They Told Me I Was Everything (The First Quarto Book 1) Page 4

  “How are you?” Theo asked. He glanced at the clock; half-past seven. “You eat?”

  “I ate.”

  “You mind if I grab something?”

  “It’s your house, Theo.”

  So Theo got the loaf of bread from the refrigerator, pasted two slices together with peanut butter, and took a bite. It immediately stuck to the roof of his mouth, which was the sign of a good peanut butter sandwich.

  “Did you use the whole jar?” Cart said.

  Theo shrugged and took another bite. He washed it down—most of it, anyway—with the Blonde.

  “That’s about an inch of peanut butter,” Cart said.

  “What do you want, Cart?”

  “Not a peanut butter sandwich, thanks. I like a really thin layer. I like grape jelly, too. Concord, if you have it.”

  Theo finished the rest of the sandwich, and Cart didn’t say anything else. He rinsed the plate in the sink, stuck the knife and bread in the refrigerator, and brushed the loose crumbs on the counter into the trash can.

  “Jesus,” Cart said, still staring at the refrigerator.

  “I’m going to use the knife again,” Theo said.

  Cart just sighed, popping open the Blonde and settling into a seat at the table.

  “You want to talk about last night,” Theo said.

  Cart sipped the beer, made a face, and took another sip.

  “I was just out for a walk,” Theo said.

  “This is some girly beer, you know.”

  “So that’s it, ok? Just a walk.”

  “Great.”

  “Is that all? It was a long day. A . . . a fucking weird day, actually, right from the first class. And I want to go to bed.”

  “Sit down.”

  “Cart, whatever this is, can we do it another time?”

  “Sit your ass down.”

  Theo took a long pull, killed the Blonde, and crumpled it. He tossed it in the trash. When Cart still hadn’t moved or said anything, Theo sat at the table.

  “If this is about Ian—”

  “You want to tell me about this?” Cart said. He took out his phone, tapped something, and handed it to Theo.

  A video played on the screen: the boy from class, Auggie, behind the wheel of a car screaming, “I fucking hate you,” and then Theo and Auggie arguing in the street, and then someone being dragged off, shouting for help, and then white words on a black background: you just saw a murder.

  “What is this?” Theo said.

  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  The old house creaked; a fat drop of water hanging from the tap finally fell and splatted in the sink. In the front room, the window unit chugged, trying desperately to stir the air.

  “You’re kidding me, right? You think I killed someone?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Cart said. “But I want to know what this is about.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think you know something.”

  “I don’t know, Cart. Jesus.”

  “Ok,” Cart said. “Let’s pretend I didn’t pick you up for public intoxication on Saturday night. Let’s pretend you didn’t lie to my fucking face about that kid driving the car. Let’s pretend none of that happened. Why the fuck did someone post this video and say that you murdered someone?”

  “They didn’t say I murdered someone. They said—”

  “I know what they fucking said,” Cart shouted, slapping the table. “Don’t fucking play that game with me. The person who posted this tagged two people: that dumbass kid and you. Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Theo said. “I don’t even know that kid. That was the first time I saw him, and I’d only seen the other boy once before, and—”

  He heard the admission before he could call it back.

  “Ian would be fucking humiliated right now,” Cart said quietly. “Any other lies you want to get off your chest?”

  Theo dropped his gaze to the table.

  “You knew the other kid? The one you claimed was the driver?”

  “He came to my office. He was supposed to be in my class.” Theo shook his head. “He didn’t even show up, so I figured he’d changed his mind after Saturday.”

  “And you didn’t think this was important?”

  “I didn’t even know about the video. I have this,” Theo said, dragging out the flip phone he kept in his satchel. “Ian made those stupid social media accounts so he could tag me in things. I’ve never even used them. Look, the kid, the driver. He just looked so messed up. It made me think about Luke, all the times I had to pull him out of the same kind of trouble, and I just . . . did something stupid. I know I shouldn’t have lied for him. I know it was stupid.”

