Ghost Time

need to speak to my daughter about this, so Foley nodded his head, like he was overflowing with compassion, liar, and he gave her his card, and then we walked out of the office.
    When we got to the hall, Mom offered to take me home, but I said no, because I didn’t want to talk—I couldn’t, and she wasas shell-shocked as I was, so I knew she’d wait until she got back from work. She turned and walked out, and I went to my locker to grab my books, and last bell rang, and I was late already, but that’s when I went to the bathroom, and I went into one of the toilets, locked the door, and then I just started sobbing. When I couldn’t cry anymore, and I don’t even know why, but I called Knox. I just needed someone to talk to, and who can I talk to anymore? He picked up right away and asked what was wrong, and then I started blubbering all over again, so he couldn’t understand what I was saying when I told him someone put tapes of me and Cam having sex on the Internet. And Knox goes, Thea, where are you? I go, The girls bathroom, where do you think? Then he sighed and goes, I better come and get you, so I told him, I said, Knox, I don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay? He goes, Good: me, neither.
    When he picked me up, out front, I got in, and he didn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell if he was being for real or not, so I said, I feel like you aren’t saying something. And he said, I’m not. And I go, You saw the videos, didn’t you? He nodded yes, and I said, Speak up, then, and he goes, That afternoon, you two cut class and drove to your house? And I said, Yes, and he said, And then what? I was so annoyed. And we had sex, I said, okay? And he goes, I’m sorry, Thea, but I have to make sure I’m understanding you. You’re telling me that you and Cam did have sex that day? I said, Yes, we did, but it’s not us in the video, Knox. He goes, How can you be sure? And I go, Because we didn’t tape ourselves, that’s how! I yelled it at him, too, and he held up his hand, holding me back, and I sat back in my seat.
    He looked in the rearview, and then he goes, I’m sorry to have to say this, Thea, but look at the facts, and I go, He didn’t . Do it. Okay? It’s impossible, I said, and he said, Anything is possible, and I said, Not in this case. And he goes, How can you be so sure, Thea? I said, One, because I know Cam, and two, because it never happened. Knox goes, What do you mean it never happened? I said, You won’t believe me if I tell you, and he raised his brow, and he said, Try me. I go, Okay, then. The last video, that one that looks like us from that Saturday night, the one that looks like us having sex in the bathroom at that party? It never happened. I’m telling you that it can’t be us in that video, because it never happened —it was just something I thought, and then Knox’s head started shaking, and he pulled over. He stopped the car, and then he turned to look at me like, let’s get this straight. Knox goes, Thea, you’re telling me… you’re telling me you two didn’t have sex in the bathroom that night; you only thought about it? What, like a fantasy? You’re saying it’s a video of your fantasy? I looked over at him, and I go, Exactly .

THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 2011
    (FIVE WEEKS EARLIER)
    4:11 PM
    Cam’s hands were all black from Magic Marker, helping me scrub the ink off my feet, before we got back in bed. I put my arm across his chest, and he was looking at one of my scars, and he didn’t say anything. He was just looking, turning my biceps to the light, and I told him, I said, Craziness is genetic, you know? I come from a long line of crazy people, and he goes, Hard to believe.
    I go, I’m not kidding. One year, when I was about five or six, they had a family reunion on my dad’s side, and it was this big, big deal. Like even my mom came, and she never went to Nanna’s house. Anyhow, I just remember everyone whispering about one of my dad’s cousins who was there. I guess he got special permission to be there, because he’d had some sort of breakdown, and they had to commit him. I didn’t really understand that at the time, but I remember overhearing some of my relatives talkingabout how it all started. David, my cousin, when he was a teenager, I guess he had such bad insomnia that he could barely go to school, then he started seeing things. So one morning, he walked down to the breakfast table, and told his parents there were ghosts in their house, and then it