Playlist for the Dead(36)

Still, I needed to know the whole story. I kept going, and so did the chat transcripts.


ArchmageGed: It’s so weird that we’ve never met, and yet I feel like I really know you.

Athena: You do know me. You know me better than almost anyone.

ArchmageGed: Do you really think so? Do you think it’s possible for us to know each other as well as we think we do, even though we don’t even know each other’s real names?

Athena: If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to make fun of me?

ArchmageGed: I would never do that. If you really know me, you have to know that.

Athena: I told my friend I had a boyfriend.



There was a pause in the transcript; I could only too easily imagine Hayden sitting in his room, completely freaking out, not knowing what to say. Finally:


ArchmageGed: Not to sound like an idiot, but did you mean me?

Athena: LOL. Of course I meant you. Did that freak you out?

ArchmageGed: No. It just made my day. My week. My year? You were serious?

Athena: As a heart attack.



Which meant that by the time school started, Hayden had his first girlfriend.

And he hadn’t told me.

I didn’t know what to think. My gut reaction was to be offended; we were best friends, and while he tended to be shy about revealing personal things—I’d always seen him as cryptic, but really, I knew how much of it was shyness—I had trouble imagining he’d hide something so significant from me.

But in some ways I could understand why. Because all I could think about was the possibility that Athena wasn’t really who she said she was. The voice in the transcript seemed real, and she was saying all these really open and honest things to Hayden, so much so that I felt a little ashamed reading them, like I was eavesdropping on a private conversation. Which I basically was. But I couldn’t help but think of that Catfish thing where people used the Internet to totally humiliate people who thought they were in love. I didn’t think Ryan and his buddies were computer-savvy enough to trick Hayden in Mage Warfare, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some other unscrupulous person out to scam him. Hayden knew me well enough to know that I’d at least ask the question, and I was sure it was a question he wasn’t interested in discussing, let alone finding out the answer to.

I was getting tired again; it was hard keeping my eyes focused, and I found myself reading and forgetting to scroll and reading the same thing again. But it was too late to go to bed; the sun was going to come up soon. And besides, I had to know the whole story.

I finally got up to go to the bathroom, then went downstairs for a Coke—I needed caffeine now if I was going to get through this. The house was quiet in the way only an empty house can be—Mom was at work, and Rachel had taken the opportunity to go stay at Jimmy’s, though Mom would kill her if she found out. Every step I took seemed to echo off the walls. The old stairs creaked as I climbed them, which normally I could ignore, but tonight it kind of freaked me out. I kept expecting ArchmageGed to show up in person again, which I knew was crazy, but it didn’t stop my head from spinning around every time I heard a new noise.

Finally I took Hayden’s laptop into bed with me and continued reading. The relationship between ArchmageGed and Athena kept heating up; I’d gotten to the part where they talked about music, and I’d been right that a lot of the songs he’d put on the playlist came from her, like the one I was listening to now, a song that was a strange mix of desperately sad and optimistic. But things changed at the point where Hayden decided it was time for them to reveal their real names. Whereas Athena had always been open with him before, now she was withdrawing a little; I could see that this was going to be a real turning point for them. But I knew where Hayden was coming from. He wanted to know if this was real; he wanted more than an online relationship.


ArchmageGed: I get that you probably live a million miles away, or are a hundred years old, or a dude, or whatever, but you can tell me. I’ll get over it. I just want to know who you really are.

Athena: It’s not like that.

ArchmageGed: That’s even better, then.

Athena: Not necessarily.

ArchmageGed: I don’t understand. We’ve already said that we know each other better than anyone else. I feel so close to you, but I need to know whether this is real.

Athena: It’s more complicated than you realize.

ArchmageGed: I’ll uncomplicate it. Hi, I’m Hayden Stevens. I’m sixteen. I’m a sophomore at Libertyville High in Iowa. See, it’s not so hard. And now you know who I am. But if you don’t tell me who you are, it’s over.



There was a gap in the time stamps of the chat transcript. Athena was clearly thinking things over.


Athena: Fine. But I want to do it in person.

ArchmageGed: Really? How?

Athena: All those things you just told me—I already knew.

ArchmageGed: How?

Athena: I’m from Libertyville too.



There was another gap in the transcript while he processed what she’d just said. It probably completely freaked Hayden out.


ArchmageGed: So we didn’t meet randomly here.



He’d figured something out, anyway.


Athena: We had some help. I’ll explain everything when we meet.

ArchmageGed: Where? When?