B00B9FX0F2 EBOK Page 4

  “Hello?” he whispered.

  “Yo, you were right. She’s totally hot!” Rakesh’s voice blared through the speaker. “Where are you?”

  “In the library. Wanna meet me at my car?”

  “No, man, I got a ride home when I realized you had better things to do than answer my calls. Not cool, by the way. Come over. I have something to show you.”

  Tanya Adams answered the door at Rakesh’s. She wore loose linen pants, a white tunic, and fuzzy shearling slippers. Her eyes lit up when she saw her visitor. “Jason, so nice to see your face, how are you?”

  “I’m good, Mrs. Adams, how are you?”

  “I can’t complain.” She kissed him on the cheek while welcoming him into the hallway. “Please, you must eat something. I made a casserole for dinner.” Jason hadn’t eaten since Michael’s. He was torn between the urgency to find Rakesh and see what he’d discovered and the gnawing pains in his stomach. As if sensing his dilemma, Mrs. Adams added, “Come on, I’ll make you a plate to eat with Rakesh, and in return you will tell him he must clean that nasty pit he calls his room.”

  “Okay, thank you, Mrs. Adams.”

  Jason enjoyed the aroma of spices as she piled broccoli next to the square of eggplant casserole on his plate. The Adams household was strictly vegetarian, and Rakesh’s mother would flip if she knew about the sausage and bacon he devoured at Michael’s. Still, as much as Jason liked cheese fries and hot wings, he had a soft spot for the health food Mrs. Adams had been serving him since childhood. She asked about Jason’s mom and Jason passed along her regards before he ventured upstairs. Bruno Mars was wafting down the hallway when Jason knocked on Rakesh’s closed door.

  “What!” he shouted angrily from within. Jason let himself in, and Rakesh laughed. “Oh, I thought you were my mom coming up here to tell me to clean my room.”

  “Oh yeah, she told me to tell you to clean your room.”

  “Whatever. We have important business to discuss.”

  A small part of Jason hoped all the stories he’d seen last night had disappeared when Rakesh tried to search for them. Sure, it would mean he was crazy, but on the other hand, he’d have a living, breathing girlfriend — or at least a shot with a living, breathing girl, which was more than he had now. He braced himself for what Rakesh had to say.

  “This Lacey Gray situation is crazy.” Jason sat down on Rakesh’s bed, too nervous to respond. Rakesh continued speaking excitedly. “So, I remembered why her name seemed familiar. It’s her brother, Luke. Remember last year during the Roosevelt-Brighton game? He had that illegal check on Aaron Sparks that dislocated his shoulder. It basically ended the season for the team.”

  Jason didn’t follow Roosevelt High sports the way Rakesh did, but it sounded vaguely familiar. Aaron Sparks had been a big-shot senior, and even though Jason wasn’t among those who compared his injury to crimes against humanity, it had been all anyone could talk about for a while. Crazy jock frat boy in training. That was how Lacey had described her brother. He wished he’d asked what she meant.

  “That was him?” Jason said weakly.

  “Yeah, and his buddy Troy Palmer is the class act who laughed about it from the sidelines. I hate those guys.”

  At least these details verified Lacey’s existence. Lacey was a real person. She really had a brother and a life. It was what he’d wanted for so long, but it no longer felt like a gift.

  “Anyway, I realized all this,” Rakesh went on, “when I searched for Lacey on Facebook.”

  “Did you find her?” Jason asked. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.

  “Yes, but …” For the first time, Rakesh’s enthusiasm wavered.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t exactly find her profile.” He turned away from Jason and began fidgeting with the seal-shaped paperweight that sat on his desk. “I found a page dedicated to Lacey Gray. It’s all messages written to her after she died.”

  So this was what Hamlet felt like when he saw the ghost, Jason thought. He was crazy. It was that simple.

