by Kasie West
“So you made him feel guilty enough to go to church and confess but not guilty enough to return the phone?”
“I need to work on my skills.”
I took the last bite of yogurt and dropped my spoon in my empty yogurt cup, hoping the noise would clue them both in that I was done. “Maybe he’d heard about the time you hid Gabriel’s phone and made him go on a treasure hunt to find it. Your thief probably figured it was karma,” I said.
Jackson laughed, then looked down at his cup, which was mostly candy bar toppings now swimming in half-melted yogurt. He’d been talking so much, he hadn’t had time to eat it. “That’s true. Maybe he had.”
My dad clapped a hand on my back. “How come you haven’t brought this boy home before? He’s a riot.”
“Because we don’t really know each other.” I tried to say it polite enough so that my dad wouldn’t think I was being rude but blunt enough so that Jackson would get the message.
Jackson nodded. “It’s true. We don’t really know each other.”
I stood up. “Well, I’m done. We should probably get going.”
“I should go too,” Jackson said. “I have things to do tonight.”
We all walked outside together, and before we parted, my dad shook Jackson’s hand. “Good to meet you. You should come to dinner some time.”
“Dad, I’m sure Jackson is very busy.”
Jackson met my eyes, then nodded at my dad. “She’s right. Very busy.”
“Everyone has to eat,” Dad said.
Jackson laughed, then waved.
When my dad climbed into the truck and Jackson headed for his car, I opened the passenger door and said, “I’ll be right back.”
I caught Jackson just before he got to his car. “What’s your deal?”
“What?”
“Why did you come today?”
“Your dad invited me.”
“You could’ve said no.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“Yeah, well, we’re not friends. So . . .” Now I felt like I was being rude.
He smiled. “But we should be, Moore.”
“That sounded creepy.”
He laughed. “It did, didn’t it? It wasn’t supposed to.” He opened his car door, which I just noticed belonged to a silver Lexus. Not surprising that he had a fancy car. He had the attitude of a kid who got handed everything. “You’d better get going.”
He climbed in, shut the door, and started his engine.
“And you talk too much,” I grumbled to his retreating car. I walked back to the truck and got inside.
My dad had a leftover smile on his face. “I liked that kid.”
“I could tell.”
“He reminded me of . . .”
No, don’t say it, don’t say it, I mentally begged.
“Eric. I’ve never met someone who reminded me more of your brother.”
Twelve
I was done obsessing over Heath Hall. I’d talked to him. He hadn’t shown up to my swim meet the day before. As far as I was concerned my mission was accomplished. I didn’t care who he was anymore. Amelia and I hadn’t talked about him at all when we went out to eat earlier. We talked about what I thought her chances with DJ were (decent); we talked about who we thought would win awards at the swim banquet (the seniors); we talked about how Ms. Lin had accosted Amelia in the hall begging her to take another year of art (she nicely said no). But we had not talked about Heath Hall.
So why was I now pulling up his social media on my phone?
There wasn’t a lot of activity on his part, but when I searched his name, I saw many people from the museum were congratulating him. He didn’t need me to add to his ego. Besides, I’d already told him I liked the painting when I was there. In that back hallway. Where his hands were shaking and his eyes were darting.
He didn’t have an ego, I realized. He had the exact opposite.
He wasn’t some popular kid. He’d seemed so shaky, unsure of himself. Was that what this whole act of pretending to be a spy hero was about? It gave him confidence without having to be himself?
It didn’t matter. I was done obsessing over Heath Hall. I tossed my phone into my desk drawer so I didn’t drag it into the bathroom with me and went to get ready for bed.
After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I was in my room again, about to change into my pajamas, when I heard a muffled buzzing from the desk. I ignored it. I pulled a tank top and a pair of cotton shorts out of my drawer. I changed into them and dumped my dirty clothes into the hamper in the corner of my room under the poster of an Olympic-sized swimming pool taken at water level, from a swimmer’s point of view. Bold black letters across the poster read: Punish Your Goals.
My phone buzzed again. I glanced at the drawer. What if Amelia was trying to get hold of me with some sort of best-friend emergency and I was just ignoring her need? I yanked open the drawer and pulled out my phone. It showed I had a notification: DM@HeathHall. I clicked on it.
My heart skipped a beat. Why would he message me? I sank down into my desk chair, then slid my finger over the screen until it hovered over the envelope icon.
A knock sounded at my door and I jumped. My mom poked her head inside the room.
“Hello. Came to say good night.”
“Are you just getting home?” I asked.
“You know how meetings go. There’s so much to discuss and delegate.”
“Didn’t you just have a meeting yesterday?”
“That was the sign-up meeting. This was the calendaring meeting.”
I raised my eyebrows. “So many meetings.”
“I know. I just wanted to tell you good job yesterday at your meet.”
“Thank you.”
“Also, I was thinking about that dress you wore to the museum Thursday night. That would be the perfect one to wear to the leukemia charity event on the twenty-fifth.”
