Needy Little Things(67)

M.

There are eight attachments. All articles. Two about the disappearance of Contessa Hawkins. Four about the disappearance of Casey Sullivan. And two about the disappearance of Deja Nelson.

I open all the attachments, so much adrenaline coursing through me it’s difficult to see straight. Why would Malcolm draft this when he knows Deja is missing? Why would he send her any of it, period? I try to rationalize. See from his perspective, but I can’t make it make sense. Unless he meant to send it to someone else. Maybe me even. That has to be it. I laugh away some of my nervous energy. It’s not a long shot that he’d accidentally type Deja’s email in the recipient line. It’s like when you accidentally send a text to the person you’re trying to talk shit about. Right? I click through the articles. I’ve seen all of them before, but I comb through them as if Malcolm’s message was absolutely meant for me. I comb through looking for anything out of the ordinary, but there’s nothing. The reporting style in Deja’s and Tessa’s articles differs from Casey’s in a grating sort of way, but that’s not unusual. It’s sad. It’s infuriating. But it’s not unusual.

I close my laptop at ten o’clock on the dot and crawl into bed, hoping to dream of Tessa. Malcolm doesn’t come up in our conversations often, but tonight I wish I could tap into their twin connection through her. But Tess doesn’t grant wishes. The Tessa in my dreams can’t tell me anything I don’t already know. And I don’t know anything. I think Malcolm’s hiding something related to Deja. I think Jed and Ms. Jasmine are, too. I’m afraid to find out what, but I have to. For Dej.

Sleep doesn’t provide reprieve or answers. Only nightmares of teen girls being pulled from lakes, cold and lifeless. I startle awake to Mama pushing my hair from my face. It takes a few seconds for my mind to work normally, but once it does, I shoot upright. “Is Jojo okay?” I squint in the darkness. Palm around for the switch to my bedside lamp.

Mama clicks it on. “Shh, baby. Your brother is fine. I’m bringing him home in the morning.”

The sight of her face doesn’t calm me. Her eyes are red and puffy. “What’s wrong? Deja?” My brain assaults me with flashes from the dreams I’d been having. “Was it her?”

“No,” she says. “I just got back from Ms. Jasmine’s. It wasn’t Deja.”

I don’t react. I’m too scared I’ve heard her wrong.

“You hear me? The body they found. It wasn’t Deja.”

I surprise myself by crashing into her. Wrapping my arms around her soft middle. Squeezing.

She rubs my back. “I knew you would want to know as soon as it was confirmed.”

I pull away enough to look up at her. “Does Malcolm know?”

“Mrs. Hawkins was there, too. She’ll tell him. But it’s late, baby. I promise we can talk more in the morning. I called the school and told them you’ll be using one of your remote learning days tomorrow so you can be here to welcome your brother home.” She takes my bonnet from my nightstand and slips it over my head. “Try to get some rest.”

I hold on to her tighter because I don’t know what mood she’ll be in tomorrow. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t her. I tell myself over and over, like if I go without thinking it for more than a few seconds it will somehow be untrue. And maybe it would. Because someone out there was wishing it was her and not their daughter. Their sister. Their friend. Mama continues to rub my back until the next thing I know, the sun is up and Josiah is calling my name.

I pull on a sweatshirt and pad out to the living room where he stands taking in the place, like he expects something drastic has changed in the two days he was gone.

“Welcome back.”

He passes me an overloaded paper grocery bag. “It’s nasty healthy stuff.”

“Where’s Mama?” I stick my head out the front door, looking for her.

“She said she was going to the dry cleaners down the street to pick up a suit.”

“To pick up a what?” I ask, sure I heard him wrong.

He powers up his Xbox and sits on his knees too close to the screen. “That girl they found they thought was Deja, wasn’t really Deja.”

“Mama told me.” I plug my dead phone into the charger. I need to call Malcolm. In the meantime, I open my laptop and sign into my school’s learning platform to knock out my assignments for the day. When I finish, I start closing out the twenty open tabs on my browser, but pause when I see that Deja’s missing person Facebook post has a flood of new comments.

Belinda Atkins: Thank God it wasn’t her, but let’s keep the family of whoever it is in our prayers.

Sharon Easley: She’s still out there!

Patrice Martin: Does anyone have information about what happened to this poor young woman they found?

Roderick Thomas: Deja Nelson has been gone going on, what? Ten days now? Still no updates! They did my niece the same way. SMH!

Katie Ellwood: I go to school with Deja. I cried when I heard they might have found her body.



I feel bad for rolling my eyes at Katie’s comment, like she isn’t allowed to feel grief over her classmate. But she was in math with me and Deja for eight months and never even made eye contact with either of us. Now her comment has a dozen likes and four old ladies comforting her in the replies. I click back to my home page and that’s when I notice the red dot by my notification bell. Jed. He accepted my friend request. I go to his profile. There’s not much more to see than there was in the public view, but this isn’t a freshly made account. There are some photos of the creek that runs through Chefly uploaded two years ago. A post about fishing lures shared ten months ago. Nothing more recent than that. He hasn’t used this account to boost any posts about Deja. I click on the blue message button at the top of the page.