If You're Out There(13)

Logan takes the phone to study it. “Priya, huh? She’s cute.”

I sigh. “As a button.”

He gets out his own phone and does some typing. “I’m sending her a follow request.”

“What, why? Don’t!”

He shrugs. “Too late. Who were all those people she was talking to in the comments?”

“Friends from different places. Model UN, language classes, her dance team. No one I know too well. We didn’t really share a group. It was usually just her and me.”

He takes my phone back. “Were Priya and Eddy friends?”

“I mean, she tolerated his existence.”

Logan studies the screen. “But the two of them . . . They weren’t like, close.”

“No,” I say. “Not at all.”

“It’s Eddy Hays, right?”

“That’s the one.”

He turns the screen toward me. “Then why is Priya responding to his comments with little hearts?”

“What?” I lunge across the table. “Give me that.”

Priya has posted a photo of a glistening pool, in a valley surrounded by desert. Fifty likes.

eddytheonly Priya, that pool is SICK

thepriyapatel514 @eddytheonly Thanks bud. Miss you!!

“Miss you. Miss you?!” For a moment, I’m in shock. “What. The fuck.”

Logan’s eyes are lighting up. “You should write something, too. How can she keep freezing you out if she just responded to someone else you know?”

“I can’t . . . This is so . . .” I’m babbling. “No, it’s too weird. And anyway, she’s already ignored like a zillion texts and calls from me.”

“Then fuck it!” he says. “What’s the harm? Say something really simple. Like there’s nothing going on between you. Get into her head. This is different than texting. It’s public! Make it a question, so it’s weird not to respond.” He takes my cell again. “Can I write it?”

“What? No!” I dive over the table to wrestle the phone from his hands. “I’ll do it. I’ll say . . .” He’s right. Why not? I tap the space beneath her comment.

zanmartini I’m so jealous! Can I come?

“There.” I let out a breath, immediately regretful. God, that was pathetic. I should delete it. Is it too late to delete it?

“All right!” Arturo is standing over us with both hands full. “Sweet potato fries, garlic white bean dip with house-made pita chips, and some fresh-pressed juices. Not too scary, right, pal?”

“Not at all,” says Logan. “This looks amazing.”

The knot in my gut twists as I glance down at the phone. My ears have begun to ring. “Anything else I can grab you two? . . . Zan?” I hear them, but it’s like they’re far away. “Zan.” It feels like I’ve been blown backward, blasted straight onto the ground. “You okay?” asks Arturo, the volume back to normal.

“Yeah,” I say, looking up at them. “It’s just . . . Priya wrote back.”





Three


Saturday, September 8

It doesn’t make any sense. She said, Wish you were here! I said, Really? She said, Of course! I said, Can we catch up? Phone call tonight? She said nothing.

Nothing.

Two whole days of nothing.

Bits of sun sneak in through cracks. I slept till noon, happy to find an empty house when I came downstairs. I foraged for snacks and brought them back up to my room, overcome by the oddly specific urge to stream Beaches in my bed. Now, an hour or so in, I brace myself for the Sad Half while the cookie level dips dangerously low on a bucket of Whole Foods oatmeal-raisins.

Priya and I thought Barbara Hershey was so elegant the first time we saw this movie. I remember flipping through cable channels on a lazy Sunday in her attic when we stumbled on the beginning. Something about the rain outside pulled us deep into the story, huddled up under blankets, the golf-ball chunks of hail clacking against the roof. Being twelve, we both quickly identified with Barbara (the Pretty One), but then she died and suddenly being funny old Bette Midler didn’t seem so bad. I got choked up while Priya full-out blubbered to “Wind Beneath My Wings.” When it ended, we wiped our eyes and laughed, never to speak of it again.

We were still getting to know each other then, but it felt like something miraculous was happening. It was easy, and natural, like we already knew how to be friends.

It was Mom and Ben who brought us together—forced us together, more like. Ben invited us over for dinner as a thank-you, the week he and Priya moved to Chicago, right before the start of seventh grade. Mom had helped Ben find the house here, a convenient walk from ours, and had gone above and beyond to help them get settled. I remember playing with Harrison on the kitchen floor while Mom whipped up a salad to bring with us to their house. She had this frantic energy about her.

“I wish you could have known her mom better,” she said, whisking vinaigrette in a bowl and tasting it with her finger. “I have a really good feeling about you and Priya. And after everything those two have been through . . . I really want them to like it here. Priya was such a sweet girl when she was little. Do you remember her?”

“Not really,” I said, though I did remember. Our first encounter just hadn’t gone that well. We’d met them in Central Park when Mom and I were visiting New York. Priya opted to sit and chat with our moms as I dug for worms alone. She was like that—a tiny grown-up, blazing through chapter books while I was still Seeing Spot Run. She liked puzzles, and clothes, and often wore a purse to match her mother’s. I was a simpler child. I preferred dirt.