“You said you’re having trouble with getting your broadcast to have a wider reach, right?” asked Adeem, adjusting his glasses. “What if I help give your radio signal a little more reach, and you give me a little, I don’t know, quid pro quo?”
The boy hesitated. “We do need help. There are a lot of messages here from people out of Roswell. For people out of Roswell. And I’d really like to get them out there.”
Adeem beamed. But Cate sensed something pained behind the boy’s emotionless eyes.
“So it’s a deal?” Adeem confirmed. He reached out a hand.
The boy took it. “Fine.” They shook on it.
“Name’s Jesse, by the way.” He stood. “Not that it matters, seeing as how we’re all going to die tomorrow.”
Tom made a face. “I thought you said you didn’t believe in Alma.”
“Starting to believe in a lot of crazy things these days.
“You two stay here,” the boy, Jesse, commanded. “Tom, I’m heading out.” He stood and swung the leather jacket over his shoulder. “I might not be back for a bit, so you just keep it up with the messages, all right?”
“Don’t boss me around like it’s your radio.” Tom was standing over Adeem, who had already made himself comfortable in Jesse’s spot at the radio rig, starry-eyed. “I’ve got a thousand things I need to do, too, for your inform—”
“Thanks, Tom.”
“Wait,” said Cate. “Where are you going?” She didn’t want to let this kid out of her sight. He was the closest thing they had to a lead.
“Out,” he said flatly.
“Before you go.” Cate bit her lip. “It’s kind of a shot in the dark, but do you maybe happen to know anyone named Garrett?”
For a moment, the boy’s eyes glinted. She thought she’d imagined it, it was such a subtle change.
“Yeah, I know a Garrett,” said Jesse. “What’s it to you?”
Cate took a step toward him. He took a step back.
“He might be my dad. I’m looking for him.”
Jesse smirked. “The Garrett I know is not your dad.”
“You don’t know that. And my dad didn’t even know I existed.”
“Trust me. He’s not.”
“I don’t trust you. I don’t even know you.”
“That’s probably a good thing.”
Cate felt herself flush with indignation. This boy was—what was the word?—moody. And impossible.
But her eyes followed him out the door, into the veil of night, and she couldn’t help but notice the slump in his shoulders beneath his oversized leather jacket, and the way he shoved his hands in his pockets, like a boy trying to hide every piece of himself from the world.
31
Jesse
The roar of army tanks moving into position thundered in the distance, met by cheers and chants of Alma, Alma, we won’t go—Earth is better than you know.
Jesse chuckled tiredly to himself. The crowd outside was getting more creative by the hour, and it was barely two a.m.
The last day.
The day of reckoning.
Finally, it had come.
He’d already seen a giant UFO crafted from at least a hundred silver balloons released into the air, and a horde of therapy dogs march down Tom’s street. It was utter chaos. He was lucky Tom’s radio station was soundproof.
He double-checked to make sure he wasn’t being followed, and continued down the familiar path to his house. For a moment, he held on to hope. His fingers trailed the chain-link fence that lined his neighborhood sidewalk, taking in its familiarity. He’d only been away from his house a day, but it felt like years.
He looked up. His stomach went into free fall so fast, he couldn’t breathe.
There was nothing of his house left. Nothing but charred remnants and beams, and the stone foundation.
At least now they wouldn’t have to worry about the eviction notice.
He almost wished he’d kept a copy for posterity’s sake. He could have left it on the pile of ashes and stubs of wood for the landlord.
All he’d brought with him was a fat leather knapsack filled with over fifteen thousand dollars in cash.
He sat on the stone foundation as though it were the stoop leading to the porch. In a way, it was the stoop now.
And then he saw them: Marco’s friend Samuel and the guy he’d called Emmit, standing beside the black husk that remained of the shed. Watching him. And when they realized Jesse could see them, their faces split into wide smiles, Emmit’s revealing a silver front tooth.
Every hair on Jesse’s body stood, and he shivered in the cool night air.
