Holden

It was the first time in over a month where Holden and his roommate were both home for dinner. They made an evening of it, going to the market (another name for a grocery store with a hot bar and nine-dollar cartons of eggs), buying vegetables and fresh chicken neither of them could afford, and cooking all of it over their cheap electric stove. But it was worth it; Francis appreciated the meal scraps, and Holden enjoyed spending time with Lauren. And since he had nothing else exciting to talk about, he told her about the drive.

"Here's what I don't understand," said Lauren as she dried a plate. "Why do you care so much?"

Holden rinsed off a handful of forks and passed them to her. "What do you mean?"

Lauren wiped off the forks and tossed them in their unorganized utensil drawer. "I mean, yeah, those files are spooky. But what are you hoping to find?"

"I just need to figure out who the files belong to and get permission to wipe the drive. It's protocol."

"No, Holden. What are you hoping to find?"

Holden turned off the water, grabbed a towel from the counter, and clinically wiped his hands as he dissected her question. "I'm hoping to find that Dupont is okay, I guess."

Lauren sat at the kitchen island and gestured to the clamshell of organic brownies they'd purchased with their dinner ingredients. "Help me eat these."

Holden sat. "I want to know what happened to all of them. Wouldn't you be curious?"

Lauren cracked open the clamshell. "I don't know. I'd be too afraid of a bad ending. Have you thought of that?"

"Well... yeah." Holden stole a brownie. "I guess it would suck to find out she was dead or something."

The thought made his heart sink more than he cared to admit, and it was like Lauren could tell. She smiled sadly at him. "I hope by the end of your quest, you find out she's alright."

Quest. The word was far too grandiose a description for his pathetic gumshoeing, and even though he'd only known Lauren for a couple of months, she was the type of person who cycled through the same worn shirts and two pairs of jeans every week and thought Jeopardy! was too dramatic. Quest was quite a theatrical word for her to use, unless she was making fun of him. Holden hoped that wasn't the case.

"Maybe it's good for you," she continued, picking at a brownie. "The distraction you need after what's-her-face."

"Becca," Holden corrected.

"Sorry. Meant nothing by it."

"It's fine." He was less irritated by her bringing up Becca than the fact she was right. He did need a distraction from his ex. Maybe that was all this hard drive obsession was. "It was a tough breakup. I still love her."

Holden winced after he said it. No one had asked him how he'd been since Becca broke up with him. No one cared. He had no family close by, and all his relationships in Corvallis were superficial. How pathetic of him to blurt his feelings to the first person who actually listened. Lauren of all people, his quick-fix roommate after Becca moved out. The two hadn't even met.

"What happened?" Lauren asked casually.

"She thought I was cheating on her."

Lauren's eyes flicked from her brownie to his face. "Were you?"

"I'd kill myself first."

She held up her free hand in defense. "Just asking."

An awkward silence lingered. Holden grabbed a brownie.

"I know you probably don't want to hear this," Lauren began. "But if she couldn't trust you, she isn't someone you want to spend your life with."

Holden knew that. But he also couldn't blame Becca for wanting to leave him.

"What?" Lauren asked, almost like she could tell he wanted to say something else. The whole truth. But he couldn't. He couldn't tell anyone.

"Nothing," Holden said, and shoved the brownie in his mouth.

On nights like this, when he couldn't sleep, Holden replayed a memory in his head.

A couple of months into their relationship, he and Becca had rented a vacation cottage in the middle of nowhere, eastern Oregon. They'd attempted to defy the weather forecast and go hiking—even though neither of them were hikers—and scrambled back to base when the sky started dumping rain.

They'd forfeited the cottage's wood stove for the floral sheets and worn quilt. After stripping each other, Holden had licked the rain from Becca's skin. They'd had sex. The kind of sex in poetry, the romance novel bullshit that wasn't supposed to exist in the real world. The sex you thought about later to feel a dam of heat break in your stomach and rush through every one of your nerve endings. A fucking divine, hormone-drenched high, not from the thought of her body, but from the thought of her.

They'd talked until the sun went down. About their childhoods, their careers, their fears of the future. About mustard being the superior condiment and how belly buttons were weird. How old music actually sucked even though people pretended to like it to seem cultured. They had talked until she fell asleep midsentence.

It was his favorite memory. And it wasn't real.

He'd believed it had been real. He'd argued with Becca until he lost his voice, not just over the memory of the cabin, but many perfect nights and conversations that had never happened. But he'd been so certain, he'd convinced Becca that his memories had happened. Just with another woman.

They hadn't happened with another woman. If Becca hadn't experienced those moments with Holden, then he had made all those memories up.

He needed a shrink. Too bad his health insurance sucked dick.

Holden sat up and rubbed his eyes. If sleep was going to be impossible, he'd rather not torture himself. He rolled Francis over so he could get out of bed and left his room, sitting at his computer behind the couch. On his desktop, he'd organized the files of Dr. Dupont's Deadswitch Wilderness study into stuff he'd gone through and stuff he hadn't.

He exited out of a pile of these folders, stalling on the close button of the last one. Dupont's audio files. The last time he tried listening to them, only two would play, the others sporting red exclamation marks next to the filenames to indicate corruption. But now three didn't have an exclamation mark next to them. The last recording on the list, about Isaac's burial, the first recording about the body, and the second recording, which Holden had yet to listen to.

He pored over the metadata enough times to barf, but nothing stood out as to how or why the audio was suddenly accessible. Then again, there was a reason he was the IT guy at OSU and not making a quarter of a million at some tech firm.

Holden picked up his earbuds, and double-clicked on the file.