“The twenty-fifth?” I turned all the way around in my desk chair. She was still lingering in my doorway.
“Yes. Is there somewhere you’d rather be?” she asked.
“It’s not that I’d rather be somewhere else, but we have a mandatory awards banquet at school for swim at the exact same time.” Not to mention the charity dinner was about forty-five minutes away so it wasn’t like I could make an appearance at both.
“I’m sure your coach would understand if you couldn’t go.”
Right. I could just use the my brother is dead card. It worked well. “He might let me out of it, but I also feel like I need to be there to support my teammates.”
“And you don’t feel like you need to support your family?”
“I’ve been every other year.”
My mom started to speak but then stopped herself, donned her disappointed eyes, then said, “Well, think about it. Ultimately the decision is yours. You’ll do the right thing.”
That look made it seem like the decision wasn’t mine at all, but I still said, “I’ll think about it. Thanks.”
“Good night, honey.”
“Night.”
My mom left, and I shut my bedroom door, then fell back onto my bed with a groan. My mom was right: the charity dinner was where I should go. But I couldn’t help but think that being at the awards banquet would be important for the next year of swimming. For making sure Coach knew I wasn’t just in this for me, that I supported the team. But my parents were important to me too. Why was this so hard?
I reached for my phone. I needed to talk to Amelia about this. She’d tell me what to do. I swiped across the screen of my phone. The direct message notification reminded me I had a message waiting. Instead of calling Amelia, I found myself clicking on the envelope icon.
Turns out I didn’t want to swim again last night.
I stared at the message. Was he trying to get a reaction or was that his backward way of saying I didn’t have to worry about him messing up a swim meet again? I thought about ignoring him but then typed: Control the urge for the final meet thi
s year and I will have no problems with you.
As I moved to exit out of the screen, I saw the three dots showing he was responding. I waited until it buzzed through.
So that is the only problem you have with me?
Was he looking for validation? He’d come to the wrong place. I typed back: That is the only thing I care about.
Swimming?
I narrowed my eyes. No, you disrupting my swimming.
Good to know.
Who are you? I needed to know who to avoid in real life.
I thought you already knew.
I knew he didn’t really believe that. I’d given myself away at the museum when I’d chased him down and demanded his identity. No, you didn’t. So . . . who are you?
Nice try.
What’s it take to find out?
A need.
What does that even mean? I asked.
If you don’t know what it means, then you don’t have it.
We’re talking in riddles now?
He didn’t respond right away, and I found myself refreshing the page to make sure the site hadn’t frozen. When nothing happened, I got up and pulled a pair of socks out of my dresser. I went to put on a sweatshirt and realized it was Robert’s. I had forgotten to return it. I loved this sweatshirt and not because it was Robert’s—well, maybe a little because it was his—but because it was comfortable.
I folded it and put it on my desk. Then, maybe because I was mad that he wanted it back or maybe because I was tired of feeling like I was the only one still a little hung up on the relationship, I grabbed my perfume and sprayed the sweatshirt. If I had to return it, then he had to suffer through my scent for a few days. Hopefully it would stir up some memories that made him good and lonely. I spritzed it two more times for good measure, then shoved it in my backpack. That’s when I remembered his other claim—that he’d left his math book here.
I moved to my hands and knees to search under my desk and bed. It wasn’t in either of those places so I crawled over to the closet, where I had to sift through a layer of clothes on the floor—mostly T-shirts and jeans, my standard wardrobe. I came up empty-handed. I tried to remember the last time he’d done homework at my house and a picture of him sitting up against the far wall, his ankle on his knee, his pencil sideways in his mouth, came into my mind. “What’d you get for number four?” he’d asked through that pencil.
“I’m only on two.”
“What’s taking you so long?”
“I had to text Amelia the shoulder exercise I found.”
“Of course you did,” he’d mumbled.
My phone buzzed, bringing me out of my memory and reminding me I was still no closer to finding the math book. I stood up and sat on my bed, back against the headboard, and read the newest message from Heath Hall.
No riddles. Just truth.
That seemed like another riddle to me. I tried to interpret it. My brain was too tired to figure out his game. My mom had already messed with my head tonight to get me to go to the charity dinner. I didn’t need more manipulation. I’d find out who he was at some point. Someone would slip. I remembered part of a quote my dad once told me. Something about how truth couldn’t be hidden. I quickly Googled it, then typed it out for Heath Hall.
Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
His response was quick. Too quick to have been Googled like mine.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
You have the mask. What’s your truth?
Exactly.
Had I figured something out? Had he offered some sort of truth at the museum with that mask on? That he liked to paint? Who in our school liked to paint? I copied and pasted his quote into the search engine on my computer and it showed it was from Oscar Wilde. Who wrote it probably wasn’t significant—the quote itself was what fit his situation perfectly—but it was nice to know who had originally said it.
A quiet knock sounded at my door.
“Yes?”
