Moment of Truth

by Kasie West

  “What do you mean, someone? You don’t know who?”

  “I don’t know who.”

  “So wait. You never needed to use the mask; you just got put in charge of it?”

  “I think I needed it more than anyone. My fear, my truth, was bigger than one event. I had to see myself through the fears others faced.”

  “What was your fear?”

  “You nailed me on the head, Moore. That’s why it was so hard to hear. I thought I’d grown these last six months, but I haven’t. I have no ambitions. I don’t know who I am or what I want to do with my life.”

  “A lot of people don’t know that. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Where I differ from others is that I don’t care.”

  I stared out at the dark road in front of me. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Oh, but you do, because every time you’re mad at me, the truth comes out.”

  I felt bad for throwing that in his face a couple times now when it was obviously something he struggled with. “No. I mean, sometimes you like to goof off, and when my awful temper comes out because I’m hurt or whatever, I say that, but I don’t think that’s you.”

  “What’s me, then?”

  “You care about people. Look at what you’re doing for me tonight.”

  “That’s because I like you, Moore. It’s completely selfish.”

  “So did you like Painter Boy and Suck It Guy too?”

  “Suck It Guy?”

  “You know, ‘Suck it, fear!’” I rolled my eyes.

  He laughed. “Oh, you mean Suck It Girl.”

  “That was a girl?”

  “Yep. People’s brains perceive things how they want to perceive things. You’d assigned Heath Hall a gender, so you didn’t analyze the evidence right.”

  “Huh. Weird.”

  “Wait . . . you thought it was me that night, didn’t you? Did you think I was all the versions of Heath Hall?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you totally figured out that it was more than one person because of the things you said over private message. That’s why I told you.”

  “What things did I say? The dog thing?”

  “No. You said, ‘like Dumbo’s black feather,’ and that the mask helped others reveal their fears too. I thought you figured it out.”

  “I meant the mask, you, the private-message thing was helping me reveal my fears . . . to you.”

  “Oh. Yeah, no. I didn’t get that.”

  I laughed. “By the way, that mask is hot. And not looks-wise.”

  “You wore it?”

  “It helped me drive the truck off the platform.”

  He smiled and stared at the mask for a long moment. “There’s just something about it, right? The spirit of the spy hero Heath Hall must live in there somewhere. And knowing the mask has been there while so many people faced what’s scared them. Revealed something important. It’s almost like it really does have some power.”

  For once, I didn’t think Jackson was kidding, and I agreed with him.

  Twenty-Nine

  “So where are we going, Moore?”

  “What time do you have to be back?” I asked.

  “My curfew is midnight.”

  “Then I want to go everywhere I’ve ever wanted to go.”

  He laughed. “Not sure if we can accomplish that very general goal in three hours.”

  “No, it’s actually quite specific. Every time I’ve wanted to go somewhere but have been stuck because I didn’t have a car. That’s where we are going tonight.”

  “So Disneyland from when you were five?”

  “No, I just mean since I’ve had a license. So the last ten months.”

  “Got it. Sounds awesome.”

  “First stop.” I pulled into the 7-Eleven parking lot.

  “Seven-Eleven?”

  “Have you ever gotten a craving so bad that you still remember it ten months later?”

  He raised his eyebrows at me in the teasing way he had. “Yes, I have.”

  I hit his arm. I really couldn’t tell if he treated me differently than he did everyone else or not. “Stop teasing me. I’m on a mission.”

  “Wait, we can’t tease on this mission?”

  I didn’t answer, just got out of the truck. When he caught up with me, I said, “There’s a corner gas station right up the street from our house that I can walk to, but they do not carry everything.”

  “Am I about to find out your favorite drink so I can own you?”

  “You could only own me if I didn’t know where it was sold.”

  “Not true. We just established that this drink is only gettable by car. You, my friend, don’t have one of those.”

  “It doesn’t matter, I’ve given it up.” I cut through the candy aisle and headed to the back.

  “You’ve given up your favorite drink?”

  “I’ve given up sugar.”

  “So why are we here?”

  I reached the Slurpee machine, grabbed a cup, and went straight for the lime. “Because tonight we’re breaking all the rules.” I smiled at him as I filled the cup. “You see, Jackson, the smart people who live somewhere warm have a favorite drink that is cold.”

  “That does sound more practical.” He snatched the now-full cup from me. “Well, it’s my turn to buy since you’re a drink ahead of me.”

  “No, mine were payback.”

  He just headed for the register. After paying and on our way back to the truck, I remembered something from the letter I got with the mask. “So just anyone can nominate anyone to wear the mask?”

  “No, it has to be someone who has worn the mask before.”

  We climbed into the truck and buckled our seat belts.

  “Huh. So who nominated me?” I took a long sip of my drink.

  “Technically, I’m not supposed to tell you.”

  I stuck the key in the ignition. “But . . . ?”

  “But I will.”

  I waited, and when he didn’t say anything, I turned toward him with raised eyebrows.

