“Oh, really? Convince me you’re my old Jonah. Tell me one thing that happened at school today—to you, not one of your classmates. Tell me one fact about your life.”
I look away. What good will come from me whining about how I eat lunch in the library because there’s no place for me at the cafeteria’s round tables? How it’s almost physically painful listening to the baseball players who sit near me in bio talk about organizing a father-son summer league? How my math teacher still calls me “Noah”? Or what about how the Empress of Cross Pointe graced me with a lesson on operating my locker?
“Please?” she says, leaning forward and putting a hand on my knee. “Just talk to me, Jonah. Please.”
I flip my hands palm up in a half shrug. I can either tell her I’m a loser, or I can lose her. “I figured out how to lock my locker.”
“You mean unlock,” she says with an eye roll, pulling away from me.
“No, lock.” I shift in my seat, trying to find a comfortable position where I can face her without the steering wheel impaled in my ribs. “See, in Cross Pointe the lockers—”
She waves a hand, cutting me off. “Don’t talk down to me.”
“What?”
“In Cross Pointe,” she mimics with an affected accent. “Please, Jonah, explain to me how lockers work, because since I’m not from Cross Pointe, I’m clearly not smart enough to know.”
“Forget it.” I’m shaking my head and we’re both sighing. Frustrated exhales that are the only sound in the car.
“So that’s it? That’s all you can come up with about your day?” It’s an accusation, but I’m not sure what I’m being accused of. And when I try to think of something to share, something that would make today stand out from every other day of invisibility and over-polite refusals to acknowledge my existence, I can’t.
“Let’s talk about something else. It was just a normal day—nothing happened.”
“Just because I don’t go to your fancy high school and I’m not headed to an Ivy League college doesn’t make me stupid—” I try to interrupt, but she’s on a roll. “And just because I can’t make out with you in the back of the Jag I got for my sixteenth birthday and seduce you with the perfect boobs I got for my seventeenth—or is it the other way around, Jonah? How do Cross Pointe snobs order their lives: cars or plastic surgery first?”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “Plastic surgery. Then the cars.”
“Oh, so this is a joke to you? I guess you’d know. So tell me: Exactly how many sets of Cross Pointe boobs have you seen?”
The nail of her pointer finger is inches from my face. I push it away and snap back, “You think I’m cheating? Are you crazy?”
“We both know you are. At least be man enough to admit it.”
“That’s such crap. I can’t believe—”
“Don’t even try to deny it. I found this in your backseat last week.” She pulls the bright blue paper back out of her pocket and holds it like a murder weapon.
I have no clue what’s on it or why it’s made Carly psycho. I take it from her hand and hope it contains the logo from Punk’d. The creases are deep and smooth, like it’s been unfolded repeatedly.
She crosses her arms and watches my face expectantly. I look down—it’s a single sheet of paper. A flyer from Cross Pointe, like the hundreds of others that are hung on the school walls at neat intervals.
“So?” I’m baffled. So confused that I’m not even angry anymore.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Did you want to help put together care packages for last year’s seniors? I don’t know what the problem is. Yes, it’s a stupid project—but who cares if some idiots wanted to mail snacks and instant coffee to a group of spoiled college freshmen?”
Carly’s face is red, her lips pressed together so tight they disappear. “Who. Is. She?” She snatches the flyer from my hands and it tears in the corner. I’m left holding a jagged scrap of blue paper. Carly points to some handwriting at the bottom of the page: ten digits and a name.
Brighton.
10
Brighton
6:07 P.M.
18 HOURS, 53 MINUTES LEFT
The Sheas gave me a tour and left three different ways to contact them. Sophia’s already asleep and they promised to be home by ten, so the only real directions for the next four hours are: “Check the baby monitor and call if you need us. No, actually, if she wakes up at all, call us.”
It seems straightforward, and she hasn’t woken so I haven’t called. But this hasn’t stopped Mr. Shea from checking in three times already.
I reassure him, for the third time, “Everything is quiet here.”
“And the monitor is definitely working?” he asks.
“It is.” I hold it up to the phone and turn up the volume so he can hear the steady raindrop sounds of Sophia’s white-noise machine.
“Okay.” He exhales. “So, you’re all set?”
“Go enjoy your dinner,” I tell him. “Everything here is fine.”