He would know. He rarely invited me to his house, and at first I’d thought it was because he was embarrassed that his family had money when mine so clearly didn’t. But after I’d been there a couple of times I figured out that it was really about his parents. His mom wasn’t afraid to express her disappointment with him in front of me, and his dad was almost never around; when he was, he joined the party. His brother picked on him at school, and his parents picked on him at home. Even at that young an age, I must have started to understand that there was nowhere he felt safe except with me.
There was one other safe place, of course: the ITC. Our happy place. I’d never been allowed to buy comics—they were expensive and my parents thought I’d stop reading “real” books. Which turned out to be kind of accurate, though it still didn’t mean they were right. Hayden, in contrast, already considered himself a collector. He made a point of buying the first issue of every new comic that came out, just in case one of them took off and the original turned out to be worth something. His parents, like Mom, didn’t approve, but his father was a money guy and thought it was important for Hayden and Ryan to have allowances so they learned how to budget. I think maybe on some level he also respected that Hayden was thinking about his hobby in terms of investment, though he never actually said it out loud. God forbid he actually praise Hayden for something.
That was the day I discovered how into comics Hayden really was. I’d borrowed copies of all the old Batman series from the library, but he was into way different stuff. He introduced me to all the comics written by people from the bands we liked—there was one from the lead singer of My Chemical Romance, and one from the guy from the Dandy Warhols, even one from a bunch of members of the Dresden Dolls. I figured there had to be one from Colin Meloy, lead singer of the Decemberists. “He’s all literary, and his wife’s a graphic artist—there’s no way he doesn’t have a comic if all these other guys do.”
This led to our first fight about music, the first of many, so many I couldn’t count. I wish I’d realized how important those fights would be to me. Maybe I’d have realized how much fun they were.
I couldn’t believe Hayden wasn’t into the Decemberists—they were smart and creative and weird, all the things he loved. But maybe they were too smart; it pissed Hayden off when there were words in the songs he didn’t know. I thought that was part of the fun, but he didn’t see it that way. We were still yelling at each other right up until the time my mom showed up; I made her play all ten minutes of the live version of “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” in the car on the way home, which finally shut us up. We sat quietly through the story of two men figuring out their shared history after being swallowed by a whale. “Sounds like klezmer music,” Mom said, wrinkling her nose, but we ignored her. Hayden didn’t even say good-bye to me when he got out of the car, just thanked my mom for the ride and gave me a little nod.
“Everything okay?” Mom asked. “You guys were kind of quiet back there. Did you have a good day?”
“The best,” I said, and I meant it.
The fact that Hayden had put the song on his mix seemed in some ways like a peace offering to me. Unlike some of the other songs where we’d fought and the song he liked made it on the list, he’d picked the song that was from my favorite album, even though the Decemberists had eventually changed their style on the last album and made Hayden a fan. He could have picked one of those songs, and it still would have meant a lot to me, but the fact that he’d picked this one meant even more.
But it still wasn’t my favorite of their songs. Which meant there had to be another reason he’d chosen it. It was, after all, a song about revenge; maybe it was that simple. Was it some kind of clue? Or an instruction? Had Hayden been directing me to take revenge on his behalf? Or could it be something even stranger? ArchmageGed had manifested himself in my room; maybe it wasn’t impossible that he could do it somewhere else. Crazy, sure, but not impossible.
But if ArchmageGed was Hayden, I couldn’t imagine it. The Hayden I knew would never have done something like that. Then again, the Hayden I knew wouldn’t have killed himself, either. And I didn’t think I was capable of hurting anyone, not like Jason and Trevor had been hurt, but Hayden had done something I couldn’t see coming.
Who’s to say that I couldn’t, too?
THE SOUND OF BUZZING WOKE ME up at nine thirty. At first I was confused and thought it was time for school; then I realized it was Saturday and I hadn’t set an alarm or anything. Besides, my alarm was actually a dock for my iPod, so these days I was waking up to Hayden’s playlist. It took a minute for my brain to de-fuzz enough to realize that the buzzing sound was the doorbell. Which was weird because really, no one ever came over here. Rachel’s boyfriends usually just sat outside and lay on the horn, which Mom really hated, and Rachel never had friends over. When Hayden came over he’d knock, but of course it wasn’t him. My heart jumped for a second at the thought that maybe Astrid had decided to drop by, but why would she do that? We’d just gotten off the phone a few hours before, and she must have crashed after; it seemed like she’d been up all night.
The buzzing sounded again, and I realized I should probably get up and answer it. Mom usually went to bed right after work, so she was probably asleep, and Rachel never got off her butt to do anything, which left me. I hadn’t bothered to change out of my clothes before getting in bed, so I ate a Tic-Tac to cover what must have been my disgusting post-party breath and ran out of my room.
Mom hadn’t gone to bed yet, though, so she’d already answered the door by the time I hit the stairs. I couldn’t see who it was right away; all I could see was a cardboard box, overflowing with stuff—T-shirts on top, who knew what else underneath. I could make out the design on one of the shirts—a mockup of the standard evolution series but with zombies—and I realized it had belonged to Hayden. Then I saw who was holding the box: Hayden’s mom.
“Come on in, Mrs. Stevens,” Mom said. It was funny—I’d almost never seen them in the same place together, and I hadn’t realized how much taller Mom was than Mrs. Stevens, who was tiny. I wondered if that’s what Hayden and I looked like standing next to each other.
It was pretty shocking to see Mrs. Stevens here. She’d never liked me, and she didn’t approve of my friendship with Hayden. Mrs. Stevens was a slim, stylish woman, always perfectly made up, always with matching jewelry and handbags and shoes. Hayden had told me she’d been hoping for daughters, who she could teach how to dress and behave. Hayden’s wardrobe of baggy pants and T-shirts had infuriated her. She always said that if he wore nicer things, he’d have more friends. Great message. “Really, so she’d be less embarrassed of me,” Hayden had said, and though he tried to sound casual, I knew it upset him. She kept thinking that if Hayden hung out with a classier crowd, like Ryan did, he’d be happier, more motivated to change into what she wanted him to be. She didn’t know him at all. It annoyed her that he would come over here, where Mom would let us watch TV and play video games and he could eat whatever he wanted, though of course it was more from a lack of cooking ability than a lack of respect for Mrs. Stevens’s desire to see him skinnier.