|photo by Nadi Lindsay from Pexels|
The morning sun is peeking around the edges of my closed blinds. Which means I slept through dinner. I kick out of the covers and reach for the bedside table, patting around for my phone. I have to unplug it from the charge cord, so I can hold it close enough to read the time. Because my head is still fuzzy from the medicine I took after I got the headache Penny warned me I'd get if I kept staring at the tiny screen.
But she was only half right. It wasn't just the act of reading that brought on my symptoms. Those IM transcripts tell a story, and the main character is...someone I don't want to know.
My neck and shoulders tense, like they're reaffirming the thought. So. Maybe I should stop reading the conversations all together.
I sit up extra straight, allowing my lungs to expand as far as possible. Lindsay still hasn't replied to the text I sent her last night, long before the migraine symptoms started, but I think I can answer my own question now. She wanted me to read these conversations so I would see that Samantha Zhao was judging me too, that I was the only character in the whole stupid story—that was my actual life—who couldn't see that all my "pain in the ass" little sister was trying to do was hold onto the relationship we had in North Carolina.
We were close then. Friends, but more than that, I protected her. Like when that jerky kid, Jimmy Smoot, pushed her out of the tree fort in our backyard. I chased his stupid butt all the way back to his driveway; then came home, patched up Lindsay's skinned elbow and spent the next hour excavating mulch bits from her thick curly hair.
I don't know how I became the kind of person who'd plot to an eleven-year-old alone in a convenience store—and really, I don't want to—but I understand why Lindsay acts like she's mad at me. I pushed her away after I made "the first move" on Noah Dodge. I was so focused on my infatuation with the adorable boy with the birthday cupcake that I couldn't see how much she needed me.
Is that the reason she showed me the app? Maybe when Lindsay said I should reach out to Samantha Zhao, she was trying to tell me not to contact Noah Dodge. I check the time again: it's 8:07. If it takes two hours to drive here from Summerfield, then Noah might already be on his way. But I guess it's not too late to ask him to turn around. I find his name in the contacts and type: I'm sorry, but I've changed my mind. Please don't visit me at Faircrest.
But I don't press send, because I haven't really changed my mind. If anything, I'm even more curious. The smiling boy from my dream is the reason I didn't abandon Lindsay in that convenience store—he wouldn't let me.
I flop back against the stiff mattress, groaning. If there's any chance that I'm right about Lindsay, then I have to show her I'm not that person. Right?
Yes. I roll onto my stomach and send the text. Then I open the bumblebee app, because of course I'm going to keep reading those freaking conversations. I have to know everything Lindsay wants me to know—all the horrible things I've done to her—so I can...
Wait. Why is it asking me for a password? I press the home button, swipe the app closed and then re-open it—and the screen is the same.
Crap. How can it need me to log in if I never logged out? I type the numeral equivalent to Mags into the second window, but I know—even before the bossy window pops up to tell me—that it's wrong.
"Crap."
But oh. It looks like there's a way to... I touch my finger to the phrase, Forget Password, and type in the email address that was already in the username window. The app promises to send me a code to verify that the account belongs to me. Good. Now all I have to do is wait for the email.
I roll myself off the bed and pull the cord that opens the blinds. The sun is finding its way through the bank of spindly pine trees on the far side of the parking lot, and the sky overhead is significantly blue. But neither of these peaceful observations is distracting me from the headache-inducing anxiety that's building and building. I have to get out of this room, out of this crusty old mansion. I need to go for a run.
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My overall impression, when I remembered that I used to run, was that running is good. But this morning, this running, is not so good. My head is pounding as hard as my heart. And my lungs...it's like I can feel each one individually, tight and achy. It makes sense that I would be out of shape, but it's only been two months since my accident. I shouldn't feel this awkward. Like my legs don't remember the activity at all.
And my boobs are killing me. I'm sure I have a running bra somewhere. Why didn't Mom bring it to Faircrest?
The lake is bigger than it looks from inside—which means the "activity trail" circling it is way longer than I anticipated. Plus it's already occupied. I don't want the youngish PT-guy and the patient wearing a padded helmet to see me holding my boobs.
