Chapter 85
“Fine. Cause it’s not a big deal,” I replied, leaning back into the cushions of her pink sofa like I didn’t have a care in the world. I tried to keep my breathing even. Chances were, they wouldn’t see what I saw anyway. They didn’t know what I knew, so there was no reason for them to be staring at the video like I was.
I vaguely recalled what the news report had been saying about the time that I’d flung my phone away from me, and even though the audio for both of their phones was playing at the same time but not saying the exact same thing, I tried to listen for it, hoping they’d pass right by it. They did. When the video ended, Lucy said, “Wow. That’s so sad. I hope they find her. Poor girl.”
“Yeah. Really depressing. What scared you?” Emma asked.
“Nothing. I just… it was sad to see her alive in the video and know that she’s probably not anymore.”
“Yeah, that’s awful. I agree.” Lucy put her hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze sympathetically.
“Huh,” Emma said. She slipped her phone into her pocket and picked up her laptop.
“‘Huh’ what?” I asked.
“Nothing. That’s just not what I expected you to say,” she replied. Once again, she was typing like one of those ladies behind the counter at the airport. A second after her fingers stopped flying, the news reporter’s voice filled my ears again. I was getting a little tired of hearing that sound now, but I didn’t move. Was Emma on to something?
She watched the whole video again before she said, “Huh.”
By this time, I really wanted to see it again myself, because the thing that had scared me really had me worried, and I sort of wanted to see if I saw what I thought I saw, but I could hardly do that in front of them.
“‘Huh’ what?” Lucy asked, leaning toward Emma.
“Nothing,” she said again. “It’s just… that guy.”
In my mind, I muttered the word my dad says when a car cuts him off in traffic. That’s a level four cursie. “What guy?” I asked. “I didn’t see any guy.”
“You didn’t?” Emma asked, her forehead crinkled. “I figured that’s what you were screaming about. I might scream. If I was illogical and believed in ghosts.”
“Say what now?” Lucy asked, looking from Emma’s face to mine and then back. “Believed in ghosts?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said, thinking that was probably still true.
“I didn’t say that you did,” Emma replied, still using the same matter-of-fact voice she mostly always does. “But… if I did believe in ghosts, or I was illogical, I might look at the face of that man in the background and think, ‘Boy, that guy looks a lot like a guy I know that died recently.’ That’s all.”
“What the crap are you talking about?” Lucy asked. “I just got goosebumps. For reals.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, realizing that Emma had seen exactly what I saw. And as Lucy leaned over, and Emma started the video again, I realized she’d see it too.
“Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh!” Lucy said, batting at the laptop like it was coming after her. “Turn it off!”
“Let me see!” I demanded, getting up.
“No, don’t play it again!” Lucy insisted.
“See. Illogical. Afraid of ghosts.” Emma looked at Lucy and then at me, but she handed her laptop to me, and I took it, sitting back on the couch as Lucy crowded into the corner of the seat away from me.
I already knew what I was going to see, and I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to see it the first time, and I didn’t want to see it now. But I did. There, in the background, at least ten feet away from Sandra Stephenson, I am almost positive I saw a flicker of a familiar face. He was only there for an instant, and like I said, it was grainy, but that dude in the back of the bar sure looked an awful lot like Jack Cook.
Once that part was over, I handed the laptop back to Emma and said nothing for a long time. Tears began to sting my eyes, and I don’t think they had anything to do with whether or not that was Jack. They were for all of the changes, all of the lies, all of the loss that we’d suffered, and the fact that I couldn’t even tell them the truth. I hated it. I hated all of it.
“Cassidy,” Lucy said, wrapping her arm around my shoulders as I began to cry. “It’ll be okay. I know you miss Jack. But that wasn’t him. It creeped me out, too, but it couldn’t have been Jack. Jack’s dead.”
I continued to cry for a few minutes, thinking about her words and my own internal thoughts. Elliott had told me I couldn’t tell them, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t. I could do whatever I wanted. What was the worst that could happen? He could show up here and erase their memories, or send Hannah again? I didn’t think at this point he could rip my mind away from me. I thought it was too ingrained in who I was. I knew what I needed to do now, not just for my friends’ sake but for my own sanity, and if Elliott found out and couldn’t understand that, then he wasn’t as good a friend as I thought he was.
“You guys,” I finally said, swiping at my cheeks with my shirt sleeve, “I don’t know if that was Jack Cook or not, but… it might’ve been.”
“What?” Lucy asked, leaning away from me a little bit but not removing her hand.
“What do you mean?” Emma asked. “Jack is dead.”
“Yeah, I think he is,” I nodded. “But there’s a possibility he might actually be undead.”
