Passenger (43 page)

And it made us all monsters.

I shook my head. I wouldn’t do it again. I was going to leave this kid alone.

But I needed to know.

All the strings had come untied, and I had no idea what I’d see when I went looking for them—the frayed ends, my friends, my life.

The lens.

So I stood there, shivering in the stale darkness of our bathroom, watching the steam puke its way out from the gashes in the torn shower curtain, while Ethan went back to his soccer match.

I found a light switch beside the doorjamb, and as soon as I flicked it remembered how the bulb had burned out weeks ago, and we’d never bothered to replace it.

This is it.

I pulled the leathery curtain back, snaked my legs out of my briefs, and got inside the shower.

I shut my eyes and leaned my head on my hands against the tile wall, letting the hot water stream down my neck.

It was like waiting to be born.

In the dark, it felt like being in the Under.

I didn’t know what I was waiting for. I only knew how much I didn’t want to open my eyes again, how much I just wanted to stay there, naked and mute in the warm dark womb of a filthy shower stall and think about nothing.

September 22.

Eight in the morning.

This is it.

*   *   *

If I thought about things too much, I realized I got panicky about not knowing anything.

I didn’t really know where I kept my clothes, or how this Jack got dressed, if he’d be uptight and nervous around other kids, just like the other Jack was.

Or if, maybe, this was not-Jack, confident and strong, funny and relaxed, and I didn’t know the first thing about him, except that he got drunk last night, puked, and ended up with some other kid’s piss all over his arms.

So what could I do?

I left my underwear soaking in the puddle of shower water that pooled on the dank floor of our toilet-cave, wrapped myself in the only towel that hung from the fake-chrome rail beside the tiled stall, and walked out into our room, aiming myself for the only piece of furniture that looked like it might contain clothing.

I tried not to think about which side of the wardrobe belonged to Jack, or what kind of clothes he’d brought along to school.

I just did it.

Ethan was still in bed, watching television when I came out of the shower.

“What time is the train in?” I said.

Everyone’s dead on the train.

Quit it, Jack.

“I don’t think I want to get out of bed.”

Ethan’s family lived outside Bath, a long trip for the kid to make and then have to come back to school tomorrow. From Orpington, where St. Atticus was, to London, took about forty minutes by train, including our walk from school to the station. Bath was another two hours beyond that.

And I remembered going to Ethan’s house. My brain flashed images of his parents, his two small sisters. We’d all gone to Stonehenge together, just a week ago. I looked at the ring of empties on our nightstand.

I rubbed my temples, squeezed shut my eyes.

Ethan grunted as he sat up in bed.

“Head hurt?”

“Huh? Oh. No. I feel a lot better now.”

There were school clothes scattered all over our floor: pants, socks, undershirts, shined dress shoes, shirts, and ties. The place was a complete mess, just like Jack’s room always had been. I opened the wardrobe. Nothing looked like me.

I tried to think,
Where’s my goddamned phone?

Jack’s always losing his shit.

This is how it always is.

Ethan got out of bed, turned on the shower.

“Throw me a clean towel, please?”

I found a towel neatly folded beneath a stack of them inside our wardrobe and tossed it to Ethan, who stood in the doorway to the bathroom. I was relieved to know I could look through the things in the dresser and pick out this Jack’s clothes by size tags while the kid was under the shower. Ethan stood at least three inches taller than me, and was narrower around the waist.

It wouldn’t be a difficult sorting process.

And after I’d managed to finish my clothes shopping and gotten myself dressed, I sat on the floor and pulled on a pair of clean gray socks. I’d searched through everything scattered around me; turned out each pocket on every article of clothing. I found some money in both pairs of pants, keys, and Ethan’s wallet, too. But nothing of Jack’s. No lens. No glasses. Nothing. I even looked under the beds and between the mattresses, where Ethan had stashed a porn magazine.

I put it back in its hiding place and sat on my bed with my head down in my hands.

I couldn’t find anything.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Jack?”

Ethan came out of the bathroom and started picking folded clothes out of the open dresser.

