Текст книги "Famous Last Words"

Автор книги: Katie Alender

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

“Oh, it’s no big deal. I mean, I wasn’t a trembling victim in a corner. I started to get weirded out, that’s all. My instincts told me it was time to put a stop to it. And I have excellent instincts.” She smiled at me. “I picked you out of the crowd, didn’t I?”

The next night, I was home, asleep in my own bed, when a sudden noise woke me up.

I lay there, adrenaline zapping through me like lightning bolts, unsure if the sound had been real or if I’d dreamed it.

Then I heard it again….

Knock. Knock. Knock.

My whole body tensed.

In a moment of desperate, naive hope, I thought, Who would be knocking at the front door in the middle of the night?

Reed? With some urgent middle-of-the-night news?

But it wasn’t the sound of a person knocking on a door. Not a normal person, anyway. It was more like someone was sending a coded message, each knock separate and deliberate.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

It was coming from my bedroom door.

When I heard the next knock, I forced myself to sit up straight and called, “Hello?”

Maybe it was Jonathan. A lot of what he did was kind of formal and stilted. In theory, he could knock like that. It almost suited him.

But Jonathan didn’t answer me.

No one did.

The three knocks finished, but the sound seemed to hang in the air.

I went down the short, terrible list of suspects: an intruder – a robber, maybe, or a serial killer. Or a ghost.

Only … the alarm was on, so that ruled out a human.

It’s not a ghost, I told myself, because I am done with ghosts.

But even as I thought the words, I felt my so-called “normal” life slipping out of existence. I’d been fooling myself. Ignorance may be bliss, but at the end of the day it’s still ignorance.

And my ghost had decided it didn’t want to be ignored any longer.

I made myself step one foot out of bed. Then the other foot. And I forced my legs, one in front of the other, to walk to the door just as the sound came again:

Knock. Knock. Knock.

As quietly as I could, I dropped to the floor, pressed my cheek against the polished wood, and peered through the narrow opening.

I was fully prepared to see a pair of ghastly, rotted feet. Maybe even shriveled undead fingers worming their way under the door toward me …

But what I saw was red. Not blood – it was solid; it had form. But I couldn’t tell what it was. Maybe a red carpet? I thought of walking the red carpet the night before with Marnie. Maybe this was a dream.

I sat back and stared at the door until almost a minute had passed since the last set of knocks.

Okay, Willa. Listen up.

You are a reasonably intelligent human. You have some emotional issues to work through, sure, but you’ll probably be okay eventually. You’ll finish high school, go to a decent college, get a degree in something, and then enter the world as an adult. You have many choices and opportunities ahead of you. You can do anything you want to do with your life.

Except for one thing …

You are NOT opening that door.

Go back to bed. Go back to bed this instant.

In slow motion, I rose to my feet and turned away from the door, away from the foolish temptation to prove to myself that I wasn’t going crazy. Everything I’d done so far to prove to myself that I wasn’t crazy just ended up making me feel even crazier.

I began to walk back to the bed, taking care not to make the merest hint of a sound as I went.

Behind me, the door opened by itself.

Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around.

How exactly, I wondered, does a corpse stand? Would she be leaning on the wall? Would she be held up, dangling in midair, by some supernatural energy? Maybe she lacked the strength to stand, and had dragged herself down the hall … so when I turned to look at her, she’d be lying on the floor, reaching her arms toward me hungrily.

Maybe she was already following me into the room.

Maybe she was right behind me.

At last, the horror of not knowing became greater than the horror of knowing, and I turned around.

But the room was empty.

The door was open.

There was no one there.

Only a trail of rose petals, red and plush. A solid blanket of them, a foot wide, leading away down the hall and disappearing in the inky darkness.

I could go wake up Mom and Jonathan, but I knew from the bathtub incident that there was a very decent chance the hall would be perfectly clean when I brought them back upstairs. I could take a photo, or scoop an armful of flowers, but what would that prove? The obvious assumption would be that I had done this myself. For attention, or as a weird prank, or whatever. Face it – “crazy ghost” is never going to be people’s go-to explanation. Not when there’s a teenager in the house to take the blame.

Leyta’s advice ran through my head:

You just have to work through it.

I walked alongside the trail of roses, keeping one hand on the wall, because I needed to feel connected to something solid, something I could be sure actually existed.

I decided that if the trail led to Jonathan’s office, I wouldn’t follow it inside.

