Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
My backpack feels full of lead as I walk onto campus Monday morning. A heavy fog covers the campus and there’s a crispness in the air I’d usually enjoy. The frost-covered grass signals Christmas is near, but it’s hard to feel excited because at this point, it’ll likely be a repeat of Thanksgiving.
The awkwardness of Dad being gone never lifted all weekend, even when Mom had to work and I babysat Hunter again.
There aren’t enough movies or cookies in the world to fill the Dad-shaped void.
I tried to keep the weekend light, but I could still see Hunter’s total devastation.
Even though Dad did call a couple times, neither one of us felt like talking to him.
During swim class, I avoid Analiese’s dark glare, but she sidles up to me in the locker room anyway.
Wasn’t she supposed to be done with this class and back to cross country or whatever?
It feels like she’s here simply to flaunt the power she has over me.
As usual, we’re the first ones there and every single one of our movements seems to send an echo through the space.
“Sorry about taking the swim captain mantle from you. No, wait,” she says with a condescending head tilt, “I’m not sorry. Our team deserves to have someone who honors her commitments in leadership.”
I slam my locker shut with more vim than necessary and turn to face her while working to pull my hair into a bun. I do not have it in me for Analiese today.
“Analiese, you’re delusional. Kim already emailed to meet with me about making me captain.”
She jerks back in surprise. “She emailed me too.”
“No.”
She lifts one dark eyebrow. “... yes?”
I huff in frustration. “I mean, that makes NO sense. Why would she email you when she emailed me?”
“Look, I don’t know what to tell you. She emailed me before Thanksgiving but then said she would have to reschedule when she’s feeling better. And then she emailed again this morning to say her daughter is now sick so she’s not sure when that will be.”
WHAT. I didn’t even get an email about her daughter! Or maybe I missed it this morning? Either way, this doesn’t make sense because there’s only one slot for team captain.
“There must be some mistake,” I say.
Analiese shrugs. “Maybe the mistake is yours, always thinking everything is about you. Per usual. Other people have lives too.”
Despite what she thinks, I do not make everything about me.
I cheerlead for Braden (metaphorically speaking), babysit Hunter, support my mom, and I’m literally here at swim class to help other athletes!
But the idea of defending myself feels like too much—like a ten thousand pound weight I don’t have the energy to lift.
So instead I turn and walk towards the pool without another word.
The rest of the morning passes in a blur.
Spanish flies by, and my AP lit teacher hands back our essays on Wuthering Heights that we submitted before Thanksgiving.
Perfect score. This should be good news, except I know Analiese probably received a perfect score as well.
I scowl at her from across the room, but she doesn’t notice.
During the mid-morning break, I hide in the library to work on homework and ignore Jenna’s text demanding we meet to talk. How can we talk when all the words are wound up inside like a huge knot? Untangling them alone feels impossible, let alone explaining them to someone else.
Later, I think I can slip out of calculus without Jake harassing me (he was talking to some guys behind him), but that is too much to hope for.
Things between Jake and me are fine, but my mom’s comments about him always having a crush on me have made it all…
weird. And I have enough on my plate to deal with right now.
“Hey,” he says gently while lightly grabbing my arm to get my attention, “you ok?”
I look into his eyes for a second before realizing it’s a mistake. There’s a tenderness and concern there that feels like something. To be honest, it reminds me of how Braden used to look at me. And wow, that thought hurts. I rub my chest, as if that could possibly ease the ache.
Braden can’t be bothered with me now, and that’s the cold, hard truth. The evidence can’t be ignored anymore. Not after that phone call and the way he blatantly ignored my text.
Resentment for Braden surges, but I attempt to tamp it down and focus on Jake’s question.
It’s not Jake’s fault Braden’s a bad boyfriend—at least, not all the details, like what happened this weekend.
An automatic answer of “yeah, fine” rises to my lips, but I pause and glance around the room, verifying it’s empty.
Instead of brushing him off, I offer some truth.
He’s the only one who seems to care or notice, and does it make me a bad person if I take advantage of that a little?
“Not really.”
Just two words, but so much more than that.
He gives a quick nod, then one hand goes to the back of his neck—a nervous tell he’s had since he was young. “Does it have to do with Jenna?”
A jolt slices through me. Has Jenna been talking about me?
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, maybe it’s not my place to say, but…”
“Spit it out, Jake! What did she say?” My mind whirls over the possibilities.
“It’s not so much what she said, but, Aves… she was crying last night.”
The word crying punches clean through me.
Guilt comes, hot and immediate. We’ve been more distant, but I know deep down she’s not to blame, not really.
I am. I’ve been stuffing all my secrets down and keeping them locked up, even from my best friend.
If I asked her to spend time one-on-one, she would.
But that would also mean not being able to hide anything from her.
“Look,” he says while clearing his throat, “don’t tell her I said that. She’d kill me.”
He gives me a stern look and I nod. Yeah, she totally would.
“She feels like you’ve been avoiding her and she’s said that your friendship might be over. I told her that’s ridiculous, but… is it? I’ve noticed you haven’t been around our house as much lately.”
Our gazes lock; his bright blue eyes penetrate my soul in a way I can’t remember ever feeling.
I open my mouth to say—something—but just then, my phone vibrates.
I break our eye contact and pull it out of my pocket, thankful for the distraction.
I turn slightly away from Jake to read the text but he doesn’t move. If anything he seems to get closer.
It’s from Braden!
