In this context, all of Mrs. Cho’s actions as a mother make sense—all the micromanagement, her hypervigilance, every bit of pressure and guidance that we’d interpreted as bossiness.
The one thing she never did was to explain why, and that might have been the one thing that changed the outcome.
Yet I don’t offer Mrs. Cho this opinion because it’s just speculation on my part. It’s possible Stephen would have been even more anxious, knowing that he was someone’s namesake, that it was on him to honor the other Stephen who never got to grow up.
There are no easy answers because Stephen was complicated. Likely the other Stephen was, too.
All I can do, all any of us can do, is to be here for his mom now.
I’m compelled to give her some measure of solace.
“Stephen was exceptional,” I say. “Better than everyone else because you cared so much for him. That’s why he got in to MIT and I didn’t.”
I actually have no idea whether or not I’ve been admitted.
Yet I tell her this lie because it suddenly feels like it should be truth.
Mallory
3:11 PM
im in-OMFG, i got in!
Kent
3:12 PM
all the cool kids were already accepted J
Mallory
3:13 PM
is it...okay for me to be excited?
Kent
3:13 PM
id b mad if u weren’t
42
MALLORY
“That was intense.”
Kent gives me the oddest look from his seat on the passenger’s side. “Ya think?”
“Wait, you didn’t find that whole scene with Mrs. Cho intense?” I ask.
“Ring, ring, ring. Hello? Oh, okay, hang on,” Kent says. He holds out a pretend phone. “Captain Obvious is calling for you.”
“Shut up.”
“How were you never on the debate team with snappy rejoinders like that in your arsenal?” he asks.
“Okay,” I say, coming to a stop. “This is your house. Get out of my car, now, bye.”
His smile fades as he becomes more serious. “Sorry, Mallory. That was...hard. I don’t know that I could have gotten through the whole conversation without you. Thank you for being there.”
“That’s what Gatekeepers do,” I tell him, adding, “and that’s what friends do.”
He says, “If you need anything, if there’s anything hard that you can’t do on your own, you tell me, okay? I’ll be there for you.”
I dismiss his offer with an, “I’m fine, I’m good.”
And then I realize what I’m saying.
“Actually, I’m not fine. I’m still far from good. Do you mind coming back to my house with me? There’s something I have to do and I could really use a friend.”
*
“Is this weird?” I ask. I have Braden’s North Shore email log-in pulled up on my laptop. Kent is sitting next to me on my bed for moral support.
“Obsessing about hacking into your dead friend’s email? No, what could be weird about that?” Kent replies.
I stiffen next to him. This was a mistake.
He sees that I’m upset and quickly changes his tune. “Mallory, no, bad joke. Sorry. I totally understand you. I do. You feel like this is your last chance for answers, like there’s some kind of golden ticket in his email.”
“Basically, yes. And if I screw up his password one more time, I’ll never get in. I’ll never know if there was something else, one last thought, one final word. He said he was going to email me, but I never got it. Not knowing if that letter’s stuck in Draft will haunt me.”
Kent’s leaning against my headboard, but I’m completely rigid, so tense right now, so tightly wound that I might snap in two.
He says, “From Owen we know that there was a lot of shit in Braden’s life that he never talked about. It’s really sad, but we do have a better understanding of why he might have felt bereft. Still...you’re hoping to find a new clue, right? A breadcrumb of sorts?”
I nod.
He asks me, “In a perfect world, what would you wanna know?”
I tell him, “In a perfect world, I’d like confirmation that he felt the same way about me that I did about him. Because he never told me. Why couldn’t he ever tell me?”
“Um, duh.”
“What do you mean, ‘duh’? And who says ‘duh’? What are you, nine?”
“No, ‘duh’ is reserved for when someone says something that’s a mile past dumb and a tenth of a mile before moronic. So lemme break it down for you—you are Hot Mallory and until he grew into his looks the summer after eighth grade, Braden was a big tool. Like, huge tool. You didn’t know him, he went to a different junior high than us. But I met him in grade school. We were buds. We went to astronomy camp together, and trust me, we tools? We can smell our own.”
“He was never a tool,” I seethe, anxious to defend his honor.
“Girl, please. The puns, Mallory? Only someone handsome like Braden could get away with puns. Save for limericks, puns are the lowest form of humor. And speaking in emojis? The girls’ hats? The weird cartoon backpacks? All that stuff comes across super cool when you look like Channing Tatum. When you don’t? Not so much.”
“I never thought of it that way,” I admit.
“Lemme ask you something—if you cared about him and he was into you, what’s with all the Romeo and Juliet business? Like, hook up already. What was the problem? It’s not like you were going anywhere permanent with Liam.”
“Oh, poor Liam. Has Simone heard from him?” I ask. “Does she even want to?”
“Nope, he’s still in lockdown in rehab, and she won’t admit it, but I’m sure she does want to, because she’s a mile past dumb and veering close to Moron City Limits, too. PS, you changed the subject.”
“Guilty.”
“Then what is it you want me to do?” he asks.
“Do you know any password hacking programs?”
“I’m sure I could find one on the dark web. Do you have any bitcoin?”
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that? I don’t speak geek.”
He rolls his eyes. “Before we go to that kind of trouble, why don’t you tell me the passwords you tried? Maybe we can figure it out if we put our heads together.”
I show him my list of all the combinations, mostly pets’ names and combinations of football numbers.
“You’re missing the most obvious one,” he says. “I can’t believe this wasn’t your first inclination. Here, gimme this.”
I pass him my laptop and he taps in a phrase. “Wait! No! Don’t press enter yet! What if it’s wrong? What if we’re locked out forever?”
“Then we find out if Schr?dinger’s cat is dead and we move on with our lives. Mallory, I’m being serious here, do you trust me?”
I hold my breath until I’m sure of my answer.
With a whoosh and more than a little head-rush, I exhale. “I do.”
“Then here we go.”
He presses enter and the screen suddenly populates with all of Braden’s email.
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God, Kent! You did it! You actually are a genius! I can’t believe you did it! Holy shit, how did you know? What did you do? What black magic did you work?” I have flown off the bed and I’m jumping all around my room.