My dad patted the hood as well. “We miss you, kid.” Then with a few quick steps he was back in the cab, turning off the ignition.
My mom hugged me, tears in her eyes. Then she pulled away and retreated into the house. Probably to make our annual meal—Eric’s favorite.
Back in my room, I clicked on my music, dug the Hot Tamales out of the bag and stared at the picture of the sunglassed flame speeding across the front of the box. I had never actually tried them before even though my mom had bought them over the years. When I was a kid I had declared my own favorite candy—Twix—and insisted she buy me that every time she bought Hot Tamales. And maybe it had become a habit, but I still hadn’t tried them.
I opened the box, poured a handful into my palm, and popped them into my mouth. Ten seconds later I was in the bathroom, scooping water into my mouth. I patted my stinging lips with a towel and dropped the rest of the box in the bathroom trash. It gave a loud clunk as it hit the bottom. Gross.
I wiped my eyes—the heat from the candy producing the first tears of the day, proving my tear ducts were in functioning order. So it was just my heart that wasn’t working right. Shouldn’t I have felt something, anything, out by that truck today? I sighed.
I took a long, extra hot shower, then pulled on some shorts and a tee. My shoulders gave a dull ache, reminding me of my last race. My computer was open on my desk and I stared at it for a moment before I sat down and powered it on. From friends posting online, I had seen a few pictures of the guy in the mask showing up at events before. But I had never cared enough to care. Never really looked into his accounts.
I pulled up a search engine and typed, “fake Heath Hall” into the bar. Pages and pages of hits about the hero spy movies came up along with pictures of Grant James and his sometimes-girlfriend—actress Amanda Roth. I closed out the tab and went to check social media sites for any information on him. I found lots of fake Heath Hall fan accounts, none of them verified and each only boasting a couple thousand followers. After a while I found the account I was looking for and scanned several pages worth of pictures and posts. But I couldn’t find the event map Amelia had been referring to the night before. I shot her off a text: Hey, where did you find the fake Heath Hall appearance map online? I still wasn’t sure how Katie or anyone else was convinced he went to our school and I wanted to see if the map provided any proof.
She didn’t answer back right away. She was probably sleeping. I moved the cursor on the screen to the little envelope icon in the corner, and before I talked myself out of it, I clicked. Once in his DM, I typed a quick message: Is it your goal to distract people to the point of losing? You are messing with futures.
My finger lightly rested on the Send key, but as I read the message through three times, I decided it wasn’t right. I deleted the two sentences. He obviously didn’t care how his antics affected other people. What he really cared about was himself. So instead, I typed: Stay away from the pool or I’ll tell everyone who you really are.
Sure, I had no idea who he really was, but he didn’t know that. I hit Send and went to get myself some breakfast, the taste of Hot Tamales still lingering on the back of my tongue.
The kitchen smelled of bacon, and my mom was dusting the glass box on the wall. She carefully hung Eric’s keys back inside the box, not to be touched again until next year.
In the house, that box framing the keys was the only thing of Eric’s we still had. It could’ve been a lot worse. His room could’ve still been set up just like he had it. Like he was going to walk back into the house at any moment. It wasn’t and I was grateful for that. His room was now my mom’s office. I was grateful for that too—that they hadn’t put me in his room. I already felt enough like the replacement child sometimes.
As these thoughts streamed through my head, I felt guilty for thinking them. My parents loved me. I forced the thoughts away and grabbed my plate of Eric’s favorites.
“I’m going to swim this afternoon. Is that okay or did we have something else planned for today?”
“Coach called for a practice on a Saturday?”
“No. This is just me. No official practice or anything.” My stiff shoulders let me know that I needed to work on conditioning them more. Swimming easy, like DJ had suggested, no pressure.
“You don’t have any homework?”
“I finished it yesterday during free period.”
Her eyes took in my wet hair. “But you just showered.”
“I know. I should’ve waited until after, but I didn’t shower last night.” I wasn’t sure why I didn’t tell her about my shoulders, that I had needed the heat and pounding water to help them feel better. Maybe because I was worried she’d tell me to take a break. I didn’t need a break. She wouldn’t understand that.
She looked at my hair again as if she was going to tell me no just because I’d showered too soon, but then she said, “That’s fine.”
“So I can borrow your car?”
“Sure.”
I checked my phone as I headed out the door. Amelia hadn’t responded to my text and fake Heath Hall hadn’t responded to my message. Guess I was playing the waiting game.
Four
A shadow fell across my face as I turned my head to breathe. I stopped midstroke and looked up. DJ stood over my lane, gave a small wave, then pushed his black-rimmed glasses up his nose. He often wore contacts, but his glasses made his brown eyes look even bigger.
I pulled out my waterproof earbuds and the music that had been blasting in my head became background noise.
“I thought we agreed you were supposed to take a break from this.” DJ said “this” as if swimming was just some sidenote and not my life. “Especially on the weekends. You know there’s an entire ocean with waves and sand and people just five minutes away.”
I glided to the wall, where I could support myself. “People? You want me to people?”
He smirked. “Is that asking too much?”
I smiled back. “That’s not at all what we agreed to. You told me to swim easy. I’m swimming easy.”
“I meant take a break occasionally.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Taking a break?” I gestured back toward his office.
He ducked his head. “I left my book in the office last night.”
“Reading. Is that how you people?”
He shrugged and blushed a little. “Um . . . no . . . Well, I just left off right in the middle of an important part.”
“Because you had to ice my shoulders?”
“How are they feeling?”
“Really good, actually.” And that wasn’t a lie. I was flushing out the lactic acid that had built up the night before.
“Good.” He lowered himself to the cement and his keys fell out of his pocket. He scooped them up and shoved them back in. “You think Coach is going to let you swim all four races?”
“How do you know about that?” That was my goal. Right now I was swimming three, but I wanted to add butterfly to my race schedule and Coach thought it was too much.
“Everyone who is ever around the pool knows about that, Hadley. You ask him on a weekly basis.”
I laughed. It was true. For a second there I thought maybe he and Coach had been talking, maybe he had some inside information.