was going to bother me the most all day was that I was going to have to go around without a bra.
Underneath the clothing was a note. I felt a weird little tickle in my stomach when I saw Sam’s familiar handwriting, all run together and barely legible.
GRACE — THIS IS POSSIBLY THE WORST THING I’VE EVER DONE, SHUT MY GIRLFRIEND IN MY BATHROOM. BUT WE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO WITH YOU UNTIL YOU SHIFTED. I PUT YOUR CLOTHING IN HERE. DOOR’S NOT LOCKED SO YOU CAN JUST OPEN IT SOON AS YOU HAVE FINGERS. I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU. — S
Happiness. That’s what the feeling was. I held the note in my hands and tried to remember the events he’d written about. I tried to remember being shut in here, being retrieved from the woods. It was like trying to remember an actor’s name after being shown his vaguely familiar face. My thoughts danced maddeningly out of my reach. Nothing, nothing, and then — I was choking on the memory of darkness and mud. Shelby. I remembered Shelby. I had to swallow, hard, and I looked up at myself in the mirror again. My face was afraid, my hand pressed to my throat.
I didn’t like what my face looked like afraid; it looked like some other girl I didn’t recognize. I stood there and composed it carefully until the Grace in the mirror was the one I knew, and then I tried the doorknob. As Sam had said, it was unlocked, and I stepped into the hall.
I was surprised to find that it was night. I could hear the hum of appliances downstairs, the whisper of air through heating vents, the sounds an occupied house made when it thought no one was listening. I remembered that Sam’s room was to my left, but its open doorway was dark. To my right, another door at the end of the hall stood open, and light spilled out into the hallway. I chose that option, padding past photographs of Beck and others smiling and, weirdly enough, a collection of socks nailed to the wall in an artistic pattern.
I peered into the bright doorway and found Beck’s room. After half a second, I realized that I had no true reason to believe it to be Beck’s room. It was all rich greens and blues, dark wood and simple patterns. A reading lamp on the bedside table illuminated a stack of biographies and a pair of reading glasses. There was nothing particularly identifying about it. It was just a very comfortable and simple room, in the same way that Beck seemed comfortable and simple.
But it wasn’t Beck who lay on the mattress; it was Cole, sprawled crosswise, his feet dangling off the edge, toes pointing at the floor. A little leather book lay on its face beside him. On his other side was a mess of loose papers and photographs.
Cole looked asleep among the mess. I started to back out, but when my foot hit a creaky section of floor, he made a noise into the blue comforter.
“Are you awake?” I asked.
“Da.”
He turned his face as I came around to the end of the bed. I felt like I was in a hotel room then, this nice, tidy, unfamiliar room with its sparse color-coordination, glowing desk lamp, and its sense of abandonment.
Cole looked up at me. His face was always a shock: so good looking. I had to make a conscious effort to put that aside in order to be able to talk to him like a real person. He couldn’t help what his face looked like. I was going to ask him where Sam was, but on second thought, that seemed pretty rude, to just use Cole as a signpost.
“Is this Beck’s room?” I asked.
Cole stretched his arm out across the comforter toward me and made a thumbs-up.
“Why are you sleeping here?”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” Cole said. He rolled onto his back. “Sam never sleeps. I’m trying to learn his secrets.”
I rested my butt on the end of the bed, not quite sitting, not quite standing. The idea of Sam not sleeping made me a little sad. “Are his secrets in these papers?”
Cole laughed. His laugh was a short, percussive thing that seemed like it belonged on an album. I thought it was a lonely sort of sound. “No, these are Beck’s secrets.” He groped out until his fingers reached the leather journal. “Beck’s journal.” He rested his other hand on