Look Closer Read online

  Also by Stewart Lewis

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  Books. Change. Lives.

  Copyright © 2019 by Stewart Lewis

  Cover and internal design © 2019 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Maggie Edkins

  Cover images © Jenny Sathngam/Stocksy; Iakov Kalinin/Shutterstock

  Internal design by Jillian Rahn/Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Internal images © browndogstudios/Shutterstock

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

  sourcebooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Lewis, Stewart, author.

  Title: Look closer / Stewart Lewis.

  Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Fire, [2019] | Summary: After strange messages start appearing, Tegan has the chance to save others’ lives--and possibly her own.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018033685 | (pbk. : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Grief--Fiction. | Death--Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.L5881 Lo 2019 | DDC [Fic]--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033685

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1. i am with you

  2. there are no coincidences

  3. there will be ones that get away

  4. take the chance

  5. find courage

  6. think of the possibilities

  7. give comfort

  8. stay focused

  9. put yourself in unlikely situations

  10. go with your gut

  11. do the best you can

  12. i got your back

  13. the people you need are right in front of you

  14. take chances

  15. keep me close

  16. keep your enemies close

  17. stay afloat

  18. speak your truth

  19. always remember

  20. fly

  21. reinvent

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  for my siblings:

  reed, mace, and curt

  When one of us gets lost and is not here,

  he must be inside us and there is no place

  like that anywhere in the world.

  —Rumi

  1.

  i am with you

  Even the window is crying. Through the rain-streaked glass, the tree is a muted blur, silhouetted against a greenish-gray sky. Each drop runs down the pane with slight hesitation before free fall, like tears. I can’t decide if it’s beautiful or an omen. Maybe somewhere in between.

  I exist in the world and complete tasks, but lately it feels like I’m just going through the motions. Basically, I’m numb. Here, but not here, as I sit in my kitchen, methodically eating stale Cheerios out of the box.

  It’s too hot for June. That’s all everyone talks about. Weather, weather, weather. I’ve caught up on all my podcasts and have pretty much Netflixed everything, therefore am bored enough that I’m counting each Cheerio I put in my mouth. I just ate number twenty-three. I’m not even hungry.

  My best friend, Jenna, is in California, and I’m stuck in the sticky swamp that is Washington, DC, for the summer. I know I said everyone talks about the weather, and here I go talking about it, but it is pretty extreme. It gets so humid here that it physically slows your body down, like walking through a thick cloud of moisture. You shower, and then you have to shower again five minutes later. I don’t like to sweat. That’s one reason I like swimming—it hides the sweat. I used to compete, but haven’t timed myself since I quit the team last year. I still swim at the community pool on the edge of Georgetown, but not competitively.

  As a kid, while my friends splashed each other and played Marco Polo, I’d be in the deep end of my neighbor’s pool, submerged, eyes wide open in a perfect silence, tiny bubbles leaking out of my nostrils, my limbs moving in slow motion, speaking some kind of language I would never say aboveground. I love my body underwater. Outside of the pool, the world feels confusing and chaotic, always on the verge of spinning out of control.

  It’s been 402 days since my father died, each one marked by a column of penciled Xs on my bedroom wall. Counting won’t bring him back, but measuring his absence is a way to check in, to let him know I’m still here, that I always will be. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him—the way his smile changed his whole face, the mismatched socks he wore, the dried toothpaste on the corners of his mouth that I wouldn’t tell him about because it made him more real.

  I’m supposed to say that he died in combat, but he was actually flying a helicopter that was blown to pieces in Syria. As a kid, I listened a lot, even when people didn’t think I was. I knew he never wanted to be in the military. My grandfather basically forced him to, and flying rescue helicopters was Dad’s way of saying: Not only will I do this, but I’ll do one of the most elite jobs just to show you. My father was humble, but also very proud. When he came into my seventh-grade class after his first deployment, wearing his shiny medals, I was a celebrity for like, a week. A boy they called Crooked Carl (due to his nose, which I actually liked) even asked me to go to a movie with him. After it was over, his mother was late to pick us up, so we walked over to the train tracks behind the Cineplex. He kissed me while a train was coming. It was thrilling, but we peaked too soon. He lost interest after that. He has a boyfriend now. I joked to Jenna that I turn boys gay, and she laughed, but said, “That’s kind of true.” I always wanted to have a legit boyfriend, but it hasn’t happened yet.

