Chapters (47)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- 2 Months Later
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Books by Kasie West
- Back Ad
- About the Publisher
I pulled up a search engine and typed, “fake Heath Hall” into the bar. Pages and pages of hits about the hero spy movies came up along with pictures of Grant James and his sometimes-girlfriend—actress Amanda Roth. I closed out the tab and went to check social media sites for any information on him. I found lots of fake Heath Hall fan accounts, none of them verified and each only boasting a couple thousand followers. After a while I found the account I was looking for and scanned several pages worth of pictures and posts. But I couldn’t find the event map Amelia had been referring to the night before. I shot her off a text: Hey, where did you find the fake Heath Hall appearance map online? I still wasn’t sure how Katie or anyone else was convinced he went to our school and I wanted to see if the map provided any proof.
She didn’t answer back right away. She was probably sleeping. I moved the cursor on the screen to the little envelope icon in the corner, and before I talked myself out of it, I clicked. Once in his DM, I typed a quick message: Is it your goal to distract people to the point of losing? You are messing with futures.
My finger lightly rested on the Send key, but as I read the message through three times, I decided it wasn’t right. I deleted the two sentences. He obviously didn’t care how his antics affected other people. What he really cared about was himself. So instead, I typed: Stay away from the pool or I’ll tell everyone who you really are.
Sure, I had no idea who he really was, but he didn’t know that. I hit Send and went to get myself some breakfast, the taste of Hot Tamales still lingering on the back of my tongue.
The kitchen smelled of bacon, and my mom was dusting the glass box on the wall. She carefully hung Eric’s keys back inside the box, not to be touched again until next year.
In the house, that box framing the keys was the only thing of Eric’s we still had. It could’ve been a lot worse. His room could’ve still been set up just like he had it. Like he was going to walk back into the house at any moment. It wasn’t and I was grateful for that. His room was now my mom’s office. I was grateful for that too—that they hadn’t put me in his room. I already felt enough like the replacement child sometimes.
As these thoughts streamed through my head, I felt guilty for thinking them. My parents loved me. I forced the thoughts away and grabbed my plate of Eric’s favorites.
“I’m going to swim this afternoon. Is that okay or did we have something else planned for today?”