I sighed. “I can’t find any of my shit. My phone, my wallet, nothing.”

Ethan smiled and shook his head. He looked at me with an unbelieving expression, and then he slipped into a pair of jeans and began threading a belt around his hips.

“You’ve gone completely crazy.” He pulled open the top drawer of our nightstand with his upturned bare foot and pointed a skeletal finger at it.

I stared down into the open drawer. It was like looking at an ancient tomb.

Jack’s tomb.

Everything was there: my phone, wallet, my digital camera, a wad of American money, a stick of deodorant, a half-eaten candy bar, nail clippers, some balled-up white briefs, and socks.

I swallowed. “No more drinking for me.”

Ethan Robson pulled a sweatshirt on over his head and shook out his long hair. He laughed at me.

“Right. That vow of abstinence will last for approximately … oh … three days, in my qualified opinion.”

Almost as soon as he said it, there was an urgent pounding on our door, and from out in the hallway came the booming foghorn voice of another English boy: “Oh, come on, you fucking wankers. What’s taking you? We were supposed to leave five fucking minutes ago.”

I knew the voice. His name was Neal Genovese. He played soccer with Ethan, and roomed with Conner. I knew it.

The doorknob jiggled and shook impatiently.

We always locked it whenever we got drunk.

Neal said, “Open the fucking door.”

Someone else down the hall shouted, “Shut the bloody hell up!”

When I stood, I tripped over my Vans, I was in such a rush to get to the door.

Ethan said, “You’re going to kill yourself, Jack.”

But I caught my balance and unlocked it without breaking anything.

When I opened the door, Neal was standing there in his Number-2 jersey and school warm-ups, square shouldered, hands on his hips, a little pissed off and red faced. He was broader and more angular than Ethan and wore a very unprofessional, uniform buzz cut that made his brown hair look like a shrunken bearskin cap.

And directly behind him, holding a small canvas bag for the weekend, and leaning as though he were propping shut the door to the room across the hallway, was my best friend, Conner Kirk.

I don’t think I’ve ever gasped in my life, but seeing Conner there, really looking into his eyes, gave me that rush, the fearful surge you get when you slip on ice. It was practically all I could do to resist shoving past Neal and throwing my arms around him.

He looked good.

It looked like home.

And this has to be it.

“Con!”

He just raised his chin toward me, and with that one nod, I knew it really was him; that we were back.

Conner dropped his bag in the hall and raised his hand to slap a stinging high five into mine. We grabbed on to each other so tightly it hurt, and I swear I could feel my eyes starting to well up.

Neal pushed his way past us and slung his duffel bag down on top of the mess of clothes that were strewn all over our floor, grumbling, “Bloody hell. There’s so many fucking Americans here, you’d think there was a bloody war on.” And, to Ethan, he snapped, “Are you not fucking ready to leave yet?”

Ethan, hopping, trying to get a sock over his bony foot, said, “Yeah.”

But he wasn’t ready. Ethan and I weren’t known for being the most punctual kids at St. Atticus, so we were a good match as roommates. And Neal Genovese, as tightly wound as he was whenever we weren’t drunk, was definitely not the ideal roomie for someone like Conner Kirk.

So Conner, still holding on to my hand, said, “There’s a train every fucking few minutes. Chill the fuck out for once, Gino.”

Gino. That’s what Conner called him. Neal thought it was funny, but like a lot of things Conner Kirk said, it pissed him off sometimes, too.

Neal, mocking, shaking his head with impatient disapproval as he watched Ethan attempting to get dressed, in a sarcastic and fake California accent, said, “Oh. Right on, dude.”

I pushed Conner out into the hall, away from the door, and whispered, “Is this it? Is this really it?”

He nodded, smirked. “Mind the gap, Jack.”

I threw my arms around him and grabbed on to him, cursing myself that I was not going to cry.

“There is no fucking gap,” I said.

Conner held me back at arm’s length and slapped the top of my head, rubbing his fingers in my wet hair.

“When did you get back?”

“Just now. Half an hour ago. You?”

