by Val Emmich
He stares into my eyes. It drives me nuts.
“What?” I say.
“Nothing.”
“It’s never nothing.”
“I was just thinking,” he says, voice low, barely pushing. “You’re the first girl who’s ever been inside my house.”
My chest squeezes. “Stop.”
“It’s true,” Mac says.
We sway as in a dream.
He gazes at me. “You seemed worthy.”
So kind, but it breaks me in half—a sweet thing to say, a terrible thing to hear. The guilt it brings overruns my heart. I watch the beautiful dream we’re suspended in scatter away.
I so badly want to hold on to Mac tighter, but I slip out from his grasp. I can’t—I can’t do this anymore.
You wish you could say Nightshade quits targeting people because of a change of heart. That you wake up one day and listen to your conscience. It doesn’t happen that way.
You’re eating lunch, seated at your normal table with Isla and Brooke, plus a few others. Isla is complaining about something, per usual. Brooke is humoring Isla, per usual. You’re tuned out, per lately. Or just tuned in to what’s going on at other tables. These days, everything you observe is a potential post. There’s a beast to feed.
Exiting the cafeteria, there’s talk of meeting up after school at the basketball game. No one invites you personally. They just assume you wouldn’t come. Which bothers you. Even if it’s true, you deserve an invite. To be fair, though, probably no one got a personal invite. It was a vague collective decision. Still.
Afterward, you wait alone for Neel at the archway. You always walk to chemistry together. Today, he barely slows down when he sees you. As if he intends to keep on walking. Moving alongside him now, you inquire about his mood with a simple Hello?
I knew it sounded familiar, Neel says.
Okay. And what are we talking about again?
He who shall not be named. Or she, rather.
Sorry. I’m totally lost, you say.
He finally looks at you. I guess you don’t remember complaining to me about Ms. Baker and the whole poison thing. And yet clearly you didn’t forget what I said about Ezra.
You search for the right words. You mean, what Nightshade posted? Yeah, I read that.
You read that? Or you wrote it?
You stop still. So does Neel. It’s happened—you’ve been caught.
He leans in. A Mexican cartel? For real? I said it as a joke, obviously. Why would you post that?
Staring at the floor. I don’t know.
So you’re not denying it. Nightshade is really you.
You look up with just your eyes. Your chin remains low.
I’m sorry, you say.
People weave around your huddle on their way to class. Neel keeps his voice down when he asks you very earnestly, What the fuck?
To that there are many answers. You offer them all. Apologies. Rationalizations. Excuses. Maybe you momentarily forgot where you heard that rumor about Ezra. Or maybe deep down you wanted to be found out.
One thing is certain: Your time as an anonymous troll is officially over. That’s it. Nightshade is done. Neel has woken you up from whatever fever dream you were in. Your sense of guilt is immense.
Except…
Except people keep messaging you. They won’t stop. They confide in you. Trust you. Share their darkest selves with you. You no longer post their complaints or respond to them, but that doesn’t discourage them from writing to you. They don’t seem to care. They just want to vent, and you’re their best option—a mystery with no face or judgment. You thought you were their voice, but really, you’re their ear. You listen to them. You absorb their pain.
A caught B cheating on her; and C feels like the lead role in the school play was given to D because she’s the biggest suck-up and not the most deserving; and E is tired of writing papers for ungrateful F; and G is fed up with her own sister, H, who never passes up a chance to belittle her; and J lost her baby before she realized she was pregnant; and when K came out to his parents, they started having him do horse therapy.
You know your classmates better than you’ve ever known them. Better than they even know one another. Somehow you’ve found yourself at the very center of everything—the eyes of god.
Every night you try and fail to delete the Nightshade account. As shameful as it is, it’s also an achievement. Out of darkness and pain, you created something new that actually matters to people. That wasn’t easy to do.
And neither is destroying it.
12:26 PM
I checked my phone while I waited for Neel to come out of the restroom. After driving for coffees, Mom and I stopped at the mall, where Neel and his sister already happened to be (and where they could be found on most Saturdays). I left Mom to shop alone so I could meet up with Neel by the food court.
As I looked down, a pair of basketball sneakers that had never once been used to play basketball appeared. Neel immediately started talking about the project we were supposed to be working on together for the inventors fair.
“I did some research,” Neel said. “That glass screen you’re touching, it’s capacitive. Basically, it conducts electricity every time you put your fingers on it.”
I was only half listening, more interested in what was on my phone’s screen than how it worked.
“And when the screen responds to how you touch it, that’s called haptic feedback. Which is exactly what your idea is about, just with a lot of steps in between. It’s definitely possible. Just a matter of the technology. Are you smiling right now because of what I’m saying or something else?”
I was reading a message and didn’t realize I was smiling. I lied and told Neel that it was due to his brilliance.
“Tegan.”
I looked up.
“What are you doing?”
