They walked toward Joy, whose heart fluttered on her brother’s behalf when she saw who he was walking with. Then she realized they weren’t heading toward her but the bleachers where Omar had been hauling all that plastic, and it occurred to her that Omar had only kept whatever was down there from her because it’d been meant for Peejay. She chuffed at her brother’s sweetness, and hoped it did not approach creepiness.
* * *
Omar only realized it might come across as creepy when he stood by the bleachers and motioned Peejay into the dark space.
“I should warn you, it’s weird,” he said after Peejay had bravely and unquestioningly stooped down to enter. “I don’t know why I made it,” he lied.
At first Peejay couldn’t tell what he was looking at, his eyes still adjusting to the dark. Then the outline emerged, something semispherical, and he glanced at Omar, who was so much stranger than Peejay ever would’ve guessed. Peejay knew Omar was smart and shy, but even those uncommon traits for an athlete didn’t mean strangeness was present, too. Peejay liked strangeness, especially when he didn’t expect it.
Omar looked at his feet, wondering what the hell he was thinking bringing Peejay in here. He had a brief flash of what he’d been like before lock-in night, how different things looked now, and he wondered if it was sad that he’d been so irrevocably changed. Then their eyes adjusted, and enough light filtered in through the slats in the bleachers for Peejay to make sense of the massive thing in front of him.
Hamish’s face, sculpted from water bottles and candy wrappers, straws, coffee stirrers, plastic bags. Peejay thought it strange, of course, but that didn’t matter much. What mattered was the realization, deep and sweeping, reaching all the way into the dark pits of his mind, that Omar had been paying attention. Omar had seen him all this time. He’d known about Hamish. Maybe not everything, but no one knew everything. Now it became clear why Omar had come by the foyer all those times.
He tried to resist because he knew it might hurt Omar’s feelings, but Peejay couldn’t help but laugh. All that time beneath the pashmina, hiding, and Omar had seen nonetheless.
Omar shrunk at the sound, stifled though it was, until Peejay put a hand on his shoulder and said, “I thought you were coming by to look at Marisa.”
“What? No. I was...” Still, his words failed him.
“Yeah, I get it now. Me.”
Omar ran a hand over his head. This had been a terrible idea. All that time picking up garbage had messed with his social skills, his reasoning. “I’m sorry. I should go.”
Peejay kept his hand on his shoulder, though, squeezing firmly. “Don’t.” His voice was oddly tender, none of the usual affected pomp (which Omar rather enjoyed). And now Peejay felt himself start to cry, seeing this incredibly sweet, somewhat horrifying statue. Hamish, looking back at him, smiling. Omar had somehow captured his essence perfectly—he knew exactly which online picture Omar had used, one from the night when Hamish was Partyer in Chief—and despite the many circumstances which made the moment odd, Peejay felt as if it really was Hamish smiling down at him, as if in approval. Peejay pulled Omar into a hug, allowing himself to bury his head in Omar’s shoulder and sob.
* * *
Lolo finished reading the letter and set it on her lap, where there was still a buttery stain on her pants from all those days ago. She’d had them laundered, of course, taken upstairs by one of the Protectors and handed off to her family’s maid, who’d been sent over on public transit to collect Lolo’s clothes and deliver some home cooking. But the fact that Lolo had waited cemented the stain in her pants, along with the memory of waking up to find the sticky mess and the ants crawling all over the keys.
It had been a solitary week for her, much more so than she’d been prepared for. Though the solitude was worthwhile because of how much it’d revealed itself to be a mere lack of physical companionship. Lolo wasn’t actually alone. Joy kept her constant digital company; Malik, too. Omar, now, was a friend, and Peejay, despite what the others murmured about him in the group chat, still came around every day and sat with her for an hour. He refused to talk about Hamish, refused to talk much in general,