Mateo turns to give me a fleeting smile over his shoulder. “You know what? You’re cute when you’re incognito.”
Despite everything, something that feels a lot like happiness starts to bubble through my veins. But then I watch Mateo confer with Mr. Sorrento in the hallway, and the emptiness of my earlier words hits me hard. Everything will be okay, I said. I’m praying that it’s true for Autumn, but I know it’s not true for Mateo and me.
The buzzing joy recedes as fast as it came, replaced with the same five-word drumbeat that keeps ruining the only bright spot in this disastrous day.
You have to tell him.
YOUTUBE, CARLTON SPEAKS CHANNEL
Ishaan and Zack are in the Carlton High parking lot.
ISHAAN, panning to the crowd of students behind him: This is Ishaan and Zack coming to you live from Carlton High, getting in-person reactions from fellow students to our Hawkins Report segment about the deadly feud between Boney Mahoney and Ivy Sterling-Shepard. Hey, Carmen! (The camera focuses on a pretty brunette walking past.) Do you have any comment?
CARMEN, stopping: My comment is, You suck.
ISHAAN: Come on, now. A kid died. We’re just trying to get at the truth.
CARMEN: How about you let the police do that?
(Two boys appear over her shoulder, one in an athletic jacket and one with a buzz cut.)
BUZZ CUT: Ivy Sterling-Shepard, people. The classic story of a good girl gone bad.
ATHLETIC JACKET: Remember when she read porn at the talent show? Good times.
ZACK: Look, I think we can all agree that we’re raising some important questions here, but this is getting a little off topic.
(Emily Zhang starts pushing her way through the crowd of students, calling out, “Excuse me, coming through! I have new information!” She puts her hands on her hips once she’s in front of the camera.)
EMILY: First of all, I heard from Ivy. She says she had nothing to do with what happened to Boney.
ISHAAN: Yeah, well, she would say that. Where is she?
EMILY: Second of all, you guys refused to do basic research, so I did it for you. There were twelve absences in the Carlton High student body today, including two other seniors.
ISHAAN, looking mildly interested: Who were the seniors?
EMILY: Mateo Wojcik and Cal O’Shea-Wallace.
CARMEN: Oh, please. Mateo’s not involved in this.
ISHAAN: Cal who?
ZACK: Yeah, Mateo’s just, like…home sick or something.
EMILY: How do you know? Have you talked to him? (She pauses, waiting for Zack to respond, but he doesn’t.) If Ivy is guilty by absence, then he should be, too. Especially since they used to be friends.
CARMEN: They did?
ISHAAN: Seriously, who’s Cal?
ZACK: Okay, let’s—wait a sec. Is that Daniel Sterling-Shepard? (The camera zooms on a blond boy with an athletic bag slung over one shoulder.)
ISHAAN: Yeah, it is. Heading for lacrosse practice like it’s a normal day. Is he clinging to routine, or does he just not give a crap? Yo, Danny boy! Daniel, over here! (The blond boy turns.) You wanna make a statement about your sister?
(Daniel raises both middle fingers.)
ISHAAN: Powerful statement.
MATEO
I never fully appreciated Cal’s driving skills until now. It’s almost three-thirty in the afternoon, when greater Boston’s early rush hour traffic starts filling up the roads, but we haven’t seen any of it. He keeps overriding the GPS by taking back roads to get to Hyde Park, where Autumn is supposed to be in about fifteen minutes. When the system recalculates once again and posts a new estimated arrival time, it looks like we might actually make it.
“How do you know all these roads?” Ivy asks. She’s been giving Cal the lowdown on everything we talked about in Sorrento’s, and he’s been absorbing all of it without arguing or defending Ms. Jamison. But he hasn’t said much, either.
“My girlfriend before Noemi was a competitive fencer,” he says. “I used to drive her to meets all over the place.”
“Fencing? That’s interesting,” Ivy says, and bam—Cal jumps at the chance to change the subject, launching into a monologue about his ex that I immediately tune out. I don’t blame him for wanting to focus on something else for a few minutes, but I can’t do the same. I keep flashing back to what Mr. Sorrento said in the hallway: Someone else called right after you. He sounded rather urgent.
Ever since Autumn started selling the Oxy, I’ve been mad at her. I was afraid she’d get into trouble, maybe even get Ma or me into trouble. But I never thought, until today, that she could get hurt.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out, hoping for a message from Autumn, but it’s from Ma. I get a quick jolt of apprehension—she knows—but it’s just a picture of her and her friend Christy flanking my aunt Rose. They’re sitting on Aunt Rose’s rock-hard, floral upholstered couch, which has a bunch of silver and gold balloons tied around one arm. All three of them are beaming, cheerful and oblivious.