Conner laughed. “I was in here getting fucked up with you guys last night.”

I heard Neal inside the room. He was chewing out Ethan for making him wait while Ethan stuffed random articles of clothing into an overnight bag.

“I better get my shit together before he blows up at me, too,” I said.

Conner shook his head. “You? Shit together? You
are
Jack Whitmore, right?”

And just before we went inside my room, Conner grabbed my shoulder and whispered, “Where is it, Jack?”

I knew what he meant.

Of course I knew what he meant.

thirty-three

On the train to the city, Conner phoned our girlfriends, Nickie and Rachel.

He made lame excuses about Jack being sick, how we couldn’t come to London for the weekend.

Ethan eyed me suspiciously. He listened to Conner’s smooth and convincing sincerity about poor Jack sleeping in bed, laid up with chills and a fever.

“He looks terrible, Nickie.”

Then he winked at me and said, “I’ll tell him you said that, babe.”

Conner was such a slick and practiced liar.

Ethan watched me, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

I shrugged and smiled crookedly. “Boys’ night out, Ethan. I guess that vow of temperance I swore isn’t going to last the day.”

Ethan slapped my knee and gave me an I-told-you-so look.

And Neal said, “Lad’s got to fucking play around sometimes, eh, Conner? One of these days, if you ever get a girlfriend, Ethan, you’ll see. Ha! If. Aren’t I right, Jackie?”

What could I say?

Neal Genovese and Ethan Robson went their own ways once the four of us arrived at Charing Cross.

Conner and I had other things to do now, and I didn’t know where to start.

But I did read through the listings on my phone while we sat on the train.

I found Ben Miller’s and Griffin Goodrich’s numbers there.

At first, I was terrified to even look for them. I convinced myself that the only way I’d be brave enough to do it was if I was sitting there with three other boys. I kept imagining that goddamned barrel in some other Freddie’s garage, in some other Glenbrook. If I closed my eyes, I saw images of the photographs of the boys, spread out on a tabletop in some fucking interrogation room, or I’d remember following Seth through an alleyway near Green Park, when I’d peered down into the mouth of the blue plastic drum and saw their bodies.

While London fell to pieces around me.

But this was it.

It had to be.

I even rechecked their names at least ten times before we’d gotten off the train and said good-bye to our roommates. I ignored the sympathetic text messages I received from Nickie and Rachel.

But there were changes, too.

I figured some things had to be different after an unobserved month slipped by.

Ander’s cell number was saved on my phone, like it had been when Henry and I popped back into his crumbling flat that last time. And I’d even made a number of calls to Ander that I couldn’t clearly remember.

My clothes were all different, too. They fit me strangely, and I couldn’t remember having any of this stuff before the end of the summer.
Maybe I grew or my tastes changed,
I thought,
but when I woke up in bed that morning, I was wearing briefs.
Jack never owned or wore briefs one day in his life. The only way I could explain it was that I must have lost or run out of my regular clothes somehow, or maybe Nickie had taken me shopping.

It wasn’t a big deal.

I wouldn’t let myself make it a big deal.

Because this was it.

This was going to be it.

And, mostly, things seemed as normal as they probably should be. All my recent calls were between me and Conner, Nickie, her brother, Henry Hewitt, my grandmother, and at least a dozen calls in the last few days had come from Ben and Griffin in California.

So once Conner and I found a relatively quiet part of the station, I dropped the bag I’d been carrying and pulled the phone out of my pocket.

I hadn’t been thinking about the lens, or the other glasses. I didn’t care about them. And I knew I had them with me, somewhere.

Same old Jack, no matter how fucked up his universe gets.

Always keeping one foot in the door.

But I needed to hear Ben’s and Griffin’s voices, just so I could begin to feel more certain that we all really did make it back from Marbury.

Conner knew what I was doing.

“It’s going to be after midnight,” he said.

“They’ll be up. If they’re…”

I didn’t need to say it; Conner knew what I meant.

If they’re the same.

If they’re alive.

If they’re here.

I called.

Ben answered, in a whisper.