The Chaos of Standing Still

by Jessica Brody

  Lottie smiled a clumsy, crooked smile, making her look like a china doll whose lips had been painted on with an unsteady hand. “You’re a good friend. I don’t deserve you.”

  I reached out and squeezed her fingers, noticing how cold and clammy they felt. “Of course you do. You deserve everything, Lottie.”

  As we made our way back through the airport, I let the word linger on my tongue, feeling its shape, its weight, its significance, before pushing it out again into the world with a single burdened breath. “Everything.”

  I abruptly stop walking. Siri, still attached to my arm, is yanked backward. She turns to shoot me a scowl, but I don’t even acknowledge her. My gaze is too focused on the flight attendant and her married companion.

  Maybe they’re married to each other, I think. It’s Rational Ryn, trying to rein me in before I even get started.

  But I’m trapped inside an airport, twelve hundred miles from my house, thirteen hours away from reexperiencing the worst moment of my life.

  Rational Ryn has no place here.

  “A flight attendant’s life is so glamorous! Think of all the exotic places you get to go. And the people you meet. You could have a boy in every port!”

  My breathing grows shallow. I can’t seem to keep oxygen in my lungs. I start to feel light-headed as the realization washes over me.

  She knew.

  About her father. About the flight attendant. About everything.

  “Helloooo! Mopey Girl! What. Are. You. Staring. At?”

  A hand blurs across my vision, blocking my view of the adulterous couple in the café.

  I blink again and tear my gaze away from them. Siri is standing next to me, looking annoyed. Does she have any other expressions?

  “Sorry,” I mutter. “I just . . . I thought I knew them.”

  “Who? The slutty flight attendant and the two-timing husband?”

  My mouth falls open. “How do you know that?”

  She brushes this off with a flick of her fingers. “Please. I see those two around here all the time.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. They’re always coming to the Hub to eat. She flies through here at least once a week. I’m pretty sure he’s local and just comes to the airport to meet her.”

  My mind is reeling. Images flicker through my brain faster than I can keep up.

  Lottie. And a black sedan. And tiny liquor bottles. And the tree house.

  “A flight attendant’s life is so glamorous. You could have a boy in every port!”

  “But . . .” I ask. My voice is trembling so badly, I’m barely able to form coherent words. “H-h-how does he get through security if he’s not flying anywhere?”

  Siri shrugs. “Beats me. I always assumed he just bought a ticket. You know, a paper trail so the wife doesn’t get suspicious.”

  “And then he just goes home?”

  “Well, not right away.” Siri raises her eyebrows scandalously. “There is a hotel attached to the airport.”

  I want to hold my hands over my ears in an attempt to block out her words, but it’s too late. They’re already lodged inside my brain. Rattling around like ghosts with iron chains.

  How did you know, Lottie?

  I thought I’d kept it from you.

  I tried to keep it from you.

  I tried to protect you!

  How did you find out?

  There is no response. The Lottie in my head is stoically silent.

  Of course she is. She’s not real. She’s a figment of my imagination. A cryogenically frozen version of my best friend, trapped in time in my own head. She can’t discover new things. She can’t have epiphanies. She can’t grow up.

  She’ll never grow up.

  She’ll be seventeen and foolish forever. Thinking that nothing scares her. Thinking that stealing a tube of lip gloss is the answer to all of life’s problems.

  But what if the Lottie that I’ve been living with for the past year is a lie?

  What if she knew things—understood things—that she never told me?

  What if the real Lottie was a puzzle that I never got to finish? I thought I had the full picture, but there were actually pieces missing. Important pieces. Large chunks of sky and bridges that don’t connect.

  “This is depressing,” Siri’s voice smashes into my thoughts, and I blink, dabbing at my eyes. I expect to find moisture underneath, but my fingers come back dry.

  Because I can’t cry.

  Because I’m broken.

  Because, according to Dr. Judy, I don’t know how to grieve.

  Because I’m failing at everything.

