“Sorry.” Rachel held up her hands, then tucked them under her armpits. She wasn’t sorry, though. I could feel how badly she wanted to say more about Jasper and our “relationship.”
“Why are you even here, Rachel?” My face went hot as the floodgates opened. “I mean, seriously?” My voice was too loud; people were starting to stare. “You were my mom’s friend. And she’s dead. If you think you’re helping me, you’re not. So why don’t you go find something else that will make you feel better?”
Rachel blinked at me, stunned. But instead of storming off or telling me I was being rude, she nodded. “You’re right.”
Then she stepped closer and wrapped her arm around me. And, of course, I started to bawl. Couldn’t help myself. I didn’t stop until I felt someone’s hand on my back. My dad, I assumed.
“I’m so sorry, Wylie. I know how much she meant to you.” A man’s voice, not my dad. And from the look on Rachel’s face, she did not approve of his hand on me.
When I turned, it was Cassie’s dad, Vince. His hair was chin length now, his face softer with his new beard. This was the hippie Key West version of Vince. Sober for nearly a year, he had opened a kayak rental place and otherwise totally cleaned up his act. He had also gotten super New Agey weird, Cassie had told me once, but with a kind of pride. At least he wasn’t drinking anymore.
Vince had delivered the eulogy and it had been beautiful—moving and eloquent and thoughtful. It managed to bring out all the best qualities of Cassie while putting her death in a meaningful context. So perfect I would have expected to feel differently about Vince the next time I talked to him. But here he was—and there I was—thinking what I always did: that he was totally full of shit.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” I said.
He smiled then in a way that looked kindly and spiritual, but felt, in every way, the complete and total opposite. “Well,” he said, and that was all.
I waited for him to go on. To say all those things people do: it was no one’s fault, we all know how much you loved Cassie, blah, blah. But he stared at me instead. Like he was waiting not so much to hear whether I blamed myself, but to enjoy how much I did.
“Um, take care,” Rachel said finally, dismissing him.
But he just smiled at her. “It is both a tragedy and a gift that Cassie will be missed by so many.” He turned back to me. “Be sure to tell your dad that I’m sorry for his loss, too.”
Then he squeezed my arm in a way that should have been warm, but felt creepy. And what loss? My mom? He’d seen my dad so many times since then, hadn’t he?
“What a dick that guy is,” Rachel said when Vince had gone. “I know he lost his daughter and all, but I bet he was a dick way before that.”
“He’s a minister now,” I said. “Or something like that.”
“He can still be a jerk.”
“Is there anybody here that you do like?” I asked, even though I couldn’t argue with her assessment of Vince.
She smiled. “You.”
BY THE TIME my dad finally leaves—after much hemming and hawing and him saying that he’s worried about me, and me saying he doesn’t need to be, and lots and lots of details about where he’ll leave his itinerary—it is almost 9:40 a.m. I try Jasper again, but once again the call rings and rings before finally heading to voice mail.
My stomach has officially started to churn.
I move fast through the rest of what’s in the box, turning to the evidence bags. Luckily, there isn’t much that survived the fire, which is why we never received anything in the way of personal effects. Nothing my dad had wanted, anyway. The things in the evidence bags must have been thrown from the car when it hit the guardrail. A set of headphones I imagine tangled in a nearby tree. There’s one of my mom’s blue clogs, too. I always hated those shoes. I’d been trying to convince her to throw them out instead of getting them fixed again. The force it must have taken to rip the shoe off her foot and hurl it away from the car. What was she doing wearing clogs in the middle of winter anyway? I lift the shoe, only a tiny bit. But as soon as my hands are on it, I know it’s a mistake. Don’t touch the shoe. It will make you cry. When I drop it, there is an odd, hollow thump.
I move the plastic bags around until my hand lands on what’s under the shoe. Smooth and hard and kind of flat inside its bag. When I pull it from the very bottom of the box, it’s a bottle. An empty vodka bottle. A small one, the kind you’d hide in your purse, or even in a big-pocketed jacket.
