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In my room, I close the door and rip open the box, Hulk-style. Adrenaline and excitement have me tossing handfuls of packing peanuts onto my bed as I dig out the contents. Five brand-new DVDs, all of them movies I’ve seen a million times with Sasha.
The Breakfast Club, Ever After, The Princess Bride, Mean Girls and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
As I flip through the stack of movies, each one sends a tidal wave of emotions rolling over me. At the very bottom of the box is another greeting card, Sasha’s handwritten To Raquel on the front. I rip open the envelope. This greeting card has three fat little puppies on it, all wearing sunglasses. I smile and open the card. The pink Sharpie note is simply a web address.
Heart pounding, I rush to my laptop and yank it open to type in the URL, which is just a random assortment of letters and numbers.
A video pops up on an otherwise empty web page. Below the video are four other links of random letters and numbers. I click play.
It’s kind of a routine now. Sasha’s face appears on the screen, and I start crying. I wipe away the tears and watch her leaning in close to the webcam on her computer. She’s wearing a lime green tank top and her hair is piled up in a bun, a headband covering her thinning hairline.
“’Sup? It’s me, your favorite friend and sister. So, Rocki, you’re probably wondering why I sent you a stack of movies that you already own. Easy. They’re for Elijah. He told me he owns exactly two DVDs, and they’re both stupid boy movies with guns and action” — she gags at this — “and I decided he needs to own my five favorite movies of all time. Also, he only gave me his work address and I didn’t want to send a box of DVDs to a body shop.”
Now I know why Elijah smelled faintly of motor oil that day. Sasha’s still talking. “But that’s not all, of course. My next adventure is a movie night. If you click on the links below, you’ll see my project took some major commitment. I want you guys to get together and watch each movie. The links below are videos of me watching each movie as well. I’ll tell you when to click play, and then we’ll get to watch it together. Cool, huh?”
She pauses, her eyes watching the camera, and I almost reply out loud. The rest of the video goes by in a blur, and I have to watch it twice to get all of her instructions.
She’s giving us one week to do this, and then we’ll get our next adventure.
Sasha looks into the camera and says one more thing before the video ends. “Have fun with these movies, okay? The next adventure on my list is a hard one. But I guess that’s life, huh? Sometimes it’s beautiful like the lake and hilarious like these movies. Other times …” She pauses and looks down at her hands, then her wide blue eyes seem to bore into mine. “Other times it hurts like a motherfucker.”
***
I read over my email again. Those gut-wrenching feelings of low self-esteem kick in, and I analyze every single word, wondering if I said or did something wrong. It’s been twenty-four hours since I emailed Elijah with a link to Sasha’s videos and a picture of the DVDs she sent me to give him. I asked when we could meet up and gave him my cell number. No reply.
No text.
What is going on?
Meanwhile, Zack won’t stop blowing up my phone. His newest tactic is to ask for a date, just a “simple date,” and then berate me for saying I’m not sure if I feel like going on a simple date.
And of course I can’t tell him why I seem so distracted because not only is Elijah a secret, the fact that he hasn’t replied to me is also a secret. How can I tell someone what’s wrong when I can’t tell them what’s wrong?
Today I really do call in to work. Izzy doesn’t mind and doesn’t seem to care because she says Tuesdays are the slowest days of the week. Since Homecoming was last Friday, flower buying has slowed down for a while.
I eat dinner with my parents, and Dad says I look like I’ve grown up in the short time he was away for work. I roll my eyes and stab a bite of Mom’s shepherd’s pie, and everyone laughs like everything is totally normal.
At eight thirty, my phone gets a new email. I rush over to my computer, wanting to see Elijah’s reply as big and bright as possible because reading it on a phone screen right now might drive me insane.
Raquel,
Hey there. I’m off work Wednesday and Thursday … we could probably watch them all over two days after you get off school? Let me know?
Elijah
I type back quickly, hoping he’s still at the computer. I can’t stand the idea of waiting another twenty-four hours to hear from him.
I’m free Wednesday and Thursday. We could meet at your place? I don’t mind the long drive.
His reply pops up in the corner of my screen. He’s activated the email chat feature.
Elijah0Delgado: Can’t do it at my place, sorry.
RockiBoBock
i: Ugh. Well we can’t really do it at mine, either.
Although Dad will be back at work, Mom will most certainly be home. I can’t even fathom bringing over a new guy my parents have never heard of or met before. And then asking if we can chill in my room for nine hours, watching movies?
