The ellipses that meant the person was typing appeared below my texts almost instantly. Like the sender had been sitting there. Waiting for my response.

It was an odd sensation. I still hadn’t processed what exactly was going on – generally, too, but in that exact moment – and it was as though my blood wanted to run cold but wasn’t sure of it, and had instead opted for lukewarm.

You really think someone killed him?

I didn’t know what to say. Wasn’t even sure if I should say anything.

So I didn’t. Turned my phone off, rolled over in bed, willed myself to sleep until the light outside turned pink.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sunday morning, I’d convinced myself that everyone on the planet had disappeared. It was agonizingly quiet, just the hiss of my own breath slipping past my lips and the dry rustle of my sheets. Sunday. If everything had been normal, Dad would have been awake by now. Watching the news. Making coffee. I lobbed the thought of him around my mind for a moment, a little bit of self-mutilation, but I felt nothing. I could hear the news. Smell the coffee. Numb, numb, numb.

I smacked my head lightly, as if I were a faulty vending machine, and then harder, then scratched the back of my left hand until the scrapes blossomed and swelled. Breathe. Breathe.

I changed out of the hoodie I’d gone to bed in, put on another, splashed water on my face and left without leaving a note; Mom would see my bike was gone and figure out the rest.

Outside wasn’t much better. Of course it wasn’t – what sort of life did I expect at seven in the morning in Pleasant Hills? There was an eerie, post-apocalyptic pall over the place; most stores in town didn’t open until noon on Sundays, if they opened at all. Comfort came in the form of cars whooshing past and lingering church bells from somewhere in the distance. I am OK. I am not alone.

But every landmark served as a reminder of what I was running from. Past the city library where Dad and I photocopied pages of my bug encyclopaedia (in colour!) for five cents a page; Frankie’s, where he’d take Olivia and me to get ice cream after Little League; the square at the centre of town, all early-twentieth-century lamp posts and hedges and sidewalks where we’d set out linen chairs with pops in the cup holders and watch the fireworks on the Fourth of July. The whole place reeked of Dad. I couldn’t look anywhere without seeing his silhouette; his ghost crawled from the sewer drains. But in a town covered in residue, how could there have been such a lack? Outrage. Sound. Where were the sirens? The panic? Benjamin Whitaker was dead! Dad was dead!