Parrish

  I wiped away a few tears that had escaped my eyes during my laughing attack. “You had a women’s football team?”

  “Soccer,” he said in an exaggerated tone. “Americans.”

  I managed to get my laughing under control. “I can see why you might be scared of women,” I said, trying to be sympathetic. “What about Jefferson? Was he picked on a lot?”

  Part of me was simply bored from the traffic jam that hadn’t moved an inch in the past ten minutes, but part of me was actually curious about Jefferson’s childhood. Somehow I couldn’t imagine the crazy Parrish as a child. He seemed like someone who had always been a little adult. I mean, a scary, intense adult. But still, an adult nonetheless.

  “Jefferson and I didn’t go to school together,” Deacon said, sounding like I should have known this information.

  “I don’t know why I just assumed you lived close together.”

  “We sort of did. I mean, he lived in a posh neighborhood and I didn’t, but we were within walking distance. But Jefferson’s mum sent him off to boarding school right after his dad died.”

  I tilted my head to the side in confusion, pulling the classic Jefferson move by accident. Maybe I had been spending too much time with the boy.

  “He actually got in a lot of trouble at that school,” Deacon said with a conspiratorial grin. “You know how a lot of schools have teacher evaluations at the end of the term?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, Jefferson’s evaluation of his teachers was a bit . . . intense . . . I guess.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, suddenly interested.

  “I can’t remember the whole thing unfortunately, but he said something like, ‘I would surely take such immense pleasure in crawling into your brain to explore it and pick it apart. To see the inner workings of your brilliant mind would be very satisfying.’”

  “Yikes,” I replied with a slightly horrified look. “Sounds like a serial killer.”

  “Yeah,” Deacon agreed with a nod. “That’s what the teacher said too. The school threatened to kick him out, but his mum donated a library wing or something to keep him in. Then they said he had to meet with the school psychologist once a week as long as he stayed there.”

  “Wow,” I said as the traffic began to ease up a bit. “Poor guy.”

  “People just don’t quite get him, I guess,” Deacon said, putting it lightly. “Like, he freaked a lot of the kids at his school out because he would get them these ridiculously elaborate, expensive presents when he was their Secret Santa. I’m talking really personal gifts that were just a little weird.”

  “Like what?”

  “I think he got one kid a vacation to Scotland with his family because he heard the kid saying he wanted to spend more time with his parents. Just really extravagant things like that. And while he would think he was being sweet and thoughtful, the kids and parents thought he was a complete nutter.”

  “That sounds about like Jefferson,” I said, thinking that this picture of his younger self made perfect sense.

  “I think he would even draw pictures of the kids in his class and give them to them as gifts,” Deacon went on, starting to laugh at his cousin’s cluelessness. “Which, you know, I could see why he thought it would be nice. But to a perfect stranger it was probably a little creepy.”

  “He does walk the line between sweet and creepy a little too precariously,” I said with a sigh.

  There was definitely something wrong with me for liking Jefferson as much as I did.

  Deacon gave me a sideways glance as we neared the hotel. “I’m just glad you and Brighton are nice to him. I know he says he doesn’t care, but not a lot of people are kind to him.”

  “He’s weird and moody, but we’re kind of stuck with him, for better or worse. There are definitely worse friends to have,” I said.

  We fell silent for a minute after Deacon parked the Jeep in the hotel parking lot. We both stared out the window, lost in our own thoughts.

  “Hey, Sadie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you fancy my cousin?”

  I tried not to be obvious in my shock at his question. I didn’t want to give anything away. Instead, I replied with the one thing that would shut him up effectively.

  “Do you fancy Brighton?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me in the darkness of the Jeep. “Well played, sir,” he said.

  I gave him a self-satisfied smile and got out of the Jeep. I was quite proud of myself for my little victory, although my mind was distracted by what I’d learned about Jefferson. When I’d first met him in college, I knew he was weird. It was pretty obvious with all of his staring and lack of normal responses to things. But in college, (especially in Portland), people just thought you were being individualistic when you acted weird. I could only imagine that kids at a boarding school would have been intolerably cruel to him for his quirks. Kids were mean as it was, but throw someone like Jefferson in there and it was amazing he’d survived.

  Opening the door to the hotel room, I was overcome with an intense desire to run over and give Jefferson a hug, but I obviously refrained. Instead, I let my lips pull up into a little half smile when I saw him. He’d been wearing an odd expression when we’d first entered the room, although when he saw my smile, his face instantly lit up.

  Brighton, on the other hand, was staring at the computer screen in front of her and Jefferson with a bright red face.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Is Jefferson making you watch more of those microbiology videos about how many germs live on your skin?”

  “We were just reviewing tape,” she said.

  I glanced over at Deacon to see if he thought they were being as weird as I did, but his face instantly turned red as well.

  “Okay, now I have to see this tape,” I stated, sitting beside Jefferson on the bed and placing my hand on his back as I leaned toward the computer screen.

  I could feel him tense under my touch while a small smile formed on his lips. I couldn’t seem to stay far from him. It was a little ridiculous.