But it didn’t lead there. It led to the third bedroom, the one directly across from the top of the stairs.

I stopped about a foot from the door.

Then I took a step back.

From the other side of that door came a soft:

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Before I could take another step back, it came again – a little faster, a little harder:

Knock-knock-knock!

I hardly had time to catch my breath before the sound turned furious:

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!!!

Every corner of my consciousness was scared – scared of whatever was doing this, scared that Mom and Jonathan would wake up – and absolutely terrified of what was waiting for me, beckoning me inside.

But if I turned back, I would never get up the nerve to come this far again.

Get through it. That’s all you can do. There are no shortcuts in the flow.

This is your journey.

I opened the door.

This room was a mirror image of my own. The bed was to my right, and the bathroom was to my left. I got the feeling that I’d warped into an alternate universe.

The trail of petals stopped just inside the door.

As I crossed the threshold, a headache pierced cleanly through my temples, as if I’d been shot with a poisoned arrow. I pressed my fingers against my eyes, trying to ward it off.

Then I heard:

Drip … drip … drip …

I flipped the light switch and the overhead light came to life – but only after hesitating for a second. Like some force was deciding whether I got to have a light on or not, and it finally took mercy on me.

I followed the dripping sound to the bathroom, knowing what I would find: the bathtub full to overflowing. A serene surface. And reflected in that surface, the face of the ghost that had wrapped its fate around mine like a boa constrictor.

So I went in, mainly because I was beginning to realize that I had no choice.

The light in the bathroom wouldn’t turn on. But all right, no big deal. The window over the bathtub let in pale moonlight, and the light from the bedroom spilled through the door. It wasn’t ideal, but I could still see – enough to glance around and be sure that there wasn’t a corpse, or a murderer.

Just a ghost.

I walked over to the tub and looked down at the surface of the water.

Perfectly smooth and serene, like I’d known it would be.

“I would really appreciate, at this point,” I said out loud, “some guidance as to why you’ve brought me here.”

Drip.

“Awesome,” I said. “Wow, thank you, that is so incredibly useful.”

Now that I’d found my voice, I couldn’t stop talking. Getting the words out slowed the chaotic whirring in my brain.

“What we have before us is a bathtub full of water. And I can only imagine that you intend to do another abracadabra thing where I look away and the water’s gone or overflowing or … I don’t know, turned to vanilla pudding, maybe?” I closed my eyes and turned around. “So why don’t you do your little trick and we can get on with things?”

I counted to five, then spun around.

The bathtub was not dry.

But it wasn’t just full of water anymore.

The water was thick with rose petals. Thousands of them. In fact, it was more like someone had filled the tub with rose petals first and then filled the tiny spaces between them with water.

“This … sucks,” I whispered. Then I raised my voice slightly. “Hey, newsflash: I am not putting any part of my body into that water.”

There was, unsurprisingly, no answer. I stayed a good four feet away, staring at the water in a state of highly uneasy expectancy.

“Never,” I said. “No body parts. No hands, no feet … I’m not going to duck my head underwater and look for your corpse. So if that’s what you’re hoping for, let it go.”

Suddenly, the rose petals began to move.

Something was in the tub.

And whatever it was, it was coming to the surface.

I staggered back and ran into the counter, gripping it to keep myself from passing out. Behind me, the bathroom door slammed, shutting me in and eliminating about 80 percent of the light.

And in the sudden darkness, the water trembled.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away, anticipating the moment that a hand dripping with decayed flesh would push free of the petals.

Finally, the petals parted. But what came up between them wasn’t any kind of hand….

It was a piece of paper.

I looked around for something I could use to fish it out – a toilet brush or a plunger. But the bathroom was devoid of anything remotely useful.

I had to know what was on that paper. I knew in my gut that I needed to see it. I also had a feeling that, no matter how hard I tried, the bathroom door wouldn’t open for me unless I followed these ghostly instructions.

I stepped closer. The page was crumpled, and a corner of it floated up out of the water. If I was careful, I could grab it by that corner and pull it out without even touching a single flower petal.

The room was dark, but the tub was lit in a slanted rectangle of moonlight. My heart had taken over my whole body, beating so hard I swayed on my feet.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, I reached my hand down toward the piece of paper.

I was a foot away. Then ten inches. Eight. Six.

Four.

My fingers hovered over my target. The roses in the tub drifted in a slow circle, stirred by some supernatural current.

