“Not by me, I guess. I lived near DC most of my life. People disappeared a lot. Or worse.”
As if missing brothers happen all the time. As if this isn’t the defining moment of my life, and everything that’s happened since.
“So…,” I begin, looking her over but trying not to seem like I am. She’s smaller than I realized at first. Her legs not as long, when she’s standing in front of me. And her hair, it’s hard to tell in the dark, but it’s not quite as wild. Her eyes are wide, and dark, and unflinching.
I’ve obviously failed in keeping my observation of her a secret, because she does the same to me, only she doesn’t try to hide it. I try not to shrink into myself as her eyes skim over me slowly. She presses her lips together. “So, Visitor—”
“Nolan,” I say. “Nolan Chandler.”
“Nolan, Nolan Chandler,” she repeats, “what were you hoping to find out here?” She gestures to my bag. “Is that what I think it is?”
I open the top and show her the contents, but she doesn’t move to touch it. Just nods slightly. I remember, then, this girl is looking for aliens. I think she mentioned that someone was looking into it for her. “Wait,” I say, remembering the conversation that just happened between Sutton and his friends. “Was that girl—Lydia, right?—was she your, quote, contact?”
Kennedy crosses her arms over her chest. “She’s smart. She knows computers. She knows that stuff almost as well as anyone else. Besides, doesn’t sound like you have anything to add. So far, you’ve sent me a No and three question marks. At least I’m trying something.”
“Fair enough. I’m trying something, too, though.”
“I think—” she starts, just as I say, “Want to know what I’m thinking?”
We both grin. “You first,” I say.
She shakes her head, looking up at the sky, then back at me. “I don’t know. I don’t know what it means. Any of it. The signal stopped happening, and I never would’ve thought it was anything real if it weren’t for the fact that you were seeing the exact same thing.”
I smile then, without even thinking about it. Because I suddenly don’t feel so out of my element. I feel exactly in my element. I have been living in uncertainty for two years. “Me too,” I say. “But it’s not happening at my house anymore, either. And if I hadn’t taken that video, I would’ve thought I was just remembering it wrong.”
She wrinkles her nose either at me or at the equipment, I’m not sure. But it turns her suddenly vulnerable. “There’s someone else. I know someone else who can help, who might be able to tell us what it means. I’m going to talk to him tomorrow.”
“Who?”
She looks at me as if to say she doesn’t trust me yet. Well, she ran into me in the middle of the night, in the middle of the woods—who can blame her? The silence eventually reaches peak awkward levels, and I clear my throat. “Okay, well, on that note, I think I’ll be heading back to my car now.”
She steps back at the same time, like it’s a race to see who gets away the fastest. “Okay, well, guess I’ll be making my way back to the house now.”
“I thought—”
She turns around. “You thought what?”
“I thought no one lived there anymore.”
She smiles, and it catches me off guard. “They don’t.” And with that, she’s gone.
The next morning, I end up getting on the bus at the same stop Marco and I both used to use, before he got his license, and a car. I sneak on between two students, head down, headphones on, but the stealth mode is unnecessary—the driver doesn’t even look my way.
This was my bus at the start of the year, anyway, before I moved in with Joe. My seat is still empty, third row from the back, where Marco would sit beside me. The whole row is abandoned now, like we’ve just vanished and nobody noticed.
I spent last night reading articles on my phone about Liam Chandler, to make sure this Nolan guy was who he said he was. Most of the articles are older, from early spring two years ago. Liam Chandler was a senior when he disappeared, and, according to the articles, great at everything. Sports, academics, involved in community service, with plenty of friends, from what I can gather by the number of people interviewed, claiming to be his best friend.
The articles stopped for the most part by summer, except around graduation, where there was a tribute to him in the student paper, lest anyone forget.
After that, crickets.
I’ve been trying to figure out what to write to Nolan, to explain. And also, to apologize for jumping down his throat, for being angry at him just for being someone like me, with no more answers than I have. Instead, I decide to just skip that part and hope he doesn’t notice. Nolan said yesterday that he had a car, and suddenly everything feels more possible. I told him I had a plan about today. The truth is, it was only half a plan. He doesn’t realize it, but he’s just provided the other half.
In the middle of first period, when the teacher tells us to use the class to prepare for our finals, I slip my phone out from under my desk and send him a message.
Hey Visitor, hey Nolan,
Sorry getting used to that. Any chance you’re free this afternoon, say around 3pm? I need a ride. It’s in both of our best interest. Someone who can tell us about the signal, help us decipher it. But I also need you to not ask any questions.
Also, here’s my number, probably easier than going through the forum, right?
I refresh my messages over and over, but eventually, two classes later, a text comes through instead.
Hi KJ, sorry, Kennedy. Make it 3:30 and I’m in. Where should we meet?
I smile, then try to think of a neutral meeting place. I get home at three, and we’re already cutting it close, timing-wise. In the end, I justify sending him Joe’s address by the fact that Sutton knows him, and a quick Google search gives me his address, too. The whole way home I’m thinking about this—about Nolan and the car and answers—because we’re so close, and I know just where to get them. I’m not thinking clearly, and I’m so fully distracted that I walk into a complete ambush, with Joe waiting for me at the kitchen table.
It’s 3 p.m. and he’s got a two-liter bottle of soda in front of him, half empty, and he’s peeling at the label. It looks like he’s been there awhile, a condensation ring forming on the table, his elbow resting on a wrinkled sheet of paper.
“Oh,” I say, suddenly remembering. The papers in front of him. The questions. I close my eyes. “I’m sorry, Joe, I made plans. Can we do this another time?”
But he’s already shaking his head. “This was the time you gave me, Kennedy. And you promised. We’re doing this now.”
I look at the clock, drop my bag from my shoulder, and perch on the edge of the kitchen chair. “Okay,” I say. Best to get this over with, make it quick, be done with it.
But it looks like Joe doesn’t want to start, either.
I drum my fingers on the table. Joe looks at me over the edge of the page, then focuses on the questions.
“?‘On the early morning of December fourth,’?” he reads, and then he puts the pages down. “You know, you were right. This is pointless.”
I sigh, my entire body relaxing.
“They’re going about this the wrong way. Pulling at pieces. Why don’t you start instead,” he says.
This was not part of the deal. Not part of our agreement. “We can just tell them we did it,” I suggest with a small grin.
He closes his eyes and picks up the paper again. He speaks faster, robotic, like he doesn’t really want to hear my answers. His fingers tremble, and he readjusts the papers to try to get them to stop. “?‘On the early morning of December fourth,’?” he says in a gravelly voice, “?‘what time did you leave Marco Saliano’s house?’?”
I close my eyes. “Just tell me the answer, Joe. Tell me what to say.”
He looks up, fixes his eyes on mine. “The truth, Kennedy.”
The truth. It’s hard to remember now. It’s hard to tell the difference between what I remember and what I want to remember; what I was told versus what I saw. “The thing is,” I begin, “I don’t remember looking at a clock. I don’t remember, Joe. I’ve spent six months trying not to think about it, and all these details, they’re just not there anymore.” I shake my head, both trying to remember and trying not to. “There was a storm, and I was waiting for it to let up before I went home. We went over all this, with the police. And they gave me the time, based on that. Based on what Marco said.”
“And,” Joe adds, “based on the nine-one-one call. At one-eighteen a.m.”
I nod slowly. “Right.”