Noggin (12 page)

Hatton showed back up at school with a black eye,
courtesy of Skylar and a dictionary that he’d thrown at him from across a room. He was smiling, though, even took his thin wire-rimmed glasses off to give me a closer look. It was like he was proud of the thing.

“I
am
proud of it!” he said. “I look like a total badass now.”

“You look like someone who lost a fight.”

“Even so. I look like I was
in
a fight. That’s all that matters.”

“Yeah, with a dictionary.”

Though I was relatively famous at school, and everywhere else for that matter, Hatton Sharpe was pretty much the only person I ever talked to, voluntarily at least. If high school couldn’t be the same—with Kyle and Cate, I mean—then at least Hatton was there to make it bearable.

“What do you think the likelihood of a guy like me hooking up with a girl like Audrey Hagler is? Be honest,” he asked at lunch one day that week.

“I dunno, Hatton. Do you really want a girl like that?”

“Every single second of every day since I was twelve.”

“Doesn’t she date Matt Braynard?”

“Yeah. That guy’s a tool.”

“Seems nice to me.”

“You haven’t spent that much time around him yet. He uses that whole president of the Christian Youth Club thing as a way to cover up what he really is.”

“Which is what?”

“A sadist.”

“That makes sense.”

“You never answered the question. What are my chances?” Hatton was biting his thumbnail.

“Okay. Seeing as she currently dates a sadist pretending to be the biggest Christian in school, and, adding to that, she’s about a year older than you are and doesn’t know your name, I’m thinking maybe one in about three million?”

“Well, that’s not very promising.”

“No. But you know what, Hatton?”

“What?”

“One day when we’re older and we’ve got jobs and families and all that, you’re gonna run into Audrey Hagler somewhere and you’re probably gonna forget her name too. It’ll take you a minute to figure out where you know her from, and when you realize who she is, you’ll laugh to yourself.”

“And she’ll still be bangin’ hot and we’ll, like, start an affair or something. That could be cool too.”

“You’re hopeless.”

“I know. But thanks anyway.”

“Sure. Has anyone asked you about the black eye?”

“Couple of people. I told ’em I got in a fight with some private-school kid in my neighborhood. I kicked his fake ass.”

“Nice.”

“You still haven’t talked to Cate?”

“Nope. It sucks.”

“Maybe it’s like you said, though. Maybe she just needs to see you once and she’ll realize you’re the same guy.”

“That’s what I’m hoping. I just don’t want to scare her away before I get the chance to prove that.”

“You think your new body’s gonna freak her out? Travis, not to be weird or anything, but your old one couldn’t have been any better than this. Aside from your scar, which makes you look badass anyway, there’s nothing wrong with you. I think if I’d been there when you were sick, then getting to see you like this now would be completely incredible.”

“I know. It’s just . . . it’s not going to be the same. When we touch, it’ll be different, you know?”

“When you touch? Wait, I’m confused. She’s engaged, right?”

“Right.”

“Oh.” Hatton sort of stared down at the ground for a few seconds.

“What? Say it.”

“Travis, I just think it’s a bad idea to expect her to see you and automatically be your girlfriend again. I know that’s what you want, but have you considered how unlikely that is?”

“No,” I said. “And I don’t really care if she’s engaged. She’ll see me and it’ll all be okay again. So do you wanna help me or not?”

“Help you do what?”

“Help me get her back.”

“You’re not going to give up on this, are you?”

“Not a chance. Can you be at my house at six?”

“Sure, man. As long as it’s okay for me to run away when her fiancé comes to kick your ass.”

“Fine. But I thought fights made you look badass?” I asked.

“Yeah, but I’ve reached my weekly quota already.”

Even though I knew Hatton was wrong about her, that she
would
be my girlfriend again, even if it took a little work and a little time, I knew that sitting around waiting on her to come to me was not the right strategy. She wasn’t going to hunt me down and tell me she still loved me and that it didn’t matter what the world thought about any of it. She was waiting on me to do those things. I had to find her and tell her, show her, that Travis Coates might be mostly ash in some mystery container hidden in his parents’ house, but that the part of him that found its way back would always be incomplete without her. I wasn’t dead anymore, so we could be together. It was so simple and I just needed to tell her. So I’d either make it happen, or I’d die again trying.