I grabbed the exposed corner of the paper and yanked it up so fast that I splashed myself full in the face with water.

But I got it. And not so much as a single body part had I submerged in the evil haunted bathtub. I’d given the spirit what it wanted….

Now the door would open and let me out.

Feeling a thin silver lining of triumph, I sighed and turned to walk out of the bathroom.

That’s when it hit me. Not a physical thing, but a force, like a powerful burst of wind – my own private tornado. The impact slammed against my torso and propelled me backward, until I lost my footing.

As my feet came out from under me, the backs of my legs struck something hard and smooth, and before I had time to take a breath deep enough to scream, I plunged backward into the bathtub.

The rose petals were so soft. It felt as if thousands of gentle fingers were touching my hands and arms and face and throat and feet, and the parts of my back and stomach that were exposed when my pajama top floated around me in the water. My screaming/breathing reflex showed up just late enough that I opened my lips and nearly choked on a mouthful of wet roses. I sprang out of the tub, about four feet straight into the air, miraculously not landing face-first against the corner of the bathroom counter.

Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I thought for a second that I was seeing another terrible specter: a girl with matted dark hair, white skin glowing in the dark room, hideous black bruises all over her body like spots of decay.

But nope, it was just me. Soaking wet and covered in rose petals.

The door opened without being touched, which was not a comfort. I fought the urge to scream and race down the stairs to Mom’s room, and wake her and Jonathan with my story of what had happened.

Instead, I forced myself to walk slowly – not calmly, but slowly – toward my open bedroom door. I didn’t bother to avoid the rose petals this time. I shuffled right through them. They clung to my wet skin and covered my feet like moist, flaking socks.

They seemed as real as anything else you could touch and smell and see. But when I had passed back into my own room, I knew without having to look that they would be gone when I did turn around.

All that remained to prove anything had happened was the sopping-wet hot mess that was me – and the soggy piece of paper clutched in my right hand.

Under the bright lights of my bathroom vanity, I managed to uncrumple the page and gently stretch it back to its normal dimensions.

I’d never seen a screenplay before, but I knew that’s what I was looking at. There were character names and lines of description and action.

It started in the middle of a scene in which two people were eating dinner.

One of them was a woman. Her name was Charice.

And one of them was a man.

His name was Henry.

And the last thing on the page was a line of dialogue.

CHARICE

This is the kind of dream you don’t wake up from, Henry.

I managed to hold off until seven o’clock in the morning before texting Wyatt. I figured someone as OCD as he was had to be the early-bird-gets-the-worm type – even on a Sunday.

I typed Are you up? and leaned against the headboard to watch my phone for his reply. Ironically, that was when the sleep I’d waited all night for decided to sneak up on me. My heavy lids slipped shut as I stared at the darkened screen.

Then the phone vibrated, startling me back to full awareness.

Yes. Everything okay?

I replied: Ha ha ha ha NO.

Need to talk?

Yeah, I typed. Where can we meet? Not my house.

There was a pause, and then his reply came through: Mine?

I must admit that I was dying of curiosity about the home life that would produce a specimen like Wyatt. Were his parents studiously brilliant, obsessed with research and The Truth? Tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists? Lifelong paint-chip eaters?

I was about to reply Yes, but I guess I took a little too long, because another pair of messages popped up from Wyatt:

Promise I’m still not the killer.

Murderer’s honor.

At eight o’clock, I slipped on a pair of flip-flops, grabbed my house key, phone, and the monstrosity of a backpack, and set out for Wyatt’s house. I left a note for Mom explaining that I was meeting Marnie, which I knew she’d believe since (as far as she knew) I’d never gone anywhere else.

The Sheppards’ house was only about a five-minute walk away, and Wyatt was out front when I rounded the corner.

“What happened?” His eyes darkened with concern when he saw me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” I asked.

He looked startled for a second, then realized what he’d said. “Oh,” he said. “No. Sorry. Nice overalls, by the way.”

I was wearing my softest long-sleeved black T-shirt and Mom’s overalls, with a chunky blue scarf wrapped around my neck – the fashion equivalent of comfort food. Wyatt wore jeans and a red plaid flannel shirt, untucked. His feet were bare. The effect was kind of mountain-mannish, if mountain men wore horn-rimmed glasses.

