After a while I began to feel cold and went back inside. As I was turning the lock in the door, though, there was a gentle knock on the other side. I jumped, my heart pounding, and glanced toward the dining room, where Mom was still sound asleep. I could hear Shane snoring in the living room. If I screamed, they’d probably come running. There was another light knock.
“Charlotte,” someone whispered. “It’s me, Jared. Open up.”
I opened the door a crack. “Jared? What are you doing here?”
“Can we talk?”
I stepped onto the front porch, quietly closing the door behind me. “Are you nuts? It’s after two in the morning.”
Jared was soaked. He ran a hand through his wet hair, pushing it out of his face. Dark circles framed his eyes, and his skin had a gaunt look to it, as though he’d been seriously ill. He shoved his hands into his jacket and took a step back.
“I was out walking,” he explained. “I didn’t come here on purpose. I like to walk at night, especially in the rain, and I ended up here.”
“Let’s sit down,” I said. I was worried about him. He looked too thin, too pale. I was half-afraid he would keel over right there on my front porch. We sat on the top step, which was only a little damp from the rain, and looked out at the empty street. I waited for Jared to speak.
“I wanted to thank you for helping me,” he began. “It means a lot.”
“I can’t guarantee you that anything will happen tomorrow night.”
He nodded. “I just want to try.”
I knew he was only saying that for my benefit. Jared had high hopes for our meeting. He wanted to contact Adam so badly, and he saw this as the only possible way to unburden himself from the secret he was holding.
“I know what happened that night,” I said. “I know Adam was trying to avoid hitting Dante.”
Jared flinched but kept his eyes on the streetlight across from us. “How did you find out? Does Avery know?”
“No, Avery doesn’t know. I figured it out on my own.”
“Adam bought Avery that dog as a birthday present two years ago,” he said. “I went with them to the pet store. I remember joking that we should buy a hamster wheel, too, because he was so small.” He turned to me. “You can’t tell her, Charlotte. She’ll blame herself. She shouldn’t have to feel guilt like that.”
“Well, neither should you. Besides, I thought you wanted to be able to break your promise to Adam. I thought you wanted to tell Avery the truth about the accident.”
He pushed back his wet hair again. “I don’t know what I want.”
We sat silent for a few moments. The rain was slowing down to a delicate drizzle. The houses on my street were completely dark. All the normal people were warm and asleep in their beds.
“Avery also told me about the kiss,” I blurted out. “I keep hearing that you and Adam had a fight over her. Did you tell him?”
Jared shook his head. “That’s not what we were fighting about. I keep my promises, Charlotte. I never told him. I wanted to, though. Still do.”
“So what were you and Adam fighting about that night?”
“He was going to turn down his football scholarship and go to school in town so he could stay near Avery. I told him it was a mistake. I told him—” He looked down. “I told him she wasn’t worth it, that he could survive a year without her.”
“Oh.”
“Sounds bad, doesn’t it? Especially now.”
“Sounds like you were just being honest,” I said.
“Yeah, well, his mind was made up. He hadn’t told anyone yet, though. I was still trying to talk him out of it when we got in the accident.”
We fell quiet again, but it was a comfortable kind of quiet, the kind in which you know the other person is thinking about things. I mulled over everything Jared had told me, trying to find the right words.
“I think I know what you want,” I finally said.
He looked up. “What do you mean?”
“You said you didn’t know what you wanted, but I think what you truly want is forgiveness. The thing is, I don’t think you did anything that needs to be forgiven.”
He didn’t reply at first. Instead, he leaned back on the steps and continued to gaze at the streetlights. I wondered when he had slept last. The lines under his eyes made me think it had been a while.
“After I got out of the hospital, I would go to Adam’s house and look up at his bedroom window. Sometimes I’d call his cell phone just to hear his voice.”
I looked up. It was exactly what Avery had done. Avery and Jared had shared a strong friendship with Adam. Now they shared an even stronger grief.
Jared kept talking. “I even broke into his locker once looking for something, anything. A sign, I guess.”
“What kind of sign?”
“A sign that it was his time to go. A sign that this was the way it was supposed to end.”
“Did you find it?”
He smiled sadly. “Still looking.”
We stayed on the porch for another hour. We didn’t speak much, but it was okay. I liked sitting next to him. I kept stealing little glances at him. Despite his drawn appearance, Jared was still gorgeous. I could see why Avery had given in to her attraction for a moment. And there was something about his determination to make things right that made me want to help him. He was a good guy, and good guys were something of a rare species.
After the rain finally stopped, Jared stood up, thanked me for talking with him and began to walk home. I watched him for a while, the way he limped and kept his head down, and wished I could make things better. Maybe, I thought, the meeting with Avery would help. Maybe everything would be better by this time the next day.
Or maybe everything would become much more complicated.
nineteen
The parking lot of Giuseppe’s was crowded with cars and people and waiters passing out slices of complimentary pizza. Our black van was parked in the center, the silver “Doubt” painted on its side. People gathered around it, and Shane happily posed for pictures while Mom signed a few autographs. I stayed off to the side, watching the crowd and waiting for the arrival of my friends.
