Declan looked like he was going to be sick. “Graham,” he said. “Do you know who downloads the films—is there a record?”
“I guess. It’s all through PayPal and my Amazon wish list. People buy me things from my wish list and then they get the movie. The ones of kids talking are pretty popular because I guess everyone loves kids. I actually thought I’d film Brian for a long time—like over his life, so you can see how he changes. Like in the documentary 35 Up. Have you seen it?”
“Graham,” Becky said, her voice shaking. “This movie has all of Brian’s personal information in it.”
“I know. It’s amazing how much he talks.”
“No,” she said. “I mean, you sold this thing and it has the kid’s address and everything on it.”
“Yours does too,” he said. Still seeming not to get it.
Becky glanced at me with incredulous fury and was about to say something to Graham but Declan cut her off.
“We have to take this to the police and find out who downloaded the movie,” Declan said.
Then Graham started to look freaked-out. “Oh my God, no way! We cannot take any of this to the police.”
“We have to!” I shouted. “Are you crazy? This kid could be out there and maybe they could find him right away because of this.”
Graham stood up and started pacing around.
“No,” he said. “No way. I didn’t do this so someone would hurt Brian. This is just a movie.”
“Didn’t you ever wonder why so many people were buying your movies?” Declan asked.
“Because they’re good!” Graham said. Then he looked sheepish and shrugged like maybe he did know. “Whatever,” he said defensively. “This is my job and my art; I’m not going to go to the police and have them take everything away from me. This is just what happened with the stuff me and Eric made. Why can’t people understand art when they see it?”
Declan and I exchanged shocked looks.
“What kind of movies did you and Eric make?” Declan asked.
“Beautiful movies,” he said. “Beautiful, beautiful movies.”
He called me in the middle of the night and his voice was rough with sleep or sleeplessness.
“You can’t let them do this to me,” he said. “You understand how I feel and what I’m doing. I don’t know why everyone tries to blame me for the things that go wrong.”
“Shhh,” I whispered into the phone, and then slipped out of bed and into the bathroom so I could have more privacy. “What’s going on?”
“You can’t let them take this stuff to the police. I had nothing to do with what happened to Brian.”
“Shh. Shh. Shh. It’s okay.”
“Meet me outside,” he said. “Down in my backyard by the fountain.”
I would have said no but he sounded so upset and frightened I agreed. “Okay,” I said. “Ten minutes.”
I had never done anything like this in my life but I had never heard someone sound so afraid before. I put on my sweatshirt and wool socks, then grabbed my shoes and carried them down the stairs so I wouldn’t make noise. Then I crept quietly over the creaky floors to the back door and slipped out.
The sky was a deep black-blue and stars shone brightly down. The moon was a little silver crescent. I could see him already beneath the fountain staring into the woods. He was wearing a black hoodie with a flannel shirt under it and his same Diesel jeans. He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. The water in the fountain was burbling. It shone liquid and lovely in the starlight. Even though he was upset and I was doing something I shouldn’t be doing I had an incredible sense of freedom being outside in secret with no one around.
When he saw me, he ran forward and held me in his arms. Rested his head on my shoulder. I could feel how much he needed to be hugged and we stood that way for a long time.
“What’s going on?” I said finally.
He looked at me annoyed and confused for a moment and then shook his head. “Please, you have to know I had nothing to do with anything bad that may have happened to Brian. I thought he was a nice kid and a really interesting subject.”
I laughed a little at the way he said it. “Yeah,” I said. “I know you did.”
“Don’t let Declan and Becky go to the police.”
“I can’t make Syd and her friends do anything,” I said.
He held both my hands and squeezed them and looked intently into my face.
“You can, though. You can influence her. You can talk to her. Listen, you and me understand each other. I know we do. We know what it’s like to be shy and outside and different and see things that other people don’t.”
He was staring at me so intensely and his face was beautiful and pale in the starlight. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes looked dark and frightened like an animal’s.
“I don’t know anything about this,” I said. “If you have some information the police need maybe you could just give it to them yourself. You can explain that you were working on this documentary. You just give them what you have. I don’t think they would take it away from you.”
He looked like he was thinking about it. “I’m afraid,” he said.
“Don’t be afraid. People know you don’t mean any harm. You could be a hero.” I watched a wave of relief pass over his face.
“I don’t know how I got to have you in my life,” he said. And then he held me and kissed me. He laid the blanket down in the dewy leaf-strewn grass and then we lay down together beside the burbling fountain. He put his hands inside my sweatshirt and I held his head and kissed him.
Being beside him, and taking care of him that way, made my heart race and when he pressed himself against me I did not say no. I did not push him away. I held him tight and felt our hearts beating in unison. Felt our hearts beating as one. And I knew then I would protect him. Just like I had always protected Syd.
When I slipped back into my room at three a.m. she was awake. Sitting up in bed with her arms folded.
“Where were you?”
“I went for a walk,” I said. Already feeling like this was some kind of weird role reversal.
“A walk into Graham’s backyard?”
I could feel my face flushing. She took Sparkle Pig from her bed and threw it at me. “What the hell are you doing, Ally? What is going on?”
“Graham’s worried you and your friends are going to report him to the police.”
“Don’t you ever wonder why he is so freaked-out about the police?”
“No,” I said. “Lots of people are freaked-out by the police. You and your pothead friends are freaked-out by the police.”
“Don’t you wonder why he goes to school only when he feels like it and he’s always hanging around with his cameras and he acts so spaced-out?”
“We both know the answers to those questions,” I said simply. I was not going to get into her hysterical immature way of being. And frankly I didn’t care. It might have been one of the most special nights of my life and I wasn’t going to let her ruin it with her negative way of thinking.
“Ally,” she said. “I’m worried about you. Graham has made a bunch of weird movies and he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with them or with selling them to strangers online. He made one of Brian and he made one of Becky and God knows who else. We watched some of them yesterday and thinking that anyone could get ahold of these is really scary.”
“It’s no different than Facebook,” I said. “It’s the same as having a Tumblr account.” Which were things I had heard Graham say before.
“It’s very different from Facebook,” Syd said.
“Listen,” I said. “He knows what the right thing to do is and he’ll do it. It’s not up to us to go to the police or mess with his life.”