Inside, Wyatt’s house was starkly modern, a two-story rectangle made of glass and wood. The whole back wall was made of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over trees, at precisely the right height so you couldn’t tell you were in a city at all. It felt like being in a tree house, or a cabin somewhere out in the wilderness.

“This place is cool,” I said. “What do your parents do?”

“My mom’s an artist,” he said. “My dad’s a … consultant. Are you okay going up to my room?”

I nodded, and followed him up a set of stairs that didn’t even have a handrail. You could have fallen right off. When we reached the second floor, I found myself facing a wall that was covered in dozens of black-and-white photos of Wyatt at different ages.

“Wow,” I said.

“For the record, I’ve asked them to change this,” he said. “But they’re kind of attached to it.”

His bedroom was straight ahead, and I almost hesitated before crossing through the door. But Wyatt went straight toward a leather sofa in the corner of the room and gestured for me to sit. Then he pulled over a bright orange plastic chair for himself.

I sat cross-legged on the sofa and rested my chin in my hands, staring at the floor. “It’s in my house,” I whispered. “It won’t leave me alone. I think it’s trying to kill me —”

“Whoa, whoa,” he said. “Slow down. Take a breath. Start at the beginning.”

I took two deep breaths, but they were that weird jerky kind of breath that happens right before you bust out in epic sobs. Somehow I managed to hold all that in and describe everything that had happened the night before, starting with the knocking and ending with the screenplay.

“So it is a line from a script.” Wyatt sat back and looked out the windows at the trees.

“It’s a scene where they’re eating dinner,” I said. “Just like in my vision. It can’t be a coincidence. It has to be another murder.”

“Okay, yes, that’s what it sounds like.” Wyatt shook his head. “But there are no unsolved murders fitting that profile anywhere in southern California. I checked after we met with Leyta last week.”

“Then maybe … maybe it hasn’t happened yet.”

“So now you’re seeing the future?”

“I don’t know, Wyatt,” I said, practically hissing in aggravation. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. For all I know, none of this is real. I could be strapped to a bed in a mental institution. You could be a figment of my —”

“I’m not a figment,” he said. “You’re not making this up. You’re not strapped to a bed in a mental ward. You’re here with me.”

I half laughed and looked up into his wide brown eyes, thinking he was joking. But he seemed perfectly sincere. I sat back and tried to relax. Something about his steady, unflappable presence centered me.

“Let’s focus on what we know,” Wyatt went on. “There’s a force in your house trying to call your attention to this particular scene, which appears to be from a movie. So the next logical step is to figure out what the movie is.”

“I brought my laptop.” I unzipped the monstrosity, pulled the computer out of its neoprene sleeve, and set it in my lap. Wyatt leaned closer to look at the screen. I half expected him to try to snatch the computer away so he could apply his superior research skills, but he didn’t.

There was a Wi-Fi network called SHEPPARD. “Password?” I asked.

He blushed slightly. “Um … I’ll type it.”

“Just tell me what it is,” I said. “I’m not going to come steal your Wi-Fi when you’re not home.”

“It’s, uh … ‘Wyattcutiepants.’ All one word. Capital W.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked.

“My mother is a creature of habit,” he said. “Every time I change it, she finds a way to get logged out and then can’t remember the new password to log back in. I finally gave up around eighth grade. Anyway, can I see the search results?”

“Sure thing, cutiepants.” I typed in the whole sentence and hit SEARCH. The results were assorted references to people named Henry – Henry Rollins, Henry James – and a movie called 50 First Dates. No exact matches.

“What if you leave off the name?” he asked.

“Then we get …” I backspaced through Henry and hit SEARCH. “… a Beyoncé song.”

“Well, that explains it,” he said. “You’re being haunted by Beyoncé.”

“Oh, this is ideal,” I said.

He smiled a little and then put his concentrating face back on. “What if you search for Charice and Henry – and movie?”

I typed it in and came up with a bunch of random unhelpful results.

“Nothing,” I said. “We need to face it. This movie doesn’t exist.”

“What if you’re right?” Wyatt said. “Maybe the killer wrote the screenplay himself.”

“That wouldn’t explain how it got in my house,” I said.

“There are a lot of things in your house that don’t seem to belong there,” he said.

I didn’t answer.

“You don’t look convinced.”

I pulled out my phone. “I left the page at home because it’s so delicate, but I took a picture. Notice anything?”

Wyatt took the phone and zoomed in on the photo. “What am I looking for?”

