“If Ariel had a sister,” I explained, “we could ask her. Show her the photos. Because we can’t do that with her parents. They hate us.”
“I don’t think they—”
“They do, Jack. They hate us.”
We went to your house the week after. To hear the news firsthand, instead of through gossip and rumors. They let us into the house, but it was clear that they didn’t want us to stay there. They told us what the doctors said. It was what we’d already feared.
Jack ground out his cigarette and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Ev, I don’t know what to tell you. We don’t even know if it’s the same girl who’s leaving the pictures for us. Don’t you think if these people were really important to Ariel, she would’ve told us about them?”
I was calmer now that he was using words like we and us.
I’d felt that way with you, too. Whenever you talked about we and us, I felt things made sense, that we were going through everything together, that if I could take it, then I could carry you through. It was only when you splintered off into your own lost I that things became complicated, overwhelming.
“I don’t know where I am, Evan.”
“I’m seeing red everywhere. It’s just … everywhere.”
“I am underwater right now. You don’t understand. I’m underwater.”
“I need a gun.”
“Evan? I need—”
“Evan?”
Jack was waving his hand in front of me.
“Evan.”
“What?”
“Don’t do that!” He was angry. “Jesus, not you, too, okay? Not you, too.”
We just stood there for a moment, neither of us knowing what to say next. Just like old times. And then a girl asked, “Is this a bad time?”
“Hey, Miranda,” Jack said, his tone lightening.
I didn’t know whether to say hi or not. Miranda Lee wasn’t someone I usually said hi to. She’d never been mean to me or nice to me or anything. She’d never been anything to me. She was one year younger than us and played sports, which was probably how Jack knew her.
“Hi,” she said to both of us. “What’s going on?”
I still had the photos out. I quickly put them back in my bag.
“Evan was just showing me some of his pictures,” Jack explained smoothly keeping you a secret. “He’s working on a project. It’s pretty cool.”
“Cool,” Miranda echoed.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. “Anyway, thanks for taking a look, Jack. I guess I’ll be going. I mean, I was already going, so it’s not you that’s making me go, Miranda. I don’t want you to think that.”
“Oh, good,” Miranda said. She didn’t sound sarcastic. If I’d said something like that to you, you would have been merciless. You had no use for sputtering.
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
Every You, Every Me
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!” she 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.”