  Sitting at his computer, talking over his shoulder, Rakesh opened Facebook. “So I looked her up, right? And the people who show up — here’s one in Oklahoma, here’s one who goes to Cal State, and there’s a bunch more, but none of them are from Brighton. But look, below that, there are pages. And here’s the Lacey Gray memorial page.”

  He clicked it, and Jason left the bed to get a closer look.

  He couldn’t believe he’d never seen it before. It was a different photo. This one was posed, the type of thing that would go above your name in the yearbook. Her hair was more carefully styled, less rumpled, but the eyes were the same deep watery blue, the smile that even now flopped Jason’s stomach. It was so obviously the same girl.

  Lacey Michelle Gray

  August 18, 1996–October 5, 2012

  Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror

  Up to where you’re bravely working

  Expecting the worst, you look and instead,

  Here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.

  — Rumi

  Rakesh stayed mercifully silent as Jason took it in. The birthday, the date of her death, the poetry. The joyful face he’d been wanting to see. Set against the blue and white background where he was so used to seeing her, this was somehow worse than the obituary. This felt like a betrayal. He read the testimonials her friends had written.

  Luv u lacey. Miss u 4ever

  Lacey, we sat next to each other in English all year, and I never got a chance to tell you how special I think you are. Even though lots of people at this school make me feel like I’m invisible, you always made me feel like you really cared about me every time we talked. When you found me crying in the bathroom after my cat died, you didn’t make fun of me or tell anyone how stupid I looked with all that mascara on my cheeks. Instead you skipped English so I wouldn’t have to be alone. I will remember you forever.

  LACEY I HAD THE BEST TIME WITH YOU AT THE 8TH GRADE SPRING DANCE. I WILL NEVER DANCE TO “I KISSED A GIRL” WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT YOU. LOVE YOU ALWAYS

  Lace face, I’m so sorry you’re gone. I miss you every day, but I know you’re up there somewhere looking down on us.

  I still can’t believe you’re gone and I never got to tell u how I really feel. Some days I feel like the sun will never shine again without you here to see it.

  The queasiness in his gut increased with each new message. He scrolled down for what seemed like forever, reading until he couldn’t take it anymore, and then walked wordlessly back to the bed and sat down with his hands on his knees.

  Jason didn’t know how long they sat like that before Rakesh finally asked, “What do you think it means?”

  “It means someone named Lacey Gray is dead.” His voice sounded odd, like he was being strangled while he spoke.

  “Okay,” Rakesh drew out the word, choosing his next ones carefully. “J, the girl you’ve been talking to, is it this girl?”

  “I know you think I’m crazy,” Jason began, but Rakesh cut him off.

  “That’s her picture, that’s her high school, blah blah blah. But is this the girl you’ve been talking to? Her profile, I mean?”

  Jason was having a hard time following what Rakesh was saying. “No, that’s not it.”

  “Why can you see her profile but I can’t?” Jason looked at him blankly. When he didn’t answer, Rakesh added, “I don’t think you’re crazy. But something crazy is definitely going on here. I want to know what.”

  Amid all the confusion in his mind, Jason felt a rush of gratitude for his friend. He thought of Horatio and Marcellus swearing the oath on Hamlet’s sword. “Hold on, let me try something.” He gestured for Rakesh to get up.

  Sitting down at the computer, he logged out of Rakesh’s Facebook account and in to his own. He noticed Rakesh had changed his profile picture to a James Bond portrait. Jason asked him about it.

  “I had Bond on the brain,” he said with a smile.<
br />
  Jason began typing in the search bar at the top of the page. He’d entered L-A-C when two recommendations dropped down. The first was the profile picture he was so familiar with. The second was the page he and Rakesh had just examined. He couldn’t believe he’d never seen it before. With the mouse, he hovered over the first one and looked at Rakesh.

  “Go on!” he said impatiently, and Jason clicked.

