Every Last Fear: A Novel

by Alex Finlay

  Matt sat up, clicked on the television. At four thirty, it was channel after channel of infomercials and lawyers asking, “Have you been injured in an accident?”

  When he couldn’t take it anymore, he decided to go for a run. Exercise always helped him focus. It slowed down his thoughts, burned off nervous energy. Kept the beast at bay. This early it would also allow him to slip into his dorm before the paparazzi arrived for the morning shift.

  He went into Ganesh’s room. His friend wouldn’t mind if he borrowed some workout clothes. Inside the messy dresser, he fished out a wrinkled Under Armour shirt and pair of shorts. Ganesh was a big guy—he’d gained thirty pounds since freshman year, a by-product of the munchies from all the weed—so Matt was swimming in the clothes. But he didn’t plan on seeing anyone, so they’d do.

  He took the filthy stairwell to the ground floor and jogged under pools of lamplight along Seventh. The pavement felt good under his feet. The clouds had rolled away and the air smelled fresh.

  He picked up his pace when he hit Cooper Square, running on the cracked sidewalks, crossing the street speckled with orange construction cones from the never-ending roadwork. By the time he saw the arch of Washington Square Park, he was saturated in sweat and his thoughts were clearer. He started formulating a plan.

  He’d use the credit card, the one his parents had given him for emergencies—real emergencies, his mother had joked, not pizza emergencies—for the trip to Mexico. Keller said the authorities just needed his signature, and he’d get his family home. He’d call his aunt to discuss the arrangements. Aunt Cindy was a strong personality and would have views. He needed to call her anyway, to check on her and his grandfather. When he got back from Mexico, he’d figure out the house, the cars, the finances, returning to school, Danny.

  He was starting to feel overwhelmed again.

  As he ran, he heard his father’s voice. Before the constant tension, Dad could always talk Matt off the ledge. His father would say, “How do you eat an elephant?” Dad would cup Matt’s chin in his hand, look Matt in the eyes, and answer his own question: “One bite at a time.”

  When Matt was younger, the message got lost in his wandering thoughts. He’d say to his dad, “What kind of person would eat an elephant? How would you cook it? And aren’t elephants an endangered species?”

  His dad would smile, tousle Matt’s hair. “One bite at a time, Matty.”

  Matt jogged through the park. In the dark section, the one students knew to avoid, figures lurked near the shrubs. At this hour, you could find yourself in a scene from 28 Days Later, running from vibrating tweakers or lethargic opioid zombies. He made his way past the chess area, his thoughts jumping to his last game with Reggie. The momentary thrill of winning that game had been stolen from him like everything else.

  In his peripheral vision, he saw a figure. The silhouette of a tall guy in a ball cap. Probably a married guy trolling for an anonymous same-sex liaison, another charming feature of twilight in the park.

  He ran until he saw the light burning in the lobby of his dorm tower. Catching his breath at the crosswalk, he scanned the area and didn’t see any news vans or photographers. Traffic hurtled along, the city awakening.

  “Got a light?” a voice said from behind him.

  Matt turned around. It was the guy in the ball cap. It was pulled down low, shadowing his features. All that was visible was the bottom half of the man’s face. He had a scar that ran from his nostril to his lip, like from cleft lip surgery. He held a cigarette between his fingers.

  “Sorry, I don’t.” Matt said it firmly in the polite don’t fuck with me tone you needed to take with the more aggressive creatures of the park. Matt turned back to the street, waiting for the light as cars flew by.

  That’s when he felt the shove from behind, and plunged into traffic.

  CHAPTER 10

  Matt hit the asphalt hard, hot pain shooting up his hip. But the sensation was dulled by the fear seizing him as he watched the blinding headlights race toward him. Matt’s body went stiff as he braced for impact. The lights went dark, the vehicle swerving and then screeching to a stop. Matt could see only starbursts now, but felt someone clawing at his clothes, roughly patting him down, jabbing a hand in the pocket of his shorts. He started swatting at the blurry figure, and by the time his vision was clear, the man was gone. The door of the cab that had barely missed him flew open and the driver ran over.