Braden: Thinking of you while sitting in lecture this morning~
Braden: *Picture of a lecture hall full of students.*
“Why did he send you a stock photo?”
I ignore Jake long enough to tap out a quick response. What does he mean by “stock photo”? Is Jake trying to insinuate Braden is tricking me somehow? He may not always answer my texts, but that feels like a bridge too far.
Me: Miss you more than anything, and I wish I was in that lecture hall with you! *heart emoji*
“More than anything seems like a slight exaggeration.”
I whirl back towards Jake. “Maybe. But exaggerations in the name of love are appropriate, in my opinion. And it’s obviously not a stock photo—that’s absurd. Why would he send that?”
Jake pulls his phone from his back pocket, taps and swipes for a few seconds, then turns the screen toward me—revealing an identical shot of a lecture hall.
“It took me like ten seconds to find this on MIT's website.”
He must see the denials rising to the tip of my tongue because he swipes back on the browser to show me the search terms he originally typed into the search bar: “stock photo MIT lecture hall.”
My throat goes tight. It isn’t even the lie that makes my stomach drop. It’s how easy it was. I see the evidence; I’m not stupid. I can’t deny it, but my brain is doing a valiant battle with my heart, and my heart is not one to be easily defeated.
“Well, maybe the professor has a rule against pictures being taken during class, so Braden grabbed a picture online to share with me so I can feel a part of his experience.”
Jake raises an eyebrow. “Wow. Ok.”
I huff, even though there’s a little voice deep inside getting louder, telling me to pay attention. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means: why are you buying his BS? You know he’s not sitting in that class right now. It’s actually kinda insulting that he thinks you’d buy that, but here you are ready to buy what he’s selling. Why, Avery?”
My mouth opens, but nothing comes. Because…
I don’t know. I have no idea why I’ve let Braden practically ghost me, then feed me bits of suspicious information here and there, sprinkled in just often enough to keep me content to wait for more.
Then there’s the Tricia issue—who is she and why does she seem to keep popping up?
The truth is Braden and I are broken. I know that, but my loyal heart can’t let go of the boy with the beautiful brown eyes who became my best friend so many years ago.
It feels impossible to accept that the same boy is now a man off at college, or wherever he is, ignoring me after making so many promises to stay in touch.
You won’t even notice I’m gone, Av. We’ll be texting and calling all the time.
Lies, all of it.
Now it’s almost Christmas and I’ve had one or two short, impersonal phone calls and texts with literal stock photos.
I look up at Jake, whose sky-blue eyes are carefully watching me.
Jake has never lied to me. In fact, I distinctly remember the last time I’d accused him of lying—it was probably five or so years ago.
We were at the Taylors’ house watching a movie and eating snickerdoodles still warm from the oven, but when I went to grab another cookie I discovered the plate was empty.
When I’d accused Jake of eating the last one and he denied it, I’d said he was lying to cover up his cookie greed.
The look on his face had seemed genuinely horrified at the idea that I thought he'd eaten it and lied. But then Jake had simply reached to his side, to his plate that I couldn’t see from my side of the couch, and handed me the last cookie.
I was saving it for you, he said, so Jenna wouldn’t take it.
He was looking out for me then, and I know in my heart he is trying to look out for me now.
“I don’t know, Jake,” I finally mumble, defeated. “I really don’t know. But what am I supposed to do?”
“Investigate. Find evidence. Interrogate eyewitnesses.”
Despite my broken heart, I cough an abrupt laugh. “This isn’t a murder mystery.”
He shrugs. “Maybe not, but it is something that matters to you and we should do everything we can to get you some clear answers.”
“We?”
“Yeah, we,” he says almost dismissively, as if this is a given and shouldn’t be questioned. “Doesn’t Braden live right behind you? Why don’t we just go visit his parents and ask where Braden is?”
I shake my head. “I was going to do that over Thanksgiving weekend but they were gone. Supposedly visiting Braden in Massachusetts.”
“Well, they should be back now, right?”
Yes, but the idea of knocking on Mr. and Mrs. Patel’s front door with Jake standing beside me, intent on interrogating them about the whereabouts of their son sends a shiver of terror through me.
What if they think I’m crazy? I’ve been questioning my sanity myself often enough, and this would add fuel to the fire.
“Jake, we can’t just go banging on their door and demanding answers.”
“Of course, not. We’re not crazy. We’ll meet up to do more calculus this Friday after hockey practice, and we’ll casually watch their house through your bedroom window and wait for them to come home.”
“You want to stake out the Patels from my bedroom window?”
Instead of acknowledging how absurd that sounds, he simply nods in confirmation and continues.
“Then we’ll even more casually go in your backyard and start a game of volleyball, when we’ll ‘accidentally’ knock the ball over to their yard.
Then like the friendly neighbors we are, we’ll bring a plate of cookies over and knock on their door, explaining that our ball flew into their backyard. We’ll apologize and offer the cookies.”
“Ok. And how is that going to help us figure out what’s up with Braden?”
“Because while we all enjoy a fresh, homemade cookie, we’ll subtly mention what a bummer it is that Braden isn’t here to enjoy the cookies. Then you can come in and ask how things are going at MIT and how their trip was to visit him.”
I nod slowly, envisioning the scene unfold. Yes, this could work. The Jenna situation gnaws at the back of my mind, but one crisis at a time.
“We’ll even code name it. Operation Cookies,” he adds.
“Ok,” I say. “Let’s do it.”