Friday nights were usually busy because of the theater next door. Moviegoers often wandered into the store to kill time and annoy me with inane questions about books they had zero intention of buying. After the first premovie rush had died down—it was opening weekend for the second movie based on the Patient F comics: The Nightmare King and the Horde of Unthinkables—and I’d finished my shelving, I settled behind the register with the copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude I’d been crawling through for the last week. Tommy had frequently “suggested” books I should read, and he’d said One Hundred Years of Solitude would change my life, but I found it difficult to lose myself in the many misfortunes of the Buendía family. Maybe the story lost something in the translation—Tommy had read it in Spanish—or maybe the city of mirrors simply mirrored my own life too well.
I stuck a bookmark between the pages, abandoned Gabriel García Márquez for the night, and picked up a book about quantum physics. I was most interested in the idea of the multiverse, as I thought it might help explain where Tommy had gone. I didn’t necessarily understand most of what I read—especially the stuff about p-branes and the potential that our universe consisted of seven or more dimensions folded so small we couldn’t perceive them—but I imagined the possibility that Tommy had been sucked into one of those other dimensions, that he was still here, maybe even right beside me, but that I simply couldn’t see him.
Another theory, equally as unlikely, was that I was the one who’d been drawn into a parallel world. One in which everything was exactly the same except Tommy had never been born. Only, if that one were true, then it meant a version of me that had never known Tommy had existed and been displaced by my arrival, and I couldn’t help wondering where he’d gone—if we’d switched places and he was in my world, living my life.
Hell, every possibility seemed as implausible as the next, but I kept coming up with them, hoping to stumble onto the truth and find a way to return to Tommy.
The electronic bell at the front of the store chirped, and Trent Williams, D’Arcy Gaudet, and Cody Dawson walked through the door. Trent was a standard-issue jock troglodyte—thick arms, buzz cut, cocky swagger—Cody his parroty sycophant, and D’Arcy a type-A know-it-all with a YouTube channel dedicated exclusively to promoting all things D’Arcy Gaudet.
Trent spotted me standing behind the registers, and a grin broke over his face. “Hey! It’s Pink Lady.”
Growing up with the name “Oswald” had sucked enough without the added shame of the surname “Pinkerton.” I’d spent sixth grade being called “Pink Lady,” though most of my peers had stopped using the unimaginative nickname in middle school. Some people, it seemed, never grew up.
“Trent.” I glowered at him and walked out from behind the counter. “I wasn’t aware you could read.”
“Funny,” Trent said. “Isn’t he funny?”
“Yeah,” Cody said. “Too bad he doesn’t realize he’s the joke.”
D’Arcy rolled her eyes. “Ugh, why are we here? If I get stuck sitting in the front row, I’m going to scream.”
“See what I gotta deal with?” Trent said.
I detested D’Arcy Gaudet, but she could’ve done better than Trent. Not only was he messing around with at least three other girls, but everyone knew he had a thing for Lua, though he’d broken a kid’s nose in tenth grade for mentioning it.
“Can I help you find something?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.
Trent wandered around the front displays, picking up books and dropping them on the floor. I could’ve told him to stop or called Mrs. Petridis from the back to kick him out, but it was easier to let Trent be a dick. Eventually he’d grow bored and leave.
“So I hear you’re working with Calvin Frye in Fuentes’s class,” Trent said.
“You heard correctly,” I said. I resisted the urge to pick up the books Trent had dropped, knowing he’d only toss them down again.
Trent nodded. Cody shadowed Trent’s every move, but D’Arcy stood near the door, her arms folded across her chest.
“You oughta watch out for that kid,” Trent said.
“Didn’t you guys used to be friends?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. They’d joined the wrestling team together, and had been practically inseparable until Calvin went all black-hoodie-and-no-one-understands-my-unfathomable-pain.
“Only ’cause I felt bad for the kid,” Trent said.
D’Arcy let out a high-pitched sigh. “Oh my God! Can we go already?”
The doorbell chirped again. I glanced toward the front, grateful for the opportunity to escape Trent, but was surprised when Mrs. Ross shuffled in. She was wearing loose jeans and a baggy sweater, her hair was springy and big, and she wore oversize sunglasses despite the lack of sun or bright lights.
“Seriously,” Trent said, like he was oblivious that another human being had walked into the store. “Calvin’s some kind of pathological liar. You can’t believe anything he says.”
I was only half listening to Trent because I was watching Tommy’s mom. I still thought of her as Tommy’s mom even though she didn’t remember having a son.
“Coach thought Cal was his best wrestler,” Trent was saying, “but I always knew there was something off about the kid.”
Mrs. Ross glanced in my direction. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I imagined them widening slightly when she recognized me, though to her I was no longer the boy who used to play at her trailer and for whose bloody knees she’d kept a stash of superhero Band-Aids, and was instead the crazy kid who’d shown up at her house on the Fourth of July and then called the police when she’d denied having a son.
“I wouldn’t spend too much time with him if I were you.” Trent really couldn’t take the hint that I wasn’t listening.
“Sure,” I said. “Whatever.” I moved past Trent toward Mrs. Ross, but she turned and hurried back out the door.
I wanted to chase after her, but I couldn’t leave the store, especially not with Trent hanging around. And what would I have said to her? What could I have said?
“And another thing—” Trent started, but I cut him off.
“Look, I don’t know what your hard-on for Calvin Frye is about, but we’re working on a stupid roller coaster together, and that’s all. Okay?”
Trent’s mouth hung open. He glared at me for a moment. Then, his eyes locked on mine, he swept the holiday cookbooks onto the floor.
I kept my mouth shut because his psycho smirk made me think he was one insult away from taking a giant crap on the carpet to spite me.
“Come on,” he said to Cody and D’Arcy. “We’re gonna be late for the movie.”
I waited for them to leave before I picked up the books. Trent was a dick, and I didn’t care what he said about me or Calvin. It was Mrs. Ross I couldn’t stop thinking about. Even though she’d run the moment I’d tried to speak to her, I could’ve sworn she’d hesitated. Almost like she’d wanted to talk to me too.
But I’d probably just imagined it.
12,000,003,087 LY