  Including losing my best friend.

  83. I blame Stanford University for giving Dr. Judy a degree.

  84. I blame Siri for stealing my phone.

  85. I blame Lottie for driving through an intersection on a green light.

  86. I blame—

  Siri loops her arm through mine again and starts to lead me away. “Let’s go. We have more people to recruit.”

  This time, I leave willingly.

  Tiny Bottles

  Siri has circled the first and second floor of the main concourse building twice, assembling her New Year’s party team. I’ve managed to amass one troop of my own, and that’s Troy. I follow behind Siri, and he follows behind me, like some lame excuse for a processional.

  I notice the mayhem has started to die down. The concourse is emptying. Where these people are all going, I have no idea. Perhaps to those blankets and meals that Claudia promised in her announcement.

  The airport is vibrating on a different frequency now. The air no longer feels panicked and frenetic. It feels resigned. Everyone has accepted their fate. Everyone has hunkered down for the night.

  Well, everyone except me.

  Siri is still holding my precious phone hostage, which means she’s holding me hostage too.

  Siri’s next (and I pray final) stop in her party planning mission takes us to the airport’s interfaith chapel. I didn’t even know airports had interfaith chapels.

  “It used to just be called a chapel, but the Jews complained that was too Jesus-ish,” Siri explains as she pokes her head into the small room, checking to make sure it’s empty. “So they changed the name to ‘spiritual center,’ but the Bible-bangers thought that sounded too hippie.”

  Satisfied that no one appears to be inside, Siri steps through the doorway and I follow after her.

  The room is long and narrow with three rows of chairs all pointed to a vague, nondenominational shrine in the front of the room, lined with various scripture books of different faiths.

  “They finally settled on ‘interfaith chapel,’ until the Muslims complained that there were too many chairs and no room to pray on the floor.” Siri points to the door we just came through. “So they built an Islamic masjid next door.”

  She walks purposefully to a small supply cabinet, yanks open the door, and pulls out a handful of long, tapered candles that she stuffs into my backpack.

  “Hey,” I protest. “You can’t take those. This is a house of worship.”

  “Actually, it’s a room with chairs. I can take them.” She zips me up. “Let’s go.”

  We leave the chapel and head to a different set of escalators. These are located across from the bridge that leads back to the A gates. Just as I’m about to step on, out of the corner of my eye, I spot Xander.

  He’s huddled against a window, speaking tensely but softly into his phone while blocking his mouth with a cupped hand.

  My heart unexpectedly lightens as my mind races through the implications.

  He’s still here.

  He didn’t leave.

  Irrational Ryn didn’t send him packing for the hills . . . or the A gates, as it were.

  For a brief moment I consider going over there. For an even briefer moment I consider apologizing. But those moments pass just as quickly as they came, and I turn back to Siri, who is already halfway down the escalator. That’s when I hear Xand
er’s voice, rising dramatically and echoing off the wall of the emptying concourse building.

  “Will you shut up for one second and listen to me, Claire?” he bellows, the easy, laid-back quality of his voice gone. He’s at the end of his rope. That bottomless well of patience he seems to have is draining.

  “I’m telling you, I didn’t say a word to anyone! I swear.” He pauses, listening. “I have no idea how they found out!”

  Another pause. Xander’s whole body clenches like he’s a sponge trying desperately to hold on to those few remaining drops of patience. “I’m getting there as fast as I can. You can blame a lot of things on me, but you can’t blame me for a snowstorm.”

  I suddenly have a burning desire to know who he’s talking to. His parents? A relative? A girlfriend?

  The last option makes my stomach drop to my knees.

  Of course he would have a girlfriend.

  Strangely, it’s the first time I’ve even thought about it.

  Lottie would have figured that out hours ago. Lottie would have found a sly way to sneak the question into the conversation. Lottie wouldn’t be standing here like an idiot, eavesdropping on what is clearly some kind of lovers’ quarrel.