  My mother walks into the kitchen and starts gathering the ingredients for her daily smoothie. It’s a kind of muscle-memory dance, watching her arms arc and twist to get what she needs out of the cabinet and the fridge. She turns on the blender, which is so loud it hurts my ears. Her smoothie has the consistency and color of mud. She started drinking them after meeting Larry, who I don’t really think of as a stepfather. He’s more like a guy who wears a gold chain, talks about his money, laughs at his own jokes, and wears too much cologne.

  Three months after my father died, when m
y mother announced she was marrying Larry, I freaked. I started hyperventilating and hurled the glass of water I was holding across the kitchen. It smashed into a hundred shards. Then I bolted up to my room, slamming the door. I didn’t come out for days.

  Now, my mother takes a sip of her mud smoothie and says, “Mmmm,” then gives me the familiar, slightly pained look that makes her way less pretty than she is. “Honey, you can’t sit around here all summer without doing anything. You can get cracking on your college applications. And have you thought about getting a job, or volunteering?”

  Her eyes bulge, waiting for me to respond.

  “I’m still trying to get over the fact that my father is dead, unlike you, who decided to get married six months later.”

  “Seven. And Tegan, you’ve punished me enough for this. It’s getting old.”

  She’s kind of right. I didn’t talk to her for months. And I definitely didn’t go to the wedding. It’s only been okay between us lately because she threatened not to let me visit Jenna in California next month unless I behave like a “civilized human being.” Whatever that means.

  Larry comes in wearing his multicolored paisley robe, his smile somewhere between a game-show host and a serial killer.

  “Hi-de-ho,” he says.

  Barf.

  There’s a Honey Nut Bee pyramid word game on the back of the Cheerios box, and normally I wouldn’t give it another glance, except I notice that some of the letters are underlined in pen.

  S U J

  U T C M S

  L H A B T R T

  S O A V R D H Y D

  D D H U W A R E G T Q

  E F T Y H F E W F Y G E P L W

  It takes me a few moments of staring to determine the underlined letters spell a name: Brady Hart.

  “Did you do this?” I ask Larry, who’s pouring himself coffee.

  “Negatory.” He’s consumed by his day trading on his phone.

  “Me neither,” my mom says. “Why, what is it?”

  “A name. Someone’s name.” Weird. Who is Brady Hart? Is it some sort of coincidence?

  I put the box down and go back to my room, where I try on some of my mother’s old sunglasses she gave me to get on my good side. The cat-eye lenses are too small for my face, but I look okay. My hair is wavy like my father’s, and I have my mother’s heart-shaped mouth. I choose the black, oversized knockoff Chanel ones and pack my bag with my phone, keys, and water bottle.

  I take the Metro downtown. On the platform, everyone is practically hunched over from the heat, sweaty and miserable, including myself. The rain has stopped, but the humidity hangs thick in the air. When the train comes, we pack in and get even sweatier. There’s a woman who’s eating tuna fish, and it almost makes me retch.

  I get off at Gallery Place and am the first one out of the train and on the escalator. At the top, I run across the street and up the stairs to the giant white door of my favorite museum. The air conditioning greets me, covering my sweaty skin with a cold rush of frigid air. I close my eyes in pleasure. This is my place. There are other people here, but I might as well be alone. I walk slowly, in a kind of trance. It is quiet and lovely, and the people around me aren’t talking about the weather.

  There’s a whole room dedicated to a pile of cotton, like a single puffy cloud in its center. Because of all the negative space, it makes it really seem like art. In another room, there are portraits of people with so much pain in their faces that it somehow diminishes mine. There are also flowers and apples and naked, fat women lounging on couches. There are fields with wild geese and boys with shiny, golden swords. Women in bright yellow dresses who have so many stories in their eyes. Ships being enveloped by massive waves, sailors stricken with fear. It is only the rooms with art depicting battle that I avoid. Still, there are reminders of what I have lost everywhere: fathers and daughters holding hands, people in uniform, a kid playing with a toy helicopter, a Black girl in a camouflage skirt.

  This is why I stayed in my room for so long, listening to podcasts and watching Netflix. Although the reminders were there, too. A story line about a soldier, some kids playing “war.” A journalist talking about being in Syria and losing her husband in a bombing, how she was left holding his hand, which was detached from his body. This is the kind of horrible stuff that happens. But you always think it happens to other people. Except, it happened to me. And I know it’s strange, but it feels like he gave me up for his country. Yes, it was a noble way to die, but for a while I hated him for leaving me behind. Now, I am left with only a deep sense of longing. I’d trade anything to see him smile one last time. Anything.

