“Uh… is this okay? Do you want to eat somewhere else?”
Rhys waved the question away with an unconcerned gesture.
“Yeah? You’re sure? You aren’t going to to get a bunch of questions about what you were doing here with me?”
Rhys shook his head.
Zachary scanned the menu on the wall without much interest. He’d get some kind of small combo. He wasn’t really there because of the food, he was there to see if he could help Rhys. Rhys touched Zachary’s arm and then tapped the poster beside him.
“Is that what you want? Bacon cheeseburger?”
Rhys nodded.
“Combo, supersize?”
Rhys grinned.
They waited for the teens in line ahead of them to place their orders, and in a few minutes were choosing a table and sitting down to eat. Zachary ate slowly, watching Rhys put away his supersized combo as if he hadn’t eaten all day. He was long and lanky, his teenage frame not yet starting to fill in. It would be a few years before he might have to start watching what he ate.
“Do you know these other kids?” Zachary asked, taking a look around the restaurant and classifying which were likely to be the same grade as Rhys. There were not very many non-white students; Rhys would definitely be in the minority.
Rhys gave his hand a side-to-side rocking movement. So-so.
Zachary nodded. Knowing who people were wasn’t the same as being friends with them. Or actually knowing them.
“I guess Christmas is coming.” As if Zachary were only casually aware of the fact. “I was wondering if you wanted to do something. It will be kind of different for you, not having your mom around.” Or his aunt Robin either. Rhys was probably happy about that.
Rhys nodded.
“Will you be going to see your mom on Christmas Day, do you know?”
Another nod.
“You know what time?”
Rhys shook his head. He made a motion backward over his shoulder, a questioning look on his face. Zachary looked behind Rhys to see if he was motioning to someone. Rhys shook his head and pulled out his iPod. He tapped a couple of words and slid it across the table to Zachary.
Xmas Eve?
Zachary shook his head. He tried not to betray his feelings to Rhys. “I… I can’t do anything on Christmas Eve.”
Which made him wonder why he was even trying to set something up for Christmas Day. What if he wasn’t even around on Christmas Day? What if he slid down that hole and didn’t come back up this time? It had been Kenzie’s idea to set something up with Rhys, not his, and he should have just left it to her. What kind of service was he doing Rhys if he set something up for Christmas, and then didn’t make it? The kid was going to have a bad enough day without that adding to his troubles.
Rhys’s eyes were on Zachary, sharp and intelligent. He touched Zachary’s arm and again indicated the iPod screen.
Xmas Eve?
“I can’t.”
Eyebrows up, inquiring. Why?
Zachary didn’t want to tell Rhys about it. He didn’t share the experience with any but his closest friends or therapists. Rhys was only a kid. He couldn’t understand the full impact of what Zachary had been through.
But Rhys had been through awful experiences of his own. Zachary didn’t want to talk about his, but Rhys couldn’t tell his even if he wanted to. They strangled his voice and kept him from communicating anything but the most rudimentary thoughts.
“I had… some really bad stuff happen to me on Christmas Eve,” Zachary explained awkwardly. “There was a fire… my family… the anniversary always gets me… in a really bad place.”
Rhys clasped Zachary’s hand in a strong handshake, holding it firmly and nodding.
We’ll help each other. We’ll be strong together.
Zachary gave a little squeeze, then pulled out of Rhys’s grip. “I don’t think I can.”
Rhys studied him for a long moment, his face once again sad.
“We’ll figure something out,” Zachary promised. “Maybe closer to the time, when our plans have solidified…”
Rhys picked his burger back up and resumed eating. A knot of guilt tightened in Zachary’s stomach.
“I’m sorry Rhys. I know it’s stupid. I’d change if I could. I’ve been… it’s something I’ve been working on for a long time.”
A shrug. That just made Zachary feel worse. He knew Rhys couldn’t understand just how difficult Christmas, and especially Christmas Eve was for him. Zachary concentrated hard on how to explain it.
“It’s like with your speech.”
Rhys looked up, raising one eyebrow.
“You’d change it if you could, wouldn’t you? You’d want to just be able to talk like yours friends can?”
Rhys gave a small nod.
“And you’ve been working with doctors and therapists since you were little. They’ve tried helping you in all different ways.”
Rhys nodded agreement, his eyes bright and piercing.
“It isn’t like you’re lazy. It isn’t like you just can’t be bothered or don’t want to talk. It’s something inside that’s… broken.”
Was it offensive for him to suggest that Rhys was broken? Was it too personal for him to compare his psychological problems to Rhys’s? He looked away from Rhys’s eyes, worried about the anger and insult he’d find there. Rhys held his hands together in front of him as if he were holding a horizontal stick, and then snapped them downward.
Broken.
Zachary breathed out, nodding. “You want to be fixed. You want to fix yourself. But so far… no one has figured out how.”
Rhys nodded his agreement. He picked up his iPod and slid it back into his pocket, hiding the offending words away again.
Zachary ate a couple of fries. He wasn’t hungry and hadn’t even put ketchup on them, but it was something to do, to try to make things more comfortable between them. As if they weren’t discussing what messes their lives were, but were just a couple of friends having a meal together.
