The Lost & Found by Katrina Leno

remember you saying that yourmother used to think you were hiding things from her but they were really gone, just vanished from this plane of existence. I remember you said that: plane of existence. It made me think of other planes of existence, like maybe there are other versions of ourselves in a parallel universe and these versions are getting the things we lose. I wonder what the other versions of myself look like. I wonder what you look like. Sorry, I know that goes against TILT policy. Totally Ineffective Laboratory Test. —Bucker
    I pressed Reply and started typing.
    My grandparents spent five years pretending my mother was someone she wasn’t. I don’t want to pretend I am anyone other than who I am. You’re one of my closest friends, and I don’t even know your name. I’m Frances Hephaestus Jameson. You should be able to find me on Facebook. There are pictures and everything. This version of me isn’t anything special, but it’s better than being called Nib by someone I’ve known for years. —Frances
    P.S. I really hope you are not a forty-year-old internet predator. Or in prison. But if you are either, you have shown truly excellent perseverance in your stalking of me, and I think you deserve this anyway. Take Insane Liberating Trustfalls.
    I closed my computer.
    I felt weird. But a good weird. Like a releasing sort of weird.
    Like I had spent long enough in the dark. Surrounded by lies and dishonesty.
    I just wanted to tell the truth.

TWELVE
Louis
    F rances Hephaestus Jameson had dark hair and dark eyes and pale skin. She wasn’t quick to smile but when she did, it changed her entire face. Not for the better or worse. Just changed. Like a different person.
    Her Facebook was bare. Just twenty or so photos of her, most tagged with her cousin, Arrow Pickering. She’d told me about Arrow.
    Take Insane Liberating Trustfalls
, she had said.
    So I sent her a friend request.
    And a few minutes later, she accepted.
    Then she sent me a private message that said,
    Bucker?
    I wrote her back:
    Â Â Â  At your service.
    Louis Johar. Louis is a nice name. You look nice. Our last names both start with J. And you’re really eighteen! Unless you have created a truly elaborate fake profile with many fake friends and fake photographs. Either way, I would be impressed!
    Â Â Â  We can’t rule it out.
    I’m glad to see your face. Is that weird?
    Â Â Â  It’s not weird. I’m glad to see your face too.
    I’m going to my mother’s wake tomorrow. And then they’re burying her right after. Closed casket. Just family.
    Â Â Â  I wish I could be there with you.
    I really did; I wasn’t just saying it. I didn’t have many friends besides my sister because so much of my after-school time was spent carting myself to and from the Pacific Palisades. So much of my middle school and highschool life had been given up for tennis. And for being Willa’s private chauffeur.
    I wasn’t complaining. My schedule just didn’t lend itself to making friends. That had never been a priority either. I wasn’t secretly bitter about it. I liked being by myself.
    But Nib—Frances—was a friend. I told her everything. I remembered the first message she had ever sent me, after one of my very first group sessions on TILT.
    Are you really my age or are you lying? Are your parents making you do this too?
    I had written back:
    Â Â Â  Yes and yes.
    It had all started from there.
    A new message popped up on Facebook.
    I wish you could be here too. I don’t have many friends.
    Â Â Â  I don’t have many friends either.
    You have your sister.
    Â Â Â  You have your cousin.
    Â Â Â  I guess only our family members will hang out with us. I think we might be losers, Louis.
    Let it be. We don’t need ’em.
    Â Â Â  I have to go. Movie night with Arrow. Text me, if you want to.
    And she left her phone number.