Ghost Time (24 page)

Knox restarted his computer, not knowing what else to do, what else to believe, and I even wondered if that might change the image, but I knew better. Sure enough, the picture was the same; the words were gone. It only took a couple minutes, and then he got a text, a photo the cops had just taken. Knox held up his phone for me to see: the wall at the home looked exactly like it did on his screen, after I ripped the page—
NOT LAUGHING!!!!!!!!!!!!
—and I shuddered, crossing my arms and shivering, it scared me so much.

Listen to me, Thea. Listen, Knox said, more serious than I’d ever heard him sound before: it’s that notebook. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but whatever you do, don’t let that notebook out of your sight. In fact, you should hide it, keep it here, and I said, No, Knox, I can’t do that, and he sighed, knowing I wouldn’t give it up. All right, but do not let it out of your sight, you understand? he said, and I nodded yes, grabbing my bag,
hugging the notebook to my chest. I jumped, hearing my phone, and my first thought was Jenna Darnell, but it was just my mom, texting to say that she was outside.

I made it to the car and opened the door, and then I stopped, realizing what this might mean. Because if I could change something just by tearing one of my pages, what would happen if I tore one of Cam’s pages, or scribbled on them, or erased them? You all right? Mom asked, and I nodded, buckling up, while she pulled out. How was the old Silver Top? she asked, smiling, because nothing changes at Silver Top. I told her. I said, That reporter showed up, Jenna Darnell, the one who’s been covering all the stories about what’s been going on in town.

Mom’s mouth fell open, and then she furrowed her brow: What did she want? Did she try and ask you questions? Yes, but I said I couldn’t comment on anything, and Mom started to say something, then she shut her mouth. So we drove a couple blocks, not saying anything, and then, waiting at the red light, she goes, You know what we should do tonight, babe? Let’s go out to dinner, and I said,
Out
? Out where? Because we never go out to eat anymore, and Mom nodded her head side to side, thinking about it, then she goes, What about Indian? Remember how good it was?

There’s an Indian family who moved to town last year and they opened this little place in this old strip mall behind Wal-Mart. The smell of curry and cardamom hit you the moment you walked through the door, and the food’s so good, my mouth started watering. The owner came right over, the husband, soon as we walked in, and he was so genteel, I love him. Oh, good evening, ladies, he said, clasping his hands in front of him, and Mom
goes, Good evening. Two, please? This way, please, the man said, holding out his hand, and Mom looked so happy, but once we sat down, I started feeling guilty, because I was thinking how big a splurge this dinner was.

I couldn’t even stand to look at the prices on the menu, and then I started feeling angry with her, too, like why did she bring us here for dinner when we don’t have the money? But I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t—Mom was smiling and she wanted to treat me to a nice dinner, just the two of us. She must’ve read the look on my face, because she looked up and said, Is this okay? You’re not in the mood for Indian food? We could go somewhere else, she said. And the thing is, Mom looked so pretty again, like I remember her looking before our lives changed, before we moved here. This is great, I said, and she squeezed my hand, before ordering.

Once the food came and we started eating, we had such a good time, I forgot everything for a couple hours, all our problems. I can’t tell you how nice that was, either, even for just two hours. For the first time in weeks, I went to bed feeling so much better, but then, I don’t know if I ate too much or what, but I woke up in the middle of the night. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I just lay there, staring at my ceiling.

I felt so alone and it was so dark, I removed the Band-Aid from my shoulder, and I got up to look at the tattoo again in my bedroom mirror: TD + CC = TLA. It made me smile, but it was the painful kind of smile, the kind where the smile’s pushing through, you know? And I don’t know what made me think of it, but I went out to get the hand mirror from the bathroom, tiptoed back to my room, and opened my curtains so I could see outside.
Then I walked to the center of my room and turned my back to the full-length mirror while I held up the hand mirror, pointing the florescent reflection into the sky, like they do in Gotham with the Batman signal or whatever they call it. I stood there for at least a minute, waiting, but I don’t think the stars heard me, because if they did, nothing happened. So I went back to the bathroom to put the mirror back in the drawer and put a fresh Band-Aid on.

