16.
“A theory if you hold it hard enough
And long enough gets rated as a creed.”
—“Etherealizing,” 1947
By the time I burst through the double doors at school, sleep-deprived and wired on too much coffee, I’ve convinced myself that I’m either crazy or a genius because of where the words “what if” led me after I left Kismet yesterday. When I pointed out the constellation in the painting to Orion, he said nothing. He just dropped his eyes and ducked into the back room. I stayed then, leaving my chai untouched, listening to the rain pour down outside, and looking into the painting. The painting that had to have been done by her. All the while wondering—what if?
What if he wasn’t hiding anything? What if he wasn’t lying about the painting? If his uncle really did bring it back from vacation? What would that mean?
And then—
What if there is more to the story? More than what I know, or what she wrote down. More—that happened after. What if I was the one who ended up with all the pieces to figure it out? Who was given the chance to see how they fit together? What if, after all these years, I found her journal for a reason. I know it’s impossible to change the past, but what if I could uncover a version that’s been hidden all this time. One that leads me to the most important question of all:
What if Julianna Farnetti is still alive?
I know it sounds insane. I’m still not sure how I’ll be able to say this out loud, even to Kat. In the empty hallway, under the bad fluorescent lights, the question seems even more ludicrous in my mind. But then it doesn’t. That “what if” kept me up all night, sent me to my computer to dredge up every article I could find on Shane and Julianna’s wreck: the location of the Jeep in the icy river, the likelihood they’d been swept down it into the lake, where it was near impossible they’d ever be found. And then, the inarguable fact that they never were. That they disappeared into the swirling spring night, just like that. Case closed.
Or maybe not. Each time I tried to tell myself it wasn’t possible, my mind went back to the painting hanging on the wall at Kismet. The palpable sadness in it, Orion visible in the sky, but mostly, the title. Frost’s title. I’d remembered it being a sad poem, but when I got home, the first thing I did was open up my anthology to “Acquainted with the Night,” and when I sat down to read his words, it was with a different set of eyes. As crazy as it sounds, I swear I could hear her voice in them.
“I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in the rain—and back in the rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.”
They’re the words of someone who’s been lost and lonely. Left something behind.
“I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.”
I see her in my mind, walking a lonely street, eyes downcast, hiding from her past someplace far from home. Maybe in that little artsy town where Josh’s uncle found her painting, and where maybe . . . I can find her.
I can’t let myself think that far ahead yet though. First I have to convince Kat to see what I see. I lean against her locker and wait, my mind buzzing and trying to fit something that I know will sound completely crazy into words that won’t. But maybe it won’t matter for her. Maybe she’ll just go right along with it because it is so out there. She always goes more on possibility than logic. I’m usually the one bogged down in needing facts. And right now the fact that I see her coming down the hall with Trevor Collins, looking more than friendly, gives me pause.
They don’t see me yet, but as I watch them walk they look . . . close. She leans into him and says something that looks like it surprises him before it sends a grin from one side of his face to the other, then tugs at my stomach. I’m surprised. I didn’t think she . . . or he . . . I just didn’t think they would ever—
I tell myself I don’t have any right to be jealous. He’s not mine, and I’ve passed up the opportunity more than once. And after the way I acted yesterday I wouldn’t blame him if he stopped trying. But still. Why would she be so like that with him, when she knows I—I stop my tangent. Clearly I’ve had too much caffeine and too little sleep and am overanalyzing. Kat looks like she’s flirting no matter what she does. Even when she says hi to me.
“Hey, you,” she says with a smile.
I take a step forward to meet the two of them, loop my arm through Kat’s, and words come out in one breathless rush. “Hey you guys, good morning, Kat can I talk to you alone?” I grab her arm.
They both look a little stunned.
“Morning to you too, Frost,” Trevor says. He’s still wearing a hint of the smile Kat put on his face with whatever she said. “Guess that’s my cue to go.” He gives Kat a look I can’t read, winks at me, then turns and walks away from us without saying anything else.
“That was weird,” I say.
