I move to the bed, dropping to my knees. Wincing, I reach a tentative hand under it and move it around. My fingers light on soft fabric, but when I tug the object free, it’s only a wadded-up graphic T-shirt. I feel around some more, finding nothing but dust bunnies and a mini toy car that’s probably been down here since Adam was a toddler.
Defeated, I stand up, brushing off the front of my clothes. I get a stab of disappointment at not uncovering the hoodie, safe and sound. I don’t like the implications.
I do another scan of the room, and my eyes snag on a familiar spine on the bookshelf.
It’s my copy of Mary Shelley’sFrankenstein, the one I lent to Henry. What’s it doing in Adam’s room?
I pad over to it, removing the book to find that it’s not my copy.Mrs. Garrett’s Class Copyhas been scribbled inside the front cover of this one. Little blue and yellow sticky notes peek out between the pages, and I recognize Adam’s messy all caps handwriting. Our assignment last year included annotating our free reading novel. I get a woozy feeling suddenly, remembering that the day we chose our books was the day Mariana died.
The triplets never returned to school after that day—at least not last year. Either Adam worked quickly on this assignment that very afternoon before the accident—which would not have been verylikeAdam—or he continued to read and annotate, even when he knewthe novel would never be turned in for credit.
I flip through the pages, reading the passages he’s rewritten on the sticky notes, trying to make sense of his color-coded system and the drawings. On one sticky note in particular is a black sketch of a star. Underneath it, the words from the page have been copied:“Frankenstein! You belong then to my enemy—to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim…and in a moment he lay dead at my feet.”
That same prickle I felt downstairs runs up my spine now. I remember this part of the novel. The words were spoken by Victor Frankenstein’s creation, the being he formed, only to abandon later. On the note, Adam hasn’t merely copied the words in black; he’s underlined them in thick marker, red as blood.
At the newly thickened silence, panic surges through me. I should get out of here. For all I know, the boys could already be headed this way. There’s a perfectly functional bathroom downstairs, so I have no excuse to be up here.
But the bookshelf is overstuffed, and I have trouble sliding the novel back inside. I try forcing it to no avail. When I attempt to rearrange some books by tugging them out, something slips free onto the wooden floor.
I bend down to pick it up, finding a collage full of photographs. A prickling sensation runs from my fingertips up to the base of my neck: They’re all of Mariana Sanchez.
The photos haven’t been pasted on like the olden days. Instead, it’s a printed collage with colorful photo frames, graphics of heartsand flowers ornamenting the paper. The edge is torn, like the page has been ripped from a book.
I rush to return it to the shelf, struggling to find its location as my mind grapples with this. Adam has a collage of photographs of Bram’s girlfriend—Bram’sdeadgirlfriend—hidden in his room.
That’s when I spot where the collage came from. It’s a hardcover photo album, the kind you can customize online. This one has a title printed on the front cover in the center of a pink heart:Mariana and Bram Forever.
Finding this album here is bizarre, to say the least. But there could be a simple explanation. Maybe Bram couldn’t bear to have this album in his room, and Adam, not wanting his brother to regret throwing it away for good, offered to store it for him.
Then again, I may be projecting my own history here, considering that in his grief, my dad deleted some of my favorite home videos off the cloud, including the one I used to watch over and over in the months after Mom died. It featured her singing “Daydream Believer” by the Monkees to a baby-sized version of me as I laugh and coo. When I discovered the video was gone forever, I was torn up for days. I almost never forgave Dad for it.
But that was him. Just because Dad wanted to remove traces of what he lost doesn’t mean Bram would act the same way inhisgrief. I want to look at the rest of the pages, but my nerves are crackling; I have no idea what’s going on downstairs.
Album in hand, I tiptoe to the door and crack it open. I listen for the sound of voices or the creak of the staircase. Hearingnothing, I flip through the glossy sheets. The title page contains a handwritten note:
To Bram
All my love,
Mariana
This album was a gift for Bram. A handful of pages contain the couple at different events from the period they dated: sophomore year up until the fall of junior year, with one period of separation so short, hardly anyone was aware of it.
Then I get to the pages where Bram and Mariana are with company, namely Adam and Henry. I’m in two of the photos, one after a football game in which our team defeated our rival school, and another in the Abbotts’ pool.
My heart is thumping so violently that I almost turn the page and miss it. In the pool photo, we’re all floating around on various inflatable toys. I’m on a pink flamingo, laughing with a plastic margarita glass full of Sprite. Mariana is on a massive dolphin, her smile wide as Bram tries to play-tackle her. Henry is in midair, performing a cannonball. I remember that Mrs. Abbott took the photo so we could all be in it—one of those rare occasions when she decided to act the part of the perfect mother, checking to ensure we were properly hydrated and wearing SPF.
Then I spot Adam. Standing on the steps, he’s the only person in the photo who isn’t laughing. In fact, he looks downright furious.
And he’s staring directly at Mariana.
The expression on his face sends a shiver through me. I flip backto recheck the football game photo, and there it is again. This time, Henry must be the one behind the camera because he isn’t pictured. We’re all smiling victoriously at the camera—all but Adam, who’s looking at Mariana with something like disgust.
Or hatred. But why would Adam have hated Mariana?
And if he did, does it mean Adam had a motive to kill not only Kennedy, but Mariana too?
Something Henry said about Adam last winter pushes into my brain. He later denied it, and I forgot all about it. But it’s repeating louder in my head now than it ever sounded in real life.