It was time for him to pay.
Jesse’s heart pounded violently in his rib cage. They had found him. He had no reason to believe they wouldn’t show up to collect, even with Roswell flooding with tents and bodies. But he’d hoped. He’d actually hoped. He wondered what Corbin would think.
But his thoughts came to a halt as Samuel and Emmit prowled toward him.
Panic welled. He had more than enough money to pay for the plane tickets. But there was something hungry in their eyes. Something wrong.
If they wanted a fight, then fine. He deserved it. But as they came closer, he felt his confidence shrivel. He was completely alone. What if he died here? As he watched them come closer, his own throat tightening, he felt like a wolf pup caught in a leg trap.
Except you made this leg trap, he corrected himself.
He clenched his fists.
But at least Mom was safe. It didn’t matter what happened to him now. He’d pay up the money he owed, and if the sun came up tomorrow, she could start a new life with the money left over. She’d never have to worry about him or the debts for the house ever again.
“Amazing how three days can feel like a lifetime.” Samuel was only a few feet away, and Jesse could smell the sour scent of beer wafting off him. “But I see your little source of income’s been destroyed. How tragic.”
“Source of income?” Jesse mockingly put his hand on his chest, if only to hide the thrumming of his heart, the frantic rise and fall. “Now, I think we both know I was the real machine behind the operation.”
Samuel rolled his neck. If it cracked, Jesse couldn’t hear over the noise wafting from the tent city. “And now it’s time to pay up.”
He reached out a sweaty palm. “Hand it over.”
Jesse swallowed but quickly folded his arms across his chest, feigning confidence. His mouth slid into a smirk. “Hand what over?”
Samuel threw his head back and laughed. “Ah, Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. You play dumb so convincingly.”
But then his face hardened. “No more games. Hand it over. All of it.”
Jesse recoiled, confused, and for a moment, his mask slipped. “All? I thought you only needed enough for plane tickets. A couple thousand should have covered it.”
Samuel grinned. “Interest’s a bitch.”
Jesse’s shoulders shook. He wasn’t scared anymore. He was furious. Sure, he owed Marco, and he was sorry. So fucking sorry. But this didn’t feel right. He’d thought Samuel was doing this for Marco—and some part of Jesse had been almost jealous that someone would go to such lengths for another, to see justice was served—no one would ever pull that for him.
But it was clear this piece of shit didn’t care about Marco at all.
“Is Marco even in the hospital . . . ?” asked Jesse carefully.
Samuel glanced at Emmit, whose face broke into a feral grin. Jesse felt a flare of fear.
“Where is Marco?” he asked again.
Samuel ran a tongue across his cracked lips. “A shame. I thought we could do this peacefully.”
And then he punched Jesse.
Jesse stumbled, winded, and clutched his chest. He couldn’t see ahead of him—he was doubled over in pain—but he wondered if anyone else had seen, if anyone would step in.
Samuel shoved him, hard, and he flew backward before landing on the ground with a thud. His he
ad throbbed from the impact. His knees buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, gasping for air.
No one would step in. No one was at the shed anymore, now that the machine was gone. Jesse was nothing without the machine.
Then again, no one had ever helped Jesse. It had always been him, out to fend for himself. Nothing would ever change.
Fine. Hurt me.
He felt his body lift up into the air; Samuel had him by his jacket.
Hurt me, Jesse screamed inside himself. Searing pain exploded at his nose as Samuel punched him in the face again, narrowly missing his stitches. A wet gagging sound escaped from Jesse’s lips.
But before he was tossed to the ground again, he saw something sparkle in Emmit’s hand. A hammer. His dad’s hammer, from inside the shed. How had they gotten it?
No, Jesse tried to shout, but no words came, only blood. Samuel was closing in again. Jesse thought he heard shouting, but he couldn’t tell; his ears were throbbing.
Emmit cocked the hammer toward him. Toward his legs.
