I make it to sundown. Two hundred sixty-five pages gone. I am shivering under the filthy blanket. I don’t know if it’s the temperature in the room or if it’s me.
Almost there, I tell myself.
There is only one way out of this, the body tells me.
At this point, I don’t know if it means drugs or death.
The body might not even care, at this point.
Finally, the body wants to sleep.
I let it.
Day 5999
My mind is thoroughly wrung out, but I can tell Nathan Daldry has gotten a good night’s sleep.
Nathan is a good guy. Everything in his room is in order. Even though it’s only Saturday morning, he’s already done his homework for the weekend. He’s set his alarm for eight o’clock, not wanting the day to go to waste. He was probably in bed by ten.
I go on his computer and check my email, making sure to write myself some notes about the last few days, so I can remember them. Then I log in to Justin’s email and find out there’s a party tonight at Steve Mason’s house. Steve’s address is only a Google search away. When I map out the distance between Nathan’s house and Steve’s, I find it’s only a ninety-minute drive.
It looks like Nathan might be going to a party tonight.
First, I must convince his parents.
His mother interrupts me when I’m back on my own email, rereading what I wrote about the day with Rhiannon. I very quickly shut the window, and oblige when she tells me that today is not a computer day, and that I am to come down for breakfast.
I very quickly discover that Nathan’s parents are a very nice couple who make it very clear that their niceness shouldn’t be challenged or pressed.
“Can I borrow the car?” I ask. “The school musical is tonight, and I would like to go see it.”
“Have you done your homework?”
I nod.
“Your chores?”
“I will.”
“And you’ll be back by midnight?”
I nod. I decide not to mention to them that if I’m not back by midnight, I’ll be ripped from my current body. I don’t think they’d find that reassuring.
It’s clear to me that they won’t need the car tonight. They are the type of parents who don’t believe in having a social life. They have television instead.
I spend most of the day doing chores. After I’m done with them and have had a family dinner, I’m good to go.
The party’s supposed to start at seven, so I know I have to wait until nine to show up, so there will be enough people there to hide my presence. If I get there and it ends up being open to only a dozen kids, I’ll have to turn back around. But that doesn’t strike me as Justin’s kind of party.
Nathan’s kind of party, I’m guessing, involves board games and Dr Pepper. As I drive back to Rhiannon’s town, I access some of his memories. I am a firm believer that every person, young or old, has at least one good story to tell. Nathan’s, however, is pretty hard to find. The only tremor of emotion I can find in his life is when he was nine and his dog April died. Ever since then, nothing seems to have disturbed him too much. Most of his memories involve homework. He has friends, but they don’t do very much outside of school. When Little League was over, he gave up sports. He has never, from what I can tell, sipped anything stronger than a beer, and even that was during a Father’s Day barbecue, at his uncle’s prodding.
Normally, I would take these as parameters. Normally, I would stay within Nathan’s safe zone.
But not today. Not with a chance of seeing Rhiannon again.
I remember yesterday, and how the trail that got me through the darkness seemed to be attached in some way to her. It’s as if when you love someone, they become your reason. And maybe I’ve gotten it backward, maybe it’s just because I need a reason that I find myself falling in love with her. But I don’t think that’s it. I think I would have continued along, oblivious, if I hadn’t happened to meet her.
Now I’m letting my life hijack these other lives for a day. I am not staying within their parameters. Even if that’s dangerous.
I’m at Steve Mason’s house by eight, but Justin’s car is nowhere in sight. In fact, there aren’t that many cars out in front. So I wait and watch. After a while, people start arriving. Even though I’ve just spent a day and a half at their school, I don’t recognize any of them. They were all peripheral.
Finally, just after nine-thirty, Justin’s car pulls up. Rhiannon is with him, as I’d hoped she’d be. As they head in, he walks a little bit in front, with her a little behind. I get out of my car and follow them inside.
I’m worried there will be someone at the door, but the party’s already spiraled into its own form of chaos. The early guests are well past the point of drunkenness, and everyone else is quickly catching up. I know I look out of place—Nathan’s wardrobe is more suited to a debate tournament than a Saturday-night house party. But nobody really cares; they’re too caught up in each other or themselves to notice a random geek in their midst.
The lights are dim, the music is loud, and Rhiannon is hard to find. But just the fact that I am in the same place as her has me nervously exhilarated.
Justin is in the kitchen, talking with some guys. He looks at ease, in his element. He finishes one beer and immediately goes for another.
I push past him, push through the living room and find myself in the den. The instant I step in the room, I know she’s here. Even though the music’s blaring from a laptop connected to some speakers, she’s over by the CD collection, thumbing through cases. Two girls are talking nearby, and I have a sense that at one point she was a part of their conversation, then decided to drop out.