Aftermath(40)

I inhale sharply. “Mom’s doing her best. I understand that. We deal. We cope. Or we did until child services decided I wasn’t old enough to look after myself.” I roll my eyes. “Like you pass some magical age and then, poof, we can trust you not to die of starvation, playing video games 24/7. I did just fine when Gran had her first stroke, but no, that doesn’t count.”

I’m looking for agreement here. For a nod.

Instead, he’s staring at me, and then he says, “I didn’t know.”

“Know what?”

“About your mom and your gran and your dad. Child services stepping in. I had no idea —”

“They didn’t step in, Jesse. They interfered. That’s why I’m here, with Mae, who thinks what I really need is to come back to Riverside, chin up. Tough through it. Which is working out so well.”

He just looks at me. And his expression…

I hate his expression. It’s horror, and it’s pity, and it’s everything I don’t want to see on anyone, but especially not Jesse.

“Are we actually going to talk about the fire?” I say. “That’s what you said.”

He straightens. “Tell me what’s been going on.”

“I already did. The fire and the stuff at Mae’s condo. Which is really just the fire. The condo stuff is silly.”

“Someone breaking into your home isn’t silly, Skye.”

“Breaking in to put mud on my boots and leave them in the hall? Spook me with Luka’s shirt in the closet? Take half my Hershey bar and smush it into the sofa? Who’d do that? It’s a waste of perfectly good chocolate.”

“Mud on your boots? Luka’s shirt in your closet?”

I shake my head. “Mae must have been storing Luka’s shirts in the closet, and one fell off the hanger and startled me. I found my boots in the hall, caked in mud, which means I obviously wore them and forgot, because no one is going to break in and muddy my boots. It’s crazy.”

“It is.”

I take a bite of the brownie. Swallow without remembering to chew, and then have to gag it down.

Achievement unlocked. Even Jesse agrees. You are officially losing your mind, Skye Gilchrist.

“I should speak to someone,” I say, picking at the brownie. “There’s a therapist I can call. She’s good. I’m obviously stressed and imagining things, and now I’m lumping that with the fire, which was a stupid prank.”

“If you tell me you didn’t leave those boots out or eat that candy bar, I believe you.”

“You just agreed it was crazy.”

He pulls back. “No, I meant it seems crazy. It makes no sense. But it has to, right? There’s a method to the madness. We just aren’t seeing it.”

He eases into his chair, settling into a look I know well. Jesse’s problem-solving mode.

“Are you sure Mae’s just storing the shirt?” he says. “It seems weird that she’d keep Luka’s stuff in your closet. Is there more there?”

“I didn’t look. Maybe she just kept that shirt. He wore it a lot – the Black Death tour one.”

His lips twitch in a smile. “I remember that. Even Jamil said it was cool. I was surprised he got the joke.” Jesse’s smile flickers, and then he tucks it away and says, “That was probably the most distinctive thing Luka wore. Are you sure it was even his?”

“What do you mean?”

He leans forward, elbows on his knees, gaze distant as his brain works. “I bet it’d be easy to find one online. Whoever broke in could have bought and planted it. Left it half on the hanger, so it would eventually fall and you’d notice it.”

He leans back. “The boots. The shirt. The chocolate. All signs that someone else was there. But subtle. Signs no one else would recognize.”

He sits up quickly. “Exactly. Weird stuff you can’t prove. Mae might think you brought that shirt and forgot, like you forgot the boots and chocolate. Or that you’re coming up with wild tales to explain tracking mud through the apartment and getting chocolate on the couch. Like the Monty stories. Remember?”

Monty was the name I gave to a poltergeist who was very clearly responsible for every broken toy and missing juice box in our house. Hey, I was four. I had an imagination, and I wasn’t afraid to use it.

I pull my knees up. “Maybe I’m doing that again.”

“But you knew you were making it up with Monty, right?”

“Yes, but —”

“Stop making excuses, Skye. That’s not like you.”

He says it with this gesture, a flick of his fingers, dismissive.

That’s not like you.

He doesn’t mean it to hurt. It does. Because second-guessing myself is like me. It didn’t used to be, but it is now.

I’ll catch glimpses of my old self, when I’m backtalking Mae, or when I was standing up to those thugs Saturday. But they feel like characters in a story I’ve crafted. Roles I can play, the girl I want to be. But she’s the girl I was, too, which makes it worse.

Jesse says, That’s not like you, and I open my mouth to say “It is now.” Then I pause. Say those words, and it’s like admitting to my home-life problems. A cry for sympathy. For pity.

I pull my legs up. “I just don’t want to jump to crazy conclusions, okay?”