Those are the last words he says to me before he pulls into the garage and climbs out of the car. The verdict has been delivered; details of the sentencing to be determined.
* * *
—
Alone in my room, I get back to work.
Jenna was right. A lot of people care about Jake, even if it’s just because he won us a state championship. A lot of people pay attention to him. Adults with badges and government paychecks aren’t the only ones who can solve this, and maybe they’re not even the best candidates for the job.
I pull out my phone and open up Jake’s profile on social media—and there he is, inches away, with his messed-up hair and sleepy smile. Tears prick my eyes as I wonder where he is now; I won’t let myself think about the possibility that I won’t see him again. You will see him, I remind myself. If you can find him.
As I scroll, something catches my attention: a post from two hours ago that already has forty-eight comments.
We’re taking a bet, Jake. Where you at? NBA or NCAA?
It takes me a minute to process it. Darius Ruckert, the punk junior point guard who never could decide if he idolized Jake or wanted to take him out to steal his starting spot, is wagering whether Jake ran away to play pro ball or college ball.
I hear Jenna’s voice in my head: “First rule of life: never read the comments.”
And then I ignore it.
I bet he’s meeting with agents right now.
Nah, my man’s smart. Probably college recruiters.
We in a time machine here? Junior year Foster was headed somewhere. Senior year? Not so much.
The second one’s from Kolt, and I wonder if he’s writing what he wants to believe or trying to spin this to protect Jake the best he can. Or maybe both.
And below that:
Your just mad you lost your best customer
Customer for what?
Down the list, there’s one that makes my heart stop.
The real question is, NBA or OD?
It makes no sense. Jake’s never even tried pot, never had a drop to drink. And how can you say that when somebody’s gone missing? The comment below it is even worse.
He’s either in a ditch or in a freezer. Depends on if they found him yet.
I scan the names and profile pictures, the faces my age but unfamiliar. Who are these people? My eyes swim, my whole body paralyzed by this cruel image painted by those I thought might be able to help.
But I blink back the tears. I won’t let them win. I won’t let them turn this into a place to hurt somebody I care about. I text Kolt, tell him to hack into Jake’s account and shut the post down. Then I start a new page of my own.
Title: Missing Person: Jake Foster
Category: Community
I upload a photo of Jake in his basketball uniform for the profile picture and a full-court shot for the cover photo. It feels cheap, but Jenna’s right: people care about Jake Foster, MVP. And if that will get us more visibility, more eyes on the lookout, it’s worth it. I add a quick description of the page:
Let’s do everything we can to bring Jake home safe. Please post any information you have on the whereabouts of Jake Foster.
But it can’t be a place for wild, depressing speculation. The information will need to be monitored and moderated, but I don’t know if I’ve got the guts to sift through all the content. So I send Jenna the link and an invitation to be the admin.
Here’s our next move. Can you help?
Five seconds later, she accepts the invitation, and something inside me uncoils.
After that, I share the link across social media and send it to anybody I can think of. Teammates, friends, everybody—except the asswipes on Ruckert’s post. When I click back to my new page, there are already two posts, nearly identical and nearly useless.
Kolt Martin: Thanks for starting this Sharp. Hope it helps.
Seth Cooper: Good idea, Daph. Help us out, everybody.
I’m annoyed at the “us.” Now that I’ve done something, he wants to claim part of it? Where was that concern this afternoon?
Seth and Kolt. I look at the two names next to each other and think back to that night. If the police felt the need to question Kolt again, their stories must not have lined up.
I know them both, trust them both. So why is one of them not telling the whole truth when Jake’s life could be on the line?
The memory of the cruel comment makes me shudder. He’s either in a ditch or in a freezer. Depends on if they found him yet.
I won’t believe that Jake is dead. I can’t.
But where the hell is he?
Still dark down here. Still cold. Jake feels both in his bones as he’s startled from sleep, the cot shaking beneath him.
“What did you tell them?”
The voice is angry, the words sharp. They rattle inside Jake’s skull. He squeezes his eyes shut, but strong hands grab greedy fistfuls of his shirt.
“Sit up. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
Jake sits up, tries to open his eyes. Is he home? Why is his dad here?
“You didn’t tell them anything, did you?”
