Ghost Time (5 page)

The cops came right before lunch. I got a pink note at the end of fifth period that said I needed to go to the principal’s office, soon as the bell rang. So I went to the office, and the secretary
told me Cheswick was waiting for me in the conference room. So then I walked to the conference room and knocked, and Cheesy, Principal Cheswick says, Come in. So I walk in, and Cheswick’s standing there in front of the door, and he says, Thea, shut the door, please. So I shut the door, and Cheswick says, Thea, sit down please, and there’s this guy, standing there at the end of the table, smiling at me, and Cheesy says, Thea, this is Detective Knox, and the man says, Hello, Thea. He’s old, but kinda good-looking, I guess: tall, dark hair, dark eyes. Anyhow, the cop, Knox or whatever, he goes, Thea, I’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right? I couldn’t even answer. I mean, can you believe they say that? Like when he said that to me, I was so weirded out, because that’s what you hear on TV, and I kept thinking,
This isn’t happening, this isn’t really happening
…. But it was.

Is this about Cam? I said, and Detective Knox nodded and he goes, Have you seen or spoken to him since Monday night? I said, No, and he said, Cameron hasn’t contacted you at all? I said, No. And he goes by Cam—nobody calls him Cameron. He nodded and smiled, like he genuinely appreciated me telling him, then he goes, Do you have any idea where Cam is, Thea? I said, No, and he said, You don’t have any idea where he could be? I go, No, I have no idea. But is it true that if you don’t find someone in the first twenty-four hours, you probably won’t ever find them? It just came out, and Knox balked, then he tilted his head side to side, yes and no. He goes, In child abduction cases, yes, but Cam’s not a child; he’s of legal age. And as far as we know, he hasn’t been kidnapped.

I didn’t know what to say, so I just stared at my feet, and Knox waited before he said anything. Then he goes, Thea, I’m sorry to have to ask you so many personal questions, but how long have you two been dating, you and Cam? I could feel Knox shoot Cheesy a look, like, whatever he was hearing in this room, it went no further. Knox wasn’t asking Cheesy, either, he was telling him; confidential. I said, Since the beginning of school, last year, and he goes, Did you know each other before then? And I said, No, and he said, So you never spoke before that? No, I said, and he goes, Never saw each other around? I go, No, I’d never seen him before that, and he goes, It’s not a very big school. Big enough, I said, and he’s new. Knox said, His mother told me they moved here from California, and I nodded yes.

Then he said, Cam’s a senior? And I nodded yes, and he goes, What year are you? I go, Sophomore. He goes, And how did you two meet? So I told him, I said, He was my geometry tutor, and Knox goes, I’m told he’s some sort of math whiz, is that right? And I said, Yeah, that’s what Cam keeps telling me, too. Knox smiled, and he said, So Cam was your tutor, and then you started dating? I said, We were friends, then we started going out, and he smiled, trying to put me at ease, I think.

Then he goes, Does Cam have many friends in school? I said, Cam gets along with everybody, and the cop goes, What about you? And I go, Me? I can’t stand anybody, I said, and he smiled. Opposites attract, he said. Guess so, I said, shrugging. So there was no one Cam had any fights with, no one who had any grudges? And I said, No. No one. I told you, he got along with
everyone. Knox goes, And Cameron—Cam, sorry—he never talked about running away? I go, All the time, but not without me, then he kind of perked up and he goes, So you two talked about running away together? I said, We talked about traveling together, all over the world. That’s not running away, that’s running to, I said. And where did you talk about going, running to? Knox asked, grabbing the back of the plastic bucket chair in front of him with both hands. Everywhere, I said, shrugging again, because that was private, you know? I didn’t have to tell him that.

Last bell for sixth period rang, and I was going to be late, so I looked at him like, Anything else? Knox shook his head no and said, Why don’t I walk you out? I nodded okay, and he followed me out of the office. There was no one in the hall by the time we walked out, then he looked at me and said, One more question. Did anything unusual happen that day, when you last saw him? No, I said, not that I can think of, and he said, You two didn’t have a fight that night? I almost said it, too. I almost said, Cam’s a hacker, not a fighter, but I didn’t.