  For a moment, it looked like Cart wanted to keep fighting. Then, blowing out a breath, he sat back and took another pull of the Blonde. He said, “So you don’t know anything about this?”

  “I don’t know anything about anything. I was out for a walk. That kid almost hit me. The end.”

  Cart shook his head. “You’re not lying to me again?”

  “I swear to God.”

  “This is weird, Theo.”

  “Am I . . . I don’t know, should I get a lawyer or something?”

  “For this? Come on, Theo. I’m pissed because you lied to me, but this is just somebody dicking around. Some weirdo edited together a few clips and posted an ominous message. It’s not a serious accusation. It’s just weird.” Then Cart blushed, a trace of red in his cheeks. “I follow you, so I get alerts whenever anyone tags you. I saw it, and I got worried.”

  “Why would someone do something like this?”

  Cart shrugged. “Maybe it’s just some shithead trying to stir the pot. Maybe it’s a kid who doesn’t like you. Was there a third person in the car? Who could have filmed you fighting with that kid?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone else.”

  “What was the name of the one who was supposed to add your class?”

  “Do you think he’s dead?”

  “Calm down, Miss Marple. What was his name?”

  Theo dug through the satchel, found his roster, and saw the name scrawled in blue ink at the bottom. “I forgot—he didn’t show up on the printed one, so I had to write his name here.”

  “Is that important?”

  With a shrug, Theo said, “Maybe he had changed his mind and already dropped the class.”

  “It’s probably nothing, but it’s weird. I want to check it out.”

  Theo passed over the roster, and Cart folded and pocketed it. Then he sat there, staring at Theo, his thumb chasing condensation around the rim of the Blonde.

  “I don’t want to get a call to scrape you off the road,” Cart said.

  Face heating, Theo focused on the wall behind Cart. “I told you: it was just a walk. I had a couple of beers and stumbled.”

  Cart let a moment pass and then another. Then he stood and said, “No more late walks, Theo. No more drinking alone. No more mixing shit with your pills. No more stumbling. No more, ok? You find yourself suddenly needing to go for a walk, you find yourself swimming in Bud Lite, you find yourself wobbly and liable to have another accident, you call me. Understand?”

  Theo raised both hands.

  Cart grunted and tossed his can in the trash.

  As Theo walked Cart to the door, he said, “You’re sure I don’t need to worry about that video?”

  “Did you kill someone?”

  “Not yet, but it’s only the first day of classes.”

  “Then I think you’re ok.” Cart stepped out onto the porch. “But I’ll look into it anyway.”

  “Cart, uh. Thanks. I know Ian would really appreciate this. He liked being your partner. He liked you. I know this would mean a lot to him.”

  Cart ran one hand back and forth over the stubble on his scalp. Then, his eyes locked on Theo’s, he said, “I’m not doing it for Ian, dumbass.”

  7

  Damage control for the murder video—as Auggie was now thinking of it—had been surprisingly effective. wroxall_deepthroat hadn’t made any additional posts or comments. Auggie had apologized to his followers for the bad language, explained that it was an early cut that someone had leaked, and spun a story about a Halloween video he was already working on. Reactions ranged from mild reprimands—nobody liked internet Auggie to have a foul mouth—to frustration on his behalf that someone had leaked an early video.

  As soon as the damage to internet Auggie had been contained, Auggie pushed the video from his mind. He didn’t like thinking about what it meant. He didn’t like thinking that someone had been filming him. He didn’t like thinking about the words at the end: you just saw a murder. So he did what he did when his mom and Fer fought, or when his mom and her flavor of the week fought, or when his mom came home wasted, or when his mom came home with a Tinder hookup. He went online.

  On Instagram, Auggie’s feud with Chan was heating up. His ex-girlfriend had been a total bitch ever since she had broken up with him at graduation, but until this morning, she’d limited herself to nasty texts. Now his phone was blowing up with notifications, and it didn’t take him long to find out why: Chan had reposted the video of the so-called murder, and she had tagged him again and added a single comment below: bad boyfriend. psycho. murderer. bye bye.

