I manage to speak. “When did you do this?”
“Friday, I think. I was cleaning up the database. It was a tangled mess back there.”
“So ... would it have been fixed by Sunday?”
“Yeah, could have. You probably noticed the student wasn’t there anymore and thought it was magic or something. Not magic, just complicated tech! See you later!”
Kegan walks away, and I stand there with my head resting on the wall. Our connection wasdeleted. If Jay was safe that day, he wouldn’t have been able to tell me. And I’ll never know because he’ll never be on my ResConnect again.
I close my eyes.I’ll never speak to him again.
I exhale. If the ResConnect glitch was fixed, then it’s possible he came back to the room on Sunday but couldn’t see me in the app even though I was in the room. Did he think I abandoned him when I promised I’d be there?
What would he have done if he came back to the room to tell me he was fine, that he got Jack’s message, that he knew to stay away from Lance ... but I wasn’t there?
I push myself off the wall. He would have left the message somewhere else, that’s what he would have done. He said so many times that he’d never forget me. I think back to the facts I know from that night. He came back into the building at six and was seen climbing the stairs. Then seen going down them at eight. An eyewitness saw him in the mailroom then. Then he went back up the stairs, and he wasn’t seen again. I assume he came downstairs again at some point using the secret staircase, but I don’t know when.
What was he doing in the mailroom at eight o’clock on a Sunday? There is no mail on weekends. And he couldn’t have been leaving me a message in my mailbox because I would have seen it a long time ago.
Wait. There’s a bulletin board in the mailroom, one that hasn’t been emptied in months. Screw my media class. I rush back to East House and go straight to the mailroom.
The bulletin board is about five layers deep of paper. I have no idea why no one ever cleans it. How can I find a note from Jay in all this? I don’t even know what I’m looking for.
After about three minutes of searching the board, a red-and-orange image draws my eyes. I push aside the ad for tutoring that’s half covering it.
It’s an abstract watercolor painting of a flame, done in fiery shades of orange, yellow, and red, with some wisps of blue around it. The style is unmistakable. This is Manal Hoque’s art.
I take the painting down and inspect it. It’s painted on a small postcard-size sheet of watercolor paper, and up close, I realize it’s not a flame at all. The swirling lines are tentacles.
It’s an octopus. This is the painting that Jay asked Manal to make for me. The one that he said he’d find a way to get to me one day. Did he pin this to the board right after Manal made it?
Or did he leave it here on Sunday when he realized he couldn’t leave me a message in our room because he thought I wasn’t there?
I turn the small card over.
In small, messy writing, it says,I LOVE YOU. Follow me on Instagram for updates.
I blink. He loves me? The picture blurs with tears, but I’ve cried enough in the last few days. I wipe my eyes and read it again. What does he mean byfollow me on Instagram? Follow who?
I take the painting and rush up to my room. I check ResConnect first, but of course he’s not there. I look back through the screenshots to what he said when Manal painted this.I’ll give it to you in person when I am safe and sound.
This painting is the message. He’s safe and sound. But where? I check Jay’s Instagram account, but he hasn’t posted in months. Not since long before he disappeared. I try to check Manal’s next, but she still has me blocked. If the message is on her account, I won’t see it.
I almost call Gracie and ask her to check Manal’s account, when I wonder: Did Jay have another Instagram account? I suddenly remember ... the fake one he set up to follow the TCU Birdwatcher account! But he never told me the name of his fake account. I open the Birdwatcher Instagram and look at the followers. There are more than a hundred of them. One of them is Jay.
I start scrolling through the names. Now that I know more people in the school, I do recognize some of the accounts following the Birdwatcher. Or more like, I recognize the pictures. I see Bailey Cressman, Tamara from Jack’s party, even Taylor and Lance. Also, a lot of birdwatching accounts follow it, too, maybe not realizing that the account isn’t actually for watching birds. I have no idea how to find Jay, though. I know the account, or the picture, won’t have his name, or even have anything connected to him, or the Birdwatcher would have known who it was.
Finally, I see an account. @Keanu58008. The picture is a nineties-era one of Keanu Reeves. And it follows my account.
Could this be Jay? Maybe he named it this as a nod to that Keanu Reeves movieThe Lake House? But what about the numbers ...
I go back and look at the chat logs, and yes, that note he tried to leave me in the closet said 100458008. I now know that 1004 is his birthday, but I never did find out the significance of 58008. But here’s that number again.
I open the account, and there is only one post, uploaded on November 6—the day Jay disappeared, at 8:07 p.m. It’s a picture of the bulletin board with Manal’s art visible on the bottom right corner.
The caption says:Wednesday’s taking me home. I’ll be fine with her.
I blink. What does that even mean? I can’t be certain that this account really is Jay—but the Keanu reference, plus the number, and of course the picture on the East House bulletin board tell me this is him. And if it is him, then as of 8:07 p.m. that night, he was fine. He saved himself and thought he would be fine in the future. But if he’s fine, if he’s alive, why isn’t he talking to me? It’s been five months—why didn’t he pick up the phone and call me? And what doesWednesday’s taking me homemean? Today is Wednesday. But it was a Sunday when he disappeared. Was it a Wednesday when he had Manal make the painting?