“Your dad says that it would have been out of character for her to have been drinking in the car,” Detective Oshiro says from the doorway.
My cheeks burn. “How about fucking impossible?”
I look down. I shouldn’t be swearing at a police officer, not like that. But Detective Oshiro is unfazed.
“It’s possible that it was on the road where she had the accident and got mixed with—well, the scene was chaotic. There were no fingerprints on it.”
But I can tell he is only saying that to make me feel better. Or not to make me feel worse. I squeeze the cool glass tighter as I peer at the label. Vodka? There is no way. My mom only drank wine and only occasionally. Cassie’s dad, Vince, and vodka? Definitely. Even Karen, Cassie’s mom, liked her martinis. My mom? Never.
“It wasn’t hers,” I say, but it only makes me feel worse.
“Yes, that’s possible,” Detective Oshiro says.
I turn and look straight at him. The wave of sympathy that greets me when our eyes meet unleashes tears. I blink and look down before they can make their way out. Was my mother somebody entirely different from who I believed her to be? Maybe she was lying to me about much more than me being an Outlier.
“It’s not hers,” I say again.
This time when I look up, the tears are streaming down my cheeks. But I no longer care. And Detective Oshiro looks right at me and lies, just the way I need him to.
“I’m sure you’re right, Wylie. I’m sure you’re right.”
6
OUTSIDE THE POLICE STATION, I PULL OUT MY PHONE AND TRY JASPER. I’M losing count of how many times I’ve called. It just rings and rings. At least his house isn’t far, a three-minute walk, but a million miles away from the fancy shops and restaurants of downtown Newton.
“Jasper,” I say when his voice mail finally picks up. “This isn’t funny anymore. Where the hell are you? I need to talk to you.”
I shove my phone back in my pocket, hating how completely and totally true those words feel. As I make my way up Crescent Hill Road—one block down and over from the station—the sun is warm on my face and the air smells of cut grass. I’m almost hot in my jeans and T-shirt. It’s the first day it seems like summer. And I want so much for that to feel good, but the vodka bottle is lodged too deep in my stomach, right next to all my unreturned calls to Jasper.
When I round the corner onto Main Street, I close my eyes so that I don’t have to see Holy Cow, the ice cream shop where Cassie used to work. The one where she met Quentin for the first time. There are some things I will never again be able to bear, like the sight of Holy Cow, or the smell of strawberries, which reminds me too much of the lip gloss Cassie always used to wear.
I set my eyes instead on Gallagher’s Deli up ahead. It’s one of the few not-so-nice places in town—dusty with cramped aisles that smell faintly of cat pee. I’ve only been in there once to buy cigarettes with Cassie during the week and a half she smoked. I can still remember how the smell seemed to cling to me for hours afterward. Gallagher’s means that I am almost there.
To ease the pain in my feet, I slide them back a little in my vicious, toe-gouging yellow flip-flops. I never would have put them on if I had known that I was going to have to walk so far. I dial Jasper’s number one more time, but this time the call goes straight to voice mail. Like he’s turned it off, or his phone has died between this and my last call.
I can’t wait anymore to speak to him before going to his house. No matter what I promised.
/> I HAVEN’T SEEN Jasper’s house much in the light of day. His mother is always on night shifts, so that’s when Jasper has me over. This is not a coincidence. Jasper’s mother blames me for everything that happened in Maine. He hasn’t said that outright, but there have been clues.
“It doesn’t have a face,” Jasper had said once about his house, sounding sad. “Most houses have the windows on either side and the door in the middle. Like it’s a person looking at you or something. The way mine is, it’s like the front is just . . . empty.”
He’s right, and it is depressing. I start up the concrete area that is part driveway, part “front yard.” Jasper’s brother’s Jeep is parked there and, as usual, seeing it makes the hairs on my arms lift. When the police went looking for it, the car was right there at the gas station where we’d left it, the starter purposely ripped out by Doug. Looking at it now is like seeing a ghost. Cassie’s ghost. I wrap my arms around myself and shudder hard. Luckily, I know Jasper’s brother is out of town visiting his “girlfriend,” which Jasper is pretty sure is code for buying pot. I’m relieved that at least I won’t have to deal with him. I have met Jasper’s brother and—like Jasper said—he is bigger than Jasper and also a total asshole.
