Chapter 24
- Sugar-free gummy bears
- Laxatives in the kombucha machine
- Replace protein powder with baking flour
I look up from the list on the sloth-shaped notepad between Nora and me. Her handwriting leaves much to be desired and I think the bottle and a half of wine we’ve split between us has something to do with it. But I am enamored by the pure evil she’s jotting down in pink, glittery gel pen.
“Nora, who are these for?”
Her eyes narrow over her wineglass. “ You know who .”
Unfortunately, I do know who. For the past several days, as much as I’ve tried to ignore the world outside my apartment, Cade keeps seeping into my brain and the curious gremlins in the back of my mind want to know what kind of shitstorm is brewing online. I wonder if people have moved on and forgotten about it, or if the actual fans of The Out There have prevailed and pushed the haters back into the dark.
But I am far too scared to look and definitely too scared to ask.
I haven’t even turned my phone back on since I left Hayden’s. I’m sure I’m going to turn it back on to a million notifications and “good night” texts from him each night. It’s hard to fall asleep without hearing him say it, but I can’t face up to all I ran away from yet. I know Nora’s been keeping him updated, and at the very least, letting him know I’m okay.
I thought taking time to process what happened and lie low was the right call. Now I just feel like a coward.
“What’s the deal with the gummy bears?”
Nora’s eyes widen. “Just go on Amazon. Look up reviews for sugar-free gummy bears.”
“I don’t have my phone.”
She groans. “Fine, they make you shit yourself. Like, violently.”
“So do the laxatives.”
“Yes.”
“So, you want to get back at Cade by making him shit his pants?” I ask. I mean, it’d be satisfying as hell, but it wouldn’t actually fix anything.
“No, not all of it. The flour won’t do that. It’s just gross.”
“R…right. I’m going to…go back to watching the movie now.”
Nora thinks the other best way to get through a crisis is by getting high and watching Big Fat Liar , because apparently, Frankie Muniz strikes again. I don’t know if that works or would even show up as a Cosmo sex tip, but by the end of the movie, I am most definitely not thinking about Cade or Hayden or The Out There . I am thinking of Paul Giamatti’s blue skin and orange eyebrows, wondering how the hell he ended up in this movie. I did, however, force Nora to wait several days before subjecting me to this. I needed time on my own to process my grief and do private sad activities like watching Sarah McLachlan ASPCA commercials on repeat.
To be fair, it hasn’t all been terrible. Nora’s great at distracting me with everything from building an obstacle course for Lizzie to deep, honest conversations about our feelings that are tough, but oddly cathartic. One of them leads me down a rabbit hole of Googling the phrase “gray asexual” that I find comforting and feels like finding the last hidden word on a word search puzzle about myself.
When the movie ends, and I have nothing to distract me, I start to cry again. I blame the wine and weed and potentially PMS.
“Oh no!” Nora wails. “We were doing so good! Should we watch the live-action Scooby-Doo movies next?”
“No!” I cry. “They solve mysteries. That’s what we were doing.”
“…Right. You know, I’ve never seen anyone triggered by the Mystery Gang before.”
“Hayden looks like Velma. But a man .”
“He…yeah, he does. That’s a fair reason.”
“I’m upset. And confused.”
I collapse into my hands. I don’t even have Cheetos. I must mumble this at some point, because Nora pats my back and waves her phone in front of my face.
“Don’t worry. Jamie is bringing Cheetos.”
“Jamie’s on his way here?”
Oh god, Jamie is going to see me crying into a bag of Cheetos. I thought the segment of me brainstorming Bigfoot mating calls was bad.
“Yeah, I told him we were really going through it.”
“You? I think it’s mostly me going through it.”
“ No ,” she drawls. “I’m sad because you’re sad and because I want to rub Cade’s balls through a cheese grater, but I can’t because I think that’s a felony .”
“It’s totally a felony,” I sniff. “But I’d bail you out of jail.”
“I’d still have a criminal record.”
There’s a knock at the door.
“How’d he do that so fast?” I gasp.
“You said you wanted Cheetos twenty minutes ago.”
“I just said it.”
“That was not the first time.”
“Oh…”
Nora pops off the couch and opens the door for Jamie. She lets out an elated squeal and throws her arms around him. Jamie, ever the good sport, takes her in his arms and gives her a squeeze.
He only interrupts their sad hug to shove a Crunchwrap into her hands. Then, there’s another squeal.
