Needy Little Things(66)
CHAPTER 28
Later that evening, I sit on the end of my bed and FaceTime Fitz. I need to talk to someone other than Jude or Malcolm. Calling him still feels like it might disrupt the organization of the universe. And maybe that’s why I try him again right away when he doesn’t answer the first time. I want this universe disrupted.
He accepts my call this time, grinning. His round face is dim, only illuminated by streetlights as he walks down the road. “Atlanta! What it do?” He uses his dirty tank to wipe sweat from his forehead.
“I’m just … here.”
His face drops. “Still no word on Deja?”
I pause, debating how to answer. “They found a body.”
He stops short, mouth falling open. “Oh, shit.” He stutters through his next question. “Was it her?”
“Not sure yet”—I blink quickly to keep tears at bay—“but maybe.”
“Wow, man.” He climbs up some steps to a porch with much better lighting and sits down. “I don’t even know what to say, Sariyah. I’m sorry.”
“Malcolm doesn’t think it’s her.”
“Do you?”
The question throws me because, somehow, I hadn’t paused to consider what I think. “No. No, I don’t.” I sit up straighter, finding more resolve. “I think she ran away.” I can’t make the blood and the pepper spray fit the story I’m forming, but I put it together anyway. It’s still a dark narrative, but it’s more hopeful than all the others and I have to cling to it. “I think her stepdad is too strict. I think her mom has a drug problem. I think she has a secret boyfriend. I think she ran away from her parents and ran to her boyfriend.”
“And you think her secret boyfriend is Jed?”
“I don’t know if—Wait, why do you think I think it’s Jed?”
“He told me you were asking him some weird questions about Deja.”
“Oh. I did ask him some questions, but I don’t think they were weird. Deja follows him on Instagram. I wanted to know if he ever spoke to her. He said he didn’t.”
“Well, he’s a liar.”
“What? Are you saying he did talk to Deja?” I shift the phone to my other hand, as if somehow it will make me see and hear him better.
“No. I don’t know. All I’m saying is he can’t be trusted.”
“I thought he was your best friend.”
“Yeah. He was and I don’t even know why. He’s been trying to sabotage my relationship with Crystelle for years. Then I found out he cheated on my sister.”
I want to ask how it is he is so put off by Jed cheating on his sister, when he forgave Crystelle for what she did, but I doubt he could give me any logical answer. “Did they break up?”
“Yep. Straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s for the best. They’d been having other issues. He’s got a temper on him.”
I swipe away from our call so I can check Jed’s Instagram. Sure enough, all the photos of him and Ella have been deleted. Including the one that Deja had commented on. I’m glad I still have the screenshot. “Who did he cheat on her with?”
“Ella said he made a Facebook account to help boost posts about Deja, like you asked, but then she found some really flirty Facebook messages between him and some girl.”
I immediately search Facebook for Jedidiah Jones. There’s only one in Chefly, Georgia. His profile picture is of a dock at sunset and the rest of the page is equally bland. But we aren’t friends. There may be things I can’t see. I send him a request.
“You still there?” Fitz asks.
“Yeah, sorry. What was the girl’s name?”
“Not Deja, if that’s where you’re going. It was Willa? Willow? Something like that. Didn’t catch a last name. But hey, I’m sorry. I gotta go. Supposed to meet up with Crystelle in a few.”
We hang up and I feel even less at ease than I did before I called him. I grab my laptop and sign into Malcolm’s student account. He lets me know every time he updates his password so I can always have access to his class notes. He doesn’t have the patience to be a good tutor, but that never stopped him from finding other ways to help me with school. And that’s why I don’t open his email expecting to find anything earth-shattering. But he and Deja had several classes together and maybe there’s a clue about what was going on with her in one of their exchanges for school.
There’s one email in his inbox. It’s from his social studies teacher reminding him and Deja to submit their project proposal. Malcolm was so excited to work with her on it over break, but they didn’t even get a chance to start. I’m about to close his email when I notice a message in his drafts folder written three days ago. I click away when I see it’s addressed to Deja, thinking I’ve stumbled upon some therapeutic exercise where you write letters to your missing friend. I’ve already invaded his privacy, but reading something like that feels like a step too far. But I glimpsed enough to see that whatever he wrote was very short. Which makes it very unlikely to be some emotional diary entry. I hover my cursor over “no subject” for a solid thirty seconds before clicking it once again.
Notice anything?