Playlist for the Dead (12 page)

“You’re lucky you’ve got your mom,” Hayden would say. “One good parent’s better than two shitty ones.”

He would know. He rarely invited me to his house, and at first I’d thought it was because he was embarrassed that his family had money when mine so clearly didn’t. But after I’d been there a couple of times I figured out that it was really about his parents. His mom wasn’t afraid to express her disappointment with him in front of me, and his dad was almost never around; when he was, he joined the party. His brother picked on him at school, and his parents picked on him at home. Even at that young an age, I must have started to understand that there was nowhere he felt safe except with me.

There was one other safe place, of course: the ITC. Our happy place. I’d never been allowed to buy comics—they were expensive and my parents thought I’d stop reading “real” books. Which turned out to be kind of accurate, though it still didn’t mean they were right. Hayden, in contrast, already considered himself a collector. He made a point of buying the first issue of every new comic that came out, just in case one of them took off and the original turned out to be worth something. His parents, like Mom, didn’t approve, but his father was a money guy and thought it was important for Hayden and Ryan to have allowances so they learned how to budget. I think maybe on some level he also respected that Hayden was thinking about his hobby in terms of investment, though he never actually said it out loud. God forbid he actually praise Hayden for something.

That was the day I discovered how into comics Hayden really was. I’d borrowed copies of all the old Batman series from the library, but he was into way different stuff. He introduced me to all the comics written by people from the bands we liked—there was one from the lead singer of My Chemical Romance, and one from the guy from the Dandy Warhols, even one from a bunch of members of the Dresden Dolls. I figured there had to be one from Colin Meloy, lead singer of the Decemberists. “He’s all literary, and his wife’s a graphic artist—there’s no way he doesn’t have a comic if all these other guys do.”

This led to our first fight about music, the first of many, so many I couldn’t count. I wish I’d realized how important those fights would be to me. Maybe I’d have realized how much fun they were.

I couldn’t believe Hayden wasn’t into the Decemberists—they were smart and creative and weird, all the things he loved. But maybe they were too smart; it pissed Hayden off when there were words in the songs he didn’t know. I thought that was part of the fun, but he didn’t see it that way. We were still yelling at each other right up until the time my mom showed up; I made her play all ten minutes of the live version of “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” in the car on the way home, which finally shut us up. We sat quietly through the story of two men figuring out their shared history after being swallowed by a whale. “Sounds like klezmer music,” Mom said, wrinkling her nose, but we ignored her. Hayden didn’t even say good-bye to me when he got out of the car, just thanked my mom for the ride and gave me a little nod.

“Everything okay?” Mom asked. “You guys were kind of quiet back there. Did you have a good day?”

“The best,” I said, and I meant it.

The fact that Hayden had put the song on his mix seemed in some ways like a peace offering to me. Unlike some of the other songs where we’d fought and the song he liked made it on the list, he’d picked the song that was from my favorite album, even though the Decemberists had eventually changed their style on the last album and made Hayden a fan. He could have picked one of those songs, and it still would have meant a lot to me, but the fact that he’d picked this one meant even more.

But it still wasn’t my favorite of their songs. Which meant there had to be another reason he’d chosen it. It was, after all, a song about revenge; maybe it was that simple. Was it some kind of clue? Or an instruction? Had Hayden been directing me to take revenge on his behalf? Or could it be something even stranger? ArchmageGed had manifested himself in my room; maybe it wasn’t impossible that he could do it somewhere else. Crazy, sure, but not impossible.

But if ArchmageGed was Hayden, I couldn’t imagine it. The Hayden I knew would never have done something like that. Then again, the Hayden I knew wouldn’t have killed himself, either. And I didn’t think I was capable of hurting anyone, not like Jason and Trevor had been hurt, but Hayden had done something I couldn’t see coming.

Who’s to say that I couldn’t, too?

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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THE SOUND OF BUZZING WOKE ME
up at nine thirty. At first I was confused and thought it was time for school; then I realized it was Saturday and I hadn’t set an alarm or anything. Besides, my alarm was actually a dock for my iPod, so these days I was waking up to Hayden’s playlist. It took a minute for my brain to de-fuzz enough to realize that the buzzing sound was the doorbell. Which was weird because really, no one ever came over here. Rachel’s boyfriends usually just sat outside and lay on the horn, which Mom really hated, and Rachel never had friends over. When Hayden came over he’d knock, but of course it wasn’t him. My heart jumped for a second at the thought that maybe Astrid had decided to drop by, but why would she do that? We’d just gotten off the phone a few hours before, and she must have crashed after; it seemed like she’d been up all night.

The buzzing sounded again, and I realized I should probably get up and answer it. Mom usually went to bed right after work, so she was probably asleep, and Rachel never got off her butt to do anything, which left me. I hadn’t bothered to change out of my clothes before getting in bed, so I ate a Tic-Tac to cover what must have been my disgusting post-party breath and ran out of my room.

Mom hadn’t gone to bed yet, though, so she’d already answered the door by the time I hit the stairs. I couldn’t see who it was right away; all I could see was a cardboard box, overflowing with stuff—T-shirts on top, who knew what else underneath. I could make out the design on one of the shirts—a mockup of the standard evolution series but with zombies—and I realized it had belonged to Hayden. Then I saw who was holding the box: Hayden’s mom.

“Come on in, Mrs. Stevens,” Mom said. It was funny—I’d almost never seen them in the same place together, and I hadn’t realized how much taller Mom was than Mrs. Stevens, who was tiny. I wondered if that’s what Hayden and I looked like standing next to each other.