But no. His dad is dead. Isn’t he?
“Holy shit. Can’t you even follow instructions?”
Those are his dad’s words, though. They all are.
If his dad is dead and his dad is here, is Jake dead too?
Then, footsteps. Pacing. Like the man is getting ready to walk away.
“This isn’t how any of this was supposed to go down. You shot my plan to hell—you know that?”
Jake feels a sob in his throat. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’ll do better. Please don’t go.” Maybe this time Jake can get it right. Be enough.
A muttered curse and a hand against his forehead. “You’re burning up. Get in the shower. Cold water. I’ll get you some shorts. Your clothes are drenched.”
Jake wants to obey, but his body is a wet sack of sand. The man watches him, sighs, lifts him by the armpits, and guides him to the shower. “You’d better be able to take it from here. I’m not your nurse.”
I know you’re not a nurse. You’re a mechanic. Or you were.
I know you.
Jake thinks he says the words out loud, but the man either doesn’t hear or doesn’t care. He snaps on the light and turns on the water, and then he’s gone.
Alone again, Jake realizes he is burning up. That he does want a shower. A line from an old kindergarten song floats into his mind: Soap and bubbles wash your troubles away.
Yes. He repeats the line in his mind, again and again, like an anchor from his past to figure out his present.
Finally the room comes into focus. Jake recognizes himself now, slick with soap, the pain in his body too raw and real for him to believe any longer that he’s dead. He’s still in the dark, run-down basement, but whether it’s two blocks or a hundred miles from home, he doesn’t know.
When the man comes back, tossing the shorts onto the cot, Jake can see it’s not his dad. Too young, too wiry. Too wired. And, of course, too alive.
“Did you tell them where you were going?” the man, pacing again, asks once Jake is dressed. “Did you leave a note or something? Anything? Think, Jake. Did you tell anybody you saw me?”
So many questions, and Jake can’t seem to form the words to answer any of them. He’s afraid if he doesn’t say something soon, the questions will just keep coming. So he thinks hard, makes sure to say the words aloud when he tries again with a question of his own.
“Are you going to kill me?”
The man laughs, harsh and sharp. “Well, I hadn’t planned on it, but that was before you got the cops looking for us.”
Jake studies the man, tries to tell if he’s joking. But who would joke in a moment like this? He remembers another of the man’s questions and attem
pts to answer it.
“How could I tell anybody I saw you if I don’t even know who you are?”
“You know who I am, Jake.” The man scratches the back of his neck, and there’s something familiar about the gesture. “But don’t think about me right now. And for God’s sake, stop thinking about your dad. If you’re going to think about somebody, think about your mom and your little brother.”
Their faces come back to him in a rush, and he has to sit down.
Mom, her hair pulled into a knot on top of her head, looking up from chopping peppers to smile when he comes through the door.
And Luke, writing notes and poems and stats in that old notebook and hiding it where Jake can’t help but find it.
“You want to see them again, right? You don’t want them to hurt anymore?”
“Yes. No.”
The room starts to spin. Since he’s been down here, he’s become so weak that already those clear images of the people he loves are getting fuzzy, and he can’t seem to hold on.
“Then you’ve got to learn to follow instructions. Do we understand each other?”
Jake will do anything to make all this stop. To see them again.
“Yes,” he says as the room swirls around him.
“Good,” says the man, and the last thing Jake hears is the sound of retreating footsteps before everything is dark again.
How old are you, Luke?
Eleven.
And Jake is eighteen.
And a half.
Do you like your brother?
I love my brother.
Sometimes it’s hard to have a brother who’s that much bigger, even if you love him.
[Pause.]
That wasn’t a question. Do you have another question?
Did Jake ever talk about running away?
Only for an adventure. And only together.
Where were you two going to go?
Springfield.
Excuse me?
Springfield, Massachusetts. The Basketball Hall of Fame.
Tell me about the night he disappeared. Jake usually threw his warm-up jersey to you in the stands when they announced the starting lineup. Is that right?
Yes.
And did he do that the night of the championship game?
No.
Do you know why not?
No.
Did you talk to him that night?
I told him good luck before the game.
And what did he say?
[Shifts in his chair.] He didn’t say anything.