I said, No. I mean, we’ve had fights, but who doesn’t?, and he nodded, like he agreed with me. I go, But why did you think we had a fight? I just had to ask, he said, pulling out his card and handing it to me. Please call me if you need anything, or if you think of anything? Okay, I said, and then Knox said, Thank you, and he turned toward the doors.

That afternoon, after school, I just kept staring at his card, the whole way home—second time I found myself taking the bus home, feeling…
so alone
, you know? I mean, I couldn’t get any
homework done, I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t do anything. I just sat at my desk, staring at Hubble all night—our notebook, that’s what we call it, Hubble.

Cam gave it to me for Christmas. It’s got this thick, beautiful paper, and it’s oversized, it’s perfect, and we share it. Like I take one page, and he takes the opposite page, and we swap, back and forth. But I take the left side, because Cam’s left-handed, so he has to write upside down, otherwise. Because it’s spiral, he’d have to write over the spiral, you know what I mean? The reason we call it Hubble is because, well, after he gave it to me, Cam said, What should we call it? And I said, You mean give the notebook a name? What, like Betty? And Cam goes,
No.
I mean, yes: not Betty, but something. Because
notebook
seems so… impersonal, you know?

He was right. I didn’t even need to think about it, because he was right; we had to call it something. I looked at the page where he’d already written an entry, and it looked upside down to me, even though it was right-side up to him. It made me think about the stars, how Cam always loved to say the amazing thing about looking at the stars is you’re looking into the future and the past at the same time, and how, somewhere up there, in the sky, the Hubble Telescope is taking pictures of things we can’t imagine. What about… I started to speak, and then felt kinda stupid, so I shut my mouth. Tell me, he said, and I said, What about Hubble? Cam balked, hearing that, then he smiled this big, big smile. And his smile said yes: perfect. Then, of course—I mean, I didn’t say it, but I was just like,
Ohmygod, I just named our
notebook Hubble? That has got to be the geekiest idea I’ve ever had in my entire life.

Anyhow, we’ve been working on it since Christmas, and Hubble’s everything: it’s photos, collage, pencil sketches, ink drawings, inside jokes, our entire universe. Cam even writes these ridiculous formulas—talk about hieroglyphics, don’t ask me if they’re real or he’s screwing around—our video game ideas, our scripts, everything. Everything starts here, goes here, belongs right here. Because it’s our own world, you know? It’s a world just big enough for two, and the day he left—the day he
disappeared
—god, that’s so hard to say, the day Cam disappeared. Anyhow, that day, for the first time, I couldn’t put anything down. Cam handed Hubble back on Monday afternoon, and it was my turn, left side—except that both sides were these huge blank white pages, and I had this pang in my chest, thinking it might be that way from now on. For the first time, those two blank pages really fucking scared me.

I kept staring at it, completely spaced out, like somehow the notebook would tell me the answer, solve the mystery of my universe, let my boyfriend know I was going to kill him if this was some sort of joke.
Because trust me, I’m not laughing, Cam. You hear me?
I don’t know if I said that out loud or not, but then I looked up and saw that I’d written it, in our notebook; these big block letters:
I’M NOT LAUGHING!!!!!!!!!!!!

(TWO DAYS EARLIER)

10:37 PM

Well, I’m not what you’d call a party girl. I mean, I used to love going to parties, but now, it’s like, binge drinking with jocks just isn’t my scene. Crazy me, right? I mean, it’s like when you’re in junior high, you think a high school party will be
so cool
, right? Well, hate to break it to you, but watching a bunch of junior and senior girls chugging vodka and Red Bull is so far from cool, you stand there thinking,
Is this it? Really?
But then, I don’t know, somehow you figure you might as well join them, because the truth is so sad, and that’s exactly what you were trying to avoid with all your daydreaming.

But the thing is, Cam gets invited all the time; every weekend he’s invited to two or three parties, and it’d be rude if he didn’t stop by once in a while. So Saturday night, he wanted me to join him. And when he asked me, on Tuesday or whenever, I said I’d go, thinking, if I’m with him, I can do anything, right? I thought
I’d be fine, but by Saturday night, when he picked me up, god, I didn’t want to go. But then again, I did, because Cam wanted me there, with him, and wherever he is, is where I want to be.

