Chapter 31: Before Hey

He turned his phone over and opened the notes app.

The eleven drafts were there, the ones I'd scrolled through under the clock tower.

He scrolled past the bottom of them.

There was a folder under them I'd never seen, with one note in it.

It was called "don't."

He handed me the phone and turned onto his back, so he wouldn't be watching me read.

The lamp was still on.

The note was dated June ninth, 11:52 p.m.

Fourteen minutes after Carver's post.

"I don't know you."

"Twelve minutes ago I saw a picture of you at a fair, with powdered sugar on your chin."

"You're laughing so hard your eyes are shut."

"Under it a guy I play with wrote that he's giving you away."

"Forty people laughed, and three of them want to film you crying."

"I just told him I'll take the login, so they can't have it."

"I don't know what I'm doing."

"Tomorrow you'll message him like always, and I'll have to answer."

"I'm going to tell you the truth the first night."

"If I don't, I'm a coward, and you should know that about me."

"I hope somebody was there to see what was so funny."

"I hope next time it's somebody who laughs with you."

That was the end of it.

I read it twice.

Then I read the time again.

Fourteen minutes.

Before he knew my name, my rank, my jokes, my goodnights.

Before the thunderstorm, before the lemon bars, before any of it.

All he'd had was one picture of me laughing.

"It was my mom," I said. "Stepping in the funnel cake."

"I know. You told me on the arena steps."

"You wanted to know what was funny."

"I wanted to know what was funny," he said to the ceiling.

I didn't give the phone back.

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