More Than We Can Tell (Letters to the Lost #2)(11)

“I didn’t mean anything, Cait. Really.”

She’s staring at me like she’s trying to decide whether to push or to let it go.

I don’t even know why I said that. My mouth needs to be reconnected to my brain. “It was stupid. I was trying to make a joke but I’m too tired to make it happen.”

A tiny line has appeared between her eyebrows, but she sits back. “Okay.” She pauses, and the slowly growing wall between us gains a few more bricks.

I had considered telling her about Nightmare, but the air between us is full of tension now. Cait wouldn’t understand anyway. The worst kind of troll she faces is someone who accuses her of copying makeup designs or calling her ugly. She has no problem shutting them down. She wouldn’t understand why I can’t do the same.

Motion across the cafeteria catches my eye. That guy from behind the church is sitting at a table in the corner. He’s wearing a maroon hoodie today, the hood low enough to block his eyes from view. He’s got half a dozen plastic containers spread on the table in front of him. It looks like he’s sharing with another guy, someone with reddish-brown hair.

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen two guys share a lunch.

Check that. I can count on one finger.

It’s about the same number of times a guy has quoted the Bible to me.

I pull a purple pen out of my bag and draw stripes across my fingernails, just to give my hands something to do while I stalk Mr. Tall, Dark, and Hooded. A girl joins the two boys in the back corner. She’s pretty, with long, shining dark hair and trim-fitting clothes. Preppy. Glossy. The type of girl I usually avoid, for the simple reason that they always look completely together, and I generally need a computer in front of me to communicate. I have no idea who she is.

Then again, she’s sitting with the Grim Reaper, not sitting on the quad gossiping about him, so maybe she’s not all bad.

“Why is it okay for you to draw on your nails, but it’s not okay for me to do it with real makeup?” says Cait.

My hand stops. “You can do whatever you want with makeup,” I say tightly. “It was a stupid comment.”

“Okay.”

It doesn’t sound okay at all. I hesitate, wishing I could fix this. “I was watching that guy over there. Do you know who he is?”

She twists on the bench to look. “Yeah,” she says. “He’s in my Sociology class. Why?”

“What’s his name?”

“Rev Fletcher. Why?”

I watch him eat from a container with a fork. A real metal fork. “Is he gay?”

“Wait. Let me check.” She screws up her face. “Oops. Sorry. Telepathy is down again.”

I can’t decide if she’s trying to lighten the mood or darken it. “Do you know what’s up with him and the hoodies?”

She glances over her shoulder again. “No. Mrs. Van Eyck makes him take the hood down during class, though.”

“Does he wear it every day?” I don’t know why I care, but it’s like I’ve found a source of information, and the download speed is pathetic.

“Yes. Not the same one, though. He doesn’t smell or anything. He’s very quiet. Doesn’t say a lot.” She pauses. “Why are you interested in Rev Fletcher?”

I don’t know. I can’t pin it down.

Are you okay?

No.

He seems fine now. But also … not. Some small, hidden part of me wants to walk over there and ask him again.

I can see it now. Hey, remember me? You scared me beside the church. Fed my dog some nuggets. Discussed existentialism?

Sure.

He has friends. He’s eating lunch. He doesn’t need me.

But if he has friends, why was he hiding beside the church with that letter?

“Emma?”

“It was nothing,” I say to Cait. “I ran into him when I was walking the dog.”

“Was it weird? I feel like he’d be weird outside of school.” She makes a face. “I mean, he’s weird inside of school—”

“Not weird.” I pause. “Unusual.”

“There’s a difference?”

“You wear a different face every day. You tell me.”

She jerks back, and I wish I could suck the words back into my mouth. I didn’t mean the words as an insult—or maybe I did. I’m too tired to know.

She shrugs her backpack over her shoulder. “I need to go change out some books before class. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Before I can say anything, she slides through the crush of students.

With a sigh, I gather my things and head to class myself.

I’m the only junior in AP Computer Science. I’m also one of only three girls. I slept through Introduction to Coding last year, but it was a mandatory prerequisite. I could have taught the class. When Mr. Price noticed that I was doing homework for other classes while he was droning at the Smartboard, he offered extra credit if I designed something myself. I think he expected something pathetic and basic so he could pat me on the head and pretend he was challenging me. When he logged in to OtherLANDS, he choked on his coffee.

Seriously. He almost sprayed me with it.

This isn’t my first game. It’s my sixth. No one comes out of the gate with an online RPG. Well, no one I know. Not even Dad. He started teaching me to write code when I was seven years old, showing me Pong and telling me to see if I could re-create it. By the time I was ten, I was making basic two-dimensional games. By the time I was thirteen, I could handle 3-D graphics. OtherLANDS is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.