  As he did so, he tried to envision what her profile had looked like the last time he’d checked it. He’d noticed early on that it was restricted — she could post status updates but no one else could post on her wall. It wasn’t exactly conventional to hide your wall like that, but Jason had chalked it up to her renegade spirit; the generic girls who treated high school like a beauty pageant could have all the inside jokes and duck-face photos they wanted, but Lacey was keeping it simple and classy. He’d kept tabs on her silly statuses and shared links via his news feed, but he hadn’t spent a lot of time on her profile.

  He had the sinking feeling he’d missed something huge by not paying more attention, and as her profile loaded his fears were confirmed. Her wall at first seemed innocuous enough, littered with the updates that had inserted little jolts of joy into his news feed, but it was something on the left side of the page beneath the picture that now made him sick to his stomach:

  Friends (1)

  Jason Moreland

  “Oh, snap,” Rakesh breathed.

  The status updates were for his eyes only. Rakesh was right, something crazy was going on. The boys exchanged a look, and Jason slowly backed away from the computer as if it were capable of attacking him.

  “I guess the good news is that now we know you’re the only guy in Lacey’s life?”

  Jason attempted to laugh, but the noise sounded strange and hollow. He really had wanted to be the only guy in Lacey’s life. Through his daze, he heard Rakesh asking him what he was going to do now.

  “I’m going to confront her.” The response was as surprising to him as it seemed to be to Rakesh. But after the words were out of his mouth, he knew it was the only option.

  “What are you going to say?”

  Jason shook his head. “That is a good question. I’ll let you know when I figure out the answer.”

  That night, in bed, he toggled back and forth between his messages and the memorial page. Seven hundred forty-six people liked it. In the past he had found himself ranting over the limits of the like button. “Like” had no place when it came to a memorial dedicated to a sixteen-year-old girl who died. But that was the least of his problems right now. Seven hundred forty-six people wanted Lacey Gray to rest in peace. But Lacey Gray also had one friend no one knew about.

  Jason agonized over what to write to Lacey, but in the end she made it easy for him. Well, not exactly easy. His dreams that night were haunted by visions of himself trying and failing to compose messages to her. In one, he found himself at a typewriter equipped with keys too heavy to use. He pushed on them with all his might, but couldn’t get a single letter to stick to the blank page. He was frantically searching for ink for a quill when his alarm roused him in the morning.

  Still half asleep, he sat down at his computer and after he’d fumbled for his glasses, noticed the green dot next to Lacey’s name. Without thinking, he typed, “I need to talk to you. It’s important.” It was so simple. He yawned and by the time he reopened his eyes, she’d replied.

  Lacey: I swear I’m not blowing you off.

  Lacey: Good morning, BTW.

  Despite himself, Jason grinned.

  Jason: Good morning yourself.

  Lacey: Seriously, though, I have a test and I’m going to be late for school.

  Jason: Can we talk later?

  Lacey: J, don’t hate me, but this is a really bad time. Ughhhh, I’m so sorry, there’s something going on with me right now. I need a couple days to myself. I promise, I will hear you out and explain everything after this weekend. Can you just trust me that long?

  Jason: Yeah, of course.

  Lacey: There’s one more thing. A favor. I hate to ask.

  Jason: …

  Lacey: Can you not tell anyone we’re talking?

  Lacey: IT’S NOT YOU. I swear. And I know it sounds weird since it’s not like you go to Brighton, but just until Monday.

  Jason blinked. Why didn’t she want anyone to know they were talking? Mark was shouting at him from downstairs to make sure he was awake. He yelled back that he was on his way.

  Jason: My friends already know.

  Lacey: Rakesh?

  Jason: Yeah.

  Lacey: I figured. Can you not tell anyone else? I’m not trying to be shady, but I really gtg. Monday, I swear. Do you trust me?

  For someone who was clearly harboring a huge secret, Lacey was awfully big on trust.

  Jason: Yeah.

  Lacey: You are a lifesaver.

  It was these last cryptic words he played over and over to himself later. You are a lifesaver. Lacey trusted him. He chose to focus on that when he recounted the exchange to Rakesh at lunch, though he purposefully left out the part where she had requested he not tell anyone, instead asking of his own accord.