  “Are you stupid, boy?” the cabbie said. “I could’ve killed you.”

  Matt apologized, though he wasn’t sure why, since he’d been shoved into traffic. Mugged right in front of the guy, though the assailant had picked the worst victim possible, a college student in borrowed clothes with no wallet, money, or phone. Matt’s eyes darted around, looking for the man in the ball cap. An obese guy scuttled over and offered him a hand up.

  Matt yanked himself to his feet, and the two made their way to the sidewalk. Matt’s side ached from the fall. He watched as the cabbie stormed back to his car amid the cacophony of honking horns.

  Matt turned to thank the man who’d helped him up, when he was assaulted with camera flashes.

  “You mind?” Matt said, realizing the guy was one of the paparazzi.

  “You said you were okay.” He said it like it gave him permission to invade Matt’s space.

  “Did you see who pushed me?” Matt asked.

  “Pushed you?” The paparazzo said it almost with glee. Like the value of the photos had just increased. “I was just gettin’ here. I didn’t see nothing until I heard the commotion. I thought you tripped.” The guy looked up and down the street. “You’re Matt Pine, right?”

  Matt didn’t answer. He started walking toward the lobby of the dorm tower.

  “Someone pushed you?” the guy said, keeping pace. “Who’d wanna do that?”

  Matt kept walking, the pain in his hip and leg from hitting the asphalt intensifying.

  “How are you feeling? Did the Mexicans tell you what happened to your family? Have you spoken with your brother? Do you think this will help with getting Danny a pardon?” the man asked while simultaneously taking shots with his camera.

  Matt wanted to tell the guy off. Punch him in the face. But he just limped to the dorm entrance. Turning his head from the camera, Matt pushed the red intercom button. At last, a guard appeared and buzzed him inside.

  Normally, the guards were unfriendly and sent you to the student center to get a new security card before letting you in. But today the guard just put a hand on Matt’s shoulder.

  “Let’s get you to your room, Matt.”

  The guard must have heard the news. The man quietly escorted Matt to the tenth floor and unlocked the door to his room. Jane was in the entryway. She was bleary-eyed and uncharacteristically disheveled. She flung her arms around him. Matt noticed that the communal area, the small prison cell that passed as the living room, was crowded with friends. The gang from freshman year was on the IKEA couch and beanbag chairs and spots on the floor. Empty beer and wine bottles from the vigil were piled in the recycling bin in the corner.

  Matt had read somewhere that there were no friends like the ones from freshman year, and it was true. They’d all resided in Rubin Hall, known unofficially as the “poor kids’ dorm.” It was a converted hotel from the 1960s. Famous for its squalor and lack of air-conditioning. You only put Rubin on your dorm-selection list if you had to. It was the lowest-cost option for housing, and the university concentrated its scholarship kids there. During the first week of freshman year there was a heat wave, so Matt and the other tenants on his floor had a slumber party in the common area, the only space with air-conditioning. It was there he’d met what became his college family. He cast his eyes around the room.

  Kala stood, looking gorgeous and fashionable even after staying up all night. She was in the Tisch drama school and had come a long way since that first year at Rubin. Back then her hair had been several shades too blond and her trailer park drawl too thick. They
’d been fast friends—a point of contention with Jane—partly because of their love of old television shows and movies, partly because Matt never judged Kala’s rural Oklahoma roots. After all, his family had been run out of small-town Nebraska.

  Kala had been the first to approach Matt after the documentary broke and everyone learned about his secret—his incarcerated brother and disgraced family. Kala confided that her father was in prison. At the time, she hadn’t said for what. But as they became closer, Matt learned it was for abusing Kala’s mother. And Matt sensed the abuse hadn’t stopped with mom.

  Kala hugged him, holding him a long while. She whispered in his ear, “You’ve always been there for me, and I’ll always be there for you. I love you.”

  He felt his eyes filling with tears.