Shane and Mom had worked with the owner of Giuseppe’s to set everything up. The deal was that they would sign autographs and draw a crowd and, in return, we would get two hours inside the restaurant after it closed. Mom would do the talking and lead the session while Shane, Noah and I worked the equipment. Dad was at home, working on the Pickens problem, and had promised to call us if he found anything.
As the sun began to set and the crowd thinned out a little, I spotted Noah and waved to him.
“Over here!” I hollered.
Noah waved back and headed my way, followed by a dark-haired woman wearing a leather jacket and cradling an armful of books.
“This is my mom,” he said when they reached me.
I was struck by how young she looked, then remembered that she had been just a teenager when she’d had her children.
“Call me Trisha,” she said, smiling as she looked around at the small but noisy crowd. “This is so exciting! I brought all my books to be autographed.” She turned back and looked at me. “Noah talks about you all the time. I’m so thrilled he’s met a nice girl! And a celebrity, at that!”
“Mom!” Noah looked mortified. His cheeks flushed bright red and his wide eyes told me that he needed help before his mom said anything else.
“I’m not a celebrity,” I said.
“Oh, I think all these people would say otherwise.” She smiled at me. “Okay, I’m off to get my books signed. See you in a few minutes, sweetie.” She kissed Noah’s still-red cheek and moved toward the van.
“I’m sorry about that,” Noah stammered, staring at the pavement. “I needed a ride and she’s a really big fan. I don’t talk about you all the time. She was just excited and…”
“Hey, I know all about embarrassing parents,” I interrupted. “At least your mom doesn’t drive around in a �
�Doubt’ van.”
He shrugged and kept his eyes on the parking lot.
“I haven’t thanked you yet for helping us out,” I said, determined to make Noah comfortable again. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
I told him all about my visits the day before with both Avery and Jared. Noah listened, nodding at times and furrowing his brow as if he was trying to make sense of it all. Part of me wanted to open up about the Pickenses’ ghosts, but I knew it would take too long.
“Sounds as though we’re doing this just in time,” he said when I was finished. “I mean, both of them need this, I think, in order to move on.”
“But I don’t want to give them false hope. I don’t honestly believe anything is going to happen tonight.”
“It’s not false hope,” Noah said. “It’s hope, plain and simple. And maybe nothing will happen with Adam’s energy, but something else could occur, something that will help Avery and Jared.”
I wanted Noah to be right. I wanted to make things better for my friends, not worse. I was afraid that trying to contact Adam would result in only more heartache for both of them. As another hour passed and the crowd began to leave, a tight nervousness clenched my stomach.
Finally, Shane moved the van to a parking space next to Giuseppe’s entrance and began unloading equipment. Noah and I went over to help. His mom was talking with Shane and seemed genuinely excited.
“Mom? You can pick me up in a couple of hours,” Noah said.
“Oh, sweetie! Good news! Shane says I can stay and watch. Isn’t that thrilling?” She looked at Shane with an adoring gaze. In return, Shane beamed, clearly loving the female attention. They were about the same age, I realized, and Trisha was pretty. She didn’t look like a typical mom in her leather jacket and boot-cut jeans.
“Great,” Noah muttered. He glared at Shane, who didn’t notice because he couldn’t take his eyes off Trisha.
I saw Avery pull into a spot at the other end of the parking lot. Instead of getting out of her car, though, she simply sat there, her hands on the steering wheel. I walked over to her car and let the others take care of setting up. I tapped on the window, startling her. “Avery?”
She opened the door but remained sitting in the driver’s seat, her car keys dangling in the ignition. “Hey, Charlotte.”
I squatted down so I was looking right at her. “You ready for this?”
“I don’t know.”
“My mom’s done this a hundred times,” I assured her. “Thousands, even. If anything gets too weird, she’ll stop it. If you feel uncomfortable, we’ll stop. But it’ll be fine, I promise.”
As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t. I did not make promises lightly, and this was one I wasn’t sure I could keep. It worked, though. Avery nodded and got out of the car, and we walked into the restaurant together.
The first thing I noticed was how dark it was inside. Most of the lights had been turned off, with only a few dim sconces illuminating the brick walls. After a few seconds my eyes adjusted and I led Avery toward the middle of the restaurant, where Shane was showing Noah how to operate the main camera.
“I’ve used one like this in class,” Noah said.
Shane laughed. “Not one this nice, I’ll bet. Make sure you don’t push any of these.” He pointed to some buttons on the side, while Noah’s mother stood nearby, a giddy smile stretched across her face.
“Over here, girls!” Mom was standing in front of a corner booth across the room. Avery reached for my hand and I squeezed hers in return. When we reached the booth I saw that Jared was already there, his hands folded neatly on the table.
“Avery, I’d like you to sit across from Jared,” Mom directed. “Charlotte, I want you on the thermal. You can sit right here.” She pulled up a chair so that I was off to the side but still had a good view of the table.
