Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
Someone knows.
Who is this? I write back immediately.
I get no response.
Please just tell me who this is.
Nothing.
The smart thing to do would be to stop wearing the ring, probably.
Stop aggravating whoever it is behind the Instagram account—but people will notice if the ring suddenly disappears from my hand.
Besides, I don’t want this person to think they’ve intimidated me.
I’m terrified, but they don’t have to know that.
So I keep it on and try to keep going about my life.
When I arrive at the hospital on Monday to see Jason, Nurse Harlow, the one who told me Jason can hear us, waves at me. “You’re back!”
Do the people of this town have some sort of chart, tracking my attendance?
It’s ridiculous. But it does remind me that I have to do better.
I can’t miss more days of seeing Jason, so I force myself through twenty minutes of inane rambling at his bedside.
I tell him about our friends and how senior year is going and my running times.
I read him more soccer scores. I tell him what he’s missed in Spanish class, but I am suddenly exhausted.
“I’m mad at you,” I tell Jason, letting all my pretenses fall. “I keep finding out new things about you, and I thought they’d help me make sense of everything, but all I feel is doubt.”
I touch the ring. “Why did you have this? Who did you mean to give it to?
“And your dad,” I say, “I can’t believe you told him we weren’t serious. Have you been lying to me all this time?”
My eyes suddenly get very blurry. “If we’re not us, I don’t know what we are. Who else am I supposed to love?”
I hold his pointer finger. “Tell me if you can hear me.”
I wait for a squeeze or a tap, but nothing happens. Not even a twitch.
Defeated, I go into his bathroom, pull what I need from the travel bag I take everywhere with me, and redo my makeup.
Today’s open secret is my nude lip, because I wish I was invisible.
In addition, I’ve been wearing a series of graphic tees all week because I think I’ll always feel a little angsty until Jason wakes up.
Then I leave for school.
All day, I keep obsessively checking Instagram, waiting for another message or odd comment, something that confirms to me that someone is out for my blood. In many ways, the possibility that I might be in trouble is worse than if I knew for sure that I was in trouble.
“Diabolical,” I say, quietly cursing whoever this person is, as I gather up last period’s things.
The fact is, it’s only been two days, but I am already tired of being messed with.
The ring picture has now scored double the number of comments I got for the kissing photo that made me and Jay Instagram official last year, post–Kiss Cam.
I know none of this is important in the grand scheme of things, but I find I can’t even enjoy the positive attention because this nameless, faceless bully has decided to torment me.
And I can’t get the support of my friends on all this either.
“Why would they say that’s their ring?” I imagine Amber asking, confused, as I blather something about how, funny story, the person is right, and I actually have no idea whose ring I’m wearing.
Could be that it’s a ring Jason bought, or it’s equally likely some random person dropped it in Jay’s car when he gave people a ride home after games.
I decide that, regardless of who this is, I’m making the next move. I’m going to figure out who they are before they strike again. I just might need a little help, and I have an inkling of where to get it.
My plan requires me to duck out as soon as school is done, but Amber and Mo are hovering by my locker. “How about ‘Love is an open door’ for my senior quote?” Amber asks immediately when she sees me, then offers me one of her homemade brownies. “Don’t you think it’s very me?”
“It is very you, but also very Frozen,” I say, taking a brownie and looking longingly toward the back doors of the school.
Amber sighs as I open my locker and take out my bag. “How about ‘All’s fair in love and war’?”
“So cliché,” Mo says. “And a disturbing sentiment either way.”
“You don’t think anything goes if there’s love involved?”
Mo and I react automatically. “No.”
“You just haven’t been in love yet,” Amber says, pointing at Mo. “When you find the right guy, you’ll get it.”
“Bet you I won’t,” Mo mutters.
To me, Amber says, “But you. What’s your excuse?”
I shrug as I close my locker door. “Love doesn’t make everything okay. Like, you couldn’t murder people for love,” I say.
“But people do,” Ambs protests. “Not saying they should, but love is that powerful.”
