Читать книгу Someday - Дэвид Левитан, Рэйчел Кон, David Levithan - Страница 13

NATHAN

It’s not that we hit dead ends. There aren’t even roads to turn onto.

I can tell Rhiannon’s boyfriend, Alexander, is a little confused by my sudden presence in her life. He can’t put his finger on what connects us . . . and who can blame him for that? She told him we met at a party—technically true. But there’s no way to tell him the reason I’m so attentive isn’t because I want to sleep with her or date her. I’m attentive because she’s the only one besides me who knows the most unknowable thing about my life.

A lot of the couples in my school are glued together emotionally, but Alexander is all about them having their own lives—which is great for me, because it means he doesn’t get all weird when he comes over and finds me and Rhiannon on her computer, searching the Internet for news of body snatchings.

“Watching more Lorraine Hines videos?” he asks. This is a pretty good guess, since it feels like everyone’s been watching them lately.

“Just searching for the elusive truth,” Rhiannon replies. Which could be taken to mean we were trying to get the elusive truth from a Lorraine Hines video. But I know A’s location is the real truth that eludes her.

I don’t know how Rhiannon does it. It’s clear that she likes Alexander. It’s clear that he treats her well, and that Rhiannon is still getting used to the thought of being treated well. I also notice that she never lies to him, if only because he doesn’t know the right questions to ask. And even if he did, even if she told him everything . . . the strange part is that he might actually believe her. Us. But I can see how it’s easier not to risk that.

We search and search the Internet for some trace of A. We read about other people’s experiences of being taken over, and wonder whether they’re like us, or whether they’re just crackpots, making it up in a way we’re not making it up.

Finally I ask her the question that’s been nagging at me the most. We’re in her room, looking at the same “strange phenomena” websites for the twelfth time.

“We’re looking for a sign of him, right?” I say.

Rhiannon nods.

I press on. “What about leaving him a sign? Why not let him know you’re looking?”

“How?” she says. She sounds defensive.

“There’s this thing called social media? And you have a pretty distinctive name?”

“What am I supposed to say? Status update: Missing you, A. Alexander will see that and say, Hey, babe, I’m right here. ”

“He wouldn’t actually say babe, would he? Ew.”

“No. But anything I post, everyone sees. Not just A.”

“You don’t need to write him a message. Just give him a sign.”

“Like what?”

I think about it for a second. “Do you guys have, like, a song?”

She looks at me strangely.

“What?” I ask.

She shakes her head slightly. “Nothing. I mean, it’s just that—you were there for it. When A and I talked about it, A was you. In your body. It’s stupid, really. Just a song.”

“What’s the song?”

She tells me the name of the song, and I feel the echo of a memory—that’s the only way I can describe it. I don’t actually remember talking to her about the song. But the fact that she and I talked about it once makes sense to me.

“Watch,” I say.

I go on YouTube and find the video for the song. Then I copy and paste the link into her status box. In front of it, I type: Listening to this on repeat.

“Okay,” Rhiannon says. I hit return. Then I go back to YouTube and type I miss into the search box. Among other things, I get an old Johnny Cash song, “I Still Miss Someone.” I copy the link for that, then go to the comments section under the original song, type This one, too, and add the link.

“Not very subtle,” Rhiannon tells me.

“Maybe to you. And to me. And to A. To everyone else—totally subtle.”

I hit return.