Joey still knows the phone number by heart. The phone number that was kind of his number temporarily. He’s sure the kid has a spiffy new iPhone, that he has pulled his old data down from the Cloud, and everything is the same for the kid, like nothing ever happened.

The rented room may be bugged. The cops have been in here riffling through it. So Joey slips into the hall and tiptoes to the end of it.

He dials.

Zack’s cheesy-looking, cheap new disposable phone rings.

He figures it’s Emily but when he looks at the number of the incoming call, he doesn’t recognize it.

But he has a feeling.

The encounter in front of the GreenGirl.

The wordless exchange of looks when he stopped Steve from doing something stupid.

He has a feeling.

When his old data got pulled down from the Cloud, Zack’s phone number stayed the same.

His heart sinks. His knees go weak. He starts to shake a little but takes a deep breath to control himself.

He doesn’t know why but he feels compelled to answer. Feels it’s important to. Maybe there’s some closure, some understanding possible, that will, for instance, help calm Steve and take away his torment. Maybe Zack can engineer that.

He answers.

“Zack?”

Zack knows the voice immediately. “Joey,” Zack says. Flatly. Evenly. I thought it might be you. I knew it was you. And still, I answered.

There is a pause on the other end, and then the voice—small, thin, desperate, nearly unrecognizable—“I need your help.”

52.

52.

“He wants my help,” Zack says to Emily.

She looks at him, uncomprehending.

Zack shows the text to Emily. I need your help.

The text Joey sent following their brief phone call. Reinforcing it. Memorializing it. A silent plea that followed his spoken one.

Emily stares at it. Zack watches as the understanding crosses her face that it’s a text from Joey Richter. He sees how she pins her arms and hands to her side, as if she’s afraid to touch the phone, or come anywhere near it.

“You should have changed your number.”

“We thought he’d be in jail,” he says defensively. “We both knew there was no way we’d be hearing from him again.”

“Still,” she says. Hugging her own shoulders anxiously. Visibly upset.

Zack can tell that Emily assumes he won’t respond to the text. That it isn’t even in the realm of possibility. She turns away, goes back to the dishes in the sink and rinses out the yogurt containers for recycling.

“You should delete that text,” she says.

Zack smiles. “What difference would that make?”

“Just…psychological.” Adding, “For me. Do it for me, Zack.”

Zack stands there, staring at the short text again. As if it could reveal some clue.

She turns to him from the sink. “Delete the text, Zack.”

He looks at her and smiles a little awkwardly.