“The letters,” I said. “The lowercase t is always a hair above the line of the other letters.”

“And the e is lower,” he said. “So this was typed on an actual typewriter?”

I nodded. “Nobody actually uses typewriters anymore. So it’s probably pretty old, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, “but look – it’s a photocopy. See how the corner is just a copy of a dog-eared page? Maybe the original is old, but the page you found isn’t the original. Someone could have made that copy yesterday, for all we know.”

“What’s Namur?” I asked, typing the word into the computer. “In the vision I had, the girl thought about Namur.”

Our heads nearly touched as we looked at the screen. Namur turned out to be a city in southern Belgium. I skimmed the Wikipedia entry, with Wyatt reading over my shoulder.

“Not very exciting,” Wyatt said. “University … museum, belfry, cathedral, Del Mar Park …”

“Wait,” I said. “Del Mar? As in …”

I typed Diana Del Mar Namur Belgium.

It was a hit.

“Diana Del Mar lived in Namur for three years,” I read. “When she was a teenager.”

“So?” Wyatt asked.

“So … Diana Del Mar lived in my house.”

He blinked.

“Is this movie about her somehow?” I asked. I typed Diana Del Mar Charice and nothing came up.

“Wait, look,” Wyatt said, holding up my phone. “In two different spots, someone made a mistake typing Charice. See how there’s a letter X-ed out? They typed an s first. Try that.”

It seemed like a stretch, but I typed it in: Diana Del Mar Charise.

“There!” Wyatt said.

The very first result was an article titled “Diana Del Mar – Screen Star to Screenwriter,” from a blog called Learning the Craft. The author of the blog was named Paige Pollan. Her bio said she was “an aspiring ‘Hollywood type’ determined to do my homework before plunging into the swamp of Tinseltown.”

I read the blog post:

Diana Del Mar, a beloved actress in the 1930s, turned her attention to behind-the-scenes pursuits when she found herself being rejected for roles because of her “advancing” age (35! GASP!). One of her interests was writing. Rumors swirled around town that she and none other than “Hitch” himself (the great Alfred Hitchcock, newly arrived in America following the release of Rebecca) were collaborating on a project. Diana was working on a screenplay and hoped to star as the character Charise. Hitchcock would direct. Soon, however, the arrangement fell through. Some speculated that Miss Del Mar would try to produce the movie on her own, but before that could happen she was found dead in an upstairs bathtub at her home in the Hollywood Hills. [Source: Hollywood Glamour Magazine, April 1943.]

Dead. In an upstairs bathtub.

Yeah, that just about fit. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“So they changed the spelling of the character’s name,” Wyatt said.

“But she doesn’t say what the movie was called.” My voice sounded slightly frantic. “How could she not say what it was called?”

Wyatt reached over and scrolled farther down the page to the comments. The first one, from someone called “G.A. Green,” read: Fascinating. What was the movie called?

And Paige P. had replied: The Final Honeymoon. It had a different working title, but I don’t know what that was, sorry!

We Googled The Final Honeymoon, but nothing came up. Interest in the project vanished when Diana Del Mar died. It was strange to think that even the stuff that was really important to a huge, famous movie star could disappear forever, except in dusty old copies of Hollywood tabloids.

“We need to get in touch with this Paige Pollan person and see what else she knows,” Wyatt said. “This is a solid lead.”

“I’m not denying that it seems significant,” I said. “But how does it connect to the murders? Is the killer going to use this scene? Does the ghost somehow know that?”

“That would break the pattern,” Wyatt said. “This screenplay never became an actual movie.”

I breathed into my balled-up hand. “Are we ignoring the obvious answer?”

“That Diana Del Mar is the ghost?” he asked.

I nodded. “And she knows something about the killer.”

“No. Let’s not ignore it. Let’s look into it. Maybe when you get home you could …”

“I could what?” I asked, even though I knew what he was going to say.

“Ask her?”

I bit down on my knuckle and stared out at the dark blue of the morning sky. “Oh, goodie.”

“In the meantime, let’s try to find out more about the movie itself. That’s obviously an important part of her message to you. Even if we know who she is, we’d better find out what she wants.”

“All right,” I said, going back to the blog. “Fine. I’ll ask the ghost what she wants. And I’ll email Paige.”

“Do you want anything to eat or drink?” Wyatt asked. “My mom is addicted to paying for designer water. For every four million bottles they sell they adopt an elephant or something. I’d be happy to bring you a bottle.”

