Jack shakes his head. “I need to speak to my lawyer first. He was adamant that we can’t go back to them without checking with him. I’ll give him a call this afternoon.”
The person I wish I could tell is Jay. “Better question is, should I tell Mia?”
“Lance’s girlfriend,” Jack says.
I nod. “Yeah, and supposedly, my oldest friend.”
Aster shakes her head. “You seem so different from that girl. How long did you know her, anyway?”
I exhale. “Mia? Forever. We were best friends since I was seven. That’s when I moved to Alderville. But ... I don’t think I washerbestfriend.” I exhale. “I was a sidekick. She was only happy with me when I was doing what she wanted.”
“Ugh. So ... basic,” Jack says. “You’re no one’s sidekick. You’re way better than her.”
I exhale. “Yeah, I should have dropped her on Halloween. That was the beginning of the end. Ironically, the day she met Lance.”
Gracie frowns. “What happened on Halloween?”
That night was the first moment that I realized maybe I wasn’t going to fit in here. That I was a weird, octopus-loving book nerd, and everyone knew how to make friends but me.
“It was stupid,” I say. “We were supposed to have matching costumes. It was the first time in forever that I had a non-octopus costume.”
Aster raises a brow.
“Aleeza has this weird thing for octopuses,” Gracie explains.
I nod, counting on my fingers. “I’ve been Davy Jones fromPirates of the Caribbean, Ursula fromLittle Mermaid, Squidward—”
“Squidward is asquid, not octopus,” Jack says.
I shrug. “He’s still a cephalopod. Anyway, she was supposed to be Sherlock Holmes and I was going to be Watson. So I showed up to the student center Halloween party in a tweed jacket, mustache, and a bowler hat, and all of Lance’s friends laughed and mocked me. And Mia pretended she didn’t even know me.”
“Holy shit,” Jack says, looking at me with awe. “I was there, in a Joker costume!”
I blink. It makes sense—Jack was friends with Lance, so of course he’d be there. I remember the Joker, actually. He was drunk out of his mind. Did he laugh at me that night?
Aster nods, grinning. “Oh my god, I remember you! Personally, I thought you lookedhot... Ilovedthat jacket.” She shakes her head. “The tailoring! It fit you so well!”
Huh. Realizing that these people, my new friends, saw me at my most embarrassing was ... well, embarrassing. But these two probablyweren’t laughing at me. Maybe my perceptions of the night are off?Everyonewasn’t laughing.
And of course, the night wasn’t all bad. That guy in the cheap Cthulhu mask didn’t laugh at me and said those things that made me feel better. I was drinking, so I don’t remember much, but he also said I’m no one’s sidekick.
I chuckle to myself. I remember thinking meeting that guy was asign. It was such a coincidence that the guy trying to pick me up had a freaking Cthulhu mask on—a mythical creature depicted with an octopus face. I’m not sure I would’ve ever walked away from Mia, ever stood on my own two feet, if it weren’t for that little pep talk from the octopus-faced guy.
But ... there are no coincidences. My skin tingles with goose bumps.
“Was Jay at that party?” I ask slowly.
Aster frowns. “I don’t think so.”
“No, he was. He came with me,” Jack says. “He was Cthulhu.”
It wasJay. My heart beats heavily in my chest. The whole time, the guy who was kind and made me feel better that night wasJay. I open the calendar on my phone, where I marked the dates in Jay’s timeline so I could remember how much time we had until his disappearance. That Halloween party on Jay’s October 29 would have been my March 25—the night of Jack’s party. I remember getting home that night from Jack’s house sad and drunk, and Jay made me feel better. Again. He told me he’d been out and would tell me later where he’d gone. And we slept in each other’s arms across time. But the next day they found Jay’s coat and phone, and he never ended up telling me where he went.
It was all on purpose. I told Jay I’d gone to a Halloween party dressed as Dr. Watson, and he went so he could find me. He wore a mask so I wouldn’t recognize him. But he got an octopus-related mask so I’d pay attention to him.
“You okay?” Gracie asks.
I nod. I, of course, can’t let on to Aster and Jack why this hurts so much. But Gracie has to understand. “I wish I could have known him,” I say as I wipe away a tear. “I feel like I do, after investigating his disappearances for so long.” I chuckle. “He liked Cthulhu, and I like octopuses.”
