Chapter 16
After a string of failed coyote hunts with Whitley, it’s time for real answers. I don’t even think I was much help to her anyway because I was too distracted by one question.
Can Murray Mifflin still see me?
I reverse out of Whitley’s driveway and head for Latitudes Avenue—Murray’s home address. It’s the oldest road in Penango, tucked just off Main Street. A mile in, the river appears through my passenger-side window, its slow-moving water a familiar backdrop.
Soon, stately homes emerge from between the trees.
Most are white, but one is stone, another pale yellow.
They all have too many windows to count.
Their wraparound porches stretch like endless boardwalks, draped in hanging plants, American flags, and wind chimes like they’re stuck in an eternal Fourth of July.
I pull up to 1109 and spot the dim glow of blue light seeping through the only arched window in the front of the house—Murray’s room. I wait and watch for a silhouette to cross the light.
Nothing appears.
My gaze drifts downward to the front porch, a place I know far too well.
A key is hidden beneath an empty clay pot beside the door. The second porch step never had a tread. It’s more awkward stepping down than up, but I got used to it. The third window to the right of the door doesn’t lock. If the key ever goes missing, that’s how we get inside.
Suddenly, the front door swings open, snapping my focus back. A bearded man stumbles onto the porch. The screen door slams into the aluminum siding with a crack, like a firework exploding too soon.
He plants one boot on the first step. I brace myself knowing the second step still has no tread. His other boot drops straight through the gap, and he crashes face-first onto the lawn. A burst of laughter rings out behind him from the doorway. Murray’s mom steps outside, shaking her head.
I roll down my window farther to hear them better.
“Go on and get yourself home so we can do this again,” Mrs. Mifflin says.
“You like this view?” the man asks, shaking his backside as he rolls in the grass.
Murray’s mom smiles. She walks to the lawn, then gently kicks the man’s side. “Get up, you dufus,” she says. “You’re going to wake Murray. He’s taking a nap.”
I sigh. If she only knew her son barely slept. I look back to Murray’s bedroom window, and his black silhouette observes the scene below. I wonder if he’s observing me too.
I exit my truck.
“Stetson?” his mom asks as I walk up the front pavers. “What are you doing here?” The bearded man scrambles to his feet. His face reddens.
“Hi, Mrs. Mifflin,” I say, stopping a few yards in front of her. I’m not sure what Murray has told her about us. She used to love me. I wonder if those feelings have been lost too. “I’m here to see Murray.”
She takes a deep breath. “Well, he’ll certainly be happy to hear that.”
I swallow.
“He’s upstairs.” She points inside the house. “Been a wreck this week.”
I nod, then walk toward the door. Mrs. Mifflin grabs my arm as I pass. “If you ain’t kind to him, you’re going to regret coming in my house,” she whispers.
The bearded man snickers.
“Understood,” I say. “I won’t be too long.”
“Good. Because he needs his sleep.” She releases me and I turn my walk into a jog.
I doubt Murray is taking a nap because I can’t remember the last time he slept through the night. When we first started having sleepovers, I thought he was a psychopath plotting my murder like in one of my favorite true crime podcasts.
At two in the morning, I’d hear him cooking macaroni and cheese. At three, the shower would turn on. By five, he’d be playing video games like it was the middle of the afternoon. But it wasn’t insomnia that kept him up. Murray never slept because he never knew who his mom had in their house.
After his parents split and his dad took a trucking job, a rotating cast of strangers filled his place. Murray told me about midnight bathroom run-ins with men he’d never seen before, about times they’d mistake his bedroom for his mom’s and push open his door without warning.
But some nights, the imposter wasn’t an imposter. It was his dad. And that kept Murray awake just as much as the strangers. His dad never stayed for more than a day, but Murray made sure he was always awake to say hello.
I reach the top of the stairs just as Murray walks out of the bathroom. He’s shirtless, wearing black Stillwell Trail Football shorts. He scratches his shoulder absentmindedly before disappearing inside his bedroom.
