Playlist for the Dead

21. Conversation 16

I’D HAD ENOUGH OF ARCHMAGEGED and his cryptic bullshit. Between him showing up and me goading him into showing up I was never going to sleep again. And if I stayed as fuzzy as I had been, who knew what would happen? “Time for act three”?

That had to mean Ryan was next.

I didn’t know what to do. The more I learned, the more I hated him. He’d been a terrible brother to Hayden, and it turned out he’d been a terrible boyfriend to Astrid, too. Why should I care if something bad happened to him?

But I wasn’t a big fan of Jason or Trevor, either, and I still felt sick inside thinking about what had happened to them. Sure, they deserved it, to a point, but not like that. Part of the reason I hated to think that I might be responsible was because things hadn’t gone down the way I would have wanted them to. I didn’t like all these secrets; I wanted things out in the open. I wanted the world to know that all three of those guys were bad people; having bad things happen to them wasn’t the same with making them, and everyone else, deal with who they really were.

I realized, then, that I didn’t want something mysterious and bad to happen to Ryan. I wanted him to have to deal with who he was and how that made him responsible. Which meant I had to stop whatever was supposed to happen next.

But first I had to figure out what that was.

I fell asleep listening to the playlist, hoping some clue was buried in the lyrics, but I wasn’t getting it. More songs about sadness, about love, about death… I didn’t know what to do except try and figure out where some of them had come from. That meant I had to find out, once and for all, whether Athena was really Astrid. And I knew where I had to start.

I texted Astrid to see if she could meet me after school; I knew we didn’t share a lunch period that day. And then I picked the most soothing song on the playlist and got some much-needed sleep.

I spent the day at school alternating between trying to figure out what exactly to say to her and how to avoid the stares and whispers of the other students, who obviously had all heard the rumors about Jason and Trevor. Every time I heard footsteps behind me in the halls I flinched, sure that the police had finally decided to question me. It was only a matter of time.

The plan was to meet up at the mall. I went there straight from school; I had last period off, and I wanted some time to hang out at the ITC. I hadn’t been there since the day of Hayden’s funeral, and I was used to going there all the time. I hoped the manager wouldn’t ask me about Hayden again, but I could handle it. Besides, the new American Vampire was out, and I’d been making a point of reading it in the store when I could get away with it so I wouldn’t have to buy the hardcovers. Stephen King had written the first one, and he was one of my favorite writers—I’d read all his early stuff, even the novellas he wrote under a fake name, and I’d spent hours as a kid trying to light fires with my mind, looking at cars and dogs trying to figure out which ones might be secretly evil. I’d tried for years to get Hayden to read them, but there was the whole dyslexia thing, which I should have been more sensitive about. Just another thing to regret.

The comics and graphic novels were in the back of the store, so I walked quickly through the aisles, past the sci-fi and gaming sections, to avoid the manager. There weren’t many people around, which hopefully meant I could read in peace. I thought I caught a glimpse of that short-haired girl who hung out with Eric, Jess, but when I turned around she was gone. Must have been imagining it—it was so rare to see girls here.

The fourth volume had just come out, and I gratefully settled into reading about Skinner Sweet, the first of the American vampire bloodline. The series was awesome because it combined all the goriness of the vampire legend with stories about the Wild West and other eras in American history. I’d never been much of a history buff, but it was way more fun learning about it when you thought about vampires being involved.

I was so engrossed in the story that I almost flung the book across the room when I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. Crap. The manager was going to kick me out. I got ready to plead with him to just let me finish this issue, and turned around.

There was no one there.

But then I heard Astrid laugh. “I can’t believe that worked on you again!” She was on my other side.

“What a pleasant surprise,” I said. And it was. I couldn’t help but be happy to see her, no matter what other things I was worried about.

“Well, I was early, and I figured you might be here.” She leaned over my shoulder to see what I was reading. “I don’t want to interrupt you reading your weird vampire comic or anything, though.”

“Not a problem,” I said, and put it down so I could look at her. Today’s outfit was a kind of ripped-up white shirt with a long, black, lacy skirt and high laced-up Doc Martens. There were black and white streaks in her hair to match, and her lips looked like a checkerboard: half black, half white on top, and reversed on the bottom. It looked like a lot of work, so I figured I probably shouldn’t kiss her, since I’d mess it up.

But then she frowned a little, and I remembered the look on her face when she asked me why I hadn’t made a move on her. Lipstick was fixable, right? I pulled her toward me and then leaned in. I was so glad I did, too, because when I pulled back she was smiling, and her lipstick was hilarious, all smudgy and swirly and gray. And she was laughing at me, too, since my mouth probably looked just like hers.

“Looks like you need a Kleenex,” she said.

“More like a Wet-Nap.”

But we both couldn’t stop smiling.