  Brighton’s finger hovered over the mouse pad on the laptop, but she didn’t play the isolated clip. She just continued to stare at the screen, her mouth thin and tight. Deacon was frozen by the door where we’d entered, looking immensely uncomfortable.

  “Brighton?” I asked. “Are you going to play the clip?”

  Jefferson laughed softly beside me and I narrowed my eyes at him. Something weird was going on.

  “I’ll play it,” he finally responded with a full-blown smile, hitting the play button.

  The screen held an image of Deacon by himself in one of the rooms in the Bray home. He held a flashlight and walked around nonchalantly, but suddenly froze as if he’d heard a noise. Turning around slowly, relief flooded through him at whatever he was seeing.

  “What are you doing in here?” he asked, and I waited to hear a response from one of us, although none ever came.

  “Are Sadie and Jefferson still in the Jeep?” he asked the empty space.

  I racked my brain to figure out where in the investigation this was until it hit me all of a sudden. This was when we’d turned off the volume to Deacon’s mic so that all three of us could talk about the investigation. He’d been alone in the house until he got mad about something and came back out to the Jeep.

  This realization made the clip I was seeing that much weirder, since Deacon definitely thought he was talking to Brighton at this point.

  “Oh . . . well, good,” Deacon said awkwardly on the video.

  “Can we please turn this off?” the real Deacon asked, still standing by the door and looking pained.

  “We’re just getting to the good part, mate,” Jefferson said with glee in his voice.

  Deacon groaned, but didn’t say anything. It was obvious Brighton had already seen whatever the clip contained.

  On the screen, the recorded Deacon backed up a bit until his back w
as against a wall in the Bray house. He looked a bit startled, but not as if he’d seen a ghost. Whatever was talking to him had to be the mimic pretending to be Brighton.

  That was just so mean.

  “I mean, I definitely do, I just never thought you’d . . . you know,” the recorded Deacon finished quietly—almost too quietly to hear.

  This was painful to watch and I could feel myself grimacing involuntarily at the awkward situation we were suddenly all a part of.

  His expression on the tape went from startled to ecstatic before he said, “Do you mean that?” just as Brighton’s recorded voice cut in, calling his name.

  And then the clip ended.

  We were all silent. Awkwardly silent.

  There wasn’t really much to say. It was painfully obvious that Deacon had thought he was talking to Brighton, and that Brighton was telling him she liked him. And then, of course, Deacon had admitted to liking her as well. It was just too many levels of awkward to process, so I did what needed to be done and didn’t bother with the whole “talking about this situation like adults” thing.

  “Ally was really grateful we brought the letters back,” I said, startling Brighton, who jumped a little at the sound of my voice.

  Deacon was staring at the ground and wringing his hands, not able to look at any of us. No wonder he’d been so upset when he’d left the Bray house—he thought him and Brighton were finally on the same page only to find out it was just a mimic messing with his mind. Of course, I was desperate to talk about the fact that Deacon had carried on a full conversation with a ghost that we apparently couldn’t see on the screen, but I didn’t think there was a tactful way of addressing that issue at the moment.

  “Oh, good,” Brighton responded, trying way too hard to sound like we hadn’t just watched Deacon declaring his love for her.

  “Did you already map out our trip for tomorrow?” I asked her, trying to keep things light.

  “I already booked a hotel,” Jefferson cut in.

  “What?” Brighton and I said in unison.

  “Jefferson, you know you can’t book the hotels,” I said incredulously. At least now we had something to distract us from the clip.

  “Did you remember to get a room on the bottom floor?” Brighton asked, sounding like this was a life or death situation.

  “I don’t remember,” he answered.

  “I have to be on the bottom floor,” Brighton practically shouted, starting to panic.

  “She’s scared of falling through the floor,” I whispered to Jefferson, sure Brighton could hear me.

  “Calm down,” he answered, exasperation dripping from his voice. “I remembered; I was just joking with you guys. Everyone here is so uptight.”

  Brighton’s breathing was still rapid, but the small panic was effective in changing the subject away from the clip we’d just watched. Deacon finally moved away from the door, although he and Brighton were too careful about avoiding each other for the rest of the night as we all got ready for bed.

  It would have been cute if it weren’t so sad.

  Chapter 23

  Inevitably, Jefferson and I ended up sleeping on the floor in the small space between the two twin beds again to avoid our impossible bed buddies. I wanted to pretend like I was upset by this fact, but since Deacon and Brighton were both sound asleep, I didn’t see the point in pretending around Jefferson. Instead I lay on my side and laced my fingers through his, smiling at him in the darkness.

  It felt good.

  “Deacon told me all of your secrets today,” I whispered, pretending to be scandalized by his “secrets.”

  Jefferson’s face remained neutral. Apparently he didn’t have any secrets he was worried about.

  “What did he say?” He looked down at our entwined hands and ran his thumb over my palm. “You have the smallest hands, by the way.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was complimenting me or simply making an observation, but either way, I ignored it, wanting to hear more about Jefferson’s childhood straight from the source.