Jamie joins us on the couch, shrugging off his backpack and passing me my large bag of Cheetos. I resolve that the next time I’m in the Skroll offices, I’m begging Chloe to give him a raise. He deserves it.
I dive into the Cheetos like an Olympic swimmer.
“Thank you,” I say. “You really didn’t have to do this.”
He shrugs. “I’m expensing it.”
As Nora happily chomps on a Crunchwrap and sips her glass of wine, I look at the way Jamie looks at her and how he loves the tiny, weird parts of her without even thinking about it. It makes me think of the way my heart feels when Hayden does something particularly goofy or ridiculous. I fell in love with him in moments where he hummed the X-Files theme song while perplexed, or how he’d mouth the words to Bill Pullman’s Independence Day speech. Some people are authentically themselves, and Hayden is one of them. I loved that about him. I still do.
“Did you come from the office?” Nora asks him.
He nods, reaching his arms behind his head. There’s a look of weariness in his expression like he’s spent the entire day nose down in his computer with few chances to look up. “Mothman episode is almost done being edited. It’s looking good, by the way. You two are getting better with a camera.”
Were getting better with a camera, I want to correct. Before I can, he groans.
“The Area 51 episode, though…”
“What about it?”
Jamie rubs his hands over his face. “It’s rough. We spent all of today shooting and reshooting the talking head parts and it’s…Hayden’s, uh…”
“Awful?” Nora chimes in. I frown.
“No,” Jamie hedges.
“He’s floundering, isn’t he?” I ask. Jamie doesn’t need to say it, because it’s all over his face. I knew this would happen, and no matter how brave Hayden tried to seem, he knew this would be how it ended too.
“Floundering’s a good word for it.”
I try to swallow my guilt with another chomp of Cheetos, but it doesn’t work. “How so?”
“It’s a lot like it was at the start—relying on his script way too much, wooden, and he keeps looking next to him like you’re going to have something to argue, but…”
“I’m not there,” I finish.
Another nod. “I think he’s only doing it to finish out the season strong, but it’s clear he doesn’t want to be there if you aren’t.”
“ The Out There is Hayden’s. He doesn’t need me,” I push back, but even I know that’s not true. The Out There is something wonderful that Hayden and I have made ours . I think of future seasons where I follow him around the world, bringing out his bright colors and emotions as I tell him ghosts are fake, as I punch holes in his conspiracy theories.
“Need you or not, I think he wants you there. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were even coming around on some of this stuff,” Jamie teases.
I choke on a Cheeto. “Absolutely not.”
“You sure?” Nora asks.
“Positive. I have an image to uphold, dammit.”
We sulk on the couch for a few more hours until the high starts to wear off and Jamie heads home. When I change for bed, I hesitate over my drawer of T-shirts. One sticks out to me. Hayden’s “I Want to Believe” T-shirt. I curl my fingers around the worn fabric and hold it against my chest. I haven’t washed it yet, and it still smells just like him.
If this were any other night, I would be curled up against him, going to bed early before we head to Area 51 tomorrow. I keep making attempts at packing my bag, like I’m going to suddenly find the bravery to face whatever lies ahead for us.
I slip the T-shirt on and step into the bathroom I share with Nora. She’s brushing her teeth but stops when I enter. Then she looks at my T-shirt. In the mirror, her eyes flick up to me. Then my shirt. Then me again. “Girl.”
“What? It was in my drawer.”
Nora spits into the sink. “Remember when you showed up here asking for a place to stay? I asked you what made you change your mind. You told me that you were done letting Cade do this to you.”
It’d been one of the hardest nights of my life, but I survived it. And I survived him. I decided to make a clean break when he told me he didn’t want me on Noobie Brothers , but that if we wanted to keep sleeping together, we could. When I said no, the verbal claws came out, when they’d merely been poking into my skin for years.
I knew it wouldn’t be easy to unlearn it all, but I stopped him from winning once before.
I think I can do it again.
I want to do it again.
“You fought for yourself before,” Nora says. She begins to apply a face mask. “Just saying. Oh, and since you’re being a hermit, maybe you should see this.”
She slides her phone across the counter to a post Hayden’s shared on his page. It’s a photo of the two of us up north while Bigfoot hunting. Hayden was tired of not getting me in any of the pictures, so he asked two old fishermen to take the photo for us. It took both of them to figure it out.
