Needy Little Things(18)
Me: If this goes on beyond tonight, there are things you need to know that I don’t have the capacity to explain to you right now. I’m going to send you a link. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to answer questions. I don’t want condolences or encouraging words, okay?
Jude: Okay.
Me: www.findcontessahawkins.org
I push my laptop aside and pull the covers over my head. The DMs lead me into a lucid dream. Tessa sits beside me, singing and painting her toenails. She wears a stretchy tie-dyed headband with her hair in a high puff as big as her head. She hasn’t visited me in a while, but I knew she’d come tonight. She speaks to me, but the words are always recycled parts of old conversations that long ago ingrained themselves into my memory. My best friend turned Magic 8 Ball, dishing out canned responses.
Usually, I’d draw the dream out by exchanging pleasantries and small talk, but tonight I’m frustrated and anxious. Tonight, I want answers.
“Where are you, Tess?” It’s not the first time I’ve asked, and like every other time, I still hope for a fresh response. A combination of words I’ve never heard. Something new and valuable. “Where are you, Tess? I need you.”
She disappears and the sound of her giggles echoes across the room. “You’re getting warmer! Follow Miss Doretta.” We were twelve then. A little old to still be playing hide-and-seek, but the Hawkins family had just moved into their current house. It was cavernous and full of boxes and begging us to indulge in a childhood favorite.
“Are you safe, Tess? Are you alive?” I try instead.
The room warps around us until it’s the best replica of Mr. Frank’s middle school English class my memory can cook up.
“You ask too many questions, you know that? You probably wouldn’t even hear the answers if someone gave them because you’re too busy thinking up the next question.” That one was from sixth grade—when the needs got louder and more persistent and school got harder. I’d realized running my mouth helped quiet things in my head. I didn’t want to get in trouble for talking to other kids, so I’d ask my teachers questions incessantly. Tessa’s comment had hurt my feelings at the time. Mostly because it was true.
“Something bad happened today. Bad things happened this week.”
“Tell me the good news first.” I used to tease her about that. Why would anyone take the good news first, only to be sent crashing back down to Earth after?
I think and think, desperate for something positive to share. But before I can come up with anything, Tessa dissolves into blackness.
CHAPTER 7
A car alarm wakes me in the morning and I am immediately pummeled by scenes from last night. My chest is tight and my legs are sweaty under my sheets. I kick them off and reach for my buzzing phone, accidentally yanking the charger from the wall.
Malcolm
Are you up?
Me
Yeah. Anything??
Typing bubbles appear and disappear three times before another text comes through.
Malcolm
She’s still not home.
A rush of anger courses through me—an emotion I don’t really mess with—and I’m surprised to find it directed at Deja. Like she’s done this on purpose. Like she’s playing some awful joke.
“Hey, Siri, call Deja,” I say into my phone like I have countless times before. Like doing this perfectly boring, typical, average little thing might set everything back in order.
“Calling Deja, mobile.”
It goes straight to voicemail and I think I might vomit. She was obviously going to get into some kind of trouble and I let her speed straight for it. I didn’t even let her decide for herself. I pace around my room, fidgeting with things, making a mess. I can’t stay in this house all day. For once, I want to be around people. I want the noise of their needs to fill my brain and distract me because this silence, this waiting, will eat me alive. And if the waiting doesn’t do it, I’ll do it myself. My fingernails are chewed ragged. I reach for the emery board nail file on my dresser and pause once it’s in my grasp. It’s time to visit Danny Irvine.
Jude picks me up thirty minutes later. He reaches across the passenger seat to open the door for me. The moment I glimpse his face, I know he’s viewed the link I sent. He saw the elementary school pictures of me and Tessa. The newborn photos of her and Malcolm. The grainy convenience store security photo of her and a stranger. Most likely the same stranger she’d been secretly chatting with online for three months. Time stamp, 10:00 P.M. Six hours after she failed to show up home from school.
“Still no word on Deja?” he asks.
“No.” I’m grateful he stuck to our agreement from last night, but I’m not in the headspace to talk about Deja, either. “How’s this going to work?”
“You’re lucky Danny’s in my mom’s department, or this might be harder. Helps that it’s early in the day, too. I bought her and her coworkers breakfast. If there are no emergencies, that’ll distract them for a few. But you better hope there’s not an officer posted at his door.” He puts the car in drive.
The lobby of the hospital is deserted, except for a security guard outside of my range. We take the elevator to the eighth floor. Once we start passing patient rooms and hospital workers, needs creep into my mind. I welcome them like a six-year-old welcomes a cold glass of Kool-Aid after playing outside all day.