Jesse scrambled on the dirt to get away, but a foot was on his back, pinning him as if he were nothing but a bug. “Wait!” he finally managed to choke out, even as his spine threatened to crack.
Suddenly, the weight on his back was gone. He looked up slowly, his vision hazy; his left eye was swollen. But he could see him now: Emmit crumpling to the ground and a kid—no, a girl—jumping backward to avoid the fall of his body. In her trembling hand was a pink pepper spray bottle. More movement, and a sudden crash drew Jesse’s attention to his periphery. Samuel was off him and on his knees, clutching the space between his legs.
Behind Samuel’s buckled form stood a boy in glasses, sweat dappling his brown face, eyes wide in surprise like he couldn’t believe what had just happened. What he’d just done.
Samuel growled and got to his feet. Jesse heard the angry thump of his footsteps as he approached the boy and girl. But then there was a familiar blur and the sound of an impact: a fist against skull. Another thump. Samuel was back on the ground. This time, he didn’t get up.
Ms. K. She was breathing hard. Then shouting instructions.
The girl brushed her bangs out of her round dark eyes. Even in the dark, and with the dizziness blurring his vision, Jesse recognized her as the pushy girl from UFOs & U. She was breathing hard, too, but still, she smiled, hesitatingly, and reached out her hand toward him.
Jesse caught a flash of something glinting off her purse. A key chain. Shaped like a crow.
32
Adeem
It was only a few hours before dawn by the time they made it back to UFOs & U; Adeem and Cate had to hoist Jesse up on their shoulders, sharing the weight, to carry him back.
Adeem almost felt bad for Jesse’s attackers. Cate had been intent on pepper-spraying them both in the face—twice for good measure.
And then Leyla—
She’d shown up out of nowhere. Protected them. And then tied up the attackers with freaking extension cords.
There’d been a moment when their eyes locked in place, and the world around them froze. This was their moment, their big reunion. Adeem couldn’t move.
But then Leyla started giving orders, telling them to get Jesse to safety so she could go get help, and Adeem, balloon-headed and dazed as all heck, listened.
They hadn’t meant to follow Jesse, exactly. But Cate kept going on about some hunch she had that the boy knew something about her father and she didn’t want him to get away. Plus, it hadn’t taken Adeem very long to fix their little radio problem.
The answer was Rosie. He used the shortwave radio to reach her. She was listening to her radio all the time, and relaying the messages she heard from those who couldn’t reach their loved ones in time. Adeem knew which frequency she picked up, so all he had to do was broadcast to her so she could, in turn, hear him. He’d been so relieved to hear her voice again.
“You left your beautiful little radio here!” she scolded as soon as she’d realized it was him.
He smiled from ear to ear.
With some coordinating, the UFOs & U radio channel would tap into her network and get a wider reach. With her resources, they could reach the entire country. It’d been done before, with people all throughout Europe sending messages to one another via radio to keep tabs on one another’s locations during World War II; Adeem had read about it in some book on the history of the radio.
It was Tom who’d given them the tip that Jesse would probably be at his house, and he’d freely given him the address. Adeem got the impression Tom had mixed feelings about Jesse.
Nonetheless, he cleaned up Jesse’s face, and Jesse was now resting in the corner of the room. Meanwhile, Adeem had taken the helm at the radio, rather gratefully, in fact—he needed something to distract himself from the fact that he’d just seen his sister for the first time in nearly two freaking years.
He’d just finished broadcasting a message for, to his utter amazement, Mia Jimenez in Texas, and was about to start another—this time for a Cecilia Eaton in New Jersey—when the door to the station opened.
It was Leyla. Still holding the extension cords.
He stood and cautiously approached.
Leyla looked away. “Hi, Adi.”
He was filled with such an overwhelming sense of nostalgia that it physically hurt. Everything he’d been through for the past week—the blisters and the hunger and the race against time—it had all been for her, for this moment.
He held her tightly, somewhere between a hug and a choke hold.
“How could you leave me?” His voice cracked.
