Come Find Me(82)

“Will you be there, too?” I ask.

He looks at me then before putting a hand on the doorframe. “Probably. I mean, I’m usually there anyway.”

I smile then, and he grins back, and he’s both the Marco I met last summer and the Marco who’s been changed by all that came after, just like the rest of us.

“Guess I’ll be seeing you, then,” I say.





Sometimes, when I first wake up in the morning, I close my eyes and try to go back. To find the crack in the universe, where time is malleable and I can change things.

I wish he had talked to me.

I would beg him: Tell me. I’m right here.

My parents say I have to accept that we may never know for sure. To be okay with the things we know but cannot prove.

Which is ironic, since no one seems interested in the things I know but cannot prove. No, it’s all too much for them. Something they try to explain away as a series of coincidences orchestrated by two kids looking for something, and falling for each other.

Never mind that we both found it.

They’d rather brush it all aside, the things we’ve told them. There are too many leaps for our families to accept.

We cannot explain why I received Kennedy’s words that night, in the form of my brother speaking the same words. Help us. Please. Her message, coming through.

    Well, I can. It’s just not something my parents, or the police, are interested in hearing.

Nothing is provable.

So they would rather explain our connection by location, through a circle of friends who overlapped. They would rather explain my feeling about Liam disappearing as subconscious intuition, instead of premonition. And it’s the same with everything that followed. The static I kept hearing, like a warning of what would happen that day. The baseball field, calling to me. Kennedy with my bat.

They want to chalk it all up to coincidence, and fever dreams. Pieces we want to connect; a pattern we want to believe in.

But sometimes, late at night, I play that video I took—the one of the signal coming from Liam’s room. And when it stops, I can still feel it. The memory of a pulse that I can sense in the palm of my hand. Like it was his, holding on. Counting down. Calling after me, Come on, Nolan—

My phone lights up with a new message: Are you ready?

On my way, I reply, shutting down my laptop. I think I’ve got it all together now, the things I want to say.

Sometimes I’m not sure what brought us together, or why. Whether it was for Elliot, or for her; whether it was for my brother, or for me.

It all feels so close, too difficult to untangle. Maybe that’s the point, though. I think that’s what we’re trying to explain with all of this.



* * *



—

    I’m meeting Kennedy at the house first. I find her around back, cleaning out the shed, taking pictures of the equipment with her phone—I’m assuming in case we figure out a way to include them.

I walk inside, and instead of just the shed I remember from last time, now I see the place where Kennedy hid, all alone, in the dark of night, as a storm raged past. And today she stands in front of me as someone who stepped outside again. She pulls me closer, leaning into my side, and my arm slides around her back, like second nature.

And then we walk across the field together, the same one I know she sprinted across in the storm, all alone, the night her life was split in two.



* * *



—

Lydia leads us down the steps to the basement, where Marco sits on a couch across from her computer setup. He waves at us as we walk by, and Kennedy nods hello.

“So,” Lydia says, holding out a small microphone positioned on the table, “right, you just…press this button and speak.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Kennedy hands me the microphone. “Want to go first?”

I shake my head. “No, you.”

We’ve made a promise to tell what happened. All of it. The bad and the good, the devastating, the hopeful. The things we know, and the things we believe. To send it out into the world for anyone to find. Lydia has promised to upload it, make sure it’s searchable, findable.

    In case someone’s out there, listening, wondering. Searching, like we had been. Sitting at a computer all alone at night, sending questions into the void, waiting for something to make sense. The hope is that, whatever it is they’re searching for, something will inevitably lead them here, to us.

To let them know that this all happened, and it’s still happening, and it’s not over yet. We’re still here.

On and on it goes.

I nod at her, and she begins.



Thank you, as always, to the friends and colleagues who have helped bring this story to life:

My agent, Sarah Davies, for the guidance, support, and enthusiasm for this book since it was just an idea in my head. I am so grateful for your feedback at every step along the way, for each and every project.

At Crown Books for Young Readers, I am so fortunate to get to work with my fantastic editor, Emily Easton, on our seventh book together! Thank you also to Sam Gentry, Phoebe Yeh, and the entire team at Random House Children’s Books. It’s such a pleasure working with you all.

I am so incredibly thankful to my friends and critique partners, Megan Shepherd, Elle Cosimano, Ashley Elston, and Romily Bernard, who are always willing to offer their feedback and advice. Also a huge thanks to everyone at Bat Cave 2015 and 2016, who helped give shape to this story early on, when it was that idea I kept coming back to.