Cam said it again, when we got there. He was just like, Thee, try to have a good time, all right? And I was like, That’s what I’m going to do, and I did, too. I did try. And it was fine, it really was. I talked to a few people, and everyone was cool, but honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing there, standing in somebody’s parents newly redecorated colonial Americana kitchen, drinking Coors or whatever.

Cam can’t see it, but I’m telling you, people still look at me like I’m this pixie thing—on a good day—they don’t get what Cam sees in me, when he could have any girl in school he wanted. Like there are still people who call me Addams, short for Wednesday Addams, because they think I’m so Goth. But the thing is—I mean what annoys me most is that they don’t even know what Goth means. Seriously, they look at my hair, and I’m just like, Dude, it’s a Louise Brooks bob, okay? We’re talking silent-film star and one of the original It Girls, not the Sisters of Mercy. Except I can’t even say that, because they don’t know who Louise Brooks or who the Sisters of Mercy are, drr.

Anyhow, there we are, crammed into the kitchen with a hundred other bodies, and I look over, and it happens again. It’s not like making time stop, it’s more like the world’s a merry-go-round, but just the two of us, me and Cam. Like the world keeps spinning, but we stand still. So I look over at Cam, thinking,
It’s happening—it’s happening again
, and there’s this huge smile on his face, and I know exactly what he’s thinking, because we’re
thinking the exact same thing. It’s private, and it’s ours, and we’re grinning at each other, thinking the same dirty thought, like there’s no one else in the world.

And then none of it mattered. Everything, all the shit that happened last year, the kids from school, all my old friends, it doesn’t matter what people think, what they do or don’t know about me; none of it matters. Because Cam knows me, and he loves me, and I know him, and I love him more than anything in this whole world. And for a second, like a fraction of a second, the ground disappeared beneath my feet.

(THREE DAYS LATER)

8:22 AM

It’s not just me, okay? Things have been happening all over town, and at first, people thought it was random, but not me. I never thought it was random, and whether I was right or wrong, everything related to Cam, like he was sending me signs. The first sign was Thursday morning, and it was so strong, it felt like a magnet pulling us off the road. Seriously, I was sitting next to the window, with Hubble open in my lap, when the whole bus swerved, knocking me on my side. When I looked up, every head was turned, looking out the left-side window, because someone had driven right through the dividing wall, along the opposite side of the highway. It’s just a tall, orange plastic net, nothing that could hurt anybody, but it had been there as long as I’d been taking the bus.

I had my headphones on, so I don’t know who saw it first, but in two seconds, every kid on the bus was jumping out of their
seat, trying to get a look at the gash in the wall, and instantly, each little brain on the bus started trying to solve the crime. Because the strangest thing was, the car’s tire marks went on and on, like they must have crashed right into the horizon, because there was nothing out there, it was this empty field that went on for miles. One look, and you knew it was no accident—someone did it on purpose, and then they just kept right on going.

So there I was, gawking with everyone else, trying to piece it together. I mean, really, who did it, and what would possess them, and where the hell did they go, and most of all, why? And then, on second thought,
Why had it never happened before?
It was like someone cut a hole in something bigger than the wall, and it was a revelation to all of us, everyone on the highway, every driver slowing down to look, all asking the same question. Who knew you could just get up and do something crazy like that and get away with it? And now that they had, what were the rest of us supposed to do?

You could feel it, too, you know. All morning, you could just feel it, like when teachers talk about barometric pressure or things that affect the moods of kids in their classes, it was like that, like something weighing you down or something just not right. All day, the whole school, every class, no one was screwing around, no one was raising their hands, like we’d all been waiting for that knock on the door. And when it finally came, everyone looked up, and the room was so still that Linda Friske, the office aide, looked spooked, sticking her head in the door, holding up a pink slip like it was a white flag. I knew it was for me: everyone knew it was for me. I’d already grabbed my bag and I was
halfway to the door before Mrs. Friske called out my name. She waited, holding open the door, and she nodded as I stepped into the hall, then she headed off in the opposite direction, delivering some other message.