I flicked on the camera and held it up to check the readings. Thermal cameras show temperature with color. The booth where Avery and Jared sat appeared as a dull green on my screen while Avery and Jared themselves appeared as bright red outlined with some orange and yellow. I moved the camera around to make sure that the room’s overall temperature was within normal ranges. The pizza ovens glowed red on my screen, which made sense because they had been turned off less than an hour before, but there were no cold spots or anything else abnormal within the restaurant.
“Looks good,” I announced.
Mom was speaking softly to Avery and Jared, telling them how the process would work. Noah was behind the main camera while Shane held an EMF reader, which he waved over the table to get a base reading of the electromagnetic field. Trisha stood directly behind him, and I caught Noah glancing over at her a few times, clearly annoyed.
After everything was set up and tested, we began. “We’re here today to connect with any energy that may want to communicate with us,” Mom said. She pulled up a chair and sat at the end of the booth. Avery and Jared had their eyes closed in concentration, their hands folded on the table. I hadn’t seen them make eye contact or speak to one another since we’d arrived.
“Is there anyone here?”
Mom waited, knowing that the first part of the process—triggering some kind of energy—usually took the longest. We were quiet for several long minutes. The colors on my thermal camera stayed constant.
Mom spoke again, and Avery shifted in her seat. Her hands moved forward slightly, nearly touching Jared’s. Suddenly, the colors on my monitor changed from red and yellow to bright orange. The orange deepened and became a shade of purple I had never seen on the equipment before.
“I think I’ve got something,” I announced.
“Same here,” Shane said. “We had a spike.”
Mom nodded and whispered something to Avery and Jared. They opened their eyes, and for a split second they were looking directly at each other. Just as quickly, Avery looked away, and my monitor returned to normal.
“What’s so special about this place?” Mom asked.
“We used to come here after all our games,” Jared said. “We always sat here, in this booth. Adam liked it because he could see the pizza ovens from here.”
Avery smiled. “He used to order the craziest combinations, like pepperoni and pineapple.”
“Or tuna fish and banana peppers,” Jared added.
The strange purple color was seeping back into the corners of my monitor. It was like a mist that surrounded Avery and Jared. “Keep talking,” I said. “Something’s happening.”
Mom came over and stood behind me to look at the monitor while Jared told a story about how he had once dared Adam to eat an entire large pizza by himself.
“He just folded it like a taco and ate away,” Jared said, a small smile on his face.
“I remember that,” Avery chuckled. “He didn’t want pizza for the next two weeks.”
“Interesting,” Mom murmured from behind me. She returned to the booth. “Okay, we’re getting some good readings.
I want you to do something for me now. I want you to hold hands.”
Avery looked shocked while Jared sat there with a pained expression on his face. Mom knelt by the booth.
“I think you can form a stronger connection by doing this. I think it will help.”
Avery slowly nodded and reached for Jared’s hands. They kept their eyes down, and I could tell their hands were only lightly touching. Still, as soon as they touched, purple flooded my screen.
“Another spike,” Shane announced.
“I want you to close your eyes again,” Mom instructed Avery and Jared. They did. “Now I want you to picture Adam in your minds. Think about the last day you saw him.”
Her voice was almost hypnotic. It was calm and assured and I knew she was leading them somewhere with it. “I want you to speak directly to Adam,” Mom continued. “What would you say if you knew he could hear you right now?”
Avery was the first to speak. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you I loved you the last time I saw you.” Her vo
ice was soft. “I’m sorry I was too wrapped up in myself to think about giving you a hug or to really look at you one last time.”
“But you didn’t know it would be the last time,” Jared said gently.
The purple color on my monitor deepened. It didn’t make sense to me. I checked the sidebar to see what temperature purple represented, but in the split second I moved my eyes off the screen, the color changed again, this time to a turquoise-green. I took a step back, thinking the camera was malfunctioning and needed to be readjusted. Usually there were subtle changes, such as a light red becoming dark red. But my monitor was going from bright orange to purple to blue, something I’d never seen happen.
“I’m sorry that I spent the last moments you were alive criticizing you,” Jared was saying. I was barely listening, my attention focused instead on the thermal camera, which was beginning to show something that looked like a crazy tie-dyed design.
I moved slowly toward Shane. “I think this is broken,” I whispered.
He glanced over. “Whoa. The EMF must be busted, too. These readings are all over the place.”
“Now I want you to tell Adam what you want from him,” Mom said. “What do you need?”
“I need to know that he’s okay,” Avery said. “I need to know that he understands that I love him, and that I miss him every single day. And I need him to forgive me for kissing Jared.”
“I need…” Jared stopped. He seemed to be struggling with what to say. “I also need his forgiveness. And I need to be able to tell Avery about what happened that night. I promised Adam I wouldn’t. I need to break that promise.”
“What do you mean, you promised Adam?” Avery asked. She gripped Jared’s hands, and the crazy colors on my monitor intensified. “Please tell me. I have to know.”
Jared’s story unfolded slowly. He hesitated at points, but he had finally revealed everything: his fight with Adam over turning down the scholarship, how Adam had grabbed the wheel to avoid running over Dante and finally how Adam’s last request was to make Jared promise not to tell Avery what had really happened.
Past Midnight Page 15
