Chapter 39
CENTRAL TEXAS HILL COUNTRY
I wake up in the dark, my heart kicking out at my chest in terror. I don’t know where I am, but I think it’s outside—the air is thick and muggy, and something is crawling on my elbow.
Then the moon comes out from behind a cloud and I remember.
Max is still next to me, his glasses askew on his nose. I don’t know when we drifted off. Sometime after kissing, and listening to music on his phone, and kissing some more. His breath is deep and slow. I close my eyes and listen to it, trying to match my breath to his.
His water bottle is on its side next to the blanket, and I grab it and drink for a long time. My phone should be somewhere over here. I feel around until I find it and touch the screen.
But instead of my own lock-screen image of a rabbit eating a dandelion, I’m faced with a sketch of Princess Peach from Super Mario Bros, altered so it looks like she has tattoos and piercings and a tight black corset. Goth Peach. It’s Max’s phone. I grope around for mine but can’t find it.
I glance at Max in the light of his own screen. He’s laying on his back, his lashes dark across his cheek and his mouth slightly open. The screen registers his face and unlocks.
Oops. Well, it’s not like I meant it to do that. And maybe I can use his phone to find my own. I scroll through and find the flashlight icon.
I expect it to light up when I hit it, but it doesn’t.
It opens an app, one I don’t recognize. I’m about to throw down his phone and give up while I’m ahead.
But then I see Lynette.
My fingers convulse around the edge of the phone. I glance at Max. He’s still asleep, breathing slow and peaceful. I turn away so the light won’t shine in his face.
She’s posing in her bikini, knee deep in the river.
Her pale blond hair is long and loose and she’s puckering her lips for the camera, half goofy, half sexy.
The date next to the picture is from late March, though I don’t know if that’s when it was taken or if that’s just when he downloaded it on his phone.
I stare down at her face, its familiar lines, the mole on her cheekbone.
It hurts to see her there—this pretty girl trying too hard, this pretty girl alone in the river.
The next one, though, hurts worse. Because it’s a selfie, and Max is in it too, his arm around her shoulders, his face nuzzling her neck.
She’s laughing, trying to take the picture.
The next few show them kissing. They are in poor focus but clear enough for me to see.
My throat is tight—I can feel a scream there, in the dark beneath my skin.
I should put this down. I should back out of the app, put it down, pretend I never saw it.
I should jab pencils in my eyes in the hope that they’ll take out my frontal lobe.
I should never have looked. I should never have unlocked his phone. I should …
But I’m still scrolling through. I’m still looking. There are other pictures. One of her topless, making heavy metal devil horns with both hands. Some of the two of them posing together, kissing, lying next to each other.
I sit up onto the edge of the blanket. The light of the screen glares bright in the dark, and I back out of the app.
I look for Sekrit.
It opens to his main account, Midnight_Phase.
But it’s easy enough to see his alts when I log out and try to get back in.
It looks like he’s got three. One, Hotdog_Assassin, is in a bunch of video game communities.
A second, Forsaken_One, follows a bunch of groups that are labeled NSFW. I don’t even look at that one.
And then there’s the third. And of course, I know what that one will be before I lay eyes on it, but when I see it there my heart collapses into itself.
Rockytruther2001.
The screen goes blurry as my hand starts to shake. I’m frozen in place, the darkness rushing in around me. My breath is coming faster and faster, and I can feel that scream, still in my throat, and I still can’t move. And then I look over at Max, and I see that his eyes are open.
He is staring right at me.