He was nearly half a foot taller than she was now. She felt so small in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Why couldn’t you tell me?”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready yet. Couldn’t be.” She trembled and pulled away. Her eyes were red. “I was so scared of disappointing you, Adi. I thought you’d never look at me the same way. I couldn’t bear it. Even the thought of it killed me.” She wiped at an eye with the back of her hand. “I kept thinking about Qasim Uncle and his son Tahir, when he came out and it became such a huge thing at the mosque. You know I heard Mom and Dad talking about it? Dad said, ‘I can’t even imagine what we’d do in Qasim’s shoes.’ As if there was something to imagine besides accepting your kid is gay.”
She let out a half chuckle, half sob that stoked a warm ache behind Adeem’s ribs.
“So when I—when I finally told you guys, when I came out, and I saw your reaction, I thought you hated me. You were so crushed, and I panicked. Like you’d had this vision of the future and you’d just watched it all come crumbling down, and I’d done that to you. Me, your big sister. I couldn’t deal with that weight, with the thought that I’d disappointed you somehow. God, it hurt. It hurt so badly that I realized I’d rather be alone and free to live the way I needed to than risk living under our parents’ roof and watching them pretend they’re perfectly fine with it.
“And then you found me.” She ran a hand through his hair affectionately. “I’m so sorry I didn’t talk to you sooner. I should have had more faith in you, and I know I screwed up. But by the time I realized how much I missed you, I thought it might have been too late to reach out, to find out if you still, I don’t know, hated me.”
“I never hated you. Even if you did make me track you down through a freaking radio message.” He groaned and squeezed at his throbbing temples. “So is that why you told Reza and Priti not to tell us anything? Out of guilt?”
Leyla nodded slowly. “I thought that if I could erase myself from your lives, you’d have an easier time. You know how people can be. One bad apple can ruin the barrel, and all that.”
“Being gay is not a fruit-borne disease, you idiot.”
“I know. I know it’s stupid. But if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that fear”—she gestured around them—“makes people kind of lose their heads.”
Adeem rolled his eyes. “Is that why
you’re a counselor now?”
“What better way to deal with my own problems, huh? Ignore them and deal with other people’s.”
“I think your stupid poetry was at least a healthier method.” Then Adeem remembered: “Wait, what about the poetry book? And Priti—why does she have it? I saw it in her car, and are you guys even together anymore? I mean, it’s clear she’s still all about you. And then the radio message I heard—”
“Whoa, whoa,” Leyla interrupted. “Easy there, tiger. One question at a time.”
“I just need to know what’s going on. Everything.” He took a step closer. He was almost afraid she’d run away again. “Please.”
Leyla looked up at the sky and slowly exhaled. She looked at Adeem and gave him a small, embarrassed smile. “After I ran away with Priti,” she began slowly, “we went to Las Vegas. Priti had an internship lined up, and some family there, and they’re a lot more . . . open about things. She let me live with her under the condition I talked to you guys again when I was ready. Otherwise, Priti wouldn’t have supported me running away.
“But”—she bit her lip—“it took me a while, and I guess Priti realized I might never be ready, even though the guilt of leaving was eating me up. I started to depend on her too much, because in my head, she was all I had. It wasn’t healthy. Priti kept begging me to reach out to you guys, said I was only hurting myself. Had a big fight over it. Typical Reza got himself involved and tried to play mediator.”
“In the end, I left Priti, too. Like an idiot. I think I was angry at everything. Everyone. So I went to Roswell and finally got the counseling job. Fell in love with it. But I knew Priti was right. It’s probably why I gave her my book of poems. I think I wanted to leave a piece of me behind, the way I’d totally failed to do with you. And then when I heard about Alma’s message, I realized I’d formed this big bubble around myself. I’d pushed everyone away. I had to tell Priti I was sorry, and this guy I counsel in Roswell just happened to be offering free radio broadcasts to loved ones, so . . .”
I Hope You Get This Message Page 28