I abort my plan and jog to the east side of the mansion, to a red brick path bordered by a dense row of hedges, tall and trimmed into perfectly squared walls. I secure my chest with one arm so I can let my palm drag against the foliage. The smell is strong and wonderful: sweet and green—a gigantic improvement over the mud and duck poop breeze coming off the lake—but the appeal wears off quickly because the leaves are pointy and sharp.
The walled path forks and I stop, panting. Now that I think about it, there wasn't anything, no mention of running in those IM conversations. But according to the yearbook, I was on the swim team in eleventh grade?
I need that verification code.
There's a new email on my phone, but it's from a different app, telling me I have updates from some person I don't know. I check my text messages. Opening the app, even though I can already tell—because there's not one of those little red indicator circles—that Noah hasn't replied. I cram the phone back into my pocket and choose the path leading to the front of the mansion.
It's hot as crap out here, but I don't mind because the sun seems to be melting the fog of my medication hangover. Penny warned me not to look at my screen too long, but she wasn't there when my headache started. And I can't think of any reason the nurse who gave me the medicine would've done anything to my phone. So it had to be me, something I accidentally did. But I don't see how that's possible. I read until I literally couldn't decipher the words anymore, and then I plugged the phone up to the charger. I didn't even close the app first.
The hedge wall ends—or begins, I guess, with a pair of white-marble statues: indignant horse busts that remind me of the knights in my grandfather's chess set. I stop in the shade of a tree I can see from my window. A gust of wind stirs the limbs and I'm pelted with fluffy white flowers. I'm so tempted to peel out of my running shoes and join the bronze fountain-goddess standing in a shallow pool of water. But she barely has enough room of her own. So, I collect the spilling water in my cupped palms and drizzle it over my legs.
Until my phone buzzes my left butt cheek.
It's harder, now that I'm drenched in sweat, to wrestle the phone out of my back pocket. It emerges, finally, and the text is...it's a missed call? How did I not hear it ringing? I touch the callback button and Lindsay answers right away. "Hey, Ally. Sorry I didn't get back to you last night. I tried, but..."
Her tone is stiff. Some shade of hostility that falls between annoyed and angry. I hold my breath, waiting for more. There's noise in the background. Like maybe the churning of a washing machine? But I don't think my sister is going to finish her sentence.
"It's okay," I tell her. "I was confused when I sent the text, but I understand now. Pretty much everything I read last night was fifteen-year-old me complaining to Samantha about what a...um, pain in the butt you were. But it's so obvious to me, reading it now, that you were just trying to get my attention. And I'm embarrassed by the way I treated you. I feel like I owe you an apology."
"No. You really don't."
"I abandoned you after we moved—after I started high school and met Samantha. All I wanted was to spend time alone with Noah Dodge."
Lindsay breathes a dragon-fire sigh right into the microphone. "I was a pain in the ass," she says, and her voice is quivery. Like maybe she's trying not to cry. "And you were just...you didn't do anything I didn't deserve. The reason I showed you the app is because I want you to get to know Samantha. I want you to see that she's a good person—that she's the person you need to have in your life right now."
"I'm sorry Linds, but Samantha is—I mean yes, she's obviously very nice. But right now, I just want to concentrate on being the person I was before we moved to Virginia. Things were good for us there. For our whole family, right?"
Lindsay doesn't answer. She doesn't even sigh. There's just the churning sound—which seems to be in sync with the rhythm of my pulse, throbbing in my ear.
I should probably tell her what happened to the app.
"I didn't get to finish reading," I say. "I still want to, but I'm going to have to take it slow because of my headaches. And then last night, something happened. The app just sort of logged out by itself." I cringe, waiting for a reprimand, but there's nothing. Not even the churning background noise.
Because my screen says: Call Ended.
"Ally?"
I turn my entire body to face the parking lot—and I get this hitch in my breath, because his eyes are exactly the way they were in my dream. Clear and blue.
"Hey," Noah says, lifting his hand to show me his phone. "I got your text message as I was parking. Should I go?"