He said it like he already knew the answer. Like it offended his lighthearted ethos to have to acknowledge something so serious.
“Nothing,” I told him, nervous laughter trickling out.
He wasn’t buying it.
“Sorry,” I said, putting my phone away. “I can’t share the details. Patient confidentiality.”
His smooth face hardened. “You’re not a doctor. You’re a gossip junkie.”
“It’s not gossip. These people are dealing with real stuff, just like us.”
“Really? Then why were you smiling?”
I yanked a loose thread from my sweatshirt. Instead of ripping, it pulled indefinitely.
“Come on, Tegan. You said you were going to shut it down.”
“I am,” I said. “I will.”
He looked at me for an uncomfortable amount of time. “What?” I said.
“You’ve gone completely fucking crazy.”
He walked away, his sneakers squishing.
I followed behind slowly, speaking to his back. “What’s your problem?”
He only snorted.
“I’m not doing anything wrong. I don’t post anymore. You know that. I’m just…”
He turned. “You’re what?”
I averted my eyes. The two of us had been through so much together in just a few short years. Grief and broken Beats and Amma’s biryani and the entire Avengers series. He knew all there was to know about me. But this part—the ugliest truth—I didn’t know how to discuss.
“I have to go,” Neel said.
“Stop it. You don’t have to go.”
“I do. I have plans.”
“With who?”
Now Neel was the one averting his eyes.
“Ezra?” I guessed.
This time his silence was as good as an answer. I couldn’t help but notice he was hanging out with Ezra more than usual ever since I’d posted about Ezra on Nightshade. I knew I deserved to be punished for what I’d done. But being abandoned in the middle of such a serious conversation? And for what? I knew what the two of them were meeting up to do.
“Maybe you should try smok
ing less,” I said.
“Maybe you should try smoking more,” Neel countered. “Might mellow you out a little.”
“Oh yeah, Mr. Mellow over here.”
“Weed is basically legal, for one.”
“Right, I’m sure that would make your parents feel so much better if they found out.”
He seemed truly hurt. “Is that a threat?”
“No! Who do you think I am? I’m joking around.”
Neel shook his head. “There’s a difference between joking around and just being plain mean.”
“I’m not trying to be ‘mean’ to you, dude.”
“Fine. Maybe not to me.”
I was left to wonder what those last words meant as his sister appeared and forced us to change the subject. I wondered about them in the car with Mom on our way home. I wondered about them alone in my bedroom as daylight faded and the snow began to fall. I wonder about them still.
1:52 AM
Standing in front of Mac as the ballad ends, I ask, “Can you do me a favor?”
“Maybe.”
“Can you go into the closet?”
I’ve baffled him for the hundredth time.
“I’m serious. Go into the closet, please.”
He’s truly at a loss.
I tell him as much as I can. “I have to make a phone call and I don’t want you to hear it.”
“Can’t I just go into the bathroom?”
“No, because you can hear practically everything in that bathroom. The person I’m calling is… my mom.”
He looks at me, then at the closet behind him, then back at me.
I make him a promise: “Just for a few minutes.”
He heads for the closet. It appears dark and claustrophobic inside. He slides in between the loud furnace and a stepladder. The broom we used to clean the floor is propped up in the corner.
“Smells great in here,” Mac says.
I shut the door on him. In the front room, I raise the volume of the new song that’s begun and punch in Neel’s number on the museum phone.
“Hello?” Neel answers groggily.
Thomas Edison is the one who cemented that particular phone greeting. Alexander Graham Bell preferred ahoy as the standardized conversation starter, but Edison’s choice won out. If I was calling Neel from my own phone, there would be no need for hello or what’s up or hey—he’d just start talking. I’m relieved that he even answered.
“It’s me,” I say.
“Tegan?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“I have to.”
“Where are you?” Neel says, awake now. “Your mom keeps calling. She’s really worried. I think she might have called the police.”
The police? This has gone way too far. If Mac hadn’t arrived tonight, I would have been home hours ago and it wouldn’t have come to this.
“I’ll call my mom and tell her I’m okay. I will. But first… I just wanted to talk to you.”
Our conversation this afternoon might as well have been a year ago. Neel was right to call me out. I just wasn’t ready to hear it.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know you were only trying to help before. You were being a good friend, and I haven’t been a good friend back. I’ve been really shitty, actually.”
“It’s all good,” Neel says, as if he’s not quite getting it, and not because it’s two in the morning, either. His concerns are elsewhere. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I say, and then I’m not so sure. “Actually, no. I’m not okay. I don’t know what to do.”
“About what?”
“About the way I am. Help me. Please. Help me be a better person. How do I do that?”
I hear rustling over the line. I imagine Neel placing a finger to his touch-sensor lamp, sitting up in his too-shiny boxers, removing his mouth guard. Or maybe he just needs time to outsmart the trap he believes I’ve laid for him.