She looks me over. “You were weird. What’s going on? You look like crap.”
I ignore the comment and pull her close so I can whisper. “I decided on my one thing.”
“Huh?”
“My one thing I promised you I’d do.” She’s already looking at me like I’ve lost it and I haven’t even told her what it is yet. “The unexpected thing?” Still nothing. I take a deep breath and try again. “You said I had to promise you I’d do one unexpected thing before graduation, and I have it.”
Recognition slides over her face in a smile. “Oh yeeaah. What is it?”
“I can’t tell you right now. It’s a long story and I have to finish the last of the journals for Kinney. Come with me to the library.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Look at you taking charge. It’s too bad you didn’t yesterday.”
“What are you talking about?”
She ignores the question. “Never mind. Let’s go. I haven’t been to first period for the last four days. No need to break the streak now.”
After a quick stop at Mr. Kinney’s room to grab the box of journals, Kat and I find a seat at a table in the farthest corner of the library. She slaps another preprinted postage label on a manila envelope and tosses it in the box at our feet. “Okay. Let me repeat back to you what you just said so you can, you know, hear how insane you sound.” I nod, pretty sure that this is part of the process of her agreeing to go with me.
“You, Parker Frost, stumbled across and stole Julianna Farnetti’s journal from this stack here.” She pats it and I nod. “Then you read it, found out she was in love with some other guy who wasn’t Shane Cruz, but who you’ve decided is Josh from Kismet, and because of a tattoo and an anonymous painting in his café, you think Julianna Farnetti is still alive and it’s your duty to reunite the two people who were actually meant to be together, by taking our unofficial senior trip to some art town instead of to San Francisco and the beach?” She stops to take a breath just in time for Ms. Moore to give her “the look,” which Kat pointedly ignores. “It doesn’t sound crazy at all, right?”
I don’t answer right away. Instead I peel another postage label from the sheet to give Ms. Moore a chance to turn her attention back to her computer. Then I look at Kat. “Well, when you say it all dramatic like that . . .”
“You’re insane.” Kat peels and sticks another label. “And you’ve obviously read too much Nicholas Sparks.”
“Ha. You have too. And you love this, I know it.” She tries to hide a smile as she tosses another envelope into the box. “Kat, come on. It’s exactly the type of thing you’re always trying to get me to do.”
“Go chasing after a dead girl? What about Shane? Where does he figure into this whole thing? Is he alive too?” She leans in close and lowers her voice to a sinister whisper. “Or did she kill him and run off?”
“Kat—” I stop. I haven’t actually thought about where Shane fits into the puzzle. What the rest of his story is. “I don’t know. But I’m taking this trip, and the only other person in the world I’d want to take it with is you. So you’re coming. Right?” I try for the kind of confidence she usually throws at me, but it comes out as a question and a pathetic attempt at puppy dog eyes.
She rolls hers. “Of course I’ll come, you dork. I just had to torture you a little. Make sure you’re really committed to doing this thing.”
“You will?” I jump out of my seat in a rush of relief and excitement and hope, and wrap my arms around Kat, not caring if Ms. Moore shoots another look our way.
“But you know you’re gonna have to let me read the journal,” she says. “Just in case you missed something important.” She reaches around me for my backpack.
I grab it first. “Um . . . I—”
“Girls,” Ms. Moore says with another pointed look, “I think it’s time you get back to your classes. The period’s almost finished, and it seems your work is too.”
“Sorry,” I say, slipping back into my normal, authority-fearing self. “You’re right. We’ll pack up right now.” I lean across the table to gather up the various stacks of envelopes, and all in one motion Kat slides her hand into my open backpack, snatches out Julianna’s journal, and slips it into her purse. I kick her under the table.
“Calm down,” she smiles. “I’ll give it back to you by the end of the day, and I won’t show anyone. Promise.”
Before I can answer her the bell rings and she spins on her heel and makes for the door, leaving me with the box to return to Mr. Kinney’s and the hope beyond hope that she keeps her promise.