Was that normal?
No…Maybe…Normal sometimes changes.
I understand, Luke, and I know these are hard questions, but we need to ask them so we can understand what happened. Was Jake ever mean to you? Did you ever fight?
He was never mean to anybody. He never fought with anybody.
What about Kolt Martin or Seth Cooper? Did he fight with them sometimes?
[Picks at a stain on the table.]
Luke? Did Jake fight with his friends?
No.
Were you ever afraid of him?
I’m afraid now that he’s gone. Can we talk about something else?
Okay. I like your Space Jam shirt.
Thanks. Jake gave it to me.
Space and basketball. Those are your favorite things, right?
Actually, can we be done talking?
Once upon a time there was
Nothing
and then there was
Something.
No, that’s not totally true.
Once upon a time
there was a very small, very dense, very hot
Something.
It wasn’t Nothing, but it didn’t look like much.
At least, I don’t think it did, but who knows?
There was no light to see it by.
And there was nobody to look at it.
Unless you believe in God.
Unless God was there before the
Nothing
that became
Something.
I believe in God.
I think.
But anyway, that very small, dense, hot
Something
E X P A N D E D
with a bang
(yeah, a BIG one)
and then there was a
Universe.
At first it was just
light
energy
gas
(not that kind)
and only the smallest, simplest atoms.
But after a while
(if you can call billions of years a while)
there were
galaxies
planets
oceans
mountains
grass and trees
seasons
whales
birds
cows
spiders
people.
And it was good.
Mostly.
Because as soon as there were people,
they could hurt themselves.
They could hurt each other.
And they did.
And it hasn’t stopped.
That’s what happened to my brother
when he disappeared.
Somebody took him in the night
when it was dark and the world felt small and secret
and nobody saw it coming,
except maybe God.
Now nobody knows where he is
on heaven?
or earth?
Nobody knows,
except maybe God.
So where is He?
And where is he?
The opposite of a big bang is a fadeaway.
Disappearing instead of
appearing.
Jake taught me to shoot a fadeaway two summers ago.
“My signature move,” he said.
“Impossible to defend without getting in my face,
in my space,
and the stripes call that foul
every
single
time.”
He was already falling backward
as the ball
rolled
off
his
fingertips,
and as beautiful as they were together,
the sight of them coming apart,
of Jake catching himself
as the ball whispered through the net—
it was so perfect I stopped breathing for a second.
“Try it,” he said.
“Make a hundred, and I’ll level you up to Beginner.”
So I tried
and I failed,
but with my brother beside me
I tried again.
Again.
Again.
By the time I made a hundred,
my arms were spaghetti.
The night he disappeared,
Jake made twelve of his famous fadeaways,
including the
game-winning shot.
Thirty-four points, fifteen boards,
twelve assists.
That triple-double
took the ball to the rim
and his team to the state title.
I felt so lucky to be his brother,
even though he didn’t throw me his warm-up
or give me a salute in the stands
like he had for
every
single
game
<
br /> since freshman year.
Instead, he looked up
at a shady, shadowy person in the back
during every timeout,
after every shot.
Who was he?
There was something familiar about the face
or the way he moved
or just
Something
that told me
I’d seen him before.
I usually like writing
more than talking,
and that is one reason why
I like
The Book of Luke and Jake.
The Book of Luke and Jake
sounds fancy, but it’s not.
It’s just a notebook
from the dollar store
and the title is written in Sharpie,
not gold.
It started that time
when Jake lost his biology notebook
and borrowed one of mine.
When he gave it back,
there was a joke inside
in his dark, spiky lowercase.
Why did Cinderella stink at basketball?
Because she kept running away from the ball.
After that, we started passing it
back
and forth,
writing
jokes, memories, and things to look forward to
(that’s Jake),
poems, basketball statistics, and science facts
(that’s me).
When you’re done writing,
you slide it under the other person’s pillow
and wait for him to find it
and wait for it to appear
under your pillow one night
with a new message on the next page.
It’s like getting a letter in the mailbox but
so
much
better.
Why else did Cinderella stink at basketball?
Because her coach was a pumpkin.
The record is eighty-seven days between messages,
Fadeaway Page 4