“Nothing.”
My brother shakes his head. “This is bad. I just have this feeling, you know? It’s in my gut. It feels like shit.” He puts his hand on his stomach.
“Yeah,” I say. I’m sprawled out across the couch in the living room, an old People magazine open under my arm, and Ethan is rocking back and forth in the recliner. It makes a small squeak every time he moves.
He won’t shut up about Alex.
I give up on the magazine and pretend like I’m watching some stupid cartoon, only I don’t know anything that’s going on and I think I might be sick at any second. It rises up from the top of my stomach and sits at the base of my throat.
“There are search parties out, and they’re just not successful. They’re in all the parks and stuff, but they’re not finding anything. I mean, anything. And the cops have questioned his wife, and I don’t think she’s a ‘person of interest’ or whatever. And maybe it’s good that they haven’t found him, but you know what everyone’s saying, right?”
I don’t want him to answer. I can’t hear the answer. I don’t want him to say it.
“They’re saying that he’s dead.” He pauses, staring at the characters leapfrogging across the television. “Can you believe it? Someone I went to high school with? Just dead, just like that? Life is screwed up. I mean, I never knew anyone that died before.”
He says it like it’s final and done and inarguable and just a thing.
“I’m sure he’s not dead,” I say, but even as I say them, the words are tinny and false in my ears. I stand up, wishing I were numb, and walk to the little half bath by the kitchen, where I am very quietly ill before wiping my mouth and returning to the TV. I sink into the couch, my skin clammy, and pull a throw over my legs.
“I keep calling him, you know?” Ethan says. “I bet I called him twenty times. All of us have. It’s like I expect him to answer, but he never does.” He pauses, jiggling the remote. “Have you heard anything?”
“Nothing,” I say, and my throat clams up a little. Are they going to start combing his house for DNA? Then what? Are they going to find me? Would it even matter? I’m sure I’m not in a database or anything, on account of never having committed any real crimes.
It’s not like anyone would suspect me—anyone. No one knows I’ve ever been there. No neighbors have ever seen me enter or exit.
I don’t think.
My blood feels oddly thick in my veins, and I run to the little half bath again, but there is nothing left in my stomach.
• • •
The next day at school, the mood is tense, and I can hardly get through my classes. The teachers feel pretty much the same way, and they barely give us any homework—which is a good and bad thing, because it means my mind has room to wander, and the only thing anyone can really think about is Belrose. Unless you’re Neta, and then you’re thinking about Chase.
Or Rob Samuels, blond-headed wonder boy, and in that case you’re thinking about me.
“Hey, Stone!” He jogs up to me after school, as I’m headed out toward the parking lot. He grins at me, really big, in a way that nobody has really been grinning in the past week at all, and it’s rather like shouting in a church.
In the middle of a funeral.
I cringe at the thought.
“Hey, Rob.”
He falls into step beside me. “So, um, I had fun the other night chilling with you guys.”
“Um, that’s cool. Me too.”
“Is it okay if I walk you to your car?” he asks as he walks me to my car, past everyone else still walking with their heads down, voices muted.
I frown. “That’s fine.” I stop at my car, feeling awkward. “Um, thanks, Rob. I appreciate it.”
He still has that big, shouty grin on. “Sure.”
“Um, thanks.” I make to get in the car, but Rob sort of looks around and moves his feet over the ground, but doesn’t leave.
“Riley,” he says, “are you okay?”
I frown at him. “Why do you ask that?”
He kicks at the gravel in the street and leans up against my door, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. “You’ve just seemed different lately. And not different like everyone else is being different, just, like, lately. But different different. Not to seem creepy or anything, but I notice you. I pay attention to you. You’re a smart person, and you’re a good person to take note of, but I can tell something is wrong, Riley. And I just wanted to see if I could, you know, help in some kind of way.” His cheeks flush a little.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from tearing up. Someone noticed. Rob Samuels, out of everyone, actually noticed.
I hug him, right there, in front of all the students still walking out of the school into the parking lot. Let them think whatever they want.
I needed that.
“Why do you care?” I ask. My words sound mean, even to my ears, but I don’t intend it that way. I really want to know. It’s not like I’ve treated him all that well. It’s not like I deserve it.
“I just do.”
I look at him, just standing there, and his smile has lessened a little bit, so it’s just . . . nice. Maybe I should have a boyfriend. It couldn’t hurt. Especially not now. Maybe it would even keep . . . people . . . from looking at me suspiciously.
“Do you want to come over and hang out?”
The question is out before I fully consider it, and Rob looks at me, his eyes big and shiny and the loud smile back. “Yes.”
I let him follow me to my house in his car and make him park at the curb instead of in the driveway, and when he follows me in I take him down to the basement, where we have a big-screen TV and an old L-shape couch that’s perfect for long movies and cold days.
“I didn’t bring any snacks,” he says, and he looks miserable, like he has let me down in some unforgivable way.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “I’ll go get something from the kitchen.”
My parents aren’t home. I’m hoping if they see his car when they get off work they’ll just think it’s one of the neighbors being annoying or something. They hate it when someone parks close. I’m not ready to explain Rob to them just yet anyway. I run upstairs and grab a bag of my mom’s Lite Butter Skinny-Woman Popcorn before tossing it into the microwave.
I watch it turn. The microwave hums and rattles where the plate isn’t set quite right.
What am I doing?
Why am I doing this?
The bag slowly starts to inflate, the kernels cracking and popping. I make myself turn away. I am a hostess, aren’t I? So why don’t I care right now? Why aren’t I excited that there’s a guy downstairs who really, really cares about me?
I grab two cans of Coke from the fridge and pull a couple of paper towels from the roll before grabbing the popcorn out of the microwave and walking it back downstairs. Rob has moved from the couch to the television, where he’s checking out my parents’ DVD collection.
“Die Hard 2 and The Notebook?” he asks. “This is a tough choice. What do you want to watch?”
I lift a shoulder and open the bag of popcorn, my fingers burning a little from the steam that escapes from the top. I set it down and blow on them.
Rob stands and catches my hand in his.
“Let me,” he says.
He raises my fingers to his lips and blows, very gently, but the air from his lips is warm. His fingers are rough on my palm.
It doesn’t feel right.
Nothing feels right.
I pull away without meaning to.
“I’ll just run them under cold water for a second, okay? Choose a good movie. Um, maybe an action movie.”
I don’t wait for his reaction. I run off to the bathroom and shut the door behind me. Maybe this was a bad idea. He wants me, and I know he wants me, and I’m just using him again. I have to hold him far away, because I can’t make myself be with him.
I shove my fingers under the cold water even though they don’t hurt anymore and count to twenty. And then I dry off my hands and walk back into the little den.
Where the opening credits for Pride and Prejudice are playing on the TV.
“I thought you’d like it,” Rob says, looking a little guilty.
I sigh and sit on the opposite end of the couch. “It’s fine.”
He scoots a cushion closer, and I stick my feet out so he can’t sit next to me.
“Do you want popcorn?” he asks.
I stand up and grab a handful from the bag and a can of Coke, then return to my seat. “I love this movie.”
“Me too,” he says.
But for someone who loves Pride and Prejudice, he spends more time watching me than Keira Knightley.