Page 43 of Come Find Me
Mike settles in front of the long table, puts a headset over his ears while I bound up the steps, two at a time, to my room.
—
Kennedy isn’t in my room. The door is open, but I can tell it’s empty even before I step inside. Down the hall, the door to Liam’s room is uncharacteristically ajar, and a shadow stretches out the door. I watch her from the doorway—she’s standing in the middle of the empty room, surrounded by the moss-green walls, her hands at her sides, staring straight ahead, as if she’s in a trance. I’m scared to spook her.
“Kennedy?” I whisper.
She jumps anyway before spinning around.Sorry,she mouths.
I ease the door shut behind us. “It’s okay. The guy downstairs works for my parents. He’s got headphones on, so he’s not going to hear us. But more people will be showing up soon.”
“Is this it?” she asks, frowning.
It. My brother’s room. The source of the signal, of everything.
“Yep, this is it.” She’s staring at the room the way I did, like she’s looking for something that isn’t there. I’m too embarrassed to mention that I actually whispered his name, looking for him.
I clear my throat. “I told Mike I was on my way out, back to school, so…”
She raises an eyebrow, and it turns her more carefree, like I can picture the girl inside, underneath everything that’s happened: the signal, the house, her devastating history. “Is this why you questioned my stealth mode?” she asks, and I laugh.
—
In the end, I have her sneak out the back door, behind the kitchen. Mike was right—the interns arrived right after him. Dave and Clara (or Sara). Clara/Sara looks at me when I come downstairs, notebook in hand. Her face pinches into both recognition and pity, and I can’t stand it. She smiles warmly. She reminds me of Abby: pretty, friendly.
“Hey there,” she says. “Nolan, right?” Dave runs a hand through his red hair, looks from her to me, and lowers his eyes again.
I half-wave and walk by the table. I can’t stand that still, two years later, I am something to be seen in relation to an event. It’s the only reason she’s looking at me like that. Head tipped to the side, mouth pursed,so tragic.
Like Kennedy said, the spectators do come out, drawn to the scene. Like there’s something alluring about our tragedy.
“Sara, right?” I say, pressing my fingers into the surface of the table, waiting for Mike to look up.
“Clara,” she corrects.
Dave has inched closer, but he’s fidgeting with the papers, like he’s hoping I won’t notice he’s totally eavesdropping. “I remember you,” I say, and he flinches.
Dave nods slowly. “I was at your school when…” When it happened. When Liam disappeared. He looks back down again. “I didn’t really know him. But he was always friendly.”
“Uh-huh,” I say. As if I didn’t know this about my brother.
Mike’s talking on the phone and barely notices the exchange. He probably wouldn’t have noticed if Kennedy had walked right by him, either.
“Well,” I say, channeling my parents, “thanks for your help.”
Clara leans across the table, just as I’m backing away. “You know, Abby is a friend of mine,” she says, and I feel my cheeks start to heat. I wonder what Abby told her, about Liam, about me. I wonder if she knows about the email. Dave looks up again. Maybe everyone knows. Abby’s friends, the police, Dave, who thinks he knows us.
“Late for next period,” I say, turning away.
I’m out the door before anyone can call me back.
I wait for Kennedy in the driveway, weaving past either Clara’s or Dave’s black SUV and Mike’s blue car, which is much nicer than my own. It only makes it more obvious that mine is in desperate need of a cleaning. They’ve both got a decal of my parents’ organization in their back windows, whereas I’ve always refused. I felt like a walking billboard as it was—no need to add a sticker for people to know.
I like to avoid the attention magnets as much as possible.
Kennedy slips into the passenger seat, and she’s looking at me in a way I can already interpret: she wants to boss me around. “Okay, Kennedy,” I say. “Where to?”
“Well, I sort of need my bike back. Maybe you can drop me at my house and I can take it to Joe’s? As you can see, I’m pretty stealthy. I’ll sneak around back when the buyers aren’t looking.”