  Woo-jin was there as well. At six seven, he was hard to miss. He crouched over for an awkward hug. Woo-jin was from South Korea and on a basketball scholarship. He was a quiet kid, embarrassed by his heavy accent. When Woo-jin was struggling with classes, Matt had tutored him.

  He next saw Sofia. She was wearing her green military jacket, which suited her militant personality. No cause was too trivial for Sofia. She approached relationships with the same fire and passion. She’d been in love no less than six times freshman year, with Matt talking her down from every breakup. Unsurprisingly, she looked like she’d taken the news the hardest. Her eye makeup was raccooned from tears, her long auburn hair a mess. Sofia’s body shuddered when she hugged him. It caused Matt’s to shudder as well.

  Curtis was next. He was the brains of the group. He’d won the National Spelling Bee at nine, the second Black kid to ever win the competition, the first from the atrocious Mississippi public school system. He had a near perfect SAT score and been offered scholarships from every Ivy. He’d accepted NYU not for academic reasons, but because it was the only school that had a congregation of his small, obscure religious sect nearby. After classes all day, he attended services two hours every other night. He didn’t use alcohol, didn’t take drugs, didn’t swear, and didn’t even drink caffeine. And he’d struggled with the loose ways of NYU. He and Matt had long talks late at night about religion and Curtis’s battles with temptation. Matt had told him that he needed to have faith in his faith.

  “I’m praying for you, my friend,” Curtis said as he pulled him into a hug.

  “I know you are,” Matt said, his voice breaking. “I think I need it.”

  The only one missing was Ganesh. He was always the loner of the group. In his contradictory way, he loved a crowd but kept everyone at a distance.

  Matt surveyed this group of people he loved. On the exterior, each was objectively attractive. He could almost imagine them in a remake of Felicity (a reference only Kala would get), good-looking NYU students out to take on the world. But like life, each was more complicated. Ganesh called their group the “Island of Misfit Toys.” Sofia chided him, since the reference was from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which she thought was racist and homophobic for reasons Matt couldn’t comprehend.

  At last, Matt said to the group, “Thank you for coming. It means a lot.”

  There was a chorus of we’re here for you, whatever you need, and the like.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d love to get a shower and some rest.…”

  The group fumbled around, collecting their things. They had another procession of hugs at the door.

  Jane hung back. After the last mourner departed, she said, “Where have you been? I was worried. I called everywhere, and you weren’t answering your phone and Ganesh ignored my texts and—”

  “I’ll tell you all about it. But I could use a little time to myself.”

  Jane’s face crumpled. “Matt, I would’ve never— If I knew, I wouldn’t have—”

  “I know. It’s okay.” He waited by the door, signaling that she should go. He didn’t want to do this now.

  “It was a mistake,” she said.

  Matt gave a fleeting smile. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Let’s talk.” It was plain she wasn’t leaving.

  Just a day ago he’d been mildly devastated that they were through. But after what had happened, he saw things as they were. Matt and Jane were never going to make it. His Rubin friends were surprised it had lasted a year. Shit, Matt was surprised it had taken Jane so long to realize he was a much bigger project than she’d anticipated. And she’d said some mean things in the end: that he was a mess. That he’d never be anything if he didn’t start focusing. On school. On her. That he needed to see someone about his anger at his father. At his brother. That after he’d pummeled that frat boy, she was afraid of him.

  The worst part was that she’d been right about all of it, and now none of it mattered.

  “Matthew, please, talk to me.”

  She followed him as he went to the bathroom and turned on the shower. She watched as he removed Ganesh’s ridiculously large clothes. He’d seen Jane twice stop herself from asking about the getup. He stepped into the stall and let the hot water beat down on his face. Through the foggy shower door, he saw Jane’s silhouette disappear.

  After toweling himself off, he returned to the room. Jane was sitting on the bed, her mouth downturned.

  “Are you going to talk to me?” she said, watching him throw on some jeans and a T-shirt.

  “I’m not sure what there is to say.”

