40.
The anonymous phone calls on my cell started not long after.
They were all from numbers I didn’t know. Each time I answered, all I would hear was heaving breathing, then something whispered I couldn’t make out. At first, I blew it off as a prank, but after about a dozen or so, I started getting nervous, started yelling at the person on the other line to quit being a pussy and reveal themselves.
Sometimes they came with text messages, cryptic—not even whole words—but creepy. I’d block the number, but hours later, a different one would call me.
“They must be using some ID spoofing app,” Connor reasoned. “It’s probably just Toby and the Rudoys fucking with you. Keep blocking them and ignoring them.”
Connor and I were standing outside of the school after the last class, sharing a cigarette. More like, I was chain-smoking and he could barely get a puff in.
“You need to slow down, babe,” he said gently. I stiffened at the word. There were kids all around us, within earshot. What if they heard us? What if the Rudoy brothers had walked by that very second?
“Don’t,” I snapped. “Don’t say that out in the open.”
Even I knew I was acting weird, but I couldn’t stop. It was like something or someone had taken over my body, and I was running on pure adrenaline. I leaned against my bike, fidgeting with the handles, pretending to check the air in the tires so I wouldn’t have to look at him.
“Is this about those fucking phone calls?” Connor asked. “Jesus, Jack, just ask Toby about it. Demand him to fess up. If you don’t, I will.”
“No!” I said. “Don’t say anything.”
“Why not? What is up with you lately?” He put a hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. “Let’s just go to your place.”
He stood in front of me, blocking my bike as I tried to pedal off. “No,” he said. “First of all, you’re in a terrible mood, and you won’t tell me why. Second, we do that every time, and it’s starting to feel like we’re fugitives.” He gestured to the other kids standing around, smoking, laughing, chatting. Freshmen, athletes, artsy kids, theater kids, kids in gangs, kids who didn’t really belong anywhere but still managed to somehow avoid being harassed by a vicious ghost on the phone. Carefree and easy-going and la-dee-da kids. And there was Skye Russo, twirling her hair with manicured fingers and flirting with some senior guy. In that moment, I hated them all.
And I hated Connor standing in my path, blocking me from moving. “Get out of the way, Connor.”
“No,” he said.
My phone bleeped. I reached reluctantly into my pocket, praying it was Mom or even Toby, but no. It was anonymous, as usual, some area code I didn’t recognize.
RWILWEWY.
Riley was all I could see. It was like someone had mainlined adrenaline into my heart. I needed to pedal out of there, get out of there fast, but Connor was still in my way.
“What is it?” he asked, as if he didn’t already know.
“Move!” I yelled, and some kids turned to stare at us. I rammed my bike so hard into his legs he was forced to jump to the side. I caught a glimpse of the look of shock and hurt on his face, but barely had time to register it. I had to get home, and I had to get home fast. That was all I knew.
I biked down the freeway, the sun beating down on me. Soon I was drenched with sweat. It felt like the temperature had turned up one hundred degrees. I rode past the crude billboards, the strip malls coated in garish colors, minivans and SUVs roasting in their gummy lots. Everything was loud—a big, muddled mess.
By the time I made it home, my legs hurt so badly I could barely walk to the front door. I kicked my bike and didn’t bother locking it up in the garage. I didn’t care anymore. Then I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
There was a text, but it was from Connor. It wasn’t an accusation, or an angry message, or even a plea. It was just a heart, and in that moment, it was all I needed to calm down and root myself.
I tried. I really tried. But my head wouldn’t stop spinning. My heart wouldn’t stop racing.
And no matter how many times I blocked the numbers, the texts kept coming.
RWILWEWY.
RWILWEWY.
And each time, my stomach dropped. I shut off my phone.
41.
He kissed my neck and I pulled away. It had been like this all day in school, him sneaking in sweet little gestures and trying to be close to me in math class, and me being the coward that I was. I wanted to kiss him back more than anything, to wrap my arms around him and let the whole school see us, but something always stopped me cold. Maybe it was the way that the Rudoy brothers or Toby would always sneer at us in the halls, and the way certain people were starting to whisper and laugh. It was like suddenly I heard and felt and saw everything, and everyone was always talking about me. Every conversation. Every passed note in class. I was paranoid, and I’d sit through class with my leg jiggling and my palms sweating and my stomach in knots.
I turned off my phone and started avoiding Connor in the hallways. It’s not that I didn’t want to see him. Not exactly. But he didn’t understand. And I couldn’t explain why I was so damn scared. Maybe it was that I knew deep down that I wasn’t man enough for him, that I didn’t really deserve him or any of this.
“What is it?” he asked. We were sequestered in the bathroom in the science wing during an assembly. “Why do you keep avoiding me? I know you are. You pretend
