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Jazz took his hand in hers. “Maybe he forgot.”
Nick shook his head. “The screen was recently cleaned. I think—I think he comes up here and watches this.” He waved his hand toward the box next to the TV. “There are more tapes in there.”
She frowned as Nick’s mom and dad whispered back and forth. “Why wouldn’t he tell you about these?”
“I don’t know.”
She squeezed his hand.
Secrets. It felt like more secrets.
The video lasted a few minutes more before the screen once again turned blue. He hit the fast-forward button, but nothing else came up.
He could’ve left it there. He could’ve turned off the television and gone back down the ladder and done what Dad had asked him to do. Later, when Dad came home, he’d tell him what he’d found, and maybe he’d be a little pissed off, but he’d give Dad the benefit of the doubt. This tape was innocent. Maybe the rest weren’t, and Nick didn’t want to see things he shouldn’t. If they were private, then Nick needed to respect that. Dad was allowed to have his own way of coping with his grief.
Except …
This was his mother.
Nick ejected the tape and set it on top of the TV. He grabbed the box, pulling it toward him as Jazz peered over his shoulder. He riffled through the tapes, not knowing what he was looking for. Unmarked. Unmarked. Unmarked. All of them were unmarked. He was about to pick one off the stack he’d made next to them when he saw a flash of white near the bottom of the box. He pulled the tape out.
There, across the front, was a label. And on this label, written in her familiar messy scrawl, were two words:
the truth
A little voice in the back of his head whispered he should stop while he still could, that whatever was on this tape could only lead to him hurting more than he already was. He barely noticed when the bulb above them flared, Jazz tilting her head back and murmuring, “These power surges. I don’t know why they keep happening in your neighborhood.”
He pushed the tape into the TV.
Mom appeared on-screen, her face close as she adjusted thecamera. The date blinked at the bottom. It took Nick a moment to place when this was. She and Dad would have still been in school. Their last year, maybe. Or second to last. Not married yet. It’d be a few more years before that happened.
He didn’t recognize where she was. It looked like the living room of a small apartment. She frowned as she fiddled with the camera again, her light hair falling on her shoulders. She huffed out a breath of air, causing her bangs to flutter. She stood upright, taking steps back until she was standing in front of the camera. She wore jeans and a white shirt covered in cerulean blue stars. Her feet were bare.
“Okay,” she said. “It’s time. I’ve thought this through. I hope.” She shook her head. “They’ll be here in a minute, so I’ve got to be sure.” She wiggled her shoulders as she took a deep breath. “I don’t know why I’m so scared. I hope they see past that for what this is.” She gnawed a thumbnail before wringing her hands. “I can’t do this on my own anymore.”
“What’s she talking about?” Jazz whispered.
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “Maybe she’s—”
On the television, a doorbell chimed. “Coming!” Mom shouted, stepping off-screen. An awful paisley couch lined the wall behind her, and Nick laughed wetly at the Backstreet Boys poster hanging above it. At least he knew where he got his taste for terrible music.
Other voices spoke, but they were low and Nick couldn’t pick out the words. Shadows played along the walls and floor from the afternoon sunlight. Nick thought there were two more people coming into the apartment.
Mom reappeared first, looking nervous. She was smiling, but the edges of it curled down, as if her mouth couldn’t support the weight of it. “Stop it with that look. I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I wasn’t,” Dad said, and Nickknewthat tone. Dad had been thinking exactly that. “But even if you were, we’d deal with it together.” Dad moved into view, shoulders stiff, a worried lookon his face. His hair was longer, hanging almost to his shoulders. He looked barely older than Nick did, skinny and awkward.
Mom snorted as she shoved him onto the couch. “‘Deal with it.’ Just what every girl wants to hear.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Dad protested feebly. He looked off-screen. “Tell her.”
Another voice spoke, causing Nick’s blood to turn to ice. “He didn’t mean it like that. But I’ll admit I was thinking it, too, and I didn’t want to be here for that conversation. I get that we’re best friends, but I don’t think I’m ready to be an uncle yet.”
“That’s how it works, man,” Dad said as Simon Burke appeared on-screen. He moved through the room as if he’d been there countless times, kicking off his shoes and settling on the couch next to Dad, slinging an arm over his shoulders. He looked so much like Owen that Nick couldn’t do anything but breathe through the storm in his head.
“Nicky,” Jazz whispered. “Maybe we shouldn’t be watching this.”
Nick ignored her, glaring at Burke as he smiled at Mom. “Okay, you’re not pregnant. That’s good. It means Aaron remembered to wrap it, like I told him to. Still doesn’t explain why we’re here.” His gaze drifted until it settled on the camera. He squinted at it. “Are you recording this?”
