The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Third Man

Previously: "A Message from Chelsea" 

"Listen, you don't want to go," you tell Will. "It's a trap."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because I already met up with Chelsea this afternoon. Well, with her—"

"What? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm telling you now. And it wasn't even her." Briefly you relate the text you got, and who was waiting for you inside the gym.

"Jesus," he murmurs when you're done. "Okay, thanks for warning me. But—"

"But what?"

"Oh, nothing, I guess," he stammers. "Only I was really hoping—" He trails off.

"Yeah, so was I. I'm sorry, man," you sigh. "I know you miss being really popular."

"Shut up. It's not— Look, I don't wanna complain or anything."

"But?" you ask when he doesn't continue.

"No, nothing. I don't wanna complain. But it's just weird. I wanna be myself again, you know? And not just— Well, it's hard being myself when I feel like I have to be you."

"So don't be me. Be yourself."

"I'd have to get a haircut for a start."

"So get a haircut."

"And some new clothes."

"So get some new clothes. That'll give my mom a thrill."

"I just feel like I'd have to start all over again."

"Yeah," you reply in a very dry tone. "I didn't leave you a lot to work with."

"Shut. Up. You know that's what's making this weird. You think I'm judging you. You think I'm sitting in your bedroom, on your bed, looking at your stuff and looking in your mirror, and you think I'm judging you. You don't have it bad, you know."

"It's just not what you're used to."

"No. I mean, it isn't." He pauses. "And it's not what you're used to either, is it, where you're sitting?"

"No, it isn't. But you're wrong, I don't think you're judging me. I just think I got the better end of the trade, and it's making me feel guilty."

Another long pause. "Well, that's quite a confession," he says.

"You think I didn't get the better end?"

"Well, I'm just not used to, uh, not being myself," he stammers.

You're so goddamed diplomatic, Laura complained to you this morning. You want to tell him the same thing. "Well, roll up your sleeves and start trying to get used to it," you say. "I got a feeling we're going to be here awhile."

* * * * *

You continue to field texts throughout the afternoon, and you have social media to check even as you get a head start on the weekend's homework. There's nothing very interesting until after dinner, when you get a text from "Clover Mystery." She introduces herself as Chelsea and begs you to come out to the school for a meeting. I'm sorry abt Gordon n Steve that's not what I wanted pls come out so I can make it up to u. But you just ignore her. You're not such a fool as to be burned twice.

You're not in the mood to do anything else, though, not even to go dancing—though Parker and Wendy both try badgering you into coming out to Legends with them and some others—so you're still at home when you get the text from your old phone: Will u need to come out ot the school now trust me get ur ass out here asap.

The fuck? you wonder. It sounds like another trap: What is Will doing up at the school when you told him not to go? And is it even Will sending the text? So you're uneasy as you grab your keys and head for the garage. Ok b the n ten, you reply.

It's dark when you reach Westside, and your headlights sweep across the empty teacher parking lot as you pull in. You have your phone out, but keep the motor running as you thumb Will a text: Here now out front cm find me. You're watching from the direction of the portables, so you're surprised the figures come walking out from the direction of the gym. One you recognize from his clothes. The other you recognize from his being more than six and a half feet tall.

It's Steve Patterson. You cuss under your breath. A trap indeed!

Patterson beckons you to get out. You hesitate until they've reached the sidewalk that skirts the parking lot. Then, without shutting off the lights or the motor, you open the door and step out. But you keep yourself inside the door, so that you can leap back in if Patterson makes some kind of move toward you.

"Hey, what's going on?" you warily call. "I thought you weren't coming up here." The words are for Will, but you're watching Patterson.

They both stop on the sidewalk, illuminated by the beams from your headlights. There's a moment of hesitation, long enough for you to read the dark expression of loathing on Will's face, and the taut expression on Steve's.

Then Steve, to your alarm, sweeps his arms around Will and lifts him high in the air. The latter gasps and starts to struggle. Patterson mutters something at him, then shouts at you.

"Will, can I get you to tell Steve here who you really are?"

* * * * *

Patterson has to make the demand a couple of different times in a couple of different ways, and even after he's blurted out, "It's me, Will! Jack! Chelsea did it to me again!" you're still unwilling to credit what he's saying.

Finally, though, you shut off the motor and step out into the headlight beams to talk to them. It's the truculent snarl from Will—"Fucking faggots!"—that finally convinces you that Patterson is—maybe—being on the level.

"I got another text from Chelsea," Patterson tells you, and the tremble in his voice also helps sell it, "and another one and another one, and finally I told her I wasn't going to be coming up here on account of what happened to you this afternoon." He pauses to give Will—who's seething beside him—a quick, dark look. Will, for his part, just listens with darting eyes and a fierce frown. "And she texted back to say she was sorry and didn't mean it, and that if we met up she'd 'fix' everything. And I thought you were coming out here too."

"Pfah!" you exclaim. "She tried texting me, but I just ignored her!"

"But I got a text from you," Steve says. He takes out his phone and scrolls through it. "Well, a DM through—" He freezes and looks up at you with an expression of alarm. "You didn't send me a DM?" You shake your head. "Oh, shit! She freaking hacked my x2z account!"

You pull out your iPhone and log in to x2z. Sure enough, you find a short exchange of DMs from Jack's account to Will's, in which they agree to meet "Clover Mystery" up at the school.

"Well, so anyway, I get out here and Chelsea is waiting for me by the gym side door. She tells me she's really sorry about what she's been getting up to, and says she found an old spell book that she's been messing around with, and something about some 'soul swapping' and how it's been getting out of hand and she wants to put things back to normal—"

"Jesus!" Will mutters. He rolls his eyes and twists on his feet.

"—and that she'd get me ready so that when you got here she could swap us back."

"And you believed her?" you ask.

"Well, what did I have to lose?" Patterson whines. "So we go out to the tennis courts, and she must've ambushed me or something, because—" He takes a deep breath and concludes in a rush: "I don't remember anything until I suddenly woke up and I was naked and when I stood up I was, like, standing on a pair of twelve-inch stilts." He gestures at himself.

You stare at him, then turn to Will. "And what's your story, man?"

"I don't believe a fucking word of this," he snarls.

Patterson grabs him by the head. "You were believing it after I got you to look at yourself in your own cell phone!"

When they break apart, it's the one who looks like Steve who has to give you the other's story. "He told me he got a text from Chelsea asking him to come up here to talk about Gordon. Well, the text was from 'Clover Mystery', but she said she was Chelsea. Anyway, he came up here and Chelsea was here and while he was unlocking the side door for her he came over all dizzy and when he woke up— Well, when he woke up he wasn't wearing any clothes and he was looking like this." He points at Will. "And then I came along from the tennis courts, 'cos I was trying to figure out what the hell and all that, and—"

Patterson kneads his forehead. "And I had to explain that I wasn't even really the guy who he got turned into but was someone else, and that all this had happened to me and you before. I said I'd get you out here so you could explain to him that— Well, so you could vouch for my story." He punctuates it with a shrug.

You look Will. "Hey, I still don't believe a fucking word of this!" he snarls.

"You believe what you see when you take a selfie?" you ask him. He glowers at you. To Jack you say: "Well, I don't see that it matters to him one way or another, what happened to you and me." To Will: "You can fucking believe that I'm really Will Prescott or that I'm really Jack Li. Point is, no one's going to believe that you're Steve Patterson, or that he isn't."

Will glares at you, then wheels and stalks off into the darkness toward the gym. "Oh, let him go," Patterson says, even though you made no move to follow.

Next: "Another Night of Holding Someone's Hand" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"