  After that, shit got real.

  Internet Auggie didn’t get involved in trolling or flame wars. He let his followers do that. Instead of responding to Chan, he cleared a spot near the window, got a picture of himself looking out at campus, his face sad, and the caption: u can love someone, and somehow they still keep hurting u. no h8.

  Chan lost her mind.

  Auggie, now on the bed, sq
uirmed to find a more comfortable spot against the pile of pillows. It was late Friday morning, the end of the first week of classes, and Shakespeare in the World had been canceled today. Orlando had left already, which meant Auggie had a few solid hours by himself to watch that bitch get eviscerated on social media. Messages kept rolling in on his own post:

  ur perfect, don’t listen to that cunt

  ur so sweeeeeeeet

  i luv u A, don’t ever change

  He scrolled through the messages a few times; he felt loose, relaxed, a hot pool of satisfaction in his belly. On his laptop, he pulled up an episode of Community, the one with the trampoline, and he half watched while keeping an eye on the shitstorm. Chan was going berserk, and Auggie’s followers were coming back at her even harder. He wished he had popcorn.

  The knock at the door startled him.

  A couple of the guys on the floor had come by for autographs, and a lot more of the girls on the floor above. Auggie paused the video, arranged his face in an expression of sadness, and opened the door.

  The guy standing in the hall was ancient. He had to be in his fifties at least, and he was short and squirrelly, wearing a summer suit shiny at the cuffs and knees. Two features dominated his face: an enormous gray mustache, and equally enormous glasses in yellow plastic frames.

  “Yeah?” Auggie said.

  The blow wasn’t a punch. It was a slap, but the combination of physical violence and surprise made Auggie stumble back. The man followed him into the room, kicking the door shut and setting the lock, and then he kept coming, hitting Auggie again, another slap, and then another, and then he knocked the phone out of Auggie’s hand.

  Auggie shouted something, he didn’t know what, and took a swing.

  The guy stepped back, pulled back his jacket, and put his hand on a gun.

  “Think really carefully about what happens next, kid.”

  Breathing hard, Auggie tried to process. His brain kept skipping, though, and all he could input was the flurry of blows, his phone, the gun.

  “Sit down,” the man said.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Sit down, or I’ll break your nose.”

  Auggie’s eyes were locked on the gun. The guy’s hand was steady on it. He looked really comfortable with that gun. After another heartbeat, Auggie sat.

  “See? We’re already off to a great start. Don’t ruin it.” The man bent and grabbed Auggie’s phone; Instagram was still open, and he scrolled through the feed, one eye still on Auggie. “Hey, look at all these likes. I get five likes, tops. I post a picture of a hamburger, my mom likes it, that’s about it. How’d you get so good?”

  Auggie’s cheek was starting to sting; he touched his face, checked his fingers, and saw no blood. “What do you want? I don’t have any money. My laptop’s right there, and you’ve already got my phone.”

  “I want Robert,” the guy said. He waggled the phone at Auggie. “You know, your buddy from Saturday.”

  Auggie stared for what felt like a full minute. “What?”

  “Where’s Robert?”

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  The guy, whom Auggie had started to think of as Glasses, tossed the phone on the bed, and Auggie reached for it. That was a mistake. As soon as he shifted his position, Glasses moved in, grabbed Auggie’s shirt, and punched him once, hard, in the mouth. It wasn’t a slap like earlier; it wasn’t even like the angry, wild punches from Theo on Saturday. This was meant to deliver maximum impact and cause maximum damage. Auggie’s head rocked back, the crown clipping the cement blocks behind him. Blood washed his teeth, his tongue, filling his mouth.

  “That was the turning point,” Glasses said. He was breathing harder now. “Did you feel it?”

  Auggie swallowed blood. His hand crept across the mattress toward the phone.

  “You are goddamn determined to do something stupid, aren’t you?” Glasses said. “Where’s Robert? The next time, it won’t be my hand. You ever been pistol whipped? It does a lot more damage.”