The night I told Cate I was sick, she was driving us to a concert downtown. We were on the interstate when I decided I couldn’t keep it from her any longer. So I just came out with it and closed my eyes and held on to the handle on her passenger-side door and wished for the moment to pass as quickly and painlessly as possible.

“I wanna die,” she said a few minutes later.

“Cate, don’t say that.”

“No. I wanna die!” She got louder this time, both of her hands gripping the steering wheel tightly, her arms stretched into straight, powerful rods jutting out from her chest.

“Just pull over and let’s talk for a second. It’s okay.”

“I wanna die! I wanna drive this car right off the road and die!”

She was sort of flailing now, her hands still on the
steering wheel, but the rest of her was shaking back and forth against her seat. Her hair was flying around her face. She kept repeating it over and over. “I wanna die. I wanna have a wreck and die!” Then she paused for one quick second, her crying stopped and her body motionless, and she reached over and set one hand on my left arm and said, “But not with you in here,” in the most normal, emotionless voice I’d ever heard.

She never had a chance to start freaking out again because we were both laughing too hard. The tears, this time, were running down my face and neck, and I was pretending that they were all from the laughing, but I’m pretty sure some of them were from something else. No one else ever would’ve reacted that way. No other girl in the world would’ve gone so quickly from wanting to wreck her car and die to laughing as loudly as she laughed that night. And hers was a loud, contagious laugh that surprised you at first, caught you right off guard and made it impossible for you to even consider not joining in.

I wanted to hear it. I wanted to make her laugh again, and I didn’t really care if it meant I’d have to see her cry a little too. I felt like seeing her cry would only prove to me what I thought was the absolute truth. Then I’d know she’d been waiting for me. Maybe not before, maybe not exactly the way I’d have hoped, but she’d cry and laugh and I’d know my death wasn’t the end of us after all.

Before Hatton got to my house that night, I walked into the living room and caught my mom watching a news
show on mute and crying. I did
not
want to see
her
cry. No one ever wants to see their mother crying. I’d seen it plenty—back when I was dying, of course, and now again that I was back. It still never got easier, though. My mom was always very in control. Not cold, just
together
, I guess. She was always the one to keep her cool in an emergency when everyone else would be coming unglued. So to see her not in control was pretty terrifying. I sat down beside her and didn’t say anything, just looked over at the TV screen and saw my face.

It was the same photo they’d been using for a month—a school picture from before I got sick. I had on this blue shirt, and it really bothered me that they kept using this photo because it reminded me of how great my hair used to be. Well, maybe not great but the way I liked it. It was sort of shaggy, I guess. Not curly but wavy enough to flip up in the front, right above my eyes, and jut out a little over each ear. And that smile I had. I looked so dumb. With no teeth showing, just this smirk like I didn’t have a care in the world, like I didn’t know it was all about to change.

“They just won’t let up, will they?” I said to Mom.

“I thought I’d get used to it by now,” she said, never averting her eyes from the screen.

“Yeah. Well, they’ll eventually run out of things to talk about, I guess. What’s going on today?”

“There’s this group of people in Florida saying you and Lawrence could be the second coming.”

“The second coming? Of Jesus? Like we’re
both
Jesus? That doesn’t even make sense.”

“They’ve been holding up pictures of you two and having prayer meetings, and they claim all these people have been healed since you came back.”

“I haven’t healed
one
person, Mom. Promise.” I held my hands up in surrender, and this made her laugh.

She paused for a minute and turned to look at me. She reached over, smiled a little, and tugged at a clump of hair from the side of my head.

“It’s growing out pretty fast, yeah?” she asked.

“I guess so. I’m never cutting it. Ever.”

“Hippie,” she said.

“Yep. That’s me.”

“Travis? Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, Mom.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Of what?”

“Are you afraid it’s all a dream? Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I have to go make sure you’re still in your room.”

“Creepy,” I said. I was about to cry, so humor was my only defense.

