Page 7

Chapter 7

James

It wasn’t until I’d burned the cookies and the bell rang that the new level of strange struck me. I’m the only one, I realized as I dumped the blackened cookies in the hallway’s trash can. Iam the only one here.

Grace was sick.

Isa was MIA.

Everett had never returned to FCS.

What was going on?

My friends Ryan and Caleb called my name, but I ignored them to duck into the bathroom and shut myself in a stall. My conversation with Isa materialized when I unlocked my phone, but instead of sending her another message, I texted Everett.

Everything cool? I wrote.

Yeah, fine , he responded a second later.

And that was it.

Seriously? I stared at my screen waiting for those gray dots to appear, waiting for a more informative follow-up text.

It didn’t come, so I shoved the iPhone back in my pocket. We only had five minutes between classes, and the English wing was on the far side of the building.

But as soon as I pulled open the bathroom door, I let it fall shut again—my phone suddenly buzzing. Grace , the notification said, and I opened the message to read: Please tell me you’re collecting my HW?

I rolled my eyes. Since Isa wasn’t here, I actually would have to go around and get Grace’s crap. Farewell, free period Netflix fest, I thought, then snapped to attention. Isa…

She might be ignoring me, but if anyone knew what was up with her, it would be Grace.

Yes , I typed back. They’ve also asked for our address so they can send flowers.

Chances were someone would. People kept coming up to me and asking for updates on her condition. “Tons of fluids,” I’d reported. “The ER docs are pumping her with tons of fluids….”

Haha , she said. I’m sure those will go great with Mom’s new arctic aesthetic!

Hmm. My thumbs hovered over my touchscreen. That comment was a polar bear I wasn’t sure I wanted to poke right now. Our parents had been straight-up saying they wanted to move once Grace and I left for college, and now that our departures were only months away, my sister wasn’t taking it so well. Yeah, our new house rules and restrictions were completely absurd, but at the end of the day, what could we do? At this point, not even a SWAT team with tranquilizer guns would be able to stop Mom from coming into my room and repainting its blue walls some blah color called “ice-cube gray.”

Grace didn’t like change, and if we wanted to get deep here, neither did I. So it’s funny, I thought, not for the first time, that she didn’t have an issue when we hit middle school.

Middle school, AKA when we drifted apart. Different lockers in different hallways, different class schedules, different lunch periods, and different friends. When Grace, Isa, and Everett became Grace-Isa-and-Everett, and I…

Well, I had to do my own thing.

But anyway, what pissed me off the most was that the idea of moving wasn’t a family conversation. Whatever location our parents had chosen…it would be news to everyone. A smaller house a couple neighborhoods down the road? A town house right in the borough? A different town entirely? Crossing the border into a new state?

No, while I thought Grace’s joke was clever, I didn’t comment on it. All I sent back was: Isa’s absent too, FYI.

Come on. I shifted from one foot to the other. I had to get to class. Answer ….

I know , she responded, along with: I’m going to take a nap now. Thanks for getting my stuff. XOXO.

XOXO? I thought during English, our class reading aloud a scene from Twelfth Night. I hadn’t been cast in a role, and usually I enjoyed listening to my classmates butcher Shakespeare-speak, but not right now.

Grace never signed off her texts to me like that. She never signed off at all, really. Just like she never offered a greeting. Our texts read like one long random conversation, full of mundane questions and comments like “What time are we leaving for Grandma’s?” and “I will murder you if you eat my hoagie in the fridge.”

XOXO.

I mean, she was sick, so she could’ve been delirious, but still. I wished I could call her—or, better yet, FaceTime her to figure out what was going on here. Where’s Isa? I wanted to know. Where’s Everett?

My gut told me she had all the answers. Isa was her best friend, and Everett—I guess that could be a coincidence. He might’ve forgotten a dentist’s appointment or something. Because while Grace hung out with both of them, Isa and Everett had not voluntarily hung out together in three years. Absolutely not, no way in hell, forget about it.

But maybe…

God, I was falling down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.

XOXO.

All of a sudden, my heart lurched. Wait a second.

I glanced across the classroom to track Mr.Henderson’s movements as I slid my phone out of my pocket and balanced it on my leg so I could enter my passcode.

Then I tapped out of my conversation with Grace and into another one, scrolling upward to catch a few messages over the last couple weeks:

Thanks, J. XOXO.

You’re the best. XOXO.

What would I do without you? XOXO.

I rubbed my forehead, pulse pounding and everything spinning…because Grace wasn’t texting me.

It was Isa.

Isa was texting me from my sister’s phone, which meant they were together. Doing what, I didn’t know, but I had a hunch that it didn’t involve Isa holding back Grace’s hair while she vomited into a bucket.

“Is she even sick?” I murmured to myself, but before I could exit Messages and go to Find My Friends to check their locations, a shadow crossed over my desk.

Fuck, I thought as Mr.Henderson said smugly, “Do you have something to share with the class, James?”

A rhetorical question, because he then held out his hand.

I had no choice but to surrender my phone.