  I sit down on one of my favorite benches near the van Goghs and take a bunch of deep breaths. I listen to the tapping of the shoes on the shiny floor, the rattle of the air conditioner vent, the soft whispers from the people going in every direction. Sometimes simply being in the world is the right distraction. I sit for an hour or so and then head back outside into the wall of heat. Downtown DC is milling with young interns and bankers who are in their own worlds, staring at screens while rushing to meetings. I am usually in my own world, too, but for some reason I look up at the people around me. A woman with red hair in a flowy white dress walks toward me. I think she’s going to say something to me, but she simply smiles. It’s a real smile not only on her lips but in her eyes. It catches me off guard, and I stop in the middle of the sidewalk.

  Then I hear a kid say, “Hi.” I look to where the voice is coming from. Across the street, a young boy stands and waves at me with one hand, his other holding the hem of his mother’s skirt. He smiles, too. I start walking again, and a man bumps into me, says, “So sorry,” in a thick foreign accent. I tell him, “It’s okay,” and he smiles. This time I smile back. I keep walking, wondering what those interactions meant, if anything. I can feel my father today. He is with me somehow, but it’s hard to explain. I even find myself swinging my arms like he did when he walked.

  I stop to sit on my usual bench in Dupont Circle, sip from my water bottle, and watch the people I call the randoms. They are homeless, or live in shelters or halfway houses, I guess. Some are mentally ill but very high-functioning. There’s a guy with an old transistor radio he carries around. He talks into it, as if he’s communicating with someone in another dimension. There’s a girl who’s maybe in her early twenties with stringy hair and a mean mouth. She smokes the ends of cigarettes she finds on the ground and is always dancing around like a child who needs to go to the bathroom. There’s a guy in a cowboy hat busking with a guitar, always smiling no matter who’s listening. There are some people who have given up on any kind of shtick, dirty Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cups on the sidewalk in front of them. There’s a woman who puts on a daily one-act play for herself. She’s very committed, even without an audience. She cries on command, and her voice has this quaver that’s really authentic. She’s been doing the same material for a while now. It involves a grandmother, who is an empty water bottle with what looks like real hair taped to it, and a couple of holes jabbed into the plastic for eyes. Today, she actually has an audience, but it’s the skinny guy with greasy hair who sleeps standing up. When she finishes, she points across the park to someone they call the sailor. Sure enough, the guy’s wearing a sailor’s hat. She tells the skinny guy it’s a story he made up, that he never sailed around the world, that the guy’s never seen a boat. The skinny guy starts giggling.

  I’ve watched them all for months. Yes, I was given a raw deal, but I could be brushing my teeth in a public fountain with a used toothbrush, or putting on a one-act play of gibberish to a one-man sleeping audience. Still, I’m waiting for the physical weight of my father’s absence to lift. It’s something I carry around, like a metaphorical backpack full of stones.

  While I’m out, Jenna calls from some house in the Hollywood Hills owned by her mother’s friend. She’s doing an internship in PR for film. She’ll be great at i
t. She can talk to anyone, and she’s beautiful. She looks like she could be the daughter of Halle Berry. She started dreadlocks a couple years ago, so they sort of sprout out of her head at different lengths and angles. She is the queen of social media, constantly posting pictures that I usually duck out of.

  “T, I can’t wait for you to get out here. There’s a pool boy!”

  “Wow. But, Jenna, I’m not exactly the Hollywood type.”

  “Girl, you are all that and a bag of Cheetos. You just need a little nudge.”

  When I first started hibernating in my room, Jenna was the only one I’d let in. She’d come over to fix my hair or show me some special eyeliner, and she’d bring pistachios, which was all I’d eat. Her visits were the only thing that temporarily cheered me up. She’s super fashionable, whereas I’m the girl who puts her hair in a ponytail and calls it a day. When we’re out together, she looks like the pop star and I look like the assistant.

  “Whatever. I have to work on these stupid college applications.”

  Jenna makes a noise on the other end. It’s a sore subject. She wants me to rejoin the swim team next year, so I can get into a good school. She’s very college focused, and I’m, well, I don’t really know what I am. She’s right, though, I would need swimming to get into a top school. My grades are average. I used to get A’s, but my father dying didn’t exactly boost my GPA.

  “Anyway, when you come, you can show off your swimming talents for the pool boy.”

  I’m blushing, thankful no one in the park can see me or even cares. “We’ll see.”

  “Well, wish me luck. I have my first day today. I’ve changed outfits like a hundred times.”

  “Jenna, you could wear a paper bag and look hot.”

  “Thanks, T! I think I’ll keep you around forever.”

  “I’m not sure how long any of us will be around.”

  “T, don’t be morbid.”

  “Okay, have a great day. I’m sure you’ll kill it.”