I climb the rickety steps to the narrow porch, hold myself tight as I knock. The door sounds hollow beneath my hand. I wait. Nothing. Check the time. Ten a.m. exactly. I knock again, harder this time, then lean back to look in the window for signs of life.
My face is pressed to the glass when the door swings open.
“Can I help you?” a woman snaps.
I jerk back and turn. Jasper’s mom is glaring at me. At least I’m assuming it’s her. Her short black hair is pulled back in a low, no-nonsense ponytail. Her skin has a grayish undertone and she has puffy bags under her eyes. Still, you can see how she might have been quite beautiful once. How she still could be if she got some rest. She’s wearing green hospital scrubs and has her nurse’s ID badge looped around her neck.
“Sorry,” I say. Opening with an apology seems wise. “Is Jasper here?”
“Good Lord,” she huffs, but mildly. Like she’s too tired to even care. “That kid will be a picked-over carcass, and one of you girls will still be coming around, trying to drag him home.”
“He was expecting me.” My voice rises at the end like a question. But instead of that making me sound sweet and polite, it kind of makes me sound like a stalker.
“Well then, I guess he changed his mind,” she says, face pinched. Then her eyes shoot up to my hair. A headband is the only thing that makes my hacked hair look okay, even now. I jammed an elastic one in my pocket on the way out of the house, but it’s too late for that. Her eyebrows draw tight. “Yes, well, I can’t tell you why he’s not here because I haven’t seen him. But Jasper’s been changing his mind a lot lately.”
And then I feel it—even without her looking at me—the full weight of her heartbreak. She isn’t angry at Jasper, or hoping to get rich off of him playing professional hockey. She isn’t worried about money. She’s afraid she is going to lose her son. That something awful is going to happen to him.
And Jasper has absolutely no idea she feels this way. It makes me so sad for the both of them.
“Are you sure he’s not here?” I ask.
“Jesus, you are a persistent thing.” She looks me up and down. And then I feel a momentary twinge of pity. She knows what desperation feels like. “Come on in if you want. I am going to take my shoes off, but you can go look for him yourself if you think I’m hiding him.”
I step inside the dim entryway with its two sagging armchairs and worn wooden bench against the wall. Jasper’s mom winces as she sits down to take off her shoes. It isn’t until then that it occurs to me: she just got home from work. She is not just up from being asleep after a double shift like Jasper said. He lied to keep me away. And now he is gone.
“Can I look in his room?”
“Will it make you go away?” she asks. I nod. “Then go ahead, but be quick.”
She flaps a hand in the direction of Jasper’s room, though I already know where it is.
THE LIGHTS IN Jasper’s room are off, but the curtains are open. Twin bed, dark comforter, a desk and some bookshelves along one wall. As usual, it is freakishly neat, the bed made with military precision. Full of promise, but tinged with sadness—like everything about Jasper. I’m still surveying how tidy everything is when something on Jasper’s nightstand catches my eye. As I get closer, I can see that it’s a stack of clipped-together envelopes, each already torn open. I look over my shoulder before picking them up. Jasper’s mom said I could come in his room to check for him. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t an invitation to rummage through his things.
There’s no return address on the envelopes, only Jasper’s name and address printed on the label. When I pull out the note inside the top envelope, I recognize Cassie’s curly script right away.
It’s not that he’s better than Jasper. He’s different. Which I guess, in this case, is the same as better. Jasper is nice and smart and sweet, but with him I can’t breathe. I always have to pretend to be someone I’m not . . .
My eyes move to the top. There’s no “dear” anybody, only a date. And only days before the camp. And the lined paper is ragged at the side as though it’s been torn from something. Some sick asshole has been sending Jasper excerpts from Cassie’s diary? There’s so many of them, too. Jasper has been getting bits and pieces of Cassie’s journal ever since we got back from Maine, probably convincing himself more and more that he was the reason she got mixed up with Quentin in the first place. No wonder he’s been getting worse.
