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The woman—Ally’s mom—looks healthy and normal in all the pictures. Her eyes look clear. She doesn’t look like the drug addict she was made out to be.
Maybe that part was true. Maybe she wasn’t a user, and she was just desperate.
The only thing missing is the phone. I know someone still has it, but they haven’t used it at all. The account is still active. I haven’t closed it yet because…what if I need it?
I put the box in its entirety under my own bed. Full circle, I guess. Then, I go back to my new hobby—reading about myself, my ex, and my dead stepsister on the internet. I can’t seem to bring myself to do much else. On Friday, I tried to talk myself into going to a party Audrey invited me to, but even knowing how much it would bother Ally, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I did get my Xbox hooked back up, created a new username since even that was on the subreddit, and attempted to play a few times over the weekend, but I can’t seem to enjoy it. I tried to pick up where I left off in the Wheel of Time series, too but just stared at the pages.
It’s only been a few days, though. Surely, it’ll come back, and I’ll enjoy things the way I used to. I’ll stop thinking about Ally and dead bodies, and maybe my dad won’t be so sad.
A knockon my door pulls me out of my head. “Devon?” my dad calls. “Do you want to come down and watch the game with me? I ordered Chinese food.”
No, I don’t. I don’t even like football, and he knows that. I want to sit up here in my room and keep doomscrolling.
“Sure,” I tell him. “Be right there.”
I join him on the first floor of the townhome, in the dark living room with the curtains drawn shut and no light aside from what’s coming from the television screen and the fireplace, and sit down on the couch without saying a word. I count four empty beer bottles on the table before I check the time—just before noon.
“You want one?” he asks as he cracks open another.
“Sure,” I say.
He hands me a beer, and I stare at a spot on the wall just above the television, still thinking about Ally and wishing I could be there to see the look on her face when she finds it all gone.
“Ineed to talk to you,” Devon tells me in art class on Friday morning. “After class. It’s important.”
I take in his anxious demeanor, the bags under his eyes, the way he taps his foot nervously under the table. He’s been this way for a few days now; we’ve barely talked at all, and it’s been eating away at me.
On top of that, Darci has been shutting me out and taking these little digs at me, and I’m not sure where it’s coming from. Mark has been home all week, and he and Grace have constantly fought with each other or me every night.
And I’ve been lying awake at night with my nerves misfiring, waiting for something bad to happen. That’s how Devon looks, too.
“Devon, what’s going on with you?”
“I’ll tell you before lunch,” he whispers. “Meet me in the locker room.”
“Are you going to break up with me?” I ask. “I’d rather just know right now. I can’t sit around for three more hours—”
“Ally, stop,” he says. “I’m not going to break up with you. Are you crazy?”
“You seem unhappy.”
“I am,” he says. “I’m completely fucking miserable, but that has nothing to do with you.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better,” I tell him.
“Relax,” he says. “It’s going to be fine.”
The space between art and lunch passes slowly, and when the bell rings after fourth period, I rush to the locker room, making it inside while the last gym class is still clearing out. I pretend I need something from my track bag, sifting through my things slowly until the last of them leave.
Ten minutes pass, then fifteen. I pace back and forth, checking my phone every minute, wondering how long I should wait here and if maybe Devon isn’t coming at all.
I feel a hand close around my arm, and I scream.
“Hey,” Devon says. “Hey, I’m sorry. That’s my fault. I snuck up on you. I forgot and—”
“Devon, what the hell is going on?”
“Get your bag out of your locker,” he says.
