Ghost Time

working on it since Christmas, and Hubble’s everything: it’s photos, collage, pencil sketches, ink drawings, inside jokes, our entire universe. Cam even writes these ridiculous formulas—talk about hieroglyphics, don’t ask me if they’re real or he’s screwing around—our video game ideas, our scripts, everything. Everything starts here, goes here, belongs right here. Because it’s our own world, you know? It’s a world just big enough for two, and the day he left—the day he disappeared —god, that’s so hard to say, the day Cam disappeared. Anyhow, that day, for the first time, I couldn’t put anything down. Cam handed Hubble back on Monday afternoon, and it was my turn, left side—except that both sides were these huge blank white pages, and I had this pang in my chest, thinking it might be that way from now on. For the first time, those two blank pages really fucking scared me.
    I kept staring at it, completely spaced out, like somehow the notebook would tell me the answer, solve the mystery of my universe, let my boyfriend know I was going to kill him if this was some sort of joke. Because trust me, I’m not laughing, Cam. You hear me? I don’t know if I said that out loud or not, but then I looked up and saw that I’d written it, in our notebook; these big block letters: I’M NOT LAUGHING!!!!!!!!!!!!

SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 2011
    (TWO DAYS EARLIER)
    10:37 PM
    Well, I’m not what you’d call a party girl. I mean, I used to love going to parties, but now, it’s like, binge drinking with jocks just isn’t my scene. Crazy me, right? I mean, it’s like when you’re in junior high, you think a high school party will be so cool , right? Well, hate to break it to you, but watching a bunch of junior and senior girls chugging vodka and Red Bull is so far from cool, you stand there thinking, Is this it? Really? But then, I don’t know, somehow you figure you might as well join them, because the truth is so sad, and that’s exactly what you were trying to avoid with all your daydreaming.
    But the thing is, Cam gets invited all the time; every weekend he’s invited to two or three parties, and it’d be rude if he didn’t stop by once in a while. So Saturday night, he wanted me to join him. And when he asked me, on Tuesday or whenever, I said I’d go, thinking, if I’m with him, I can do anything, right? I thoughtI’d be fine, but by Saturday night, when he picked me up, god, I didn’t want to go. But then again, I did, because Cam wanted me there, with him, and wherever he is, is where I want to be.
    Cam said it again, when we got there. He was just like, Thee, try to have a good time, all right? And I was like, That’s what I’m going to do, and I did, too. I did try. And it was fine, it really was. I talked to a few people, and everyone was cool, but honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing there, standing in somebody’s parents newly redecorated colonial Americana kitchen, drinking Coors or whatever.
    Cam can’t see it, but I’m telling you, people still look at me like I’m this pixie thing—on a good day—they don’t get what Cam sees in me, when he could have any girl in school he wanted. Like there are still people who call me Addams, short for Wednesday Addams, because they think I’m so Goth. But the thing is—I mean what annoys me most is that they don’t even know what Goth means. Seriously, they look at my hair, and I’m just like, Dude, it’s a Louise Brooks bob, okay? We’re talking silent-film star and one of the original It Girls, not the Sisters of Mercy. Except I can’t even say that, because they don’t know who Louise Brooks or who the Sisters of Mercy are, drr.
    Anyhow, there we are, crammed into the kitchen with a hundred other bodies, and I look over, and it happens again. It’s not like making time stop, it’s more like the world’s a merry-go-round, but just the two of us, me and Cam. Like the world keeps spinning, but we stand still. So I look over at Cam, thinking, It’s happening—it’s happening again , and there’s this huge smile on his face, and I know exactly what he’s thinking, because we’rethinking the exact same thing. It’s private, and it’s ours, and we’re grinning at each other, thinking the same dirty thought, like there’s no one else in the world.
    And then none of it mattered. Everything, all the shit that happened last year, the kids from school, all my old friends, it doesn’t matter what people think, what they