“And when you were gone . . .” She paused. She was about to lose it. I thought about bailing, but Jeremy Pratt’s heart wouldn’t let me. “No. It’s too embarrassing.”

“Please,” I said. “Tell me.”

“When you were gone, we used to keep your door closed
and any time I walked by it, I’d knock and I’d wait for you to open it. It sounds so stupid now. I know it does. But once I started doing it, I couldn’t stop. I’d just give it a little knock, wait a few seconds, and then go about my day.”

“That’s pretty sweet, Mom.”

It wasn’t sweet. It was the saddest thing I’d ever heard. I wanted to go up and shut myself in my room so she could knock on the door and see me open it a million times. It was so easy to forget how many days they’d all spent without me. I can’t imagine going that long without seeing her or Dad. I can’t imagine not hearing their voices. I wonder if they ever forgot what my face looked like, if maybe they had to get photos out any time they felt like they were starting to forget me.

“Yeah, well. You’re back, and I’m not about to waste your whole life whining about almost losing you.”

“Let me lay hands on you, child,” I said in a deep voice. “I’ll heal the pain away.”

She took a throw pillow from the couch and hit my arms with it as I frantically waved them toward her.

“Would you please quit watching the news now?” I asked, standing up.

“Yes. Good idea. Want to watch reality shows with me?”

“Over my dead bodies, Mom.”

Hatton showed up a few minutes later, and we went up to my room. Dad was working late again, something he’d been doing pretty regularly since I’d gotten back. He was more important now, in charge of a lot of people at the
company. All I knew is he always had some long story to tell me about someone I didn’t know screwing something up at work.

“So what’s the plan?” Hatton asked, meddling around with stuff on my dresser.

“We’ve got to go find her.”

“This sounds kind of dangerous.”

“We aren’t gonna kidnap her. I just want to find her and talk to her.”

“Where’s all your stuff? This looks like a hotel room.”

“They got rid of it.”

“Like, everything?”

“As far as I can tell.”

“Weird.”

“Very. We had to go buy me new clothes, and they keep asking me if I need other stuff, but I’m not sure where to start.”

“What was your old room like?” he asked.

“It was a mess. I had movie posters all over the walls and stacks of books and magazines in that corner over there. I’m not sure I could re-create it if I tried.”

“I think there’s a dead hamster somewhere in my room. So yours sounds nice.”

“You
think
, Hatton?”

“All I know is we had a hamster, and then we didn’t have a hamster, and there’s a pretty big pile of clothes and shit by my closet.”

“Isn’t your dad a vet?”

“Yeah. Don’t tell him. He thinks we buried it in the backyard.”

I shook my head in disbelief, hoping Hatton didn’t have any other pets.

“So . . . Cate,” he said. “How do we find her? Do you know where she lives now?”

“I know she’s in Springside. And I know she lives with Turner. But that’s about it.”

“We need your computer.”

“Over there.” I pointed toward the desk by the window.

“You got a Facebook page?” he asked.

“No. Deleted it before I left. Didn’t really think I’d need it again.”

“What? How do you stalk people? I mean, how do you keep up with people?”

“Kyle gave me his password a few weeks ago.”

“Okay. Well, we don’t have to do it now, but you need to get a new page soon or I can’t be your friend anymore.”

“Deal.”

I forgot to tell you about getting my computer back. Dad said he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it, said he thought he’d be brave enough one day to open it up and see if I’d left anything interesting behind. Thank God that didn’t happen because between you, me, and every other teenage boy in the world, you do
not
want your mom or dad going through your computer. Anyway, the night I first got back home from Denver, Dad walked into my room holding the gray Dell laptop and set it down on
my desk. When he left the room, I opened it up, ready to find out everything I could about all the things that had happened while I was gone.

Only I’d deleted my account just before I died. Aside from getting tired of “Get well soon, Travis” posts, I didn’t want to risk leaving behind one of those creepy-dead-guy pages that people turn into virtual little memorials that never end. So then there I was with no account and no access to Kyle’s or Cate’s page. I did a Google search on their names, but nothing came up but a bunch of useless information about other Kyle Haglers and Cate Conroys from the past and present. It was torture.