“Murray,” I call out. He doesn’t return to the hall.
I grab the banister and take a deep breath as I survey the familiar second floor. This hallway is where I first realized just how handsome Murray was.
It was the weekend before sophomore year homecoming.
“Should we coordinate our outfits for the dance?” I asked from his doorway.
“I don’t have an outfit,” Murray said.
His house once belonged to his grandparents, so that Thursday, we dug through his late grandfather’s closet in search of something he could wear.
What we found was a time capsule of suits from every era—long black waistcoats, pinstriped vests, checkered blazers, baby blue trousers, and even top hats.
“Fashion show! Fashion show!” I chanted, clapping my hands as Murray rifled through drawers, pulling out funky-colored socks and thick gold rings.
He tried on suit after suit and strutted across the upstairs hallway, as if his long legs were meant for the runway.
The first tan suit sagged at his ankles. He leaned against his mom’s door and licked his lips, staring right through me. The dark circles under his eyes stood in sharp contrast to the bright fabric, making him look like a flamboyant British rock star at the height of his fame.
Next, he stepped out of his grandfather’s room behind oversized sunglasses, slowly pulling forest green trousers up his leg. He teased his ankle, then his calf. He stopped at his thigh, then wagged a finger at me with a pout.
I laughed every time. And every time, I was stunned by how effortlessly he fit into each look.
He was a man for every decade—classic like the ’20s, smooth like the ’50s, trendy like the ’70s, and rebellious like the ’80s.
I wanted him forever, in perpetuity, the way those suits had stood the test of time. I thought, maybe we could too.
But looks only get you so far. And time made sure I learned that.
I knock on his open bedroom door. “Hey, Murray. It’s Stetson.” I turn inside and find him playing a video game at his desk.
“Murray?” I question.
He doesn’t move or say anything.
I thrust my hands in my pockets. “Murray, can you please tell me if you’re ignoring me or not? I have this weird thing going on and I really need you to say something.” I grind my teeth. “Anything.”
He grabs a pretzel and pops it into his mouth.
“Please.” My voice cracks. “Can you see me?” I reach for him. My shaky hand hovers above his shoulder. Then the front door slams closed downstairs.
Murray pauses his game. “Who was that, Mom?” he asks, yelling into the hallway.
“Stetson,” she says. “Didn’t he come up there to say hi?”
Murray jumps to his feet. “Stetson! Where?”
He tosses his video game controller onto the desk and spins toward his mom’s voice with a broad grin. His hazel eyes flicker, alive with something I’ve only seen a handful of times. Once after our first kiss. Another on the day he made the Penango College football team.
Next, he unexpectedly passes right through me as if I’m not even there.
My skin detonates from the inside out and sends a cloud of dustlike particles bursting into the air.
My breath catches as I watch tiny specs of my body shimmering in the blue light of his TV screen.
A wave of dizziness crashes over me, leaving my limbs weightless.
Murray stomps down the stairs. “Where’s Stetson?” he asks.
The shattered pieces of my body snap back together in an instant, like iron filings in science class drawn to a magnet, merging into something whole again. But even as my body reassembles, I feel hollow inside, and unsteady.
This must be what Xander has felt the past ten years. A decade of numbness.
The shock of what just happened knocks me off balance, and I collapse onto Murray’s bed. A sob escapes before I can stop it.
My tears soak into his sheets. They’re pale blue and covered in a repeating pattern of soccer balls, basketballs, baseballs, and footballs.
They form perfect diamonds across the fabric that are easy to follow.
I trace the pattern with my fingertips, tapping each ball in an even rhythm as my breath shudders out of me.
“Soccer ball, basketball, baseball, football,” I whisper. “Soccer ball, basketball, baseball, football. Soccer ball, basketball, baseball, football.”
The counting calms me and steadies my breathing. Below, I hear Murray muttering frustrations as he climbs the stairs. But I don’t move from his bed. I don’t even look up. What difference does it make? I got my answer.
He can no longer see me.