Always on Your Side (NaNoWriMo 2019)

17.

The response comes immediately:

Chatter: Tell me something only Len would know.

I stare at the message for a minute. It's out of the left field for him to train a chat bot to say something like that – who else would it be? Even if his suicide had resulted in the investigation he seemed to have expected it to, who else would be consulting a chat bot on his phone? But it makes me ache to read the message, because making some wild assumption and going on as if he expected everyone else to have come to the same conclusion is completely on brand for Brendon. It makes me feel so much as if I am actually talking to him, that I forget all about the scavenger hunt and reply with exactly what I would if I'd been chatting him for real.

You: What the fuck, Brendon? I don't know. You're paranoid.

Brendon: Haha.

I don't know what to say to that. I am assuming Brendon didn't train the AI in anticipation of me swearing at him. Maybe I have to backtrack.

You: It's me, Len. Helen Rosalina Wilkerson.

Brendon: I only want to talk to Len. Tell me something only Len would know.

There were lots of things only I would know. I know the spot on his wall where he wiped boogers after picking his nose at night, I know he had a massive crush on our childhood best friend Lizzie, I know about the contraband wall-hole-bagels. But instead of scanning through my memories and trying to figure out what might've been a clue to the puzzle, I instead keep trying to reason with his ghost.

You: No one else would bother with this, Brendon. It's Len.

Brendon: If it's really Len, tell me how you got that nickname.

It's a trick question, I realize. I tell everyone I go by "Len" because "Helen is an old lady name." It's been a longstanding argument between my mom and me. She used to tell me "It's your grandmother's name, and it's classic and beautiful" and I'd snap back, "That's just a nice way of saying it's an old lady name!" She would go on, "Helen was the beauty of Troy!" and I would retort, "So you mean, it's not just old, it's ancient!"

Now, Mom is the only one who still calls me "Helen." I tolerate it from her. She's also learned to tolerate other people calling me "Len" even if she refuses to do so herself. But Adam was the one who planted the idea that "Helen is an old lady name" into my head. I never told Mom that, because she would definitely start a fight with Adam if I did. But I went by "Len" for a good year before I ever met Adam.

You: Because it had "hell" in it. You teased me for having a swear word in my name.

It started in kindergarten. I'd never had any sort of nickname before that. I never met any preschooler that didn't have some sort of babyish nickname their family called them. But you can't call a kid "Helly" or anything like that. So I was just "Helen."

Until my first year of kindergarten, when Brendon and I were at a play date at McDonald's with a few other kids in my kindergarten class. One girl, upon learning my name, announced "Hell is a bad word!"

I defended myself in any way I could: "You just said it, so you said a bad word!" "'Hell' is a bad word, but HELEN isn't a bad word!" "Well, your name is a bad word too!"

This probably could have blown over and not been such a big deal, had we not gone to Brendon to settle the debate. He was oldest and therefore, by kindergarten logic, the boss. I hoped he would come to my defense; alas, he looked me dead in the eye and declared, in the tone of voice he might have used to accuse me of associating with Goody Proctor, "Helen's name is a bad word! Helen has to be the bad guy!"

To protest my defamation, I grabbed his arm and bit him. This only cemented my role as "bad guy" as I chased my peers and brother through the McDonald's play place to punish them. At some point I got so upset I snitched to Mom, but all the other kids confirmed I'd been chasing them and bit Brendon, so I was the one who got in trouble, forced to sit next to my mom at the table and sip my fountain drink while the parents had their boring grown-up talks.

Funny; that was one of the few times sibling rivalry was really a thing between me and Brendon. By then Brendon was already getting bullied in school. He was used to being the prey, and when given the opportunity to be the hunter, he took it. He did claim to feel bad when days passed and my classmates were still teasing me about my name. Eventually I started getting people to call me Len, my classmates got tired of the joke, and everyone moved on.

I didn't think that would be "something only Len would know." It wasn't a secret at the time. I'd told Mom about being teased for my name. But maybe I was the only one Brendon expected to remember that story. For me it was a pivotal moment; for Mom, just another day.

I get a reply from Chatter after a second.

Chatter: Type, "sdio394."

I do what he asks, and after a brief moment, another message loads..

Chatter: So, you found my phone. I knew you could do it. I'm not sure how much time has passed since my death, but it doesn't matter. I just want you to know, I love you. I miss you.

Before I can type a reply, another message from Chatter appears.

Chatter: There's something I want you to have. Something I want you to find. I could have just given it to you, but I wanted to play one last game with you. I won't be around to see how it ends, but I know you can do it. This is something of a scavenger hunt. I've hidden clues for you on this phone and in the world. If you've found this phone without finding what I left in your closet, start there. Otherwise, bring your black light to the place where you got your nickname. That's where you'll find your first hint.

Chatter: In the meantime, I'm here to talk. I've really missed you, Len. And there's all these things I wanted to say to you, but I can't. So, I've been talking to Chatter instead. If you ask it about a certain topic, it might tell you about it. It's not perfect, but try it.

So I ask it about butterflies.