It creaked open, revealing my dad. “I thought I heard you up in here. It’s late.”
“Yeah, I was just about to go to sleep.”
“Mom told me you might not come to the charity dinner this year.”
My mom and dad were different. If a person heard about my brother’s death from my dad, they would probably assume he had died years ago. If they heard about it from my mom, they would most likely assume he’d died months ago. So it was much easier for me to talk to my dad about things like this. “It’s the same night as my awards banquet for swim.”
“That’s a hard choice.”
The problem was that if there were nobody else’s feelings involved but my own, there would be no choice. But that wasn’t the case. “I think I should support my swim team.”
“I understand why you’d want to. That’s a big part of your life.”
“But I want to be there for you guys too.”
He smiled. “Like I said, it’s a hard choice. You’ll make the right one.” With that, he nodded his head at my phone and added, “Lights out in five.”
“Okay.”
He shut the door and I sighed. I wasn’t so sure I would make the right decision because as of now I was leaning toward the awards banquet and I had a feeling that even my dad assumed I’d go to the dinner. After all, it was family . . . and seventeen years of tradition.
I turned my attention back to my phone. You want to know a truth? Choices suck.
What choices?
What was I doing? I didn’t even know this person. My frustration at my situation almost made me vent about my personal life to a complete stranger. Not just any stranger but someone who was in the habit of selfishly disrupting other people’s lives.
Nothing. Good night.
He answered: You should always make the choice that’s best for you.
Of course he’d say that. That’s what he did, thought about himself. And besides, even if I went with his advice, I wasn’t sure which choice was best for me. One would be right for me now and one later. And I didn’t even know which was which. I turned off my phone and put it on my desk. I wasn’t sure I’d make the right choice but I did know that I’d have to make one.
Thirteen
I pulled the sweatshirt out of my backpack and handed it to Robert. I’d flagged him down in the hall after I saw him leaving the science building. “Here. I couldn’t find your math book.”
“Oh. I found my math book. Thanks.” He held the sweatshirt to his nose. “It smells like you.”
My face got hot. “Yeah. It’s been at my house.” Under a couple sprays of my perfume. “Where was your math book?” I asked, mostly to change the subject.
“At Luke’s.”
“I looked for it the other night. It brought back some homework memories.”
“You mean like the time when I did my homework and you Googled swim strokes,” he said flatly.
“Right.” It was nice of him to keep reminding me why we weren’t together anymore. “Me and my one-track mind,” I added sarcastically.
“So you’re admitting it for once?”
A new song came out of the earbuds that were dangling around my neck. I could barely make out the tune but my mind immediately started singing the lyrics. I wanted to just put them in and walk away. “I guess the truth can’t be hidden forever,” I said, mostly because I didn’t want to argue about this.
“Or the sun or the moon.”
I froze. “What?”
“Is that not how the saying goes? Your dad said that to us once, right?” His expression was innocent, relaxed. It didn’t seem like he was hiding anything or trying to fool me.
“He did?”
“Yes, you’d shown up late for curfew and we made up some excuse that he obviously knew was a lie.”
I could remember my dad giving me a lecture, but I didn’t remember Robert being there at all. I tried to picture Robert in a tux and a mask.
At the museum Heath Hall had been forty feet away, so it was hard to gauge size. If I backed up forty feet right now maybe it would be easier to tell.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like I just ate your last french fry.”
“You liked to do that a lot.”
He smiled. “Only because it made you mad.”
I took a step back. “I have to go.”
He said something behind me that I didn’t hear because I was immediately surrounded by the chaos of the school hallway and my music. For a moment I didn’t remember where I was supposed to be next. When Amelia joined me, I realized it was lunchtime.
“Have we ruled out Robert?” I asked, turning off my music.
“For dating again? Making out with? Talking to? I need some context here.”
“No, as Heath Hall.”
“We mentioned Robert as a possibility but decided he isn’t the putting-on-a-mask-in-a-public-place-for-attention type. Why?”
As we walked to our normal spot in the courtyard, I summarized my conversation with Heath Hall and my conversation with Robert a few minutes ago, including the quote he’d said. The same one from the other night.
“You’re still having private conversations with Heath Hall?”
“Yes.”
“So . . . you think it’s Robert?”
It didn’t make sense. Robert wasn’t in any way, shape, or form an artist, which was the only real clue I had about Heath Hall. I let out a long sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t care. I don’t know why I’m still thinking about this.”
“I don’t either. Our list was pretty much obliterated after almost all of them were at the museum, watching the events unfold. And you were able to talk to fake Heath about the pool thing. I thought you’d be over it.”
“I am.” I was. I was definitely going to be. We sat down at the table and I let my backpack slide to the ground next to me. “Oh! I keep forgetting to tell you.” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t told Amelia what my dad had said about Jackson yet. Amelia would tell me it wasn’t so bad. That Jackson wasn’t that horrible and that it meant nothing about how I would’ve gotten along with Eric.