  “It was Pool Boy.”

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “I really didn’t know you very well at the time or Pool Boy, so I thought his claimed fear of body image issues was real, but later, after I got your DM about how I should stay away from the pool . . .” He smiled at that memory. “After I learned Pool Boy’s relationship to you, I realized the fear was probably a lie.”

  “His relationship to me . . . ?”

  Jackson waited for me to come to the realization, and when I finally did, I gasped. “Pool Boy is Robert? Robert ruined my race. What a . . .”

  “Jerk? Yeah. I normally wouldn’t tell the nominee about the nominator, but since I’m pretty sure that whole stunt had nothing to do with his fear and he only did it to mess with you, I just wanted to make sure you knew . . . in case . . . I don’t know . . . you were thinking about getting back together with him or something.” He held my gaze.

  “You think I was thinking about getting back together with him?”

  “I saw you two in the hall the other day and . . .” He shrugged. “You looked kind of cozy.”

  He was noticing me in the hall with other guys? “We’re not getting back together.” I should’ve been even more mad right now at Robert for ruining my race that night over a month ago, but I found that I really was over it, over him. Wasting energy on him seemed pointless.

  “I knew you were smarter than that.”

  “Sometimes I am. Obviously not in the figuring-out-the-Heath-Hall-mystery department.”

  “Nobody figures it out until the mask ends up in their possession.”

  I took another long drink, my throat going cold, my jaw aching with the sugar. It tasted amazing.

  Jackson laughed. “That good, huh?”

  “What? Did I make a noise?”

  “The kind that said sugar was back in your life to stay.”

  “Funny.” I propped the drink between my knees a
nd started the truck. “How did the whole Heath Hall thing start anyway? Do you know? The social media account was established five years ago. That’s why I thought it was someone older, like DJ.”

  “Did you want Heath Hall to be the dreamy DJ?”

  “No. I didn’t.” I wanted him to be you. That’s what I should’ve said, but I still didn’t quite know where we stood. We were firmly in friend territory and I couldn’t tell if he wanted to be more than that. I pulled out of the parking lot.

  “How did it start? Well, legend is that someone dressed up as Heath for Halloween one year. Obviously someone with some money to throw around because they got the best-quality mask ever. If you remember, that was the year the first Heath Hall movie came out and it opened big.”

  “Take Down.”

  “That’s the title of the movie, right? I’ve never actually seen it.”

  I laughed. “You, the caretaker of Heath Hall this year, have never seen how he came to be?”

  “I know. It’s a tragedy. But anyway, I guess there was this car full of people driving around that Halloween night and there was an attempted carjacking. Some guy with a gun came up to the window and tried to force everyone out of the car. So Heath Hall, well, the person dressed up as him, was driving in a car behind theirs and got out and tackled the guy, disarmed him, then left before anyone knew who he was. It kind of became this legend after that. I don’t know if someone else got a different mask and started passing it around or if the original guy thought he would give other people a chance to face a fear while wearing the mask or maybe that whole story was just made up by the person who thought of the idea, but whatever the case, that’s the history.”

  “How come I’ve never heard that story?”

  “Because it happened in a completely different city over five years ago. Heath Hall has traveled from there to here.”

  “How do you know all that, then?”

  “The story gets passed on to the keeper of the mask. I guess it’s supposed to make us want to be noble or keep the secret or I’m not really sure, but it works.”

  “I can see that. It’s a pretty cool story. And I can see how the wearers of the mask would want to keep the secret too. There’s this kind of reverence that comes after having to use it. A respect. Like a secret society.”

  “Some people talk. You were asking around; you probably know that.”

  I was about to tell him that nobody had told us anything but then remembered he was right: people had named names. But because there had been so many different names named, we hadn’t thought any of them were right. Now I realized they all had been right. There were many different Heath Halls.

  I pulled into the parking lot.

  Jackson gazed out the window, then turned to me, disappointed. “Are we at school?”

  “Sort of. Well, obviously we’re at school, but not because I’ve ever had a deep desire to come to school when I’ve been car-less, but because this is where my second home lives.” I drove through the lot and parked close to the walk that led to the pool.

  “Oh. Of course.”

  I unbuckled my seat belt.

  “Are we getting out? It looks locked,” he asked.

  “I have a key.”

  He joined me outside and we headed toward the gate. “How do you have a key?”

  “I swim a lot. I needed one.”

  “Did you steal a key, Moore?”

  I handed him my Slurpee so I could unlock the gate. “Stealing is such a strong word.”

  He took a sip of my drink, then stuck his tongue out. “That is sour.”

  “I think you mean delicious.” I took it back.

  The pool was dark, but the smell of chlorine was so familiar that my body relaxed another degree. I wished I had brought my suit.

  “I don’t believe you stole a key. I never would’ve suspected that of you. You’re so . . .”

  “So what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Finish your thought. I deserve whatever adjective was coming next after all the things I’ve called you.”

