Peter thought about power.
His dad had never had power. He was a fly-by-night salesman who put himself through law school by going part-time over five years. The law school was barely accredited. The white-shoe firms wouldn’t touch him. So he started suing companies and shaking them down. He was good at it. He made a ton of money, lost it all, then made it again.
Peter’s mom was a devout, strange woman who always thought she deserved better. She had run off when his dad was still a salesman with his dad’s manager, humiliating Peter and his father.
Peter was a fat kid, geeky and awkward, something he never told anyone. This was in Arizona, and he was teased mercilessly, coming home with bloody noses and scraped palms from where the kids knocked him onto the ground. He could still remember the taste and feel of gravel in his mouth. When his mom left, marking them both Peter and his dad as losers, his dad had decided they would reinvent themselves. Peter’s dad enrolled in his shitty law school for the night program. He told Peter to lose twenty pounds by his tenth birthday or he’d sell all Peter’s things. He put a mirror up on Peter’s wall with a sign that said FAT. Peter’s dad had come to see their issues as a symptom of the same problem: the world was cruel, and you could reach inside and rip the loser out, or you could drown. Better to learn that early.
By the time they moved to Texas, Peter was lean and his dad was rich. Girls found Peter mysterious and charming. His dad invented a new background for their new life: a dead wife and an always-thin son and an always-rich life.
It was exhausting, making everyone think you didn’t care.
Even today, Peter knew how to cut his food in half and stir it around on the plate so no one would notice.
People thought he chose not to fit in, but the truth was, he never did.
Even Caitlyn, Mary Clark’s dark double, found Peter intriguing. That’s why she hooked up with him in private, while dating Kurt Ellers in public.
But what Peter saw now cut him more than he’d ever let on.
He was on the Embankment, skipping lunch to explore the Game.
Charlie was supposed to meet him, but he’d run off in a huff somewhere, driving off campus. Peter knew that Charlie and Vanhi didn’t believe him about not blowing up Kurt’s phone in his pocket. But how could he blame them for being suspicious when his whole life was a lie? True, he hadn’t concocted the lie, but he’d lived it so long he didn’t know how else to be.
He clicked on his inventory.
With all his Goldz, he’d bought something called the Eye of God. It was just the intro version, texts only, but still, having the power to read anyone’s texts sounded like fun. But now, reading the messages he intercepted with it, he wasn’t so sure.
Earlier that day, Caitlyn had asked to meet him in an empty, darkened classroom. She’d pushed him back against a table and slipped a hand under his shirt. If Mary was sunshine and roses, Caitlyn was arsenic and quince. Peter loved how tough she was, how she always went for exactly what she wanted, even if that meant two-timing Kurt and keeping Peter hidden, which burned. What he didn’t know was that Caitlyn had learned how to navigate the world early, going to Home Depot when she was twelve to buy a lock and install it on her bedroom door. Sometimes the bad guys lived inside the house.
“Do you like this?” she whispered now, biting his ear.
He pushed her gently back. Always aloof. Always above it all.
He shrugged and smiled slightly.
An act. But a good one.
“You want to have sex at school?” he asked.
“Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“I’m tired.”
“I’ll change your mind.” She put a hand on his belt.
He was tired of being used. He stopped her. “I came by your house yesterday. You weren’t there. Were you with him?”
The truth was, she’d been at Careloft, something she did once a week without telling anyone. Being a do-gooder was Mary’s thing. She had a lock on it. If anyone knew where Caitlyn went every Tuesday, they’d think she was just copying her socially superior friend. But she’d been volunteering there for years, learning how to talk to survivors, and it made her feel whole. But it was terribly off-brand because she was the bitchy one, everyone knew it and fell into line around her, and you could lose your place in a second. You could disappear. So she said, “Yeah, I was with him. So what?”
Peter shook his head, then let it pass. He would take what he could get. He stroked her cheek.
But then it was her turn to interrupt. “What you did today, it can’t happen again.”
“What?” He smiled. He loved that she knew.