“Do you remember when you were little, after your Grandpa Clarence died? When you had to go away for awhile, to a hospital?”
Rhys nodded, his eyes downcast. He was ashamed of being in hospital for his trauma and depression. Like he should have been stronger. Should have been not broken.
“Well, that’s what it was like for me, too. I spent a lot of time in places like that. Hospitals, institutions, therapeutic care centers. Especially around Christmas, but other times too. There were years when I spent more time in crisis than out.”
Wide eyes. Really?
“Yeah. So… if I can, we’ll get together at Christmas. Or maybe New Year’s. But not Christmas Eve. I’m not sure where I’ll be Christmas Eve.”
Rhys nodded and gave Zachary a thumbs-up. Okay.
“Okay,” Zachary agreed, sighing. He ate another fry, even though his churning stomach did not want anything.
They sat in silence a bit, but it was comfortable. Zachary felt like they had come to an understanding. He no longer felt so guilty. Zachary’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out to look at the screen. When he put it down on the table to watch for any further text messages, Rhys made a palms-raised query.
What’s up?
“It’s a client.” Zachary hesitated, wondering how much to stay to Rhys. It wasn’t like the boy was going to blab it to anyone. He couldn’t be much more safe. “She wants to know if I’ve managed to find out anything else about the man who was stalking her boyfriend.”
Rhys’s interested eyes begged for more.
“He was killed in an accident, but we’re trying to track down this cyberstalker in case it was somehow related.”
Rhys nodded.
“They probably weren’t. We know who it was who actually hit him—in this accident—and I can’t find a connection between him and the stalker.” Zachary took a sip of his soda. “The funny thing is, he never even told his girlfriend that he was being stalked. She had no idea what was going o
n. She knew he was on medication for depression, but she didn’t think he was actually depressed. He hadn’t told her anything about this guy who was sending him hundreds of harassing messages.”
Rhys’s mouth formed a circle. Wow.
“I don’t even know what it was that triggered this harassment. The stalker thought the boyfriend had done something wrong, something terrible, but he never said what it was. Not in any of the messages I read. So I don’t know where to look.”
Rhys was easy to talk to. Unlike most of Zachary’s acquaintances, who would have peppered him with questions, Rhys just listened and let him talk. Zachary shook his head. He thought about his observation to Ashley that someone who was depressed could just as easily appear to be a clown, putting on a happy front while hiding the pain.
“How are you doing, Rhys? And I mean for real, not just ‘fine, how are you?’ For real.”
Rhys lifted his hands in a shrug. He gave a pronounced frown, then blinked the expression away. He flicked his hand toward Zachary. You?
“You’re sad,” Zachary deduced, and fished for the words to match Rhys’s body language. “But you’re okay? You said before, ‘it’s all going to be okay.’”
Rhys nodded his agreement.
“You still feel like that? That it will all work out and be okay?”
He continued to nod.
“Are you still seeing a therapist? You don’t have to answer me, it’s private. I just wondered.”
A nod.
“Are you on antidepressants? Or something that helps?”
Rhys rocked his hand back and forth. So-so.
“You’ll tell someone if it gets worse, won’t you? It doesn’t have to be me. But your grandma or your doctor? A guidance counselor at school? If the depression gets worse, or you start having suicidal thoughts, you’ll tell someone?”
Rhys grimaced and nodded. He again flicked his finger back toward Zachary, holding his gaze. You?
Zachary sighed. It was hard to pull away from Rhys’s intense stare. He looked down at his fries. “I don’t know. I’ve talked to doctors, tried everything already. If I have to check myself in somewhere… I guess I will.”
Rhys raised his brows slightly and pointed at Zachary firmly. You do it. For sure.
“Okay,” Zachary said. “I will. And I told my… friend… that I’ll talk to my therapist. About Christmas Eve.”
Rhys gave a grin and pulled out his phone. Zachary wasn’t sure what he was doing, until Rhys slid the phone over to him, and he saw that Rhys had a picture of Kenzie.
“Uh, yeah. Kenzie.”
Rhys pursed his lips and made a smacking sound. Zachary’s cheeks got warm.
“I wouldn’t say she’s my girlfriend… not yet. Maybe someday. We get together… have dinner… consult on cases. But we’re not… serious.”
Rhys’s smirk said he wasn’t buying it. Zachary rubbed his chin, trying to hide the flushing of his cheeks. Rhys took the phone back, nodding his approval.
Chapter Eight
K
enzie called shortly after Zachary got back from his dinner with Rhys, and he couldn’t help wondering whether Rhys had messaged her, prompting her to call Zachary to check in on him. There was a growing network of people around Zachary who kept in touch with each other, trying to keep watch over Zachary’s emotional wellness, and maybe Rhys had added himself as a node. Check in with Zachary. Make sure he’s not going to do anything stupid.
Of course, Rhys wouldn’t use that many words. His communications were much more succinct, but Zachary wouldn’t put it past him to shoot Kenzie a brief Zachary OK? or to just send her his picture.
“You doing anything tonight?” Kenzie asked.
