One of Us Is Next(61)

“Oh. Okay.” I look at him warily. “How did you know I’d be here?”

“I followed you,” he says. His expression gets defensive when my eyes pop. “I’m not, like, creeping on you. I was gonna tell you in the caf but you came here instead. I eat lunch here sometimes anyway, so I waited for you.”

He takes a bite of sandwich. It’s made with thin white bread and some kind of pale pink lunchmeat, a wilted leaf of lettuce poking out of one side. It’s the loneliest-looking vegetable I’ve ever seen. When he places the sandwich on his paper bag, I can see indents where his fingers were pressing. “Well, thanks for letting me know,” I say.

I should go then, probably, but instead I hitch my backpack higher on my shoulder. “Did you have anything to do with the Truth or Dare texting game?” I ask abruptly.

Matthias looks startled. “What? No. Why would you think that?”

Everybody thinks that, I almost say. “You started Simon Says.”

Matthias looks down at his sandwich. “That was different.”

“How?”

“I just wanted to know what it was like.” It’s dim in the auditorium, but I can still see Matthias’s cheeks flush. “To have people pay attention.”

“They paid attention to the Truth or Dare game, too.”

“I said that wasn’t me.” Matthias seems surprised at the sound of his own voice echoing through the empty room. He lowers it. “I wouldn’t even know how to find out that stuff. The secrets. Nobody talks to me. Or haven’t you noticed?”

“I’m talking to you.”

“Yeah, well.” Matthias tosses the rest of his sandwich into the paper bag and crumples the whole thing into a ball. “We both know that won’t last.” He unfolds his lanky frame to stand up and I feel—I don’t know. Like I shouldn’t let him be right.

“If you don’t want to eat lunch here tomorrow, you could, um, eat with us,” I tell him.

Matthias stares at his red sneakers, looking mildly alarmed. “I don’t think so. Thanks, though.” He darts away before I can respond, and it’s probably just as well. I don’t know what we’d talk about for more than a few minutes anyway.



* * *



—

It’s hot for March—not the best day for me to get ditched by a sick Emma—so I’m grumpy and sweating by the time I trudge onto my block. My phone rings, and I curse at it under my breath. Hardly anyone calls me except my mother, so I don’t even have to look at the screen before I answer. “Hey, Mom,” I say, pulling out my keys as I approach the front door of our building.

Her voice is harried. “Hi, Phoebe. Is Emma with you? Can you put her on?”

I insert my key in the lock with one hand and twist it to the right. It doesn’t budge, and I grunt in annoyance as I pull it out to try again. Everything in this building looks great on the surface but works like actual crap. “She’s not with me,” I say distractedly.

Mom heaves a frustrated sigh. “I don’t understand. This isn’t like her!”

“Huh?” My mind is only half on her words as I wrestle with the key until the lock finally gives. “What isn’t like her?” I ask, pulling the door open.

“To just not show up like this. She’s supposed to be doing a walk-through for me at the restaurant where Ashton and Eli are having their rehearsal dinner. The manager could only be there this afternoon and I can’t leave work, so I asked Emma to go in my place. We had a whole list of questions prepared, but she never showed up. And she still hasn’t replaced her phone, so I can’t even call her.”

I’m in the lobby now and pause in front of one of the potted plants. Mom is right. That’s not like Emma at all, even if she isn’t feeling well. She’s dragged herself to tutoring sessions when she had a fever. “She’s sick,” I say. “She left school early. Didn’t she tell you?”

Mom exhales into my ear. “No, she didn’t. Okay. What’s wrong with her? Is it that stomach thing again, or—”

“I don’t know,” I interrupt. “I haven’t seen her. She asked somebody at school to tell me she was leaving, and I just got home.” I cross the lobby to the elevator and reach it right as the doors are starting to close. I stick my hand between them until they spring back open, and smile apologetically at the old woman standing off to one side. She lives on our floor, so the button is already pressed. “Do you want me to go to the restaurant instead?”

“Oh, that’s sweet of you, Phoebe, but it’s too late. The manager already left. I’ll figure something else out. Could you please check on your sister and call me back?”

“Okay,” I say. Mom thanks me and disconnects as the elevator chimes. I’m kind of anxious about Emma now, because how sick does she have to be to forget she was supposed to help Mom out? That’s the kind of thing I’d do.

I open our apartment door and it’s completely silent when I walk in. “Emma?” I call, pulling off my ankle boots. I leave them beside the door and drop my keys and bag on the kitchen island, then pad toward our bedroom. “How are you feeling?”

There’s no response. The door is closed, and I push it open. Emma is lying on her bed in a messy tangle of blanket and sheets. For once, her bed looks exactly like mine. She’s out cold, breathing steadily through her half-open mouth. As I move closer, she lets out a little snore. I stub my toe against something on the floor and step into a patch of wetness. Emma’s Bayview Wildcats tumbler is lying beside her bed, and I pick it up and sniff inside. I wrinkle my nose and recoil. Gin, this time.