That’s when I felt it again, standing there, on the bath mat. It started at the back of my head, like when you get a headache that starts in your neck, and then it curls around your neck, like the headache’s palming the back of your skull. So I opened the medicine cabinet, and I took out Raymond’s razor, and I tiptoed back to my room, locking the door.

I stood there, staring at my rug, and I could feel it building. It’s hard to describe, because it’s like a headache, the pressure. Only it doesn’t hurt the same, it’s not that kind of pain; it’s just the pressure of compulsion. Like you start to feel something pulling you like a wave. So you try to turn away or step around it, but it’s inside of you. So you try to step around yourself, but you can’t, because the wave is in your blood. And after our nice night out, I wanted to tell my mom, talk to her about it, but I can’t because I’m not going back on drugs. I won’t do it. I was just standing there, holding the razor in my hands, the pressure building behind my eyes. I wanted to cut so badly, too. I knew exactly where I would cut, and in my mind’s eye, I was already taking off my clothes, readying myself. But there was so much pressure that when I reached to press my fingers against both my temples,
I dropped the razor; you couldn’t hear a sound, but the motion triggered my computer, the screen lighting up. Immediately, I heard laughter—our laughter.

Before I even turned to look over, I knew what it was. There was a video on my desktop, even though I wasn’t on YouTube. It wasn’t sex: it was the two of us, goofing around. It was this video we took of ourselves on my computer last winter, after we went to New York. We got into this huge fight, because I got jealous and saw red and lost my shit, but anyhow. It was a video of the week after we made up, when Cam was teasing me about how I deal with my anger—my anger issues, yes.

I’m sitting on Cam’s lap, and our faces and torsos are pretty much the whole frame, and right away, Cam grabs my hand like it’s a paw, and he shakes my paw hand at the camera, saying, Hello, everybody! Hello, world! He’s in this falsetto, impersonating me, right, and he goes, Hi! I’m Thea Denny, and I’m so angry, grrr! I’m so angry at my boyfriend, just to prove how angry I am, I’m not going to speak to him! I’ll show my bad boyfriend how angry I am for doing whatever it was he did I’m not telling him about! he said, crossing his arms in front of me, squeezing both my wrists and then he said, I’m so angry I’m going to hit myself! Then he took my hands, flopping all over, and he started slapping me with my hands—lightly, just so silly, but he wouldn’t let go when I tried to pull away. Then he goes, Thea, quit hitting yourself! Thea, quit being so angry that you hit yourself! he said, slapping me twice, on both cheeks, until I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t even fight.

Of course, the moment we come close to having a moment, what’s Cam do? He pokes me. In the butt. His erection, poking me in the butt! So I slapped him and was just like, Cam! And he goes, It wasn’t voluntary! And I said, So? And he goes, Thea, take it as a compliment, and I said, Cam, you can’t tell me it’s involuntary, and then tell me to take it as a compliment, and he goes, Why not? Involuntary compliments happen all the time, he said, squeezing my knee. And I said, In your pants! laughing. That was us. That was real. And now that’s all I have, and I stood there, smiling at us, tears in my eyes; my room glowing pink with the dawn.

It’s so demented, because half the time, I worry who else has seen a video, and the other half, I worry that nobody has seen it. This time, I wasn’t sure which was better, because it wasn’t sex; it was a different kind of intimacy, not caught in the act, but caught in the heart. Who we really were, no cameras, no videos, no viewers, no one but us in the entire world. And we were happy, goddamnit. I didn’t realize I was touching the screen, touching our faces, like he was right there.

I have no idea who else saw that video, I didn’t even look to check the numbers; it must have been a lot of hits, because the resolution was so clear, so lifelike, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the sign—that video was a sign from Cam that it was only a bad dream, to remember what was real, that he knew I was struggling. He was telling me to hold on, because I’m not alone. Yes and no, I said, staring at the screen: yes and no.

(TEN WEEKS EARLIER)

4:56 PM

Cam’s birthday is in January, and it was his golden birthday; he turned eighteen on January 18. So Karen made this fancy dinner, and a big cake, and we celebrated with her, of course, but then we had our own celebration, just the two of us. Because I’d been saving up since Christmas, and I surprised Cam with two tickets, and we went down to New York for a day, like a day trip.