  “I don’t know him. We met at that stupid party, and I was drunk, and we took that car. That’s it. When I wrecked the car, he ran off.” The car, Auggie thought. This had to be about the car. That was the only thing that made sense. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about the car. I’ll figure out a way to pay you back, I swear to God. He told me it was his car. That’s what he told me. He said it was his. I swear.”

  Glasses reached for his gun.

  “Jesus Christ,” Auggie shouted, trying to pry Glasses’s hand off him. “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know him. I don’t know anything about him.”

  “They can do pretty good things with knees these days,” Glasses said, drawing the pistol, settling the muzzle against Auggie’s kneecap. “Replacements, I mean. Pretty amazing stuff. You’ll definitely walk again. You’ll probably walk without a cane. But you’re not going to be playing frisbee on the quad, you know.”

  “Please!” Auggie didn’t even recognize his own voice. “I’m trying to tell you, I’m trying.”

  “The video,” Glasses said.

  “The video,” Auggie repeated.

  “The fucking video with Robert getting dragged off. Talk about that.”

  Auggie blinked. “That was . . . that was Robert?”

  “Fuck this,” Glasses said.

  “No, I swear to God, I don’t know. I don’t even know who filmed it. I thought it was just a prank. I thought it was a bad joke. Oh, shit. Shit, man. Please do not do this.”

  For a moment, Glasses’s expression was blank. Auggie’s panic had a kind of wild clarity to it. This guy looked like an accountant or a mortgage broker. He looked like he pushed pencils for a living. But the muzzle of the pistol was cold and heavy and real on Auggie’s knee.

  “I can find him,” Auggie said. “I can find Robert. Or I can find who posted that video, I mean, and you can . . . you can ask them what happened to Robert. That’s the only thing that makes sense, you know? That’s the only thing you can do. You can talk to them, I can find them, and you can talk to them, and you—”

  “Shut up.”

  Auggie shut up. Sweat ran down his back. His head was starting to ache where he’d hit the wall, and the punch had reopened the split lip Theo had given him. Blood was cooling on his chin.

  “August,” Glasses said, holstering the pistol. “I’m going to be honest. You seem like one dumb shit. I don’t think you can do this. But I’m going to give you a chance. How’s that sound?”

  “Thank you. Yes. I will find him. Thank you so much.”

  “I want to make sure you understand something, August. Are you listening to me?”

  Auggie nodded. The taste of blood was making him sick now; he was worried he might puke.

  “August, if you go to the police about this, I will find you, and I will kill you. Do you understand what I just said?”

  Auggie nodded.

  “Say it.”

  “I understand.”

  “What am I going to do if you go to the police?”

  “You’re going to kill me.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  Auggie couldn’t help it; tears burned the corners of his eyes.

  “Say it,” Glasses said.

  “I believe you.”

  “Good. I’m going to leave now. And you’re probably going to start having some crazy ideas. You’re going to think that the police can keep you safe, or you can run away, or you can ask your family to bail you out, or something really stupid. When that happens, I need you to remember something: I walked right in here without anybody looking at me twice, and I could have killed you and walked away, and nobody would have said boo. I’ll check in with you soon. Please be smart about this, August.” Glasses suddenly smiled, exposing yellowing, uneven teeth. “You’ve got a bright future ahead of you.”

  Then he left, shutting the door behind him.

  As soon as the door clicked shut, Auggie grabbed the phone. Then he stared at it. He opened the phone app. He closed it. He opened Facebook. He closed it. He opened Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat. A hundred thousand followers, and nobody he could ask for help.

  For a moment, he considered his family. He thought about Fer, who would be busy with work. He thought about Chuy, who would be busy with whatever fuckup he’d gotten himself into now. He thought about his mom, who was on a cruise with Nicholas, the current boyfriend. He could already hear her, hear the mixture of disappointment and exhaustion, as she explained that her youngest was making a scene again.