  Lottie wouldn’t use the term “lovers’ quarrel.”

  “Who’s that?” Troy asks. He must have stopped when I stopped. Except he’s not even looking at me, he’s still staring down at his phone, presumably searching for more evidence to prove or disprove the Denver airport conspiracy.

  I blink out of my trance and focus on him. “He’s . . . he’s . . .” But I suddenly realize I have no idea who Xander is. He’s not really a friend. I’ve known him for only a few hours. But he’s more than just an acquaintance. How much do I really even know about this guy? Hardly anything.

  I return my gaze to Xander, huddled in the corner, and think back to the book I saw in the bookstore. The picture of Dr. Max Hale and Dr. Marcia Livingston-Hale with their well dressed, bright eyed son on the back. I know that’s not the Xander I met in the airport today. The person in that picture looked nothing like the guy in the Muppet shirt standing only ten feet away.

  It strikes me then that something is off about this whole situation. About how desperate he was for me not to see that book. About the way he’s reacted every time I’ve brought up his parents. About the tense hunch of his shoulders right now as he practically curls around his phone.

  It occurs to me that Xander might be hiding someone too. An irrational twin bound, gagged, and stuffed in a closet.

  I peer back at Troy. He’s scrolling through some Web page on his phone. Without hesitation I snatch the phone right out of his grasp.

  “Hey!” he shouts, trying to steal it back, but he’s small for his age, and I hold it high, out of his reach. “Give that back.”

  “In a minute,” I say as I attempt to type above my head.

  Troy jumps, trying to knock the phone out of my hand. “I’m going to call the authorities,” he threatens.

  “Good,” I say confidently. “Then I’ll be able to tell them that I’m not really your sister and you’re an unaccompanied minor without a chaperone.”

  He stops jumping.

  I flash him a smug smile. “I just have to ask Google one thing.”

  With a harrumph, he crosses his arms and, like the rest of the stranded passengers in this airport, reluctantly resigns to his fate.

  I lower the phone and type in my first query in almost an hour.

  Who is Xander Hale?

  The last party I went to was with Lottie. Three months before she died. It was at Poker Guy’s house. I’d resorted to calling him Poker Guy, because I didn’t want to remember his name. Giving him a name made him real. Giving him a name gave him longevity.

  I wanted him to be the shortest of any of Lottie’s phases.

  I didn’t want to go. The idea of hanging out with a skeevy poker player and all of his skeevy friends was not my idea of a good time. But I didn’t want Lottie to go alone, either.

  I assumed the guy was dangerous. I felt it was a safe assumption given the conditions under which they met. Underground poker games in the bowels of downtown Portland are typically not where great romances are made. I had flashes of the police finding Lottie’s body washed up on the shore of the Columbia River three days from now.

  In the end, it turned out to be an innocent trip to the mall that killed her. Not a skeevy poker player.

  Irony can make you feel like such an idiot sometimes.

  The party was nothing like I expected. The house was actually nice. In a suburb. With mowed lawns and barbeques. I tried not to let the surprise show on my face, but Lottie saw it anyway.

  “See?” she whispered as Poker Guy took our coats and led us inside. “You need to learn to start trusting me, Ryn.”

  Trust was a tricky thing with Lottie. You never wanted to give her too much of it. You always wanted to keep some in reserve, just in case.

  There were about thirty people packed into Poker Guy’s living room and kitchen. They all looked to be in their early twenties. The majority of them were men—clean cut and fairly innocuous looking—but I made a point to size up the few women who mingled among them. They definitely didn’t look like prostitutes, but I’d learned from watching a lot of television that you could never be too sure.

  Poker Guy walked us to the kitchen and handed us each a bottle of beer. Lottie took a long pull from hers while I went to work peeling the label off mine.

  “This is my friend Curt,” Poker Guy said, grabbing the collar of a well dressed man and spinning him around. He looked annoyed by the rough summoning, but when he saw the two of us, his scowl was instantly forgotten.

