I do remember.
Freshman year, in the quiet room, not long before Charley disappeared for good, I wagered a deal: if I told him my biggest secret, he’d have to tell me his. Charley agreed. And so we tucked ourselves behind the corduroy sofa—the one with the cigarette burn holes in the fabric—and I confided something I’d never shared with anyone. In retrospect, I’m not even sure why I made the deal in the first place. Because I simply had to know his backstory? Because I wanted to bring us closer? Or because on some subconscious level, I needed to reveal a truth about myself to someone whose own truth was, quite possibly, even more unspeakable than mine?
With brittle words and a face as burning as the hottest flame, I dredged the secret from the vault inside my gut, the place where I’ve always felt sick, and spewed it into the air. And when I was done, I opened my eyes, bracing myself for a look of repulsion. But instead, his face puzzled, and he didn’t utter a sound.
“Say something,” I told him, my voice riddled with tears.
“I didn’t hear you.”
Had I not spoken the words aloud?
He slipped the mood ring onto my finger. “This will make it easier.”
Oddly enough it did. The ring made me feel invisible, so I was able to confess again: “I started the fire, the one that burned down my house, that killed my parents.” The words, out loud, made my head spin. The air in the room spun too, making it harder to breathe, to catch my breath. I let out a gasp as tears ran down my face. When I opened my eyes, I saw that Charley’s face showed neither repulsion nor surprise.
“It was an accident,” I told him, suddenly realizing that I’d been rocking back and forth, that a spittle of drool hung off my lower lip. “It’d been so cold in my room. I’d gotten up and gone downstairs. The wood-burning stove was still on. But that was normal. The house was old, and it didn’t have a good heating system. I’d been allowed to feed wood into the stove ever since I’d turned thirteen, with a clear set of rules.”
Charley patted my hand. It wouldn’t stop trembling. My lungs felt like they were collapsing.
“It’ll be okay,” he said.
I shook my head. It wouldn’t ever be okay. More tears came. Charley handed me a tissue, but his face remained expressionless, as if my secret weren’t enough, as if somehow his was even more horrific than mine.
I slipped the ring off my finger and slid it onto his. “Your turn now.”
Charley took a deep breath and started to utter something: the words sister, stolen money, and wilderness community. “I told myself it would all be okay, that nothing bad would happen,” he said. “But when I woke up…”
“What?” I asked.
“It was all my fault.”
“Wait, slow down, what was?”
He didn’t answer. He just stood up. His upper lip quivered, and there were splotches all over his neck. “Tomorrow,” he said, leaving me with the burn marks.
“Terra?” His voice snaps me back to present day. He removes the mood ring from his finger once more—like déjà vu—and sets it down on a rock. “Take it. It’ll help you disappear. Remember?”
“I don’t understand. We were friends,” I say, though after sharing my secret all those years ago and not hearing his in return, it felt as if I’d been violated somehow, as if something inside me had died.
“More than friends. You were like a sister to me.”
“So, then why are you doing this?”
“Role-playing, creating stories, constructing my own reality? It’s what I’ve always done. Nothing much has changed, except that I’ve started using real players as inspiration for my work. I’ve also been writing my stories down.” He puts his glove back on. “The water-well book was my first attempt at seeing a project all the way through. Now, I want to write your story, with you as my main character, taking creative liberties as I see fit, twisting plots and altering storylines as needed.”
I shake my head. I still don’t get it.
“I’m already writing the story,” he continues. “You’re already starring in it. You got out of the hole, only to face a plot twist: You were captured again. Now what?”
I take a step back, doing my best to search the area: the grouping of trees he appeared from, the mannequin, the heap of dirt a few feet from the fire … But no matter where I look, the answer sinks in.
The truth becomes clear.
The Peyton I knew doesn’t exist, never existed.
“It seems you’re having a hard time focusing, am I right? Would you prefer to talk about a different story? One about salvage yards, perhaps? Or a story about a family living off the grid in the middle of the woods, free from greed and possessions? We should all get unplugged, don’t you think? Spend some time in nature, away from all things materialistic.”
His words jog my memory, because I’ve heard them before—on the chat site.
“Are you Darwin12?” I ask him.
“You’re such a skillful storyteller.” His smile widens. “Able to detect unnatural dialogue when you hear it. Just another reason you make a worthy heroine.”
“I don’t understand,” I tell him again. “Why not just befriend me again? Why take me from my aunt’s house? Why put me in a hole?”
“For play,” he says as though the answer is simple. “Like old times, like we used to do. Now, take the ring. Use it for its power of invisibility. The ring made me disappear, didn’t it? And then I used it to make you disappear.”
I grip the lantern. It has a heavy base; the batteries must be inside it. A thick plastic dome surrounds two vertical lights. I imagine smashing him with it—at least
