Needy Little Things(17)
I forgot she works at the hospital. “Could you?”
“Sure.”
He types out a long text. Moms need details if you’re hitting them up to ask if your friend has shown up in the emergency room.
“Do you think you could get me in there?”
“In where? The hospital?”
“Yeah.”
“My mom hasn’t even texted back yet.”
“It’s not that, and I don’t mean right now.” I nibble at my thumbnail. “I need to talk to Danny Irvine and I assume he doesn’t have the same visitation rights as everyone else.”
“Danny Irvine as in that dude Ms. Jess stabbed at Sweet Pea’s?”
“Yes. Can you make it happen?” Because maybe if I talk to him, maybe if I find out he truly deserved what happened, it’ll relieve me of this sense that I’m cursed or something. Cursed in a way that makes people get stabbed. Cursed in a way that made my friend disappear. And I don’t know, maybe my ability has always been connected to things like this. But if so, I would have been happy to be kept in the dark.
* * *
Mama opens the door before I even get my key in the lock. She yanks me into a hug so hard it knocks the breath from me.
She presses her palms to my cheeks, scanning my body, looking for anything amiss. “I fell asleep and woke up at half past midnight to a dozen missed calls from Deja’s and Malcolm’s parents. Your phone was going straight to voicemail.” She lets go of my face and places one hand over her heart. “Terrified me.”
“I’m fine.” A lump forms in my throat.
She leads me to the couch and makes me tell her everything, even though it’s clear the important parts have already been relayed. This time I can’t get through it without tears.
She squeezes my hands. “Don’t worry, baby. I’m sure she’ll turn up home any minute now.”
The more people say that, the harder it is to believe. Because time keeps passing and Deja still hasn’t turned up.
Mama stands and rubs her hands down her torso, trying to smooth the wrinkles in her Wilhem Hotel polo. “She will come home, but you won’t see her all spring break because she’ll be on punishment for a month.”
I wipe my tears and laugh a little at that, but it’s hollow. I don’t share my mother’s confidence, if it’s even real. Something is wrong. The question is, how wrong?
Jojo’s standing in the hallway when I head for my bedroom.
“Eavesdropping is rude.”
“I wasn’t. I was going to the bathroom.”
“The bathroom is behind you.” I move past him and into my room. He follows.
“You guys were talking too quietly for me to hear. What’s going on? What happened?”
“Sorry our private conversation was too quiet for you.” I plop down on the foot of my bed.
“You never tell me anything.”
I rub my forehead and look up at him. I don’t want to tell him because I don’t want to worry him, but he’s already looking around wide-eyed, anxiously shifting from left foot to right. “One of my friends, Deja, you’ve met her—”
“Yeah, I know Deja. She always gives me watermelon Sour Patch Kids.”
“That sounds right. Well, Deja … got lost at the music festival.”
“Got lost?”
“Yes. And I don’t really want to talk about it because it makes me sad, okay?”
Josiah twists his bottom lip with his index finger and thumb, thinking. He disappears and returns with Tibby, the stuffed pig I let him adopt from me during a rough thunderstorm when he was six. “I don’t need it anymore. You can have it back.”
I reach for the pig and pull Josiah to me in the process. I squeeze his fat head, dropping tears all over him. He squirms and struggles for a few seconds before succumbing and accepting my rarely provided physical affection. We stay like that for a solid minute before I playfully push him away. “Get out of my room.”
He goes but leaves Tibby behind.
I plug my phone into the charger and will it to light up with a call or text from Deja. I’m too scared to reach out to her again. Too scared she’ll try me at the exact moment I try her and she won’t get through. Too scared that this time will be the time it goes straight to voicemail. That it’ll mean her phone has died. That she has no way of getting help if she needs it.
I open my laptop and DM Jude.
Me: I feel like I’m stuck in a really, really bad dream.
Part of me feels guilty for choosing him over Malcolm, but I’m worried I don’t have the words to interact with Malcolm tonight. This will hit differently for him, after Tessa. Shame washes over me because I know, as his best friend, I should try. But I hope, as my best friend, he won’t knock me for waiting until morning. And maybe, hopefully, by then, there won’t be anything to discuss.
Jude: Not gonna lie, the police being involved is scary af, but it’s a better safe than sorry thing, right?
Me: I don’t know.
And I don’t know if his hang-up about the police has to do with his lingering high, or genuine concern over Deja. Not that I think he’s some empathy-lacking jerk, but he doesn’t know her like Malcolm and I do. He hasn’t been here before, like Malcolm and I have. And maybe that’s part of the disconnect here.