But I assure him, “I won’t be mad. I promise. No matter what you say. Just tell me.”
“Stop being a victim,” Neel says.
Like yanking a wax strip off my scalp. It’s hard to fight the urge to get defensive here. I feel entitled to a rebuttal, but I promised no retribution. I swallow my pride and simply say, “Explain.”
“Well,” Neel says, sounding taken aback by my civility. “For one thing, all those messages people keep sending you, they’re not helping. I’m serious. It’s messing with you. You don’t see it, but everyone else does, even if they don’t actually know what’s happening. You’ve become this closed-off shell around people. Even Isla said something to me about it, and you know I’m not Isla’s favorite person. This isn’t you, Tegan. It’s not how you really are. If you have something to say, you say it. If you disagree, you tell me. You don’t back down. You’re not scared. You’re not shy. Why do you think I started hanging out with Ezra to begin with?”
“Why?”
“Because of you,” Neel says. “After Avi died, I guess I couldn’t allow myself to have a friend like that. I didn’t even realize it until you pointed it out—that basically everyone in my life is a girl.”
How quickly reality can combust and reform into a new shape. I feel terrible for guilt-tripping him for spending time with someone other than me. “But why Ezra?”
“Stop. He’s a good dude. And we don’t just smoke together, by the way.”
“Sex?”
That gets a laugh. Suddenly I feel a sense of pride about Neel’s friendship with Ezra. That was my doing.
“The point is,” Neel says, “you’re not Nightshade. You’re the opposite of that. You need to get that out of your life.”
The original meaning behind my alias suddenly becomes obvious again: It’s poison.
“Look, Finley Wooten is the worst. Fuck her. That’s one person’s dumb opinion, and you can’t just decide everyone else feels the same way about you, because they don’t.”
I take a moment to really hear him. Sometimes, as wise as Neel is, I have to ignore his advice—not because I don’t agree with it, but because I’m not strong enough to do what’s right.
“It’s not that easy,” I say.
“Obviously,” Neel says, and the way he says it drives home the point that I’m not the only one who feels like a target sometimes. Sometimes, not all the time. Maybe recognizing that distinction is the difference between living like a victim and just living. Neel manages the latter, and maybe I confuse his lack of complaining with his not being affected. If I’ve learned anything tonight, it’s that pain is hiding everywhere.
I don’t know why it’s taken so long, but finally, in this moment, any lingering satisfaction I’ve felt from keeping Nightshade open is gone. I’m so ready to be done with it.
“You’re right,” I say.
“I don’t know if I am, but you asked.”
I did. And he answered. I’ll give him this: He’s consistent. Neel has been repeating the same theme to me since the very beginning. He’s always tried to get me to be more comfortable in my own skin.
He returns to his original question. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the museum.”
“You are? Your mom said Charlie already checked there.”
He did? Charlie must have come here when Mac and I were at his house. It feels like there’s some divine force that’s brought Mac and me together tonight and ensured that we remain that way.
“What are you doing there?” Neel says.
“I’m with someone.”
“Who?”
I can’t believe I’m saying this. “Mac Durant.”
Stunned silence. “I don’t get it.”
I touch the screen of Mac’s phone, still plugged into the wall charger. “I know. I’ll explain tomorrow.”
I look out the window. The wind is furious, forcing trees into unnatural poses. Snow shoots upward and sideways.
A white SUV passes. Through the chaotic weather, I spot an emblem on the side. The truck d
rives at an attentive speed and then stops.
“I have to go.”
I hang up and crouch low. Poking my head up, I stop the music. I crawl to the back room and join Mac in the closet. I pull the door closed and take cover in the darkness.
“Um,” Mac says. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“I guess your phone call went well.”
“The police are here,” I say.
We turn quiet. It’s the quiet before the end.
“Are you serious?” Mac says.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I just did.”
“Not fast enough. Nowhere near fast enough.”
“Please shut up.”
“You have to start with that. ‘Hey, we have an emergency situation. The police are here.’”
“Please!”
A thump at the door.
“That was the wind,” Mac says.
“Are you sure?”
“Sounded like it to me.”
We listen, trying to decipher every rustle and murmur.
“Where’d you see them?” Mac says.
“The car drove by and then stopped.”
“Did anyone get out of the car?”
“I don’t know.”
I keep my eyes shut even though I’m blind already.
“You’re sure it was a police car?” Mac says.
“It was a truck. An SUV. It was white, so it was hard to see in the snow.”
“Shit. Do you think it’s about the 911 call we made?” Mac wonders.
“No. I’m pretty sure my mom called them.”
“Didn’t you just speak to her? I thought you called to tell her you’re okay.”
The heater hums behind us.
“Tegan,” he says, waiting for an answer.
Even in my hiding spot, I can’t hide. “I didn’t end up calling her. I wrote her an email instead. I saw that she had emailed me, and I emailed her back, saying everything is fine and I’ll be home soon.”