It was pretty shocking to see Mrs. Stevens here. She’d never liked me, and she didn’t approve of my friendship with Hayden. Mrs. Stevens was a slim, stylish woman, always perfectly made up, always with matching jewelry and handbags and shoes. Hayden had told me she’d been hoping for daughters, who she could teach how to dress and behave. Hayden’s wardrobe of baggy pants and T-shirts had infuriated her. She always said that if he wore nicer things, he’d have more friends. Great message. “Really, so she’d be less embarrassed of me,” Hayden had said, and though he tried to sound casual, I knew it upset him. She kept thinking that if Hayden hung out with a classier crowd, like Ryan did, he’d be happier, more motivated to change into what she wanted him to be. She didn’t know him at all. It annoyed her that he would come over here, where Mom would let us watch TV and play video games and he could eat whatever he wanted, though of course it was more from a lack of cooking ability than a lack of respect for Mrs. Stevens’s desire to see him skinnier.

She looked out of place here in a way Hayden never had. He’d always said he felt more at home in our house than he did in his own, which wasn’t surprising, given his house. I’m sure it was architecturally significant in some way—it was super modern, all steel and glass and skylights, angular like Stephanie Caster’s, like many of the houses in that neighborhood—but it was cold in every way possible. Stephanie’s house at least had wood floors and some rugs to warm things up; in Hayden’s house the floors were all tile and you couldn’t wear shoes on them, and the temperature was always freezing. The few times I’d been there I’d worried about skidding on the slippery floor in my socks and landing on the corner of a coffee table. I figured the blood would be easy to clean up, at least.

Our house, while not even a little bit fancy, at least looked like people lived in it. Mom was a better decorator than she was a cook, and even if she’d found most of the furniture at secondhand stores, it was all comfortable. The chairs in the living room were beige and brown, and the boring shag carpeting was covered in colorful throw rugs that made the room look brighter, with matching throw pillows on the couch. I could totally understand why Hayden would rather be here. He had a favorite armchair, and we let him sit in it whenever he came over to watch TV, even though it was normally Mom’s chair. There was even a particular blanket he liked, too.

I couldn’t imagine Mrs. Stevens ever wrapping herself up in a blanket and getting cozy in our house, or her own. She looked like she even slept in a straight line. It was even stranger to see her carrying the box herself—I would have imagined she’d find someone to do it for her, though of course it wouldn’t be Ryan. “Sam, why don’t you help Mrs. Stevens with that?” Mom said.

I was happy to have something to do, so I took the box from her, taking care not to make any contact with her, physically. She was always so icy to me that I was afraid if I touched her I’d freeze.

Mom had no such fears, though. She put her hand on Mrs. Stevens’s shoulder, apparently sensing that a hug would be going too far. “How are you holding up? I’ve been thinking a lot about you.”

“I appreciate that,” Mrs. Stevens said stiffly. “We’re doing as well as can be expected, I suppose.”

“I can’t begin to imagine what you’re going through,” Mom said, “but if there’s anything we can do, anything at all . . .”

“That’s why I’m here, actually,” Mrs. Stevens said. “We’ve started going through Hayden’s things, and I put together a box of some things I thought Sam might like to have.”

My first thought was that it was pretty callous of them to get rid of all evidence of Hayden, when he’d barely been gone two weeks. But my second thought was that it was really nice of Mrs. Stevens to think of me, given how much she’d always hated me. She must have been taking this harder than I imagined. I could see where it would be hard to have to look in Hayden’s room every day and see all of his stuff there, as if he were coming back.

“Thank you, Mrs. Stevens,” I said. “And I just wanted to say, I’m really sorry. I wish . . .” I didn’t really know how to finish.

“Yes, I know,” she said, but she didn’t look at me.

I wondered if she somehow held me responsible for what happened to Hayden, if she blamed me. I would, if I were her. I did already.

“We were all so fond of Hayden,” Mom said. “He was like a member of the family.”

“I’m very aware of that,” Mrs. Stevens said, and it was clear from her tone that she didn’t mean it in a good way. And without another word, she left.

Mom closed the door behind her. “She’s quite a piece of work, that one,” she said. “You did well, though. I’m sure she wasn’t who you wanted to see right now.”

“You’ve got that right,” I said, shifting the box to rest it on my hip. It was getting a little heavy.

“I’ll leave you to go through that in your room. And I trust you’ll change out of last night’s clothes and shower, at some point?”

Figured she’d notice. “I’ll get right on it.”

I brought the box upstairs and closed the door to my room. The T-shirts were spilling out of the box, so I took those out first—all of the ironic, vintage, and band shirts Hayden had collected. Even though he was short and round and I was tall and skinny, it all kind of evened out into us being basically the same size, and we’d traded shirts in the past. I wasn’t sure I wanted to wear them yet, but I liked having them here. I looked at the wizard figurine, still on the shelf where I’d originally put it. It stared back at me. Guess I hadn’t needed to buy my own keepsake after all, especially not one that might be making me hallucinate.

The rest of the box contained Hayden’s gaming stuff—his Xbox and PlayStation, neither of which I had, his old Dungeons & Dragons manuals—and a bunch of DVDs. All of the Star Wars movies, of course, new and remastered; all the Alien movies; the Joss Whedon shows he’d been obsessed with. I’d avoided all that stuff until
The Avengers
came out and turned out to be awesome. Hayden had tried not to gloat, but he’d made me promise to watch
Firefly
with him someday. Now I’d have to watch it by myself. Along with all seven seasons of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
.

At the very bottom of the box was Hayden’s laptop. The beautiful shiny new MacBook I’d been so jealous of. Why would Mrs. Stevens have given it to me? I could understand why she’d gotten rid of the games and the T-shirts; Ryan would never have been interested in that stuff. But the computer seemed somehow really personal, like something you wouldn’t just give to anyone. I wondered if she’d wiped the hard drive first. Probably not; she didn’t seem all that tech-savvy.