And directly behind him, holding a small canvas bag for the weekend, and leaning as though he were propping shut the door to the room across the hallway, was my best friend, Conner Kirk.
I don’t think I’ve ever gasped in my life, but seeing Conner there, really looking into his eyes, gave me that rush, the fearful surge you get when you slip on ice. It was practically all I could do to resist shoving past Neal and throwing my arms around him.
He looked good.
It looked like home.
And this has to be it.
“Con!”
He just raised his chin toward me, and with that one nod, I knew it really was him; that we were back.
Conner dropped his bag in the hall and raised his hand to slap a stinging high five into mine. We grabbed on to each other so tightly it hurt, and I swear I could feel my eyes starting to well up.
Neal pushed his way past us and slung his duffel bag down on top of the mess of clothes that were strewn all over our floor, grumbling, “Bloody hell. There’s so many fucking Americans here, you’d think there was a bloody war on.” And, to Ethan, he snapped, “Are you not fucking ready to leave yet?”
Ethan, hopping, trying to get a sock over his bony foot, said, “Yeah.”
But he wasn’t ready. Ethan and I weren’t known for being the most punctual kids at St. Atticus, so we were a good match as roommates. And Neal Genovese, as tightly wound as he was whenever we weren’t drunk, was definitely not the ideal roomie for someone like Conner Kirk.
So Conner, still holding on to my hand, said, “There’s a train every fucking few minutes. Chill the fuck out for once, Gino.”
Gino. That’s what Conner called him. Neal thought it was funny, but like a lot of things Conner Kirk said, it pissed him off sometimes, too.
Neal, mocking, shaking his head with impatient disapproval as he watched Ethan attempting to get dressed, in a sarcastic and fake California accent, said, “Oh. Right on, dude.”
I pushed Conner out into the hall, away from the door, and whispered, “Is this it? Is this really it?”
He nodded, smirked. “Mind the gap, Jack.”
I threw my arms around him and grabbed on to him, cursing myself that I was not going to cry.
“There is no fucking gap,” I said.
Conner held me back at arm’s length and slapped the top of my head, rubbing his fingers in my wet hair.
“When did you get back?”
“Just now. Half an hour ago. You?”
Conner laughed. “I was in here getting fucked up with you guys last night.”
I heard Neal inside the room. He was chewing out Ethan for making him wait while Ethan stuffed random articles of clothing into an overnight bag.
“I better get my shit together before he blows up at me, too,” I said.
Conner shook his head. “You? Shit together? You are Jack Whitmore, right?”
And just before we went inside my room, Conner grabbed my shoulder and whispered, “Where is it, Jack?”
I knew what he meant.
Of course I knew what he meant.
thirty-three
On the train to the city, Conner phoned our girlfriends, Nickie and Rachel.
He made lame excuses about Jack being sick, how we couldn’t come to London for the weekend.
Ethan eyed me suspiciously. He listened to Conner’s smooth and convincing sincerity about poor Jack sleeping in bed, laid up with chills and a fever.
“He looks terrible, Nickie.”
Then he winked at me and said, “I’ll tell him you said that, babe.”
Conner was such a slick and practiced liar.
Ethan watched me, one eyebrow raised questioningly.
I shrugged and smiled crookedly. “Boys’ night out, Ethan. I guess that vow of temperance I swore isn’t going to last the day.”
Ethan slapped my knee and gave me an I-told-you-so look.
And Neal said, “Lad’s got to fucking play around sometimes, eh, Conner? One of these days, if you ever get a girlfriend, Ethan, you’ll see. Ha! If. Aren’t I right, Jackie?”
What could I say?
Neal Genovese and Ethan Robson went their own ways once the four of us arrived at Charing Cross.
Conner and I had other things to do now, and I didn’t know where to start.
But I did read through the listings on my phone while we sat on the train.
I found Ben Miller’s and Griffin Goodrich’s numbers there.
At first, I was terrified to even look for them. I convinced myself that the only way I’d be brave enough to do it was if I was sitting there with three other boys. I kept imagining that goddamned barrel in some other Freddie’s garage, in some other Glenbrook. If I closed my eyes, I saw images of the photographs of the boys, spread out on a tabletop in some fucking interrogation room, or I’d remember following Seth through an alleyway near Green Park, when I’d peered down into the mouth of the blue plastic drum and saw their bodies.
While London fell to pieces around me.
But this was it.
It had to be.
I even rechecked their names at least ten times before we’d gotten off the train and said good-bye to our roommates. I ignored the sympathetic text messages I received from Nickie and Rachel.
But there were changes, too.
I figured some things had to be different after an unobserved month slipped by.
Ander’s cell number was saved on my phone, like it had been when Henry and I popped back into his crumbling flat that last time. And I’d even made a number of calls to Ander that I couldn’t clearly remember.
My clothes were all different, too. They fit me strangely, and I couldn’t remember having any of this stuff before the end of the summer. Maybe I grew or my tastes changed, I thought, but when I woke up in bed that morning, I was wearing briefs. Jack never owned or wore briefs one day in his life. The only way I could explain it was that I must have lost or run out of my regular clothes somehow, or maybe Nickie had taken me shopping.
It wasn’t a big deal.
I wouldn’t let myself make it a big deal.
Because this was it.
This was going to be it.
And, mostly, things seemed as normal as they probably should be. All my recent calls were between me and Conner, Nickie, her brother, Henry Hewitt, my grandmother, and at least a dozen calls in the last few days had come from Ben and Griffin in California.
So once Conner and I found a relatively quiet part of the station, I dropped the bag I’d been carrying and pulled the phone out of my pocket.
I hadn’t been thinking about the lens, or the other glasses. I didn’t care about them. And I knew I had them with me, somewhere.
Same old Jack, no matter how fucked up his universe gets.
Always keeping one foot in the door.
But I needed to hear Ben’s and Griffin’s voices, just so I could begin to feel more certain that we all really did make it back from Marbury.
Conner knew what I was doing.
“It’s going to be after midnight,” he said.
“They’ll be up. If they’re…”
I didn’t need to say it; Conner knew what I meant.
If they’re the same.
If they’re alive.
If they’re here.
I called.
Ben answered, in a whisper.
“Jack?”
I held my phone in front of my chin, so Conner could hear, and I watched his eyes to see if he gave a sign confirming that things were really okay.
“Hey. I’m here. With Conner.”
Conner was staring at me, too, looking for the same thing.
“Glenbrook?”
“We’re in London.”
There was a rustling, the sound of motion, like Ben dropped the phone.
“Hang on. I’m in bed. I’m going in Griffin’s room.”
I took a long breath. I was so relieved. “Are you okay?”