Playlist for the Dead(28)

She looked out of place here in a way Hayden never had. He’d always said he felt more at home in our house than he did in his own, which wasn’t surprising, given his house. I’m sure it was architecturally significant in some way—it was super modern, all steel and glass and skylights, angular like Stephanie Caster’s, like many of the houses in that neighborhood—but it was cold in every way possible. Stephanie’s house at least had wood floors and some rugs to warm things up; in Hayden’s house the floors were all tile and you couldn’t wear shoes on them, and the temperature was always freezing. The few times I’d been there I’d worried about skidding on the slippery floor in my socks and landing on the corner of a coffee table. I figured the blood would be easy to clean up, at least.

Our house, while not even a little bit fancy, at least looked like people lived in it. Mom was a better decorator than she was a cook, and even if she’d found most of the furniture at secondhand stores, it was all comfortable. The chairs in the living room were beige and brown, and the boring shag carpeting was covered in colorful throw rugs that made the room look brighter, with matching throw pillows on the couch. I could totally understand why Hayden would rather be here. He had a favorite armchair, and we let him sit in it whenever he came over to watch TV, even though it was normally Mom’s chair. There was even a particular blanket he liked, too.

I couldn’t imagine Mrs. Stevens ever wrapping herself up in a blanket and getting cozy in our house, or her own. She looked like she even slept in a straight line. It was even stranger to see her carrying the box herself—I would have imagined she’d find someone to do it for her, though of course it wouldn’t be Ryan. “Sam, why don’t you help Mrs. Stevens with that?” Mom said.

I was happy to have something to do, so I took the box from her, taking care not to make any contact with her, physically. She was always so icy to me that I was afraid if I touched her I’d freeze.

Mom had no such fears, though. She put her hand on Mrs. Stevens’s shoulder, apparently sensing that a hug would be going too far. “How are you holding up? I’ve been thinking a lot about you.”

“I appreciate that,” Mrs. Stevens said stiffly. “We’re doing as well as can be expected, I suppose.”

“I can’t begin to imagine what you’re going through,” Mom said, “but if there’s anything we can do, anything at all . . .”

“That’s why I’m here, actually,” Mrs. Stevens said. “We’ve started going through Hayden’s things, and I put together a box of some things I thought Sam might like to have.”

My first thought was that it was pretty callous of them to get rid of all evidence of Hayden, when he’d barely been gone two weeks. But my second thought was that it was really nice of Mrs. Stevens to think of me, given how much she’d always hated me. She must have been taking this harder than I imagined. I could see where it would be hard to have to look in Hayden’s room every day and see all of his stuff there, as if he were coming back.

“Thank you, Mrs. Stevens,” I said. “And I just wanted to say, I’m really sorry. I wish . . .” I didn’t really know how to finish.

“Yes, I know,” she said, but she didn’t look at me.

I wondered if she somehow held me responsible for what happened to Hayden, if she blamed me. I would, if I were her. I did already.

“We were all so fond of Hayden,” Mom said. “He was like a member of the family.”

“I’m very aware of that,” Mrs. Stevens said, and it was clear from her tone that she didn’t mean it in a good way. And without another word, she left.

Mom closed the door behind her. “She’s quite a piece of work, that one,” she said. “You did well, though. I’m sure she wasn’t who you wanted to see right now.”

“You’ve got that right,” I said, shifting the box to rest it on my hip. It was getting a little heavy.

“I’ll leave you to go through that in your room. And I trust you’ll change out of last night’s clothes and shower, at some point?”

Figured she’d notice. “I’ll get right on it.”

I brought the box upstairs and closed the door to my room. The T-shirts were spilling out of the box, so I took those out first—all of the ironic, vintage, and band shirts Hayden had collected. Even though he was short and round and I was tall and skinny, it all kind of evened out into us being basically the same size, and we’d traded shirts in the past. I wasn’t sure I wanted to wear them yet, but I liked having them here. I looked at the wizard figurine, still on the shelf where I’d originally put it. It stared back at me. Guess I hadn’t needed to buy my own keepsake after all, especially not one that might be making me hallucinate.

The rest of the box contained Hayden’s gaming stuff—his Xbox and PlayStation, neither of which I had, his old Dungeons & Dragons manuals—and a bunch of DVDs. All of the Star Wars movies, of course, new and remastered; all the Alien movies; the Joss Whedon shows he’d been obsessed with. I’d avoided all that stuff until The Avengers came out and turned out to be awesome. Hayden had tried not to gloat, but he’d made me promise to watch Firefly with him someday. Now I’d have to watch it by myself. Along with all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

At the very bottom of the box was Hayden’s laptop. The beautiful shiny new MacBook I’d been so jealous of. Why would Mrs. Stevens have given it to me? I could understand why she’d gotten rid of the games and the T-shirts; Ryan would never have been interested in that stuff. But the computer seemed somehow really personal, like something you wouldn’t just give to anyone. I wondered if she’d wiped the hard drive first. Probably not; she didn’t seem all that tech-savvy.