“No, thanks,” I said. As he left, I opened a new-message window in my email.

I kept it simple: I read your blog about Diana Del Mar and her project The Final Honeymoon. I have some specific questions and wondered if you’d be willing to talk to me over the phone. If so, my number is 323-555-8333. Thank you for your time.

I hit SEND and sat back, looking around Wyatt’s room and trying to picture him there. It was simple and spare, but if you looked closer, you saw some personal touches – a stack of books in the corner, a small movie poster, artfully framed.

There was more to it than there seemed to be at first glance.

Kind of like Wyatt himself.

He came back, carrying a glass of water.

I read him the email I had sent Paige Pollan, and he nodded in approval, but he was distracted.

“All right,” I said. “Let me have it.”

He looked perplexed. “What?”

“Whatever it is you want to tell me, but were holding back on before,” I said.

He frowned, then kind of smiled. Then frowned again. “Well, last night, I … How do I say this? … I figured something out. Something that I think you’ll be interested to know.”

“Great.” I sat back in my chair, expecting to hear him gleefully recount that Leyta Fitzgeorge actually had a long criminal history or something. “Hit me.”

He looked nervous, which was unusual.

It made me a little nervous.

Then he spoke. “A normal, healthy adult won’t have a heart attack from an isolated burst of anger.”

“What?” I said, almost laughing. It was so random….

And then the words sank in, and it wasn’t random anymore.

“Wait,” I said. “What?”

“Your dad.” His smile was long gone. “I know what you think happened, but you’re wrong. You didn’t kill him.”

It was like my body had turned to stone. My voice had turned to stone, too. “What do you know about my dad, Wyatt?”

“Um,” he said, “I overheard Leyta last week … when she said his name. So I Googled him, and saw how he … he … passed away.”

With every word, he seemed to be growing sorrier and sorrier that he’d brought it up. But, because he was Wyatt, he kept pushing forward.

“The morning of May sixteenth,” he said. “When you guys were at the YMCA for your regular morning … swim.”

He’d caught sight of my face. I don’t know, honestly, what he saw there. I wasn’t really occupying my own body at the moment. I felt like I’d been launched into outer space without warning. Or oxygen.

Unwisely, he took my silence as a cue to continue. “You had a big argument about something, and the desk clerk saw you storm out of the natatorium —”

“What is a natatorium?” I asked, my voice low.

“A room with a swimming pool.” He waited to see if I’d ask anything else.

I did not.

“And after you went back in, she heard you screaming for help, and then she ran in and saw your …” It was like he couldn’t stop. It was like he was a machine, a heartless, cold, meaningless creature whose only actual purpose is to spew information, and if he stopped, he’d short-circuit and explode. “She saw your dad. And then the ambulance came, but it was too late. It was a heart attack. And you blame yourself, and that’s why you’re so afraid to be angry.”

I let my stare slide from his face to the floor.

“But it couldn’t have been your fault,” Wyatt said. “Healthy adults don’t have heart attacks provoked by anger or stress. That’s not a normal physiological response to —”

“Enough.” The word was like a concrete wall, twelve feet thick. “Enough, Wyatt. Stop.”

“I’m … sorry,” he said.

“All right,” I said. “You’re sorry. Great. Just do me one favor.”

“Okay.”

“Never speak to me again.”

“But …”

I turned away. My eyes burned like they were fighting back a million tears, but the rage inside me was so hot that the tears vaporized. I felt pressure in my face, and electrical currents flooding my fingers with every thump of my heart.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, sounding helpless. “I thought you’d want to know.”

I stood abruptly. “I should have listened to Marnie,” I said. “She told me you were a stalker. But I thought, nah, maybe she misunderstood something you said or did – maybe she was exaggerating.”

The light had gone out of Wyatt’s eyes. He stared up at me, but he didn’t answer.

“Here it is,” I said. “Proof. She was right. I must be the dumbest person on the planet. I was actually starting to trust you, Wyatt. I thought we were … friends or something.”

He didn’t say a single word.

“I’m leaving,” I said.

Somehow, I got out of his room and down the stairs and out the front door without losing my mind. And then somehow I made it home and ran upstairs and locked myself in my bedroom before Mom could see the look on my face.

In my room, I melted to the floor and stared at the ceiling.

And somehow – but I don’t know how – I didn’t die of a broken heart.