The Dead Boy's Guide To Second Chances

15. in the missing hours

TWELVE MONTHS AND ONE WEEK PRIOR TO THE DEATH OF OLIVER SALLOW

The morning after Halloween night, Finn was missing hours.

Three, to be precise. As hard as he tried, he could not for the life of him remember a thing that had happened between ten p.m. and one a.m. on Halloween night. There was the living room, crowded around a beer pong game with his friends, a blur of heat and shouts and You're not going to have a panic attack you're not going to have a panic attack these are your friends and you're having fun and you're not going to have a panic attack and then—

Nothing.

It was distressing, just losing half an evening like that. He knew that the memory still had to be there, floating around some neural circuit, but there was nothing he could do to pull it back to the surface.

This alone wouldn't have been so terrible if he could've been sure that none of his mates could remember anything either. He had done something during those three hours, and someone would've had to be with him. He just prayed that it was Aarun or Kavi or one of the other football boys.

"Hey," he said to Kavi after practice the Monday after the party. He had to shout for his voice to be heard over the racket of locker doors being slammed and the defence line's high-pitched cover of the BeeGees' Stayin' Alive. "Friday night was kind of wild, huh?"

"Yeah." Kavi grinned while spraying himself with enough body spray to make Finn feel a little light-headed. "You drank so much, I thought you'd puke all over James's carp—Oi, Aarun, those are my shoes! You put yours in your locker!"

From Finn's other side, a pair of white AirForce trainers came sailing. Finn just barely managed to duck in time to avoid getting hit in the head. Aarun, too busy fighting with his shirt to defend himself, yelped as they collided with his shoulder.

Leaning around Finn, he smacked his brother's head. Pointedly, he turned to Finn again. "Sorry. Where were we?"

"Er... Friday night." Finn pulled his shirt over his head. "Do you know if I did something embarrassing?"

"Like what?" Kavi asked.

Like crying. Like rambling about how I don't know who I am anymore. Like telling Oliver Sallow that I've thought about him every night since London. "Dunno. Puke. Do a strip tease. Sleep with James's mu—"

James's incensed shriek was all the warning he got before a half-empty bottle of Lucozade was fired at him. He caught it just in time and fired it back without checking to see where it landed.

"I can't remember much either." Kavi frowned—whether it was because he was trying to dredge up his memories or just struggling to tie his shoelaces was unclear. He usually kept his tied, but Aarun, in a display of brotherly love, had taken his time to undo the knots. "I think you were actually gone for a bit?" His head snapped up, mouth dropping open in an exaggeratedly scandalized expression. "Holy shit, Birdie, did you leave the party to shag?"

"No!" Finn immediately protested. "I just—I can't remember who I was with after we finished playing beer pong and I thought—"

"You shagged someone and you can't even remember who it was?" Aarun exclaimed. He was suddenly standing right behind Finn, mirroring Kavi's shock.

"No! There was no shagging! I did not shag!"

From the other end of the locker room, Evan Scott yelled, "Birdie found someone to shag?"

Groaning, Finn pulled on his windbreaker. "Never mind."

Ignoring Aarun's laughter, Finn picked up his duffel bag and stomped towards the exit. He already had a hand on the door handle when Kavi yelled after him, "Tell us when you find out who she was!"