I could hear the frustration growing in his voice, but before I could counter, my mom yelled up the stairs, “Cassidy! Are you coming down?”
“Yes, Mom!” I cracked the door and shouted out, “Just a minute!”
“It’s going to get cold! Your father and I aren’t going to wait all day!”
“Go ahead!” I shouted in response.
“We aren’t going to eat without you!”
I opened my mouth to scream back at her, but Elliott’s loud voice boomed over mine. “Go ahead and eat without her, Liz. Everything is fine. You’re not at all surprised to hear my voice and will forget in two seconds that we even spoke.”
There was a pause and then my mom shouted, “Okay!” in a pleasant voice, and I heard her talking to my dad as she faded back toward the kitchen. I turned and looked at Elliott as he leaned past me to shut the door. My mouth was hanging open
After lunch, my dad went upstairs to watch football, my mom went to her bedroom to call her mother, my Grandma Shirley, and Elliott and I set about loading the dishwasher. I wondered if my parents had conveniently left us alone or if he had designed that. I was glad to have the opportunity to follow up on a few topics my parents had touched on during the meal. Though they were careful not to talk about anything in front of me I wasn’t supposed to know, they’d asked how Cadence was doing, and I had more questions about that particular subject than I could ask in front of them.Elliott was rinsing, and I was loading. I took a bowl from him and slid it into a slot. “So, where does Cadence live exactly?” I asked, reaching out for a handful of silverware.“We live in an apartment building,” he replied, handing me a glass, which I dropped into the top rack. “She lives in the penthouse.”I stood up straight and looked at
“So?” Lucy asked as soon as I walked into biology class. I’d avoided her in the hallway, but there was going to be no getting around her now. We were partners after all.Playing dumb, I asked, “So what?”“So… why didn’t you call me yesterday? Where were you this morning?” She lowered her voice. “What happened with the video? Emma said you wanted to call me and tell me yourself, but you didn’t.”I took a deep breath and sat down in my seat. “It’s nothing,” I said, trying to figure out how to make my voice sound nonchalant. I was lying to her, and I hated it, but I didn’t know what else to do. I’d promised Elliott I wouldn’t tell them anything else.“What’s nothing?” Emma asked, flinging her books down in such a way that papers spread everywhere out of her notebooks and folders. Lucy and I grabbed them before they spilled all over t
Lunch was just as uncomfortable as the rest of biology had been. Lucy kept wanting to ask me stuff, and I kept silencing her with my stare. Finally, just before it was time to head to class, Emma said, “I don’t know what the big deal is. So, he faked his death.” She popped the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth and shrugged her shoulders. “It all goes with the drug cartel idea I had earlier.”I stared at her. “You remember that?”“Sure,” she replied. “A few things have come back to me. He probably didn’t want his folks to be disappointed in him.”“Emma…” I began, but then I remembered I’d promised Elliott not to say more. “Okay. Just… we need to keep this to ourselves, all right? I mean, I think the authorities will catch him anyway.”“Okay,” Emma agreed.“No, not okay,” Lucy protested, looking from her t
I kept talking. “Look, I think this business is pretty serious, Luce. He said that Christian spends a lot of time taking down posts where people seem to know things they shouldn’t know. And he’s also told me before they send people over to erase people’s memories who post that stuff.”“Christian seems like a real nerd,” she said, setting her bottle aside and continuing to stretch.I remembered what Elliott had told me about him the other day. “I’ll say,” I agreed. “But seriously, if you want to keep your memories, keep your lips zipped.”“Okay,” she said, more of an acquiescence than anything else. “It’s just… I keep having weird dreams.”Jess was back. I took a deep breath and blew it out as she offered me the water. “Oh, this is really cold,” I said. “Do you happen to have any that are more like, room temperature?”
On the way to her house I decided to try my theory, even though my mom was jamming to some Amy Grant tune on the oldies Christian radio station. “So… I’ll check into that stuff for class tonight and let you know.”“Awesome,” Lucy said, nodding. “I’m sure I’ll rest a lot better if you can figure out the answer to that one problem that really stumped me.”“Me, too,” I agreed.“What class is that for?” my mom asked.I decided it would be better if only one of us answered, so I waited. “Biology,” Lucy replied, leaning forward like my mom may as well know everything. “We had such a difficult lesson today,” she continued. “Human anatomy!”“Ugh, that does sound hard,” my mom agreed. And actually, it wasn’t even a lie. Mr. Horton had covered the digestive system today—though Lucy’s answer also fit with our c
The next couple of weeks flew by, and before I knew it, we were several basketball games into the season, and not only was the homecoming dance less than a month away, Valentine’s Day was just around the corner. Lucy and I had found a way to get Emma to “hypothetically” join in our conversation, and while all three of us were now having weird dreams, I was pretty sure it was due to the fact that we kept talking about monsters and not because of any actual bloodsuckers infiltrating our thoughts, though I couldn’t one hundred percent rule that out.On game days, we wore our uniforms to school, and the boys on the basketball team all wore matching shirts. I was standing at my locker thinking about whether or not Liam would notice I’d curled the ends of my hair when I heard what sounded like a cheer coming from down the hallway. Puzzled, I looked around and caught a few other narrowed eyes before I grabbed my books and headed in that direction.
My eyes probably resembled dinner plates, and for a moment, I thought Elliott was going to tell them he has a friend who fought in the war, but while everyone else puzzled over what he meant, he continued, “You see, as long as you continue to think about all of the things these men and women did for us, all those years ago, it’s like they’re still alive. I mean, think about it. George Washington died, like, two hundred years ago, right? But you’re still talking about him. Why? Because he was one awesome dude.” Most people couldn’t pull off that phrase the way that Elliott could. I looked around the room, and a lot of the kids were nodding. “Abe Lincoln? What do we know about him? Tall dude with a stylin’ hat, right? But… he made changes to our country that still impact us today. It’s important to know that stuff so we don’t screw things up. If we don’t know about the Emancipation Proclamation, we might do somet
“What are you doing here?” I asked as he sat down.“Nice to see you, too.”“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said, wondering if my tone had been harsh. “It’s just… Mrs. Neely has a class right now, doesn’t she?”“Yeah, but they’re good. They’re reading chapter twenty-seven and answering the questions at the end like good little robots.”“Ugh. Glad you didn’t make us do that,” Lucy said, pushing her tray aside.“Something tells me we’ll have to do it tomorrow,” I replied. “Class was fun.”“Yeah, sure was,” he agreed. “What time’s the game tonight?”“Seven thirty,” Lucy answered before I could get it out. “You comin’?”“Of course,” Elliott replied. “Drove all the way from Kansas City just to see it.”