I laugh. “I think you might be overidentifying with murderers. Or watching too much Dateline. Hey, I have to go. I’m taking pictures of soccer practice for the yearbook.”
They accept this excuse, but as I make my way outside, I wonder what Dad the “expert” would say about our conversation on love.
Probably something as irrational as Amber, about how love is everything.
Love is the only thing worth writing about, worth living for, worth spending money on.
All my life, wherever Dad took me—a bookstore or candy store or any type of store—he’d hold out his arms majestically as if he owned the place.
“What do you love, Zadiebug?” As long as he could afford it, he would buy anything I picked.
The question thrilled me when I was a kid, but it became unbearably stressful the older I got.
I so badly wanted to choose right. Choose the best thing, so I didn’t have any regrets.
Today I sit in the bleachers, finishing my brownie and doing homework until it’s getting close to the end of practice.
Then it’s “go time” for my plan, so I head out to the side of the field with my camera.
At this point, most of the team is on the sidelines, cooling off or stretching.
Marcus is still on the field, Coach Kyle next to him.
“Plan B stepping in as captain is one thing I never thought I’d see,” Holden snorts, coming up beside me.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“He talked to Coach. Promised to do a complete one-eighty and start taking the game seriously.”
My heart skips a beat. “When?”
“Yesterday, maybe?” Holden says. “Who knows?”
I wonder if it’s because of the talk in our dream.
And the longer I stick around, the more Holden’s words are confirmed.
Marcus is playing Jason’s usual position on Friday night.
Even I, with my minimal understanding of soccer, can see that the coaches are treating Marcus differently than they normally do.
Usually, he is on the bench, a substitute for Jay or one of the other forwards, but right now the coaches are watching Marcus like a hawk and nitpicking everything from his footwork to the way he makes contact with the ball.
Marcus looks miserable, and I don’t blame him.
He’s playing with his shirt off, and my eyes can’t help being drawn to his toned abs. Sweat has made his blond hair darker than normal. If someone called Marcus a skinny Thor, they would, technically, not be incorrect. But Jason is definitely more my type. Clean-cut, sweet, disciplined.
“Psst, Marcus!” I say, trying to get his attention as soon as Coach Kyle walks away. “Marcus!”
“Is it dream time?” he asks when he finally comes off the field.
I glance around, horrified. “Would you keep it down?”
Marcus grins, lowers his voice. “I doubt anybody’s going to know what that means.” His bad mood dissipated as soon as the coaches let up on him.
“You never know,” I say, irritated by how paranoid I sound.
He gives me a questioning look, and I take the opportunity to say, “I have to talk to you.”
“Zadie Cartwright wants to talk? I am dreaming. I don’t even have a good This or That prepared.”
“Stop it,” I insist. He grins as he takes his hair out of the ponytail he plays with and runs his hand through it.
“Am I upsetting you? I really wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing.”
Oh my God. I turn on my heel as I lament what a shitty plan this was. “Okay, I’m going.”
Marcus chuckles and catches up to me. “Fine. I just had to get that out of my system. So?” he says, after we’ve been walking together a millisecond longer than is comfortable. Last time we were both in this parking lot, he was threatening me, telling me he knew Jason had broken up with me.
“It’s not you, is it?” I suddenly feel the need to ask.
“Is what not me?” Marcus looks genuinely confused as he bites into a granola bar.
“The Instagram bully.”
Marcus rocket-laughs, a fizzy, unexpectedly delighted sound. Frankly it feels so disrespectful and cruel that I storm ahead and don’t stop walking until he catches up to me.
“Hey! Hey!”
“Is everything a joke to you?”
“You know I don’t even use Instagram, right?” Marcus asks.
The truth is, I don’t think Marcus sent me that message. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t seem like something he would do.
That being the case, I still hate that he’s the only one I have to turn to for help.
“Someone’s harassing me.”
Marcus’s face loses its glee. “Explain.”
I pull out my phone and show him the message.
“God, what a nightmare.” His lips quirk.
“Marcus!”
I reach out to shove him. I’m touching his chest before I realize that Marcus Riddick and I are not the kind of friends—or acquaintances, or dream buddies—who touch each other.