  “Hello,” he said with that curious ring that comes with a less-than-subtle once-over.

  “Hi, Curt,” Lottie trilled. “I’m Lottie and this is Ryn.”

  Curt took a swig of his beer. I didn’t miss the eyebrow raise he shot to Poker Guy as he drank. A chill crept up my arms.

  “Ryn,” Poker Guy addressed me, making me immediately want to change my name back to Kathryn. Or to something completely unpronounceable, like Kplxbmwkxv. “You and Curt should get better acquainted.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, I knew what this was.

  This was the getaway scheme. Distract the boring, less attractive friend so I can go make out with the hottie. But before I could protest, Lottie and Poker Guy were already shuffling off somewhere, his hand on the small of her back, her signature giggle trailing in their wake.

  “So, what’s your story?” Curt asked.

  “I’m in high school,” I said flatly.

  He looked like I’d just slapped him in the face.

  Buzzkill Ryn. That’s me.

  “High school,” he repeated hoarsely before clearing his throat. “Like a senior in high school?”

  Nice try, buddy.

  “Nope. Junior. Seventeen years old. That barely even counts as legal adjacent.”

  He took another sip of his beer. “Right. Okay.” Then he made a show of pulling his phone out of his pocket as though it had just conveniently started to ring. “Sorry, gotta take this.”

  “Of course,” I said, happy to be rid of the pervy friend. The problem was, now I had nothing to do but wait until Lottie either finished her current activity or got pissed about something trivial and stormed off.

  As I made myself comfortable on a couch and opened my favorite trivia game on my phone, I silently prayed it would be the latter.

  But knowing Lottie, it was really anyone’s guess.

  Who is Xander Hale?

  The question felt different from the thousands I’d asked over the past eleven months and thirty-one days. This wasn’t a desperate attempt to ward off the ominous unknown.

  This was a genuine curiosity. A genuine yearning to understand.

  The search on Troy’s phone delivers several results. I scroll through each one, looking for something that would give me a better handle on this tr
ain-surfing, rabble-rousing, Muppet-shirt-wearing boy still hunched around his phone ten feet away.

  I click on a Wikipedia entry for his parents first. Xander is listed in the section labeled Personal Life. But there’s not much there I haven’t already surmised on my own. He was born the same year as me. He lives in Los Angeles with his überfamous psychologist parents, who drew upon their experience raising him—their only child—as inspiration to write the Kids Come First book series.

  There’s not much else.

  I click back to the results and continue scrolling. I’m about to return the phone to Troy when I spot a link to a news article. It says it was posted only an hour ago.

  The headline reads:

  Kids Come First Authors’ Son Kicked Out of Prestigious Los Angeles Prep School

  My eyes widen and my heart races a little faster as I click the link. It’s short. Only a paragraph, but it tells me everything I need to know.

  Xander Hale, only son of renowned child psychologists and bestselling authors Dr. Max Hale and Dr. Marcia Livingston-Hale, has reportedly been expelled from the Archer Academy, an esteemed preparatory school in Malibu, California, known in the city for educating numerous children of celebrities and important media figures. The information comes from an anonymous source close to the Hale family, although the reasons for his expulsion are still undetermined. Representatives of the Hale family as well as the Archer Academy have yet to provide comment.

  Shocked, I lower the phone.

  The son of two of the most famous child psychologists got expelled from school? How does that even happen? Dr. Max and Dr. Marcia are supposed to be the end-all, be-all of parenting. If they can’t manage to effectively parent their child, how is there any hope for the rest of the parents out there? The poor, clueless souls like my mother, who can’t have a single meaningful conversation with her daughter about anything?

  How is there any hope for me?

  It must be some kind of misunderstanding. A mistake. He was framed by a jealous peer. Or unfairly targeted by a vengeful teacher. There’s no way he could have been expelled for a legitimate reason. The article said something about an anonymous source. Maybe someone is just spreading vicious rumors about him.