We look too happy. Everything felt simple then, both of us lost in the excitement of what our relationship could be. I wasn’t thinking about Cade or about how anything I did would be perceived. I was thinking about Bigfoot hunting, how I was going to dodge all the mosquitos I was about to encounter, and how hard I was falling in love with Hayden.
I read his caption, full of snarky quips and his usual exceptional skill with words, and most importantly, an entire section about me. His words are hardly different from the ones he’s said to me in person, but I appreciate them nonetheless.
Over the past few days, there’s been a lot of talk online about our show and Hallie and I and not all of it is great. I know it’s the nature of being a public figure, but when it gets personal, it’s hard to stay quiet.
I think how people treat others says a lot about them and little about the people they mistreat. It says a lot when someone uses their platform to spread hate and rumors when they could be, I don’t know…promoting their own show, but that’s none of my business, I guess.
What is my business, though, is our show and my co-host. @theoutthere began five years ago in my closet because I hadn’t figured out how to build a recording booth yet and I brought listeners stories about every conspiracy and cryptid I thought people should know about all from one desk. Now the show has me traveling around the country looking for ghosts and monsters and has a wider audience than I could ever imagine. I seriously can’t believe you guys are all here to listen to us argue about alien corpses, like…damn.
But all of that is because of @halliebarrett, who plucked me out of obscurity and made a decent show great. For someone who doesn’t believe in any of this stuff, she believed in this show from the beginning and I am so grateful for that. But I’m even more grateful that she’s the one I get to do it with.
Not only does Hallie seem to always know what to do to make our show kick ass, she’s one of the kindest, funniest, most incredible people I’ve ever known, and spending every day with her makes me the luckiest guy in the world. Anyone who disagrees obviously a) doesn’t know her that well or b) sucks. Case closed.
I know the fans of our show love her as much as I do, but if there’s any question about it, I am always proudly Team Hallie. Partner in crime. Best friend. Favorite Nonbeliever.
P.S. If you respond with nasty comments, I know how to use a block button. Just ask Zak Bagans.
I click open to the comments. The first one—from a user named ZaddyBigfoot—simply reads “why tf does this guy have zak bagans blocked on ig??” and it feels like an unexpectedly promising omen. I’ve been avoiding everything online for days now, worried that people would latch on to Cade’s words like my brain does, but a quick read of these comments tells me I might have been so scared of a small but loud minority. And that the vitriol hasn’t survived.
Omg obsessed with these two.
If there is no season two I am going to eat my arm i s2g.
Hallie’s the best thing to happen to this show.
We love both of you so much.
Ok fandom agreement to refer to CB as “bitchfoot” from here on out?
No, that’s insulting to Bigfoot.
“I’d guess a few of them at least would be really upset if you didn’t show up at Area 51 tomorrow,” Nora remarks, eyebrows raised. “You can believe them, or Cade and his fuckboy army.”
I pass her back her phone and disappear into my room. For the first time in days, I turn on my phone. It short-circuits and has to hard restart because of all the notifications, but once it calms down, I start working through the comments. There’s so much love and support and cute compilation videos I’m tagged in of all our funniest moments on the season thus far. It’s overwhelming to a degree I hadn’t expected. I don’t know how much of it has to do with Hayden’s post, or if people really care about me the way it seems like they do.
When the social media apps stop blowing up, some of my texts come through. A couple spam, a few from Nora of weird cat videos she found online, and most importantly, a good night text from Hayden every night we’ve been apart.
I sit in bed for a while, overwhelmed and working my way toward shoving my fears to the furthest corners of my mind. I Google the drive to Area 51. I sign up for an online therapy service and am quickly matched with a kindly middle-aged woman named Maggie, and she sends me a message asking what I want the most help with. I tell her to buckle up, but she seems ready for anything. I stare down the plastic alien from Hayden’s drink, who now sits on my nightstand. I even watch an episode of Cosmic Conspiracies .
And then, I open my laptop and I listen to Cade’s podcast episode again. I listen to him belittle and berate me. He told me I didn’t matter, that I didn’t stand out, and that I was hard to love for so long. I believed him because I didn’t know how to believe in anything else.
But I don’t have to do that anymore.
I believe in myself and in The Out There and anything that comes after.
I believe in the love I have for Hayden and that it’s worth fighting for.
I open a new email to Chloe, cc Kevin and HR, paste the link to Cade’s podcast into the body, and begin to type.
Hi Chloe and Champ,
I want to bring something to your attention.