I pull my hand back as if electrocuted, and his laughter fades.
“You’re the worst,” I say.
We walk in silence for a second.
“So whose ring do you think it is?” he asks.
“Either Jason’s or somebody else’s. If I knew which, I wouldn’t be asking you for help.”
“Okay, okay,” Marcus says. Then, “Do you even know who Sly and the Family Stone are, or does the shirt just go with the theme of the day?”
I blink at him, because I’m confident I’ve misheard. “Excuse me?”
As he tears through his second granola bar in as many minutes, he nods at my shirt. Dad’s shirt. The words Sly and the Family Stone have been pressed on the black fabric in red. “Are you an actual fan, or is it an on-theme thing?”
Never mind that Marcus must have been looking at my shirt to know what it says; the words he’s saying are simply not possible.
“On-theme? There’s no theme.” I sound like there’s a theme.
“No? I’d have sworn there was, given that you’ve worn something black every day since the breakup.”
I’m frozen. How can Marcus Riddick of all people have figured out my open secrets? I finally say, “Maybe I’m going goth.”
“Please. You’re clearly upset about the coma and in mourning over the breakup. Probably will be until you know Jay will be okay and that he wants you back.” My mouth has fallen open. Marcus grins. “Am I close?”
Furious and flustered, I blurt out, “Stop paying attention to what I do.” I realize after I’ve said it that it’s an admission and not the reprimand I meant it to be.
Marcus surprises me by shooting me an annoyed look. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll get right on that.”
We’ve arrived at his truck now, and he looks at his phone. “Look, I have to be somewhere at five.”
“That’s in fifteen minutes,” I point out. Luckily, you can get most places in Sterlingwood in ten minutes. But if Marcus is too annoyed to help me with the Instagram situation, who else do I have?
I glance around. “I could…come with you?” I offer. “To talk?”
“Uh…fine?” Marcus says, clearly caught off guard. He opens his door, and I climb into the passenger side of his truck. I try not to notice how many players and spectators might be witnessing me getting into Marcus Riddick’s truck. Hopefully they’ll just assume we’re doing something for his cousin.
As soon as the engine goes on, a man’s evenly paced British voice fills the cab, an audiobook. Marcus turns it off right away.
“So?” he says.
The night we met, Marcus told me one of his favorite things to do was listen to audiobooks while he drove, built things, or worked out. I’ve seen so little evidence of this person I met last July that I’ve started to feel like he was make-believe.
But I remember everything he said.
“Do you still make birds?”
Marcus gives me a weary look. “I carve birds,” he says finally, the slightest hint of a smile on his face. “I’m not, like, the Creator God.”
“You promised to show me,” I say before I think better of it. The beat of silence that follows feels excruciating.
“I did,” Marcus says softly.
I clear my throat. “So, going back to the ring.”
“The ring,” Marcus echoes, facing the road again. “First possibility is that Jason bought the ring, owns the ring, and someone is just harassing you. Second possibility is that he could have bought it from someone and they have amnesia.” I smile.
“Alternatively, you think the Instagram person is saying they left or lost their ring in Jason’s car?” Marcus asks.
“What else could it mean?” I say.
Neither of us has many other ideas, but over the next couple of minutes, Marcus seems to morph back into the easygoing, slightly annoying person I know. Idioms and everything.
“I get that we’re a dream team, but what exactly do you want me to do here?” he asks. “Other than kick a soccer ball very accurately at their head for you.”
That makes me smile again. “We’d have to know whose head to direct it to,” I say.
“Which we don’t,” he finishes.
I sigh. “I’m trying to keep my eyes and ears open, to use my Spidey sense and all that, but I think I’m in too deep. If I ask people too many questions or act even a little bit off, I’ll blow up everything.”
“So you want me to…”
“Investigate, keep your ear to the ground. Someone has to know some…Hey, why are we at Corner Books?”
Marcus is pulling up in front of the only used bookstore in Sterlingwood.
“They’re holding something for me.”
He raises his eyebrows in question, but I’m already climbing out, following him into the store.