“I don’t have anything planned. Was going to do a bit more work on the Harding case tonight, but there’s no urgency.”
“Why don’t I just come over and we’ll watch a movie together? You can do simple stuff while we watch, right?”
He could spend some more time trying to analyze the harassing messages, trying to crack the patterns, to parse the words, to trace IP addresses in case the stalker hadn’t always remembered to use an anonymizer service. “Yeah, sure. I’d be up for that.”
“Great. I’ll bring some munchies. Maybe some soda.”
He noted that she did not suggest beer as she often did, which meant she probably already figured he wouldn’t be able to have any due to his night meds, which he’d been increasing recently.
“Sounds good. Whenever you want to come by is fine, I’ll see you then.”
She didn’t put the movie on as soon as she arrived, but visited and wandered around the apartment restlessly and asked if he’d gotten any further on the Harding case.
“Not much,” Zachary admitted. “Still working on it.” He related the finding of the shoe and checking to see whether Harding had filed any complaints against the stalker. Kenzie rolled her eyes at the news that Harding had been on antidepressants. “Well, duh! I think any sane person would be. Who could handle that kind of pressure without some kind of aid?”
“His girlfriend didn’t think he was depressed. She though he was just a hypochondriac. But he didn’t tell her about the harassment, so…”
“He didn’t tell her?”
Zachary shook his head. “No.” He narrowed his eyes, looking at Kenzie. Something about the way she asked the question suggested that she had a thought about it.
“Maybe he didn’t tell her because he figured she already knew.”
“You mean he thought she was the stalker?”
“He might have. Why else wouldn’t he say anything about it to her, even just in passing? Maybe he was watching her to see if she was the one cyberstalking him.”
Zachary shuddered. “That’s horror movie material.”
“Psychological thriller,” Kenzie corrected. “But really, I wonder.”
“I think he just didn’t want to look weak. Guys are like that, you know. They want the girls to think they’re perfect and don’t have any problems. That they’re strong enough to take all comers.”
Kenzie snickered. “You don’t say.”
“It could be as simple as that. He was too macho to tell her.”
“Could be,” Kenzie agreed. “But I like my theory better. It has more… dramatic potential.”
Zachary nodded. He clicked through a few more messages on Harding’s computer, letting his eyes just skim over the words. They got redundant after a while. The stalker hadn’t had a lot of creativity, but tended to use the same words and phrases over and over again. And what stalker sending dozens of messages in a day would have been any different? If he didn’t settle on a standard set of half a dozen accusations and threats, he’d wear himself out. He’d have writer’s block or a nervous breakdown trying to figure out how to make all of the messages unique.
“Oh, snail mail too?” Kenzie asked, and picked up a paper from beside him.
Zachary was hyperfocused on the screen, and it was a minute before her words reached him, and several more before he realized that he didn’t have any hard copy threats from the stalker. By the time he realized what Kenzie was looking at and turned to take it from her, it was too late, she’d already read the message, flipped it over to look at the envelope, and was staring at him with open mouth.
“Where did this come from?”
“It’s…” Zachary pulled the plastic bag away from Kenzie gently, taking care not to just snatch it rudely. “That’s just a note…”
“From your brother? You told me you had siblings, but I didn’t know you were in contact with any of them.”
Zachary looked down at the inquiry. Do you remember me?
“I’m not. I just got this… a few days ago. It’s the first contact I’ve ever had from any of them.”
“That’s fantastic, Zachary! How exciting for you!” Her smile was shockingly bright, and Zachary wasn’t sure whether it was excitement or dread that welled up in his chest at her exuberance. Her smile remained for only
a few seconds, then started to fade.
“But you’re not excited.”
“I am… and I’m… scared…” He paused, awkward and not sure how she would take his declaration. He remembered Ashley’s declaration that it was okay to be sensitive and to have an honest emotional reaction. But he wasn’t sure all women felt that way, or that they would still feel that way once they saw their man dissolve in front of them.
Kenzie leaned against the corner of the desk, frowning. “Why would you be afraid? This is your brother! Or are you afraid that it’s not? That it could be someone else?”
“I don’t know.” Zachary’s hands had started shaking too much to work the mouse, so he held them in his lap under the desk, squeezing them together. “If it is Tyrrell… I ruined his life. I don’t know why he would want to see me again, except to tell me that. Just how much I messed him up.”
“Why do you think he would feel that way? What happened when you were kids was just an accident. Kids can’t be blamed for things like that. They’re not responsible. Whatever happened to your brothers and sisters after that… it probably would have happened anyway. If you hadn’t been taken away from your parents that day, it would have been a few days or weeks later. Believe me, they were not going to be ideal parents and raise you right. This didn’t happen because you were a bad kid. It’s because they were bad parents.”
“I burned the house down!”
“I’m aware of that,” she said calmly. “And you weren’t the first kid to ever light a fire by accident. Do you think every kid who lights a fire by accident should be taken away from his family?”
“No.”
“Then why do you think that your parents were justified in doing what they did to you?”
“That wasn’t the only thing I did. I was in trouble all the time. At school, at home, in the neighborhood. I was always getting in trouble for one thing or another.”
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