Page 49 of A Sea of Unspoken Things

I opened Johnny’s Instagram app next. If they weren’t communicating on email or text, maybe they were talking in DMs. As soon as his profile loaded, I tapped on the messages, looking for Autumn’s name. It wasn’t there.

How was it possible that Johnny had been the girl’s mentor for over a year and yet they’d only ever spoken in person? Micah said Johnny took her out on shoots, and Olivia said he’d helped her with getting into Byron, so they had to be communicating somehow.

I ran a frustrated hand through my hair. This was what I’d wanted,right? Tonotfind anything? So, why did it feel like I’d stumbled upon some kind of irrefutable proof?

I opened the call log, finger pausing on the screen when I saw Micah’s name at the top in red. There were sixteen missed calls from him the day they found Johnny’s body. There were twelve the day before.

A tingle rushed over my skin as I imagined him dialing Johnny’s number over and over. How many calls had it taken for Micah to call Amelia and decide to drive out to the gorge? At what point had he really started to worry? When had heknown,like he said?

Beneath my and Micah’s missed calls was the last call Johnny made. The phone number wasn’t saved, but the date was the day he died. And he’d called the number three times.

The next call on the log was to Amelia Travis, but that same unsaved number was there again and again in the two days before. I added them up, biting my lip. He’d called it thirty-six times, and it looked like they’d all gone unanswered.

“James.”

A deep voice beside me made me knock the fork off my plate, and I looked up to see Micah standing only feet away. His face was flush from the cold, a few snowflakes dusting his shoulders, and as soon as my eyes met his, that tight feeling in my stomach returned.

He gave me a peculiar look as he crouched down, picking up the fork. “You okay?”

I pulled Johnny’s phone from the table, wedging it beneath my leg on the seat. “Yeah, sorry. You scared me.”

“I said your name like four times.”

I glanced at the door, then behind him, to the line of barstools. I hadn’t even seen him come in.

Sadie came out of the kitchen, giving Micah a wave when she saw him. “Hey, Micah.”

“Hey.”

He gave her a nod when she lifted an empty paper coffee cup into the air and then he slid into the opposite side of the booth, surprisingme.

He looked over the contents of the table. “You’ve been busy?”

“Yeah.” I could feel the burn of the omission on my tongue.

The question he was really asking was why I hadn’t called or texted him since we’d returned from the gorge. But that wasn’t an easy answer, and to be fair, he hadn’t reached out, either. What was I going to tell him? That I hadn’t called him because I could still feel his hands on my skin and that even now, sitting across the table, mine itched to touch him? How did I tell him that I was afraid I couldn’t rebury things once they’d found the light?

Sadie made a quick pass by the table, setting down the to-go coffee cup, but Micah was really studying me now, and I could feel him plucking the thoughts right out of my head. Like he’d listened to me say them out loud.

He set his elbows on the table. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” I said. “I thought maybe you were avoiding me.”

He didn’t deny it. He leaned forward, pulling at his bottom lip with his teeth, like he was trying not to say whatever he wanted to next. “I don’t know how to do this version of us, James.”

“I know.”

That was the only reply I could muster, and it seemed to be enough. A long silence stretched out between us as we looked at each other, and Micah seemed to relax a little, as if just admitting it made things a little easier.

His attention fell to the laptop in front of me. “Did you find anything?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been sitting here looking through his email and texts and everything, trying to…” I rubbed my temples. “Did you know that Johnny paid for part of Autumn’s tuition?”

Micah’s brow furrowed. “No. You’re sure?”

I nodded, dropping my voice. “He made a payment to Byron in July. Over twelve thousand dollars.”

He looked concerned now, and that worried me. I picked at my fingernails in my lap, trying to determine the cost of saying out loud what was already so hard to even think about.