  “He told me that you went to a boarding school and that you got into a little bit of trouble there,” I began, now looking down at our hands as well instead of at Jefferson.

  “You know, they aren’t really secrets if they’re things I would have told you myself, Sadie. And I would tell you anything.”

  I knew he was trying to be sweet, but as usual, it just came off as way too intense, making me shift my weight a bit at how open he was with me.

  “How was it, having to go to the therapist when you hadn’t really done anything wrong?”

  I wasn’t sure when I had sided with him on the whole situation, but I guess knowing that Jefferson hadn’t been malicious in his teacher evaluations but was honestly just clueless about how creepy he came off sometimes made him more endearing and less weird.

  “I never told Deacon the whole story,” he said, swallowing hard and meeting my eyes.

  He seemed hesitant, but couldn’t really refrain from elaborating after just saying he would tell me anything.

  “After my dad died, I would see him around a lot,” he admitted, biting his lip for a moment before continuing. “We’d never talk or anything, but I’d see him standing in a room with me. I’d smile at him and he’d smile back, and that was all we needed. We didn’t need to say a bunch of meaningless words. Sometimes words just get in the way. We understood each other enough to just smile.”

  “How often did you see him?” I asked, believing him wholeheartedly. Normally I’d think he was just crazy, but not now.

  “A few times a week,” he answered. “Anyway, when I went to see that therapist at the school, I felt like he was my friend and I could trust him, since he talked to me when none of my teachers or classmates would. I guess I was too young to know he was paid to talk to me.”

  I squeezed his hand.

  “I told him about seeing my dad all the time, thinking it was a cool story that he’d want to hear about. But then I heard him talking to the headmaster about being worried that I was schizophrenic and suggesting they start medicating me, which obviously freaked me out.”

  “You knew what schizophrenic meant when you were that young?” I wasn’t sure why I’d chosen to focus on that particular piece of the story.

  “We had a big library at my house and I read the medical dictionary there . . . a few times.”

  I refrained from looking shocked that Jefferson had read a medical dictionary as a child. Of course he had. He was Jefferson.

  “I didn’t want them putting me on medication for something I didn’t have, so the next time I met with the therapist I told him I’d made the whole thing up and apologized. I pretended I was joking with him and said I just had a bad sense of humor.”

  We were both silent. I could hear Deacon and Brighton snoring lightly still, letting me know that we were, for all intents and purposes, alone. I scooted closer to Jefferson, laying my head on his pillow and watching him, silently willing him to continue.

  “I never saw my dad again after that,” he said, puckering his lips tightly and furrowing his brow.

  I opened my mouth and took a breath as if I might say something, but I couldn’t think of what to say. Instead, I brought my hand up to his cheek and lightly stroked the spot right below his eye.

  “I keep hoping if we do enough of these paranormal investigations, he’ll come back. He’ll see that I’m sorry for saying I didn’t really see him.”

  “Jefferson, I don’t think your dad left because he was angry. Maybe he just moved on.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed halfheartedly. “That’s a big part of why I hate the idea of being ‘normal’ when you don’t want to be. The last time I denied something I knew was true, I lost the person I loved the most.”

  “How do you put up with me and my insistence on being normal?” I laughed, although the laugh was humorless.

  “It gets complicated when the thing you love is the thi
ng that wants to deny her own weirdness,” he said with a small smile. “But I’m working on figuring it out.”

  I nodded, trying desperately to think of something else to say so that I could gloss over the fact that Jefferson had most definitely just said he loved me. It shouldn’t have surprised me that Jefferson Parrish would say something like that to a girl he wasn’t even dating, but it still took me by surprise. He had a bad habit of doing that.

  “I’m sorry people at your school didn’t get you,” I said, trading in being honest about one thing for being honest about another.

  I wasn’t ready to be as honest as Jefferson as far as our relationship went—or our non-relationship, I guess.

  “Sadie, nobody gets me,” he answered, sounding amused by this fact. “Except maybe you.”

  “Great,” I said.

  He wrinkled his nose at me and leaned over to give me the smallest of kisses, which I returned with a bit too much enthusiasm. I may not have said I loved him back, but it was kind of an amazing feeling to have someone tell you they loved you, especially when I spent so much time with a family I didn’t think loved me at all.

  Moving my hand behind his head, I pulled him closer to me, wanting to forget about everything around me and only focus on Jefferson Parrish, the weird boy I had suddenly become so attached to against my better judgment. His hands found my back and pulled me against his chest as we kissed, but it didn’t take long for him to pull away from me.

  “Brighton,” he whispered.

  “What?” I asked, slightly offended.

  “Brighton and Deacon are sleeping about two inches away from us,” he elaborated in a whisper. “Probably not the best place to be snogging.”

  This was coming from the boy who had tried to kiss me in front of them numerous times, but I didn’t point that out.

  “Did you want to go outside?” I pressed my lips against his once more and deepened our kiss, trying to tempt him away from the stuffy hotel room.

  I could use some air anyway, and kissing Jefferson stopped me from being so uptight. It was like Brighton’s equivalent of taking a Xanex.