“Well, fuck, man,” Cart said when they had made their way through the house and were standing in the kitchen. He was rubbing his head again. “Why the fuck did they break in here? They destroyed this place.”
“Maybe it’s an angry student,” Theo said.
Cart barked a laugh. “They were definitely trying to find something.”
“Like what?”
“Like anything valuable, dumbass. That’s kind of the point of a burglary.” He toed the broken table. “Shit. Some of this, they did it just to be nasty.”
Theo surveyed the damage again. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose. “What a fucking mess.”
“You want me to dust for prints?”
“Is it a waste of time?”
“Not necessarily,” Cart said.
Theo stared at him.
“Ok,” Cart said. “It probably won’t go anywhere. But I’ll do it just in case.”
“Fuck it,” Theo said. “It doesn’t matter.” He played the back door open and closed, and then he left it open, staring out at the chairs on the back lawn. “I guess I’d better get started. I can just board up the front door for now, right? And the rest of this stuff—” He stared at it, trying to figure out where to start.
“I knew you were country trash,” Cart said. “I didn’t know you were bottom of the barrel trash.”
“What?”
“Boarding up your door? You’re not living with Ma and Pa Hillbilly, all right? Have some fucking self-respect.”
“Fuck off. I can’t afford to pay a carpenter, and I sure as fuck am not—”
“Dumbass,” Cart interrupted loudly. “I get off in a few hours.”
“What the hell is going on? Am I having a stroke?”
“I own a drill,” Cart said with a grin. “And I own a saw. And fuck, buddy, I even own a few of these fancy things called screws.”
Theo stared at him.
“Just ask me, dumbass,” Cart said.
“No way, you’ve got a job, and you don’t want to spend your Sunday fixing my problems.”
“How about you let me decide what I want to do?” Cart said, his smile fading. “Just ask me.”
“Really? You’d do that?”
“I only accept payment in beer.”
“Yeah, ok.” Theo felt himself smile. “I can pick up some Big Wave.”
“You going to be all right for a little bit? I was just stopping by to see if you were ok; you weren’t answering your phone.”
“Sorry,” Theo said. “I was out at Downing, and, well, you know.”
Cart squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll call you when I’m on my way.”
“Thanks. Thank you, Cart. Seriously.”
Rubbing his buzzed head, Cart gave an embarrassed grin and headed for the door.
Something Cart had said turned in Theo like a key, and he said, “Cart?”
“Yeah?”
“You know that kid. The murder video. That whole weird thing. You remember?”
“Yes, motherfucker. I’m not senile.”
“What about fingerprints?”
Cart paused. “What?”
“The car they stole. Did the police dust it for fingerprints?”
“Who the fuck cares about the car? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Robert Poulson. I don’t think that’s his real name. But what if you ran his fingerprints from the car? Maybe he’d show up, right?”
Cart had turned to face Theo again, thumbs tucked behind his belt, studying him. It was a cop’s face.
“Now just what the hell is going on? You think this, what happened here today, has something to do with that?”
“No. I don’t know. I just—I just thought of it.”
“You lying to me again?”
“No.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Cart muttered, his eyes still locked on Theo.
Outside, a string trimmer whined. Theo shifted his weight, massaging his hip; his hand slid along the cane.
“I’ll check,” Cart finally said.
“Thank you.”
“When you’re ready, you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on.”
Another moment passed; the string trimmer’s whine rose in pitch and cut off abruptly, and one of the Rudock boys let out a string of shits, damns, and hells.
“For fuck’s sake,” Cart muttered again, shaking his head as he left.
17
After the Alpha Phi party, Auggie found himself coming up with reasons not to see Theo—except in class, of course—and three weeks rolled by.
During the first week, Theo had stopped Auggie after class to ask about the search for Robert, suggest new strategies, and update Auggie on his own efforts. Auggie had nodded, answered as politely as he could, and left as quickly as possible.
During the second week, Theo had tried to stop Auggie only once, and Auggie had said something about a friend waiting, and he had seen, in Theo’s face, that he had heard the lie.
During the third week, Theo hadn’t said anything that was related to class.
Auggie had great reasons for avoiding Theo: first and foremost, to avoid fucking up everything he’d worked so hard to build. He’d come close to making a huge mistake that night outside the Alpha Phi party, and he didn’t want to risk it again. Besides, he was a freshman in college, he was making new friends, he was pledging Sigma Sigma, he was branching out, he was exploring new interests. Every once in a while, he would trawl Instagram or Twitter, looking for a clue about Robert’s identity. But nobody showed up to ask any more questions, and with every day, the whole thing seemed like a weird nightmare that was slowly dissolving.
To fill the time, Auggie did exactly what he thought he was supposed to do: he made friends. It was easy enough; internet Auggie made waves at the college, and all Auggie had to do was pick the right people. He made adjustments to fit in: he talked about girls, he stopped rolling the pack of Parliaments in his sleeve, he drank more than he used to. Once he had his circle of friends, most of them guys from Sigma Sigma, it was easy to start pumping out content again. Funny videos, sweet videos, dorky videos. The biggest surprise was finding that Orlando was really funny, and more and more often, Auggie found himself asking Orlando to be part
