“You’re a really good friend,” Auggie said.
Orlando shrugged. “You know, a lot of guys would love to hang out with you. Just friends, hook ups, whatever you want. If things don’t work out with Dylan, I mean. I know you and Theo—no, I guess I don’t know.” He turned the end of it into a question.
“I don’t either. I thought I did. At the end of last year, I said a lot of things to him. And then he turned around and started dating Cart, and—and I don’t know, I feel like everything’s different, and I get mad at him all the time, and I don’t know why things have to be so awful.”
“Fuck ’em,” Orlando said. “Fuck both of them.”
“I guess so.”
“You deserve a great guy, Augs. We’ll find one for you.”
“Thanks. You do too, you know. Guy or girl.”
Orlando just shrugged again. “Come down to dinner with me? The guys want to know you’re ok.”
“Yeah, just give me a few minutes to clean up.”
After Orlando left, Auggie pulled his laptop onto his chest, opened it, and pulled up Facebook. Then he opened tabs for Twitter, Craigslist, and Google. He logged out of his social media accounts and created dummy profiles. Then he started trawling white supremacist forums, posting brief requests. He wanted drugs. He wanted to know who sold drugs. He did what he’d learned to do with his own social media platforms: he scanned the traffic, learned the lingo, and made it his own.
Orlando deserved answers about his brother’s death. Every other road had led to a dead end, so now Auggie was going to do what he should have done at the beginning: he was going to follow the drugs. And according to Theo, that meant the Ozark Volunteers.
26
After his bad trip on Percocet and White Rascal, Theo only spoke to Auggie once before Thanksgiving break. He took a week off from life—Dr. Wagner didn’t even reply to Theo’s vague email about a personal emergency—and convinced Cart to call in sick for a day. They spent that day at a winery in the Ozarks, got a cheap hotel, and fucked and drank until they both passed out. Twice on the drive home, Cart asked if everything was ok. The second time, Theo gave him road head just to get him to stop asking.
The next Tuesday, in class, Theo sat near the blackboard, marking out a clear division between himself and the rest of the class.
Auggie, as usual, ignored the nonverbal warning.
He was wearing a button-up, pinstripe shorts, and dock shoes. He kept shifting his backpack, staring at Theo’s feet, and then blurted, “Are you ok?”
“I’m fine, Auggie.”
“Why didn’t you text me back?”
“I had a lot going on.”
“I was worried about you.”
Dr. Wagner came into the room, set his briefcase on the desk, and opened the locks with two identical snicks. He pulled out papers and began assembling his lecture notes. Even from where he sat, Theo could smell the booze.
“I needed to do some thinking,” Theo said.
“Thinking about what?”
“About what we’ve been doing. I’m done. And I hope you’ll stop too.”
Auggie shook his head. “Orlando needs someone to help him. The murder investigation by the police isn’t going anywhere—”
“You don’t know that.”
“—and I think I could help him get some answers. I’m starting to think that if I can find the right person in the Volunteers, they might be able to tell me who was dealing to Cal—”
“Jesus Christ,” Theo whispered harshly. He shot up from the seat, grabbed Auggie’s arm, and forced him toward the hallway. Several students stared, and one boy even shifted nervously to the edge of his chair.
Wagner didn’t seem to notice. He was already talking. “Today we will be discussing Friar John’s role in act five of Romeo and Juliet. Although I believe I can safely assume that either you have not done the reading or you did not understand it, I will take a risk: can anyone tell us who Friar John is?”
A pretty girl, her hair in a loose chignon—Leah, Theo thought—raised her hand. “He’s the messenger sent by Friar Lawrence. He’s supposed to tell Romeo that Juliet isn’t really dead. He’s unable to deliver the message because he’s forced to quarantine, and that miscommunication is what sets in motion the end of the play.”
Wagner’s sneer faltered and then returned. “An adequate summary, but to call it a miscommunication is erroneous. It is more accurately a failure of communication.”
Then the door swung shut behind Theo. Out in the hall, he shoved Auggie up against the wall. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I know there’s good reason to believe the murder wasn’t a drug deal gone wrong, but—”
“I don’t care about that. I don’t care about any of that. The Ozark Volunteers? The goddamn Volunteers? Are you out of your mind?”
“I’m not going to get involved with them. I just want to know—”
Theo shoved him against the wall again. “That’s involved, Auggie. That’s exactly the definition of involved.”
“Stop pushing me.”
“No.” Theo shoved him again. In his mind, he was seeing Evans with the gun. He was seeing Luke in the hayloft, the flies crawling over his open eyes. “No.” He grabbed Auggie’s shirt and wrangled him as Auggie tried to slip away. “No. No. I’m telling you no. We’re done.”
It took him a moment to realize that Auggie wasn’t moving. A girl in a pink tulle skirt had stopped at the end of the hall to watch them.
“Fuck off,” Theo shouted at her.
She sprinted away.
“Let go of me, please.” Auggie’s voice was calm, but the tiniest tremor underlay it.
Theo released him. The button-up was wrinkled where he had grabbed it.
“You’re right,” Auggie said. “We’re done. I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to keep doing this.”
“Great. I’m glad you’re finally seeing reason.”
“No, Theo. You and me. I’m done. I’m not going to watch you kill yourself because you’re afraid of getting better.”
Footsteps were ringing off Tether-Marfitt’s stone floors. The echoes got inside Theo’s head, bouncing around with the buzzing of flies.
“Is there anything else you want to say?” Auggie said.
“You don’t want to be seen as a little kid? You’re tired of it? Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”
Auggie raised his chin but didn’t answer.
“Then don’t give fucking ultimatums like a fucking toddler.”
He couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore. Toddler, toddler, toddler ran up and down the halls.
“I’m going back into class,” Auggie said, his dark eyes soft and very sad.
When the door clicked shut behind him, Theo marched to the end of the hall, kicked over a trash can, and then chased after the mixture of Starbucks cups and paper food wrappers that had spilled across the floor. He followed one of the cups all the way to the stairwell, chuffing uncontrollably, until he sent it spinning off the landing with one final kick. Then, after a minute to bring himself down, he picked up the rest of the garbage, washed his hands, and went back to class.