  “Can you not tell people about all this? I don’t want anyone to think I’m crazy.”

  “Good luck with that. I have better things to talk about with my other friends than your weird zombie love story.”

  Jason doubted that were true, but he knew he could trust Rakesh to keep quiet about Lacey, at least for a couple days. A couple days was all he needed. Monday, I swear. It was a simple misunderstanding, and she was going to explain everything. He just had to trust her.

  His heart sank when he walked into his house on Friday afternoon. He could sense it the second he came through the door, the dwindling light at his back. Boredom was waiting for him. Boredom had occupied every room, and beyond each room the entire town. It was inescapable. His mom and Mark were out to dinner in the city, not that he was unhappy they were gone. He flopped down in the den and flipped through all 450 cable channels. Nothing. His Netflix queue was filled with experimental documentaries and pretentious German movies he’d added in the hopes that he would someday be the type of guy who would enjoy experimental documentaries and pretentious German movies, but someday wasn’t yet.

  Retreating to his room, he turned on his computer. He’d vowed to steer clear of the Internet until he heard from Lacey, so instead of logging on to Facebook, he did what he’d done so many nights before, when the name Lacey Gray meant nothing to him. He scrolled through iTunes. For about the zillionth time, he settled on All Hail West Texas. He knew you were supposed to listen to it on tape, and he even had the cassette, but alas, he had no working tape deck, so digital would have to do.

  Lying back on his carpet staring up at the ceiling, he moved his lips silently along with “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton.” And at first it worked. He got lost in John Darnielle’s raw voice, belting out the lyrics like they were the only thing that mattered to him in the world. For the moment, they were. But when he got to “The Mess Inside” and all that talk of fighting the “sense of creeping dread with temporal things,” it was like the spell was broken. He turned up the volume to see if he could drown out the voice in the back of his mind telling him he was fooling himself, but it was hopeless.

  He was alone on a Friday night, and the one person who made him feel happy and whole was no longer making him feel happy or whole. He couldn’t suddenly revert to the person he’d been before they’d begun talking, a person who had accepted those empty spaces as a fact of life, who thought happiness was overrated. And he wasn’t going to last until Monday pretending that she didn’t exist. The next thing he knew, he was in the kitchen, dragging the stepstool across the cool tile floor of the kitchen, climbing up, swinging open the cabinet above the fridge. Just as he remembered, next to the flashlights and bottled water his mom stored in case of emergency was a dusty copy of the Brighton County phone book.

  When he
was little, he’d seen his parents use it all the time, calling a shoe store to find out their hours or copying down the address of his doctor’s office as they rushed out the door to an appointment. These seemed like ancient practices to him now. If he was visiting a store that didn’t have a website, he looked it up on Yelp. But Jason had imposed the Internet ban on himself because he knew searching for the Gray family online would mean endless stories about Lacey’s death and pages dedicated to her memory. So here he was flipping through the pages until he got to one that started with Graves and ended with Harris. His eyes followed his finger down the page until he reached the second listing for a Gray.

  Gray, Edward … 3492 Belmont Rd. 621-9067

  Jason’s heart was pounding as he dialed. He wanted it to be disconnected, to ring through forever. It rang three times before a male voice picked up.

  “Hello?”

  Jason hung up immediately. It seemed silly — or more insane than anything else. What was he hoping would happen? That she’d answer the phone? And he’d ask her out? The idea was laughable. His hands were shaking when he looked down at them. He couldn’t be alone for another minute. He silently pleaded Rakesh was not in a crowded car with LMFAO turned up too loud to hear his phone, but there was barely any noise in the background when he answered.

  “Talk to me.”

  “What am I doing?”

  “Um, playing board games with Blake Lively?”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “Yeah, I knew Blake Lively would never talk to you.”

  “Rakesh.”

  “What do you want me to say, man?”

  There was that question again. What did Jason want?

  “I just called her house. Lacey’s house.”

  “You what? What did you say?”