“You two shopping, or just blocking the aisle?” I heard the manager say.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Astrid said. She grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the ITC, toward the Sweet Spot, a candy store just off the food court. It sold just about every kind of sugary thing you could imagine—there was a whole aisle of weird-colored M&M’s, a row consisting solely of gummy candies, and a section devoted to chocolates from all over the world. Astrid made a beeline for the penny candy.

“This stuff is my favorite,” she said. “When I was little, my dad used to drive us to the fanciest part of town for Halloween, because they had the best stuff. This one house always gave out whole bags of old-school candy—saltwater taffy, candy necklaces, caramel bull’s-eyes. I think they owned a restaurant or something.”

“That was smart. We always stayed local. All Milky Ways and Almond Joys, and I hate coconut. Mom used to steal all my Reese’s peanut butter cups—she called it rent.”

We both bought our bags of candy and then sat down in the food court. “So there’s something I have to ask you,” I said.

“Sounds serious,” she said, but I could tell she didn’t really think so.

“Athena,” I said. “The password. How did you know about that?”

The screen fell again, but I was determined to get past it.

“I really need to know,” I said. “I’m going a little crazy here. I still feel like what happened to Hayden is my fault, but then there’s all this other stuff with Jason and Trevor, and I just don’t know what to do.”

“You never finished telling me why you think it’s your fault,” she said.

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“So are you.”

We stared at each other, almost as if daring the other one to talk first.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll tell you the rest, if you promise to tell me about Athena.”

“Fine,” she said, and stuck a peppermint stick in her mouth without looking at me.

So Hayden and I had finally gone to a party, at his urging, no less, and here we were, lying on the ground, being laughed at. It was like living in a nightmare. I grabbed Hayden’s arm and tried to pull him upright. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

For some reason he resisted me, pulling his arm back but not getting up himself.

“Come on!” I said, and reached for him again.

This time he snatched his arm back. “Don’t touch me,” he said, but he did get up.

“What is going on with you? Are you okay?” I asked, trying to ignore the laughter around me, trying to pretend people weren’t still looking at us.

“No, I’m not okay,” he said. There was a ring of open space around us, but the path to the front door was packed with people. Hayden shoved his way through as the laughter died down; I followed him outside. The air had grown sharp and cold.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I said. “I don’t understand. What just happened?”

“Nothing.” He started walking quickly, almost as if he wanted to get away from me, though we were both going back to his house.

I walked faster, to catch up with him. I had the advantage because my legs were so much longer; he’d never be able to ditch me. “You can’t say that was nothing. Why did we come here?”

“Why did we come here?” he repeated. “Why? For a public shaming, that’s why.”

I was starting to get angry. It was one thing for him not to tell me why before, but I’d been just as embarrassed as he was. He owed me. I’d just gone to a party I hadn’t wanted to go to, gotten mocked by people I hated, realizing nothing was ever going to change. And maybe that wasn’t Hayden’s fault, but right now it felt like it was. “You know, all you want to do most of the time is sit around and play Mage Warfare, and these days not even with me, and then you drag me to this party and we’re not even there for an hour before we’re both like five seconds away from getting our asses kicked by your stupid brother and his stupid friends. Who weren’t even supposed to be there. And you still don’t think it’s worth telling me why the fuck we were even here in the first place?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he said.

“Try me.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. Not now.”

“I don’t get it. You’re my best friend. My only friend. I tell you everything, and you don’t seem to trust me at all.”

“It’s not about trust!” he said, and I could tell he was getting angry too. “Maybe it’s that once in a while I’d like something that’s just mine. Not ours to share. Just something that’s all about me. Why is that so hard to understand?”

It wasn’t—I got it, really. In some ways that’s what I wanted, too. “I just don’t see why you can’t have something that’s yours but tell me about it anyway.”

“I would have,” he said. “But now it’s gone.”

“Would you stop it with the cryptic bullshit and just tell me already?” I yelled as we crossed the street.

He stopped in the middle of the road and turned to face me. “No!” he screamed. “No, I’m not going to tell you. Wasn’t it enough that I got thrown down the stairs and humiliated in front of everyone? Do I have to live through the rest of it again? I don’t think so.” He got out his wallet, pulled out a twenty, and threw it at me. “Here. You’ve got your phone. Call a cab. I want to be alone tonight.”

The twenty fluttered to the ground in front of me. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never seen him like this before, and truth be told, I didn’t really want to go back to his house and have to deal with it. But I didn’t want to have to pick up that twenty, either. I’d rather walk, no matter how far it was.

We stared at each other for a minute that felt like ten; the glare of headlights at a stop sign down the street finally snapped us out of it. We both started walking, in opposite directions.

“Fuck you, Hayden,” I said, but he didn’t turn around.

That was the last time I saw him. Alive, anyway.

I took a deep breath and waited for Astrid to say something. For a minute she sat there, sucking on that stupid peppermint stick, still not looking at me. Great. Now she understands. “See?” I said, eventually. “It really was my fault.”

“It wasn’t,” she said.

“You can’t say that.”

“I can,” she said, and then she finally looked at me. “I know why Hayden went to the party.”