Mom Hung Up on My Call for Help to Toast My Cousin, So I Vanished novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Four Hundred Likes

Tyler came to Chicago alone, on a Sunday bus, with his phone in his fist.

I met him on the steps of the library at noon.

He had not shaved. He wore the same gym shirt he'd had on at the party.

He did not look like my brother, the one who liked an audience.

He looked like a boy who had not slept.

"I didn't tell Mom I was coming," he said.

"Okay."

"I didn't tell Brynn."

"Okay."

He sat down on the step below mine.

"I watched it Sunday morning," he said. "While you were still at the hospital. I was counting the likes, and I scrolled back through the raw file to find a better clip, and I saw it."

"Saw what?"

"I'll just show you."

He handed me the phone.

The video was eleven minutes long. He had cued it to the middle.

On the screen, the backyard glowed blue in the last of the light. Balloons, a banner, people holding plastic cups.

Tyler's voice came out of the speaker, narrating the fireworks setup to nobody.

Behind him and to the left, at the edge of the frame, was the dessert table.

A time stamp ran along the bottom: 8:36 p.m.

Brynn stood at the table with her back mostly to the camera.

She had a tote bag on her shoulder, and she looked once over her shoulder, then once more.

She took a clear plastic cup out of the tote.

It had a thick brown layer on top and a pale crumb layer underneath that was not cookie.

She set it on a paper plate.

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