I stare straight in front of me at the bed under the window, which has nothing on it but Tentacle Ted. Jay Hoque is most definitely not there. His underwear is in a box in my closet, but not the guy himself.
Someone is either playing a very cruel joke or I’m officially losing my mind because of loneliness.
Or, hell, maybe Jayisdead, and I’m talking to a ghost.
I turn off my phone. Clearly, I need to get some sleep. Hopefully, this whole hallucination will go away in the morning. I donothave the bandwidth for this.
FOUR
The next morning, Gracie is on the stairs when I come out of my room. I rush to catch up to her. “You heading to politics?” I ask.
She nods but doesn’t stop to wait for me.
“Did you do the readings?” I ask. “That textbook is so dry. I need to have, like, electronic music playing in the background, so I don’t fall asleep reading it.”
She doesn’t say anything. Operation Make Gracie My Friend isn’t going well. “Hey, can I ask you a question? Is your room a double?”
She shakes her head. “All the rooms on the floor are singles.”
“But they used to be doubles, right?”
She nods.
“You ever have messages on the ResConnect chat even though you’re in a single room?” I ask. This morning the chat log was empty again, and all the messages from Jay—or from whoever was pranking me—were gone.
Gracie turns to me and frowns. We’re on the main floor now. “I thought the ResConnect chat was only for roommates?”
“Yeah, but I had some weird messages last night. They’re gone now. Probably a glitch.”
“If they’re gone now, then don’t worry about it.”
She’s right. I shouldn’t be worrying about this. It probably won’t happen again. There is no way that I wasactuallymessaging with Jay Hoque.
“Hey, how well did you know Jay?” I ask Gracie as she walks toward the front door. “Did he ever mention weird things happening in the room?”
Gracie opens the front door. She looks at me before going outside, her expression annoyed. “Look, I don’t know how you managed to convince the school to give youthatroom, but this whole thing is so disrespectful. Jay is a person, and he’s missing. It’s bad enough you bird-watcher weirdos are obsessed with him just because he was hot and broody, but inserting yourself into his personal life is ghoulish. Go touch grass or something.” She turns and walks outside, closing the door before I can follow her.
Okaaay.What is she talking about? Why does she think I’m into bird-watching?
I wait a few seconds before going outside. I need to let this go. Gracie is right—I shouldn’t be concerning myself with this glitch, or prank, or whatever. In fact, I should plant myself in the student housing office until Kegan finds me a new room ... one without a missing bad boy attached to it.
Wait.Kegan.Is that really the housing guy’s name? I don’t think I heard it when I was in the office yesterday. The only reason Ithinkhis name is Kegan is because Jay told me that last night. Or my brain told me the name when it was having its little hallucination.
When I get to politics, I sit near the back of the lecture hall. Gracie arrives and picks a spot up front with the people she usually sits with. But of course, I can’t go anywhere near her. She clearly wants nothing to do with me.
The professor has already begun, so I quickly open my laptop to take notes. When she takes a break, I open the campus housing office web page. After scrolling through the arbitration process for roommateconflicts and the process for requesting a room transfer, I see the contact listing at the bottom.
Kegan Butler, Office of the Campus Housing Authority.
Shit. His nameisKegan.
But this isn’t necessarily proof that the conversation with Jay last night was real. My subconscious may have seen Kegan’s name when I was in the office, even if my conscious mind didn’t notice it.
I have media after politics. While I’m waiting for the professor to show, my mind wanders to that interaction with Gracie. I still don’t get why she called me a bird-watcher.
Wait.Jay Hoque.Jay is a type of bird. AndHoqueis pronounced like the wordhawk—also a bird. Are Birdwatchers people who watch Jay?
None of this makes any sense. And to be honest, none of it has anything to do with me. I need to focus on school, and on meeting people. Maybe I should join a school club or volunteer for something. I can’t let drama with Mia ruin the rest of the year, and I can’t go back to Alderville after exams with literally no friends.
