Ghost Time

hadn’t been any car accidents reported. My mom offered to make her coffee, but Karen said, No, thank you, heading for the front door. She apologized for overreacting, and Mom and I walked her out, but I could tell something was going on by the look on her face, something she wasn’t saying. After Karen left, I tried calling Cam again, and then I texted and I e-mailed, too, and I thought maybe he’d gone camping or… I don’t know. I sat on the side of my bed after I got out of the shower, staring at the ground, the same way Karen had, and all I could think was, Where the hell are you?
    I haven’t taken the bus once in six months, but before I left for school, I tried again. I called, texted, e-mailed. I went to his site, but even his website was gone. No, not just down, gone—it was gone . No address, nothing: vanished. I swear, when that happened—I mean, I tried three, four times, then I searched on Google, and when nothing came up, every hair on my arms stood up and my hands got all clammy. He wasn’t at school, either—Ikept looking for him, expecting him to walk around the corner any minute, but no. So I texted him all day, until finally, I was just like, Okay, three things: one, this sucks; two, you suck; and three, where the hell are you? I’m really pissed, so get back on the grid! It wasn’t until I sent the message that I had the strangest feeling about the grid.
    It’s this running joke. Because Cam loves to talk about getting rid of everything—his cell phone, credit cards, going off the grid and disappearing completely. So all day, I kept remembering how he’d just said that, the day before, on our way to school, and I just rolled my eyes. Then he goes, You laugh, Thee, but watch: One day, I’ll go off the grid. And you’ll be like, Where’s Cam? Every time I thought of him saying that, I texted him, like at least fifty times. No answer.

MONDAY, APRIL 4, 2011
    (TEN HOURS EARLIER)
    7:35 AM
    He picks me up every morning, and that’s the only thing that gets me out of bed, Monday mornings. And Tuesday, and Wednesday, but anyhow. I kissed him, and then I sat back, shaking my head at him, like, What have you done now?
    You know how a little kid will spaz out after a birthday party, all jacked up on sugar? Well, that’s how Cam is after he pulls an all-nighter, trying to figure something out in his head. I call it the geek tweak when he goes on these rants about the laws of physics and the space-time continuum. Like, say, what if time’s a double exposure, or a multiple exposure, or even an infinite multiple exposure? Seriously, last week, he was going on about how the perfect model for a time machine is a song, and he was, like, What if a song is a time machine, Thee? Think about it—it’s mathematical, it’s coded, you’re transported every time you hearthat particular equation, right? But, see, for Cam, the point isn’t coming up with an answer, the point is the possibilities.
    Sometimes you can almost see sparks shooting out of his ears when he gets going, talking about time travel and time codes—Cam’s obsessed with the idea of time codes, of identifying exact moments in time. He has this theory that if time has a code, then you’ve just got to hack the code. Because if you figure out how to hack the code of a specific moment in time, you can change the entire course of history. And looking at him, as we pulled out on the highway, heading into town, I knew that’s why he looked so tired. Cam gets insomnia, which is normal, I guess, but this is the sort of stuff that keeps him awake at night.
    Oh, wait, let me guess, I said. Did you stay up all night hacking the code again, babe? I mean, since you are the world’s foremost hacker and all, right? I said, trying so hard not to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. Oh, laugh all you like, little missy, but one day soon…, he said. Yeah, yeah, yeah…, I said, wishing we could just keep driving—right through town, and the next town, and the next.
    Three percent. That’s the other thing—Cam drives me crazy with talking about how we can only see 3 percent of reality with our eyes. Like, he’s always going on about the other 97 percent, about how, if you think about how much can be seen with a microscope, that’s the tip of the iceberg. So he started in again, first thing Monday morning on our way to school, and I go, Cam, if I had a dollar for every time you’ve mentioned this, and he goes, All I’m saying is, can you