  He pulled a duffel from under the bed, and began stuffing clothes into the bag. He searched the dresser for the small document pouch, the one his mother had made for him. It held things grown-ups needed—his social security card, passport, birth certificate. It was also where Mom had tucked away the emergency credit card. When the pouch wasn’t in plain view, Matt yanked the drawer from the frame and dumped it on the floor. And there it was, the letter-size, expandable pouch. He scooped it up.

  “What are you— Where are you going?” Jane asked as he stalked to the door.

  “To get my family.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Matt stormed out of the building, Jane calling after him. He pushed past the photographers and hailed a cab to LaGuardia. In the back, he bumped around on the cracked vinyl seat for a long while, staring out at nothing. The closing scene from Michael Clayton. The cab slammed the brakes hard, then swerved around a car that had cut them off, the cabbie cursing out the window.

  If they crashed, Matt realized, few people would really care. Jane would make a show of how upset she was, and sure, the gang from Rubin Hall would get together, tell a few stories, give some toasts to Matt Pine. But he’d soon become an afterthought. Talked about in the larger context of bad luck or family curses or famous tragedies. One Pine wrongfully locked up for murder, four Pines killed in a freak accident while on vacation, and the other one—what was his name?—dead in a car wreck on the way to the airport to claim the bodies of his deceased family members. They’d say seize the day lest you suffer the fate of the Pines.

  Not today, he thought as the cab yanked to a stop outside the airport terminal. Inside, he gave the dour-faced airline worker the confirmation number the FBI agent had given him, and retrieved his ticket. He then found an ATM and breathed a sigh of relief when, after several tries, he remembered the PIN for the emergency credit card: 1010. His parents’ default passcode, October 10, the month and day they’d met in college. Another surge of grief consumed him. Pocketing the five hundred dollars, he then submitted to the torture of modern air travel—long lines, shoes off, no liquids—and soon he was at his gate, the duffel draped over his shoulder.

  Matt sat in the chair of molded plastic for a long while, staring blankly out the large windows onto the tarmac. The planes lifted off and landed in the morning sun. Thousands and thousands of strangers who would never cross paths again, intersecting at this one point in time. Grains of sand at the beach. Ants on a hill. He needed to shake the morbid thoughts.

  By nine thirty, the gate was getting crowded. It was then Matt had the feeling that someone was watching him. He scanned the
crowd—the businessmen yacking on cell phones, the college kids with neck pillows, the rare traveler dressed to the nines amid the sloppy masses—but he didn’t see the culprit. But he had no doubt he was being watched. He knew the feeling.

  He’d refused to participate in the documentary, but he couldn’t escape the family photos and old news footage sprinkled over ten dramatic episodes set against a haunting score heavy on cello and violin. After it aired, people would often give him the Do I know you from somewhere? look. The true believers, the Danny Pine faithful, made the connection, and Matt would have to turn down selfies or apologize that he wasn’t really a hugger. He’d unwillingly become part of a national mystery, a game of Clue where journalists—and internet detectives—came up with elaborate theories and spent an unbelievable amount of time trying to prove whodunit.

  The show had struck a chord. A beautiful young girl disfigured in the most gruesome way. The all-American boy wrongfully accused. A small town painted in the worst kind of light—and, of course, the suspects overlooked.

  The documentary pointed to one in particular, Bobby Ray Hayes. He was in prison for killing several young women. He’d sexually assaulted and murdered the girls, then smashed in their skulls with large rocks. The media uncreatively called him “the Smasher.” Depending on where you were from, you’d call the Hayes clan white trash or hillbillies or rednecks. After the documentary, they were called that and then some. And the youngest in the brood—a shark-eyed menace named Bobby Ray—was straight out of central casting as a creepy killer of women.

  Matt spotted a man in an expensive-looking suit pretending not to look at him. The guy fit the profile. Danny Pine’s “fans” were a decidedly well-heeled crowd, people who couldn’t wrap their heads around a wrongful conviction, oblivious to how often it happened to the poor. Spend a few minutes with Matt’s father, and he’d give you an earful about the 2,852 individuals on the National Registry of Exonerations who’d collectively spent 23,540 years in prison for crimes they did not commit.