What Happens Now(47)

We were waiting at the Greek gyros stand—the one my mother always said was surprisingly authentic—when I heard someone call my name.

“Ari?”

I turned to see Brady. And Lukas. And a bunch of other people from school.

“Hey, Brady.”

“Why are you guys dressed like that?”

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“It’s really not,” said Eliza, stepping up next to me. “It’s a cosplay thing. We were here taking some photographs.” She turned to me. “See? Short story. Not even. Just facts.”

I looked at Lukas, who quickly shifted his glance from me and examined Max. He laughed. “Dude. Silver Arrow, right?”

Max smiled hesitantly. “Yes.”

What Lukas knew about Silver Arrow, he knew from me. It felt wrong, stolen, hearing him say the name. His eyes slid over to Camden and me again, then quickly back to Max, not sure what to do with the situation.

Without Kendall here, I wasn’t sure either.

Then suddenly, from somewhere, somebody shrieked. We all turned to see a ripple in the crowd surrounding the next booth.

There was a guy doubled over, vomiting.

“Classy,” said Eliza.

A woman came up to the guy and grabbed his shoulders, but he sank onto his hands and knees and kept retching.

We all looked at one another. Even Brady and Lukas. Lukas and I exchanged a glance and I shrugged. It seemed rude to act as if this wasn’t happening, but it also seemed rude not to.

Camden was the only person not ignoring it. He was staring.

“Camden,” I said, nudging his hand. “Don’t.”

But Camden froze, his eyes locked on to the situation like he was seeing something we weren’t. I turned to look at the guy again.

Now the guy was convulsing.

“Oh my God,” I said. “He’s having some kind of seizure.”

“Camden!” shouted Eliza. “Go help him!”

Max gave Camden a gentle shove on his back. “You’re the hotline guy. You go talk to him, keep him calm. I’ll get help.”

Max took off running toward the first aid tent, but Camden didn’t move forward.

Now the guy was flat on the ground, his body doing things he had no control over. The woman sank down on her knees next to him, holding out her hands like she knew she wanted to put them on him, but wasn’t sure where. She didn’t seem all there.

“What do you do in these situations?” I asked Camden. But Camden stood frozen, watching. His mouth a flat line, his eyes dull and stony.

The crowd, which had now formed a circle around the area, parted to let a pair of paramedics through. A security guard trailed behind them.

“Clear the area, folks. Let them do their work.”

Max reappeared, out of breath, and took Eliza and me gently by the arms.

“Come on,” he said.

We took a few steps away and I turned to make sure Camden was following us. But he wasn’t there.

“Where’s . . . ?” I started to ask.

But they kept walking, so I kept following, not wanting to lose them in the crowd, too. I death-gripped my penguin and followed them past all the other food booths, into the tent with all the hot tubs on display, then finally a booth selling wooden chairs and porch swings.

Eliza sat down in a swing and took a deep breath, patted the spot next to her. I sat. She began to push us gently back and forth with her feet.

“That was a drug thing,” said Eliza.

It took me a few seconds to figure out what she was talking about. “Oh. The guy?”

“Yeah.” She looked up at Max now, and smiled. “Hey. You’re good in a crisis.”

“Thanks,” he said, and sat down in an Adirondack recliner across from us.

“You may have saved his life. The rest of us were all standing around like idiots.”

Max shrugged. “See. You may treat me like a child, but I don’t always act like one.”

Eliza’s expression shifted from smug to stung. Dressed as she was like Atticus Marr, it seemed even more out of place.

“If you have something to say, Max, say it. Passive-aggressive doesn’t work on me.”

They stared at each other. I stood up. “I’m . . . uh . . . going to see if I can find the others.”

Then I walked as fast as I could without actually running. I checked my phone and saw that two messages had come in.

Camden’s said, Meet me at that fence place.

Kendall wanted to know where we were. I told her to meet me behind the kiddie haunted house in ten minutes.

At the place which was now our place, Camden sat on the grass hugging his knees to his chest. His wig gone, his hair rumpled and misshapen. The first thing I wanted to do was put my hand in it and rumple it myself.

Instead, I kept my distance and asked, “Are you okay?”

He looked up at me. There were giant tears trailing down his cheeks.

“Camden? What’s going on?” I crouched down and put the penguin on the ground, but was still hesitant to reach out for him. “Did you know that guy?”

Camden wiped his nose with the sleeve of Azor’s uniform. “No. But I . . . I’ve seen that before.”

“Eliza said it was probably an OD situation.”

Camden closed his eyes tight and nodded.