Then I see one more envelope, this one on the floor. Dropped there or maybe it slid from the stack. I pick it up. Postmarked yesterday. I slide the page out.
I’m not saying that it’s Jasper’s fault that I’m spending time with Quentin. It’s more complicated than that. But I do think that Jasper being so perfect made me want to get even more messed up. I wanted to prove to him that not everyone is worth saving.
I swallow hard. Poor Jasper. The thing he was most afraid of—that he drove Cassie to Quentin and drinking and all of it—written right there, in Cassie’s own words.
I COME BACK out into the foyer, holding the stack of envelopes.
“I didn’t say you could take anything.” Jasper’s mom glances at me.
“Do you have any idea where Jasper might have gone?” I press on. “I think he might be really upset.”
“I have no goddamn idea where he is!” She shouts, so loud I flinch. But then she hangs her head and bites down on her lip hard—guilt and sadness. That’s all. The anger is just easier. I wonder what I would think if I couldn’t read her so well, if I were Jasper. “I don’t know why you’re here or what you want with my son. But Jasper is not in any condition to be anyone’s boyfriend.”
“I’m a friend, that’s all,” I say. “A friend who’s worried about him.” Though for the first time, that feels like a lot less than the truth.
“Maybe he went for a walk,” she says, motioning toward the door. Her voice is quiet now, unsteady. “He does that these days. A lot. He likes to go to the Bernham Bridge to watch for canoes. We used to do that when he was little.”
Bridge. Bridge. Bridge. It’s the most awful alarm ringing in my brain. A bridge you can jump from? I do not want it to stick in my head the way it does, but it already has. My heart is racing as I clutch Cassie’s letters tight in my hand and head for the door.
“I’ll go look for him,” I say. “But I also think you should call the police.”
“The police?” Worried still, yes, but also suspicious. “The last thing Jasper needs is trouble with the police. We’ve had enough of that with his brother.”
“I know, but—all I can say is that I have a really bad feeling. Like he could be in danger. We were talking on the phone last night and—”
“Danger? What are you—oh no. Wait one second here.” Her eyes flash
hard in my direction. Then they move again up to my hair. Finally, she has realized, and when she looks me in the eye again, the blast of anger burns. “You,” she growls, pushing herself to her feet. “You’re her. The one that almost got my son killed.”
She steps forward. And I take another couple steps back toward the door. I toss the envelopes addressed to Jasper into a nearby chair. This feels like a peace offering.
“I’m sorry about—but right now—” My foot catches on a chair.
“Oh, so now you’re worried about him? You know what, you should be worried. You know what you cost him? What you took from your so-called friend? How hard he’s worked since he was a teeny-tiny kid to get that opportunity at Boston College? The hours and hours at that ice rink freezing his ass off? And now—” She makes an exploding motion with her hands. “You destroyed everything.”
I am finally at the door, fumbling with the knob behind me as she steps closer. I turn my face, bracing for her to slap me.
“I just—I’m worried about him,” I say again as I get the door open. It scrapes hard against my back. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be sorry!” she shouts after me as I rush outside.
7
I STUMBLE DOWN THE STEPS AND RUN AWAY FROM JASPER’S HOUSE. Bernham Bridge. You should be sorry. Bernham Bridge. You should be sorry. The bridge is not far, I don’t think, maybe less than a half mile. Only a couple of quick turns. But I need to get there now. I can feel it. And that isn’t about reading anybody’s feelings, not about simple Heightened Emotional Perception. There is no one there to read. This feeling is something more.
But I have never been more certain of anything in my life: Jasper needs me, and he needs me right now.
I look around for a taxi, a car, some other option, overwhelmed by the sense of the time I have already wasted. The things I should have realized. Should have said. But there is no one around to help. I have no choice but to run on. I look down at my stupid, useless flip-flops, tugging them off and sprinting barefoot, one gripped in each hand.