Needy Little Things(65)
“What’s going on?” Malcolm asks when we join his father in the living room.
I sink into the couch, listening, but making a distinct effort not to look at anyone’s face. I’m scared their expressions will give away something before I’m ready to hear it. Scared I’ll read into every twitch of an eyelid, every crease in the forehead.
“They found a body early this morning,” Mr. Hawkins says. “It—it wasn’t in the best condition.”
“What does that mean?” Malcolm asks.
“It means it’d been in the water for a couple of days.” His voice sounds far away. Almost drowned out by his persistent and cawing need for a stamp.
“It isn’t her,” Malcolm says resolutely.
“Her mother is on the way to make the ID, son. The description matches.”
“Okay, and?” Malcolm shouts. “What description was that? A Black girl with braids? That fits half the teenage girls in Atlanta.”
His father sighs deeply. I still don’t look at his face, but I track his feet to the love seat where he rests against the cushy arm. “It was the outfit, Malcolm. You two gave them photos from earlier that day.”
“She bought that thing at Target. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Mrs. Hawkins pops the cork out of a bottle of wine. It’s barely nine in the morning. “At least closure is within reach for her family. At least they get that.”
“I’m going to be sick,” I say before running for their half bath. The room spins and I’m overcome by wave after wave of nausea. Nothing comes up. Nothing comes out, except tears, and they are explosive. Malcolm barges in and lifts me from the floor by my arm. He pulls me up the stairs to his bedroom. Both our phones go off in sync as we receive multiple texts from Jude.
“Can you answer him?” I have to be some new degree of awful for still not wanting to talk to him. Even now. Or maybe I’m just embarrassed, I don’t know.
Malcolm texts back and forth with Jude while I scroll through dozens of social media notifications. Almost all of them are comments that include #RIPDeja, dove emojis, and prayer hands. I throw my phone across the room. It hits the wall and lands at the bottom of Malcolm’s mattress.
“We don’t even have confirmation, but #RIPDeja is taking off faster than #FindDeja did. What’s that say, Malcolm? What’s that mean?”
He puts his phone down, takes me by the hand, and leads me to his bed. We both lie down facing each other like we have so many times before.
“It doesn’t mean anything except they are going to look real dumb in a few hours. The body isn’t hers. It can’t be.” He lifts my chin so I’m looking into his eyes. “You hear me?”
I know he believes it with everything in him because he hasn’t shed a single tear and Malcolm has never been afraid to cry.
“I hear you.”
He pulls me into a hug and we hold each other for a long time. Long enough for his breathing to grow slow and heavy. He really must have slept horribly last night. I slip out of his now-slack grasp. Watching him lie there, so relaxed, fills me with energy. Anxious energy. Paranoid energy. I nudge him gently, testing the depth of his sleep. When he doesn’t react, I nudge harder, say his name at a normal speaking volume. It gets me a sleepy mumble, but his eyelids don’t budge. I feel around for his phone. The other phone. The one that, for some reason, he lied to me about. I pat the blankets and carefully squeeze his jacket pocket. Nothing. I try pushing him over and he furrows his brow and swats at me. But that’s fine. I have full access to the rest of his room.
I inch my way off the mattress, stand, and look around. He doesn’t have many places to hide stuff, not that I even know what sort of things he’d want to hide. Not that I want to know, for the most part. But I’m positive there’s something important he’s keeping from me. I’m also positive that Deja was keeping something from me. And I’m getting the feeling that the something was shared between the two of them. I tiptoe to his closet. Malcolm doesn’t live in the kind of house that has squeaky floors, but he has a dog. Miss Doretta perks up from her bed and lets loose a growl. I put my index finger over my mouth and shush her, but she doesn’t like that. The hair on her back stands on end and she starts to yap. I put my hand on my forehead and sigh as Malcolm sits up.
“Quiet,” he says to Miss Doretta.
The dog gives me another growl, but then takes a few turns and settles back into her bed.
“What are you doing?” he asks sleepily.
“I’m going to go home. Called an Uber.” The last part is a lie, but I add it on so he won’t offer to drive me. He hates getting behind the wheel, but after yesterday and today, I know he’d insist.
“Oh. Did they discharge Josiah?”
“No. He’ll be home tomorrow, but I need a shower and a change of clothes.”
He picks up his iPhone. “How long was I out? Any updates?”
“Not long. And no. Nothing.”
His hand goes to his pocket, the one he’d been lying on, but he doesn’t remove the burner phone. I want to tell him I already caught him in the lie, so he might as well tell the truth, but I don’t. Whatever he’s hiding will come out when it’s meant to, or I’ll figure it out on my own.
“See you later.”