  “It’s not a bad thing. It’s just you’re so good . . . perfect.”

  “Hey, I just stole a truck.”

  He laughed. “I know! You even excel in the fear-facing department.”

  “I needed a mask to face my fears. I’m obviously not perfect.”

  “The only reason you need the mask is because you’re afraid of not being perfect.”

  “Not true.” I said it but only halfheartedly. That was mostly right. “But either way, I’m not.”

  “You’re Moore.”

  I rolled up my jeans and sat on the edge of the pool. “What does that mean?”

  “Amelia was wrong about why I call you Moore. If I tell you why I really call you that, you promise not to hate me?”

  “I promise. Unless it’s really bad. Then I’ll hate you.”

  He pulled up his sweats and sat down next to me. “Okay, it started off as a joke.”

  “Not surprising.” It used to sound mocking every time he’d said it.

  “Because your last name fit your personality so well. You always have to do more and be better at everything than everyone else.”

  I gasped. “Rude.”

  “Motivation isn’t a bad thing. I think I was jealous of it. Then I got to know you, and realized you are more. So it fit.”

  I kicked my foot and splashed him with water. He held up his hands to block the spray. Then he jumped up to a squat, wrapped his arm around my waist, and dragged me back so I couldn’t do it again. In the process, he lost his footing and stumbled back, me falling against him so we were both sitting again, me now nestled between his knees. I struggled to get free, but he held me tight from behind. He rested his chin on my shoulder. “No more water, fish.”

  I relaxed, letting him hold me, my back running the length of his chest. He felt solid and soft at the same time. “How did you know that driving the truck would be the hardest thing for me to do?”

  A light cut through the black of the pool. “Who’s out there?” a deep voice called out past the fence.

  I laughed and Jackson stood, pulling me up with him.

  “It’s just Marvin,” I said. “The janitor. He likes me.”

  “Does everyone like you?”

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  “I don’t know that it would have the same answer.”

  I turned to face him. Did he really not think people liked him? Everyone liked him. I was the one that everyone thought was a closed-off jerk.

  “Hello?” Marvin called again.

  “Just me!” I yelled to Marvin, still looking at Jackson. “Hadley Moore.”

  Jackson smiled his sly smile at me. “So much more,” he whispered.

  Thirty

  Back in the truck, Jackson was messing with the radio again when suddenly music blasted through the cab so loud that I almost swerved off the road.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he said, quickly adjusting the volume.

  “How did you get it to work?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. This button here.”

  “Cool.” I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel to an old classic rock song.

  “What’s this?” Jackson tapped the top of the cardboard box on the seat between us.

  “My brother.”

  “Whoa.” He held up his hands. “Your brother’s ashes are in this truck?”

  “No. It’s this thing we do every year for him. A mini memorial service. My mom and sometimes my dad pick out a few things that remind them of Eric. Then we wake up on his death day and talk about him and put the box in the truck. Then we go eat his favorite food.”

  “Wow, that’s more than my parents do on my birthday.”

  “It’s pretty elaborate.”

  He pulled the box onto his lap, then paused with his hands on either side of the lid. “May I?”

  “Sure. It’s nothing earth-shattering.”

  He opened it and looked insid
e. First he pulled out the picture of my brother and his prom date. “Check out that hair.”

  I laughed.

  “So this is him?”

  “That’s him.”

  “The golden child.”

  “Yep. You should hear the stories. He did no wrong.”

  “You grew up on those stories?”

  “Yes.”

  “No wonder you feel the need to be perfect. You thought he was. You have to live up to that.”

  I didn’t say anything. The truck rumbled in the silence, headlights cutting through the blackness beyond the windshield.

  “You know he wasn’t perfect, right? You know he had faults and made mistakes and probably made your parents mad a lot, but they don’t remember all that anymore.”

  “I don’t know that. I never knew him.”

  “I didn’t either and I know it’s true. Even if they did remember those things, they wouldn’t talk about them now. He’s dead.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m being insensitive. I just find myself getting defensive on your behalf. I’m sorry.”

  “Most of the time, when I think about my brother, I feel nothing. Sometimes I feel jealousy and sometimes I wish him out of existence, which makes no sense because he doesn’t exist.”

  “It makes sense.”

  “Thank you.”

  He put the picture down and picked up the movie. “How does this represent your brother?”

  “I guess he liked spy movies. He probably would’ve loved Heath Hall.” I patted the mask on the dashboard.

  “The Hunt for Red October. Is it any good?”

  “Never seen it.”

  The last thing he brought out was the squirt gun, which he immediately shot at me. A spray of water hit my hair. “It’s loaded. Your mom actually loaded it.”

  “I see that.” I wiped the side of my face where it had dripped.

  He shot me again.

  I reached over and hit him.

  He laughed. “I thought you liked water.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  “Does this have to do with the spy movies?”

  “No.”

  “He liked water? Like you?”

  “Nope.”

  He dropped the gun back in the box. “You going to keep me in suspense?”