It wasn’t on his birthday, it was the weekend after, but we left early Saturday morning and drove to Hudson, then we took the train down, and we got to Penn Station just before noon. I wanted to go downtown, go see some galleries, go shopping, and I left all the directions to Cam, of course. We had so much fun, too. We ate noodles at this place near St. Mark’s, and we took pictures of ourselves in front of the Joe Strummer mural by Tompkins Square Park. Honestly, we just asked this guy on the street to take it for us, but it’s one of the best pictures we have.
Kicking up my heel, Cam’s kissing the side of my face, so strong, hugging me. Makes me so happy, every time I look at it. Anyhow, we went window-shopping. I felt like we walked twenty miles that day, and then we went to this store I’d been reading about for ages, that’s supposed to be like the coolest store in New York. I was so excited, because I’d been dreaming about that moment for a whole year, but when we walked in, it was a little intimidating. Place was way too cool for school, and none of the salespeople paid us any attention, so whatever.

Looking at the clothes, I pulled out this leather dress, showing it to Cam, and I was just like, Isn’t this to
die
? Seriously, how can anything be so beautiful? And Cam pulled out the tag, and he goes, How can anything be so expensive? And I was just like, Philistine, and I put it back on the rack. Then Cam goes: What are you doing, Thee? Try it on, and I shook my head no, and he goes, Thee, we came all this way to see this store, and you aren’t even going to try on a single dress? Who’s the Philistine? And before I could say anything, he goes, You want to get me something for my birthday or not? I said, I can’t afford anything here, and he goes, No, you can’t. That’s not what I want for my birthday, right? Well, I want you to try on that dress, he said. My mouth fell open, because I felt so embarrassed for some reason, and he says, You asked what I wanted…. And I did, too.

So I went to the counter and asked if I could try it on. I don’t know why I was so scared to ask, but anyhow, the sales guy walked me to the back and opened up one of the dressing rooms for me, and I just stood in the room, holding this long-sleeve black leather dress up, then there was a knock. I go, Yes? It was
Cam, and he goes You’ll need these, and I opened the door, and he handed me these pony-skin heels that were so gorgeous I died a thousand deaths.

Well, I managed to get the dress on, and it was so tight, all the way to my knees, and then I put the high heels on, and they fit perfectly. I really thought I’d gone to black leather dress heaven, and I walked out, looking for Cam, like,
Where are you?
Then I saw him talking to this salesgirl at the counter, and she was laughing at something he said. He didn’t even notice me, standing there—he’s totally flirting with her, or she’s flirting with him, same fucking difference. She’s tall and has this platinum blonde hair to her waist and she’s like superskinny and I could hear her say something with this stupid cockney accent and leather hot pants and black tights, and I was just like, Whatever.

I felt so dumb, too, like some little girl playing little-rich-girl dress up, and all of a sudden, I wanted to cry. I don’t even know what happened, but I got so angry, I walked back to the dressing room and took it off. The dress, the shoes, I took them off, put them back on the hanger, and I walked out. Cam didn’t see me until the door opened, because it buzzed, and Cam caught up with me, outside, but I didn’t speak to him the rest of the day. I didn’t say anything the whole ride home, on Amtrak, and he kept saying he didn’t understand what happened or why I was so angry, and I go, I don’t know, Cam, why don’t you ask your little blonde girlfriend? He started laughing, like it was a joke, and that just made me angrier, and then he told me I was completely overreacting. And then that just made me that much angrier, you know?

He was right, but I couldn’t say it. Not just the fact that I was
jealous, and I saw red, seeing him with this girl. The fact that I was so scared he’d leave me. That he didn’t really love me. That I’d be alone. Everything, all of it, and all at once, something in me snapped, and I couldn’t stop it. I told him: Don’t talk to me right now. So for three hours, we didn’t say a word. Not even when we got to my house, and I got out, and he got out, like he was going to follow me inside, and then I said, I told you, please leave me alone, Cam, and he stopped. It was only nine when I walked in, and Mom was on the couch, watching TV, and she goes, Did you have a good time? Tell me all about it, and I was just burning, in my chest, this sour, awful, teary burning, and I shook my head no. I said, New York sucks, and I went to my room and shut the door.