One of Us Is Next(53)
I finish my ginger ale and rinse my glass. My hair hangs heavy around my shoulders, begging for a ponytail. I start gathering my curls back and head for the hallway, cracking open our bedroom door. “Emma? I’m just getting an elastic.”
Emma is sitting on her bed, sipping from a giant Bayview Wildcats tumbler cup. I walk to my dresser, stepping over a pile of clothes on the floor, and root around in the top drawer until I find a sparkly pink elastic. “I think I’ve had this since third grade,” I say, holding it up to Emma. Then I notice the tears slipping down her cheeks.
I close my drawer and cross to her bed, shooting her a nervous look as I perch lightly on the corner edge. Even though we’ve been getting along better lately, I’m still never one hundred percent sure she won’t tell me to get lost. “What’s the matter?” I ask.
“Nothing.” She swipes at her face, upsetting her balance enough that liquid from the cup sloshes over her hand. “Oopsie,” she mutters, lifting the tail of her shirt to dab at the spill. There’s something familiar and yet not familiar about the fumbling motion. Familiar, because I’ve done it dozens of times. Not familiar, because she hasn’t.
I stretch my hair elastic between two fingers. “What are you drinking?”
“Huh? Nothing. Water.”
Emma doesn’t drink alcohol—not at parties, because she doesn’t go to them, and definitely not at three o’clock in the afternoon in our bedroom. But she slurs the last word so badly that there can’t be any other explanation. “Why are you drinking and crying?” I ask. “Are you feeling sad about Brandon?”
“I didn’t even know Brandon,” she mutters into her cup, her eyes filling again.
“I know, but—it’s still sad, right?”
“Could you go?” Emma asks quietly. I don’t move right away, and her voice gets even lower. “Please?”
Emma hasn’t said please to me in a while, so I do what she asks. But it feels wrong to click our bedroom door shut behind me—like even though I’m giving her what she wants, it’s not what she actually needs.
* * *
—
The rest of the afternoon passes quietly, and I have to pry Knox away from Owen at five o’clock. My little brother has a serious man crush. “Will you come back?” he asks plaintively.
“Sure,” Knox says, putting his controller down. “I have to learn some new moves first, though, so I can keep up with you.”
“I’ll drive you,” I say. I peeked in on Emma once since I left her, and she looked sound asleep. I keep wondering if I misunderstood the whole scene—maybe she really was drinking water? And just being extra clumsy?—but chances are good she shouldn’t be behind a wheel. Either way, I hope she wakes up as her usual self by the time Mom gets home.
Knox winces, probably remembering all my near-accidents the last time I drove him, but doesn’t protest as I lead him to the elevator. “Thanks for being such a good sport,” I tell him when the doors close. “That was a lot of Bounty Wars time.”
“It’s fine,” Knox says. He puts his hands in his pockets and leans against the back of the elevator as it descends. “Owen is a great player. He has this whole strategy mapped out that’s really—” He shakes his head. “Let’s just say I was outmatched.” We stop, and when the doors open I step out first to lead us to the car. “The weird thing is, though…the game reminded me of something.”
I reach the Corolla and unlock the driver’s side. “What do you mean?”
Knox doesn’t answer until he’s settled in the passenger seat beside me. “Like, you know it’s a bounty hunter game, right?” I nod. “So, there’s different ways you can kill people. You can shoot them or stab them, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“Or you can be more creative. I had my target on top of a building and I was about to throw him over, like you do, and it reminded me of being at the construction site the day Brandon died. Then I got hit with this…” He blinks as we exit the dark garage into still-bright sunshine, and lowers the visor in front of him. “This—memory, I think.”
“A memory?” I repeat, glancing over at him. “Of Brandon?” My skin prickles at the thought. I’m not sure I’m ready to hear anything new about what happened to Brandon that day.
“No,” Knox says slowly. “Of Sean. It’s just a flash, but…all of a sudden, in my mind’s eye, I saw him standing at the edge of the construction site with his phone held up in front of him. Like he was taking a picture, or a video. And then he yelled, ‘What the fuck are you doing here, Myers?’?”
“Wait, really?” I turn, staring at him.
Knox braces himself against the dashboard as a horn blares. “That was a stop sign,” he says.
“Oh. Shit. Sorry.” I slow down and raise an apologetic hand toward whoever might be giving me the finger from another car. “But are you serious? I mean, it definitely sounds like Sean, but…why would he say that?”
Knox makes a frustrated noise as he rubs his temple. “Beats me. That’s all I remember. I don’t even know if it’s real.”
I chew the inside of my cheek, considering, as we make the short drive to Knox’s house. Sean’s whole punching Knox to save him story has never made much sense, but Monica and Jules were there too, and they’ve never contradicted him. Of course, Sean and Jules are joined at the hip now, so…there’s that.