“Not if you ever want to see me again.”
“You’re worried I hurt your boyfriend?”
“I’m worried you’re blowing our cover.”
“What’s so wrong with that?”
“Oh, Peter,” she whispered, kissing his neck. Someone passed by outside and they froze. But the door stayed shut. The footsteps moved on. She put her lips on his ear. “Wouldn’t a hacker, of all people, know some things are better in the dark?”
He thought of that now, watching Mary and Caitlyn type in real time, first Mary, then Caitlyn:
he’s really nice
So is mother theresa but i wouldn’t fuck her
I really like him.
So do it
I’m scared. What will he do?
Who T?
Nevermind. What about you?
Peter?
Yes
Whatver
Thought you liked him
He’s fun on the side but K is popular
So?
Bad for me if K goes off the rez now—Ive managed this far
Peter reread the conversation. Then again. And again. It bore deeper into him, each time. Caitlyn told him they were cheating because it was more fun. In truth, she was cheating because Peter was a loser. Just like his dad—all the cash in the world, but the old money would never let him in. A McMansion in the boondocks, the King of Nothing.
He would never let anyone know how bad that hurt. It was the lesson he’d learned a long time ago. The Fat Boy becomes the mysterious stranger. Never let them close, and they won’t see the Fat Boy still inside.
Still, the last line intrigued him. What did it mean?
He would have to find out.
Mary sat in the psychiatrist’s office.
She was perfect, so these appointments didn’t exist, according to her mother.
In fact her mother had forbidden her going when Mary asked, so she found someone whom she paid out of pocket, using money she earned from a job in an office she didn’t tell anyone about, because that was humiliating, too. Clark women didn’t work because they didn’t have to.
Dr. Rocardi had a small office with frame-to-frame diplomas and knickknacks from around the world: cats with one paw raised in a hello wave, smiling totems. She scooted forward in her rolling chair while Mary sat perfectly upright on an upholstered couch with too many zen pillows.
“Today was his birthday,” Dr. Rocardi said, in that way she had that was never a question or a statement, but somewhere in between.
“It was.”
“How old would he have been?”
“Twenty.”
“How are you doing?”
“Okay.” Mary tried to keep her voice calm and even. It wasn’t, though. It sounded tight and thin. She wondered if Dr. Rocardi could tell.
“How are you doing on the venlafaxine?”
“I don’t like it. It makes me feel funny.”
“In what way?”
“Wired, a little. Nervous.”
“It can do that. Is it helping your mood?”
“No,” Mary said, trying to be honest but not sorry for herself. “I feel pretty sad.”
“The same as before?”
She nodded. “Maybe worse, just because of … the time of year. But mostly the same.”
Dr. Rocardi leaned in. “Tell me why. Is there something more?”
So there it was. Mary was amazed how Dr. Rocardi always seemed to know when Mary was holding back. That’s what her family did—hold back. Everyone suffered, and no one probed. You could live in that deadlock forever. Not the shrink. She was good at her job. She looked under the rock.
Mary thought about her brother. Golden child, school hero, captain of the football team, ROTC. He was Tim before Tim was Tim. But where Tim was thin souled and mean, Brian had been magnanimous and kind. His popularity was a burden he wore with grace.
But Brian was gone, and Tim was the closest thing left. And Tim knew. He knew what Dr. Rocardi wanted to know. What was under the rock.
Dr. Rocardi waited for Mary to say something. Time stretched until it might pop.
She wanted to say something.
“No,” she said finally to Dr. Rocardi.
Dr. Rocardi nodded. Her chair rolled slightly back. “I’m going to taper you off the venlafaxine. You can’t stop it right away. But we can cross-taper to something new that might work.”
“Okay.” Mary felt like she wanted to cry and refused to.
So she would cry later, at school, in the bathroom on her way to fifth period, just before Tim intercepted her. From practice, she knew exactly which bathrooms were the best ones to cry in alone, out of sight, when you literally, despite all efforts, couldn’t help it.