the people watching from the train.
The photographer watching.
I lost my breath.
Deep breaths.
I lifted myself up.
Blinking. Breathing.
I wouldn’t have died. I wouldn’t have.
Remembering the third photograph.
Looking at it there, on the side of
the tracks, as the train pushed past.
Thinking: WHO ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU?
Aren’t there any other clues?
Hating life. You would say that all the time. I hate life. And I thought it was just something you said.
But I felt it. Down to my bones.
Linked to frustration.
I SAW
Linked to unfairness.
WHAT YOU
Linked to guilt.
DID
Linked to anger.
TO
Linked to helplessness.
HER.
Hate.
Hate.
Hate.
I dwelt within it as I walked home. I dwelt within it the whole night. The next morning.
Let it go, I imagined Jack saying. Just let it go.
And then I slipped the photos into his locker.
I wanted him to find them, too.
15
Do you remember the time the three of us got into a fight over Zeno’s dichotomy paradox?
Jack hadn’t known what it was, so you explained.
“It’s about infinities and motion,” you said. “I’m sure you’ve heard this. It’s about how if you try to get to somewhere by halves, or any fraction, really, you will never actually get there, because ultimately there will be an infinitely small distance between you and your destination.”
“The most common example is a wall,” I chimed in. “That if I go halfway to the wall, then halfway of the halfway, then halfway of that, on and on, always halfway, I will never actually touch the wall.”
“Isn’t that sad?” you said. “I mean, isn’t that really disturbing?”
“But why?” Jack said. “I don’t get it.”
“Because you’ll never actually get there. You will spend your whole life making progress, but you’ll never actually get there.”
“Infinity is against us,” I told him. “There’s no way for us ever to count it or control it or understand it.”
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