Evidence of Things Not Seen by Lindsey Lane Read Free Book Online Page A

thing. He always did it at the end of class, when McCloud was droning on about due dates and the final. Tommy thought he could make time speed up. Like the force of his energy jerking in space would compress the minutes or make McCloud speed up. Drove me nuts. I’d point at my watch and tap it at the same speed as seconds ticking, like I was counteracting his energy force. Drove him nuts.
    No idea where he was going. Tommy didn’t do “see you later” or “I’m going to the Stillwell Ranch, wanna come?” He just went. The bell rang and he was gone.
    Well, that’s where they found his bike, right? Wait. Are you suspicious of me because I told you what everyone already knows? Whoa. Back off, Officer Krupke. I mean, Sheriff Caldwell. Sorry, West Side Story . Musical theater reference. You probably wouldn’t get it.
    Tommy and I did not hang out. Yeah, I’ve known him since elementary school but Tommy didn’t do hanging out. He was too intense. We’ve always been in the same science classes and he’s always been my lab partner. Always. He’s the only one who could keep up with me. Have you ever had a bad lab partner? They’re really good at saying, “Whoops, I forgot to keep the control clean.” Or “I didn’t chart the second step. Was I supposed to?” Bad lab partners are a pain. Tommy was meticulous. Obsessed. I loved that. But we weren’t friends.
    He’s always been intense. Not in a sick way. Like he didn’t catch bugs, deprive them of water, and chart their demise. It was more like when he was interested in something, that was all he could think about. Seriously. Pokémon cards when he was six. Daggers when he was ten. Genetics when he was fourteen. Particle physics now. He couldn’t be normal about liking something. He had to collect every Pokémon card ever made. He had to draw every style of dagger since the beginning of time. He had to know every possibility of gene combination with recessive and dominant traits in order to figure out when blue eyes would show up in a predominantly brown-eyed family. Now he’s obsessed with quantum theory. McCloud went off on a tangent about particle physics and Tommy got all supernerd about the subatomic world and how the rules are completely different from the world we live in. It’s kinda cool. How all possibilities exist until one is observed. But Tommy went off the charts about it. It was all he could think about. But that’s how Tommy is. It’s like he goes into a different dimension when he’s interested in something.
    Girls? No way. Not interested. Yeah, of course he knew Rachel and Izzy. They’re part of the famous nerd squad in our class. They’ve managed to keep up with Tommy and me in every AP science class. He might have even noticed they were girls. But as far as dating girls or being attracted to them or doing the whole mating ritual, no way. It’s way too social sciences for Tommy. Too nebulous. Too gooey.
    Rachel sort of acted like a mother hen with Tommy. Or like Miss Manners. Whenever Tommy would bolt at the end of class, she’d stop him in the doorway and ask him if he was leaving and he’d look up, down, and around like he was noticing where he was and then look at her like, well, I seem to be in the doorway and class is over so I must be leaving. He wouldn’t say a thing. And she’d say, “Now is when you say good-bye, Tommy.” And he’d say, “Bye,” like he was parroting back some foreign language, and then he would disappear. Poof. Gone.
    Personally, I think Rachel had a thing for Tommy. You know, a crush on him. She might have asked him to the prom. I think she wanted to. Or was going to. Before he disappeared. Me? No, I didn’t go to prom. Let’s just say the person I wanted to go with asked someone else.
    No way. No one hated Tommy. I mean, he said inappropriate stuff, like one time this huge guy—his name is Robert—he wandered into our class by mistake and Tommy bumped into him or something. When he looked up at