Let Me Tell You Something

The white question mark lingers on my phone screen as the app loads, the tagline settling across the bottom: "Let me tell you something."

"It's fucking, crazy, Sam." Caleb's voice is a low whisper. "It just fucking knows shit."

I roll my eyes. The nameless app advertises its ability to expose one secret of any name put into the search engine. Caleb had stumbled upon the app a few days ago, and he'd been insisting that we try it together. Now, with his arm around my waist and his eyes plastered to my phone screen, I question the naivety of those who believe what the app has to say.

"It doesn't even have a name, Caleb," I remind him. "What kind of app doesn't have something as simple as a name?"

Before he can respond, the app loads and a black screen appears. In the center is a single, white text box, the curso blinking in the center. My keyboard pops up, and my thumb hovers over the letters. Despite knowing the foolishness of the app, my heart thrums against my ribs at an unsteady pace.

"Who should we search?"

Caleb's question strikes my ears, and I frown. "This is stupid, Caleb. If it's supposed to reveal someone's most hidden secret, how are we even going to know if it's accurate?"

He furrows his brows, his eyes fallin gback to the blinking cursor on my phone. "I don't know. Maybe it won't reveal their deepest, darkest secret. Maybe it just reveals a secret." He shrugs.

"All right. Fine then."

My fingers move across the screen, entering Caleb's first and last name. When I pause, the white box disappears and is replaced with a white question mark - the nameless app's logo.

"Why did you put in my name?" he asks incredulously.

"Because. We've been together for four years, and I know everything about you."

Caleb nods and returns his attention to the screen, waiting. After a brief moment, another white box pops up, filled with black text.

"Caleb is afraid of the dark because his brother locked him in a closet," I read.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Caleb breathes.

Caleb's history with his brother is a secret to everyone but me, his brother, his parents, and the social workers that came to investigate the abuse. It isn't something he openly talks about, and it had taken three years of building love and trust before he felt that he could tell me what had happened.

"I dunno. He was just a real dick. He got pissed when Mom and Dad would spend time with me." Caleb shrugged. "I thought it was normal big brother shit until someone at school noticed the smell."

I creased my brows. "The smell?"

He nodded. "Ben had locked me in the closet overnight. I wasn't able to get out to go to the bathroom, and no one could hear me yelling. I tried to forget about needing to go, but it didn't work. When Mom let me out in the morning, she smacked me and told me I was late for school. I didn't have time to change; I just... went."

"What the hell? Does it give you a different secret if you search again?" Caleb's voice rises an octave, and I know what he's thinking. "Try putting my name in again."

I tap the box with Caleb's secret and the text disappears, replaced by the blinking cursor again. I reenter Caleb's name, and the two of us wait.

"Caleb doesn't believe it true love."

The words sit on my phone screen, and beside me, Caleb snorts. "Well, that's a load of shit."

I raise an eyebrow. "Coming from the guy who constantly makes a point to mention how he's never getting married." I try to keep my tone light, but there's a slight edge to my words.

"You know I'm joking, Sam." His smile stops my heart. "You know that, don't you?"

His arm around my waist tightens slightly, and he leans over to place a kiss on my cheek. Butterflies erupt in the pit of my stomach, and I flash him a smile. "Yeah, I know you are. I'm just sayin'."

I flick my phone off and toss it on the floor next to me before I angle my body toward Caleb. Understanding flashes across his eyes, and his lips twitch with anticipation.

"Now. Do you really want to spend our night together trying to uncover the hidden secrets of our peers? Or would you like to uncover something else?"

Caleb chuckles before pressing his lips against mine. The arm around my waist tightens again, pulling me tight against him; his free hand comes up to cup the side of my face. I moan softly as Caleb deepens the kiss, and any doubts the app tried to plant quickly disappear. I close my eyes, and I push the app and its false promises out of my mind.

Caleb pulls away, his chest rising and falling with each ragged, panting breath, and the corners of his lips twitch again into a mischievous smile.

"I love you, Samuel Brighton."

*~*~*~*~*~*

The sound of Caleb swearing and a sudden explosion of light wakes me from a dreamless sleep. I open my eyes, squinting at Caleb's shadow moving through my small bedroom. I watch him jump in place as he shoves a leg into his jeans before zipping them and fastening his belt. He mumbles under his breath as he shoves his arms into the sleeves of his shirt and yanks it over his head.

"Caleb?"

"Fuck. Sam, I must have fallen asleep. It's half-past two. My parents are going to..."

"Go. Get home as quickly as you can. If you're lucky, they're sleeping. Or strung out."

He comes around the bed and gives me a quick parting kiss before dashing out of my room. I listen to his footsteps fade through the house and say a silent prayer when I heard the door fall closed behind him. The engine of his beat-up Mustang roars to life, and in a matter of seconds my room falls silent again.

I fall back on my pillow, hoping sleep will come easily, but I stare at the ceiling for fifteen minutes after Caleb leaves. My bed feels empty and too big, and a cool September breeze blows through the cracked-open window. With a heavy sigh, I push myself into a sitting position and grab my iPad from the night table next to me.

When I unlocked it, the white question mark pops up. I roll my eyes and close the app. While Caleb and I had laid in bed and cuddled, he'd insisted we try searching for some of our other close friends. Through the nameless app we learned that our friend Jessica had a daughter she'd given up for adoption when we were sophmores two years ago, and another friend, Michael, had cheated on every test since freshman year. The app also told us that Caleb's brother, Ben, is just as afraid of his parents as Caleb is.

I sigh heavily, thinking about Caleb sneaking into his dilapidated house. His window remains unfixed, so it's easy for him to slip the screen out of the frame and climb into his room. His bed is nestled against the wall just beneath the window so the likelihood of Ben or their parents hearing him come in is slim. If he's lucky, he'll be able to slip into his room and get a few more hours of sleep before the sun peeks through the clouds.

My heart skips at the thought of Caleb getting caught sneaking into his room. The last time he'd been caught, Ben left him with two broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. I try to push the memory from my mind, and my eyes drop back to the nameless app still open on my iPad. The white text box stares at me, surrounded by a black background, and the cursor blinks temptingly. While we were searching for the secrets of our peers, Caleb and I had managed to forgo putting my name in the search box. Despite how eager we'd been to feed Caleb's name to the app, my name hadn't been one we'd thought to try.

Now, as the white box glares at me, I consider what secrets the app might have stored away. I quickly put my name into the search bar and watch as the text fades away and the white question mark appears. The brief silence that follows is interrupted by the vibrations of my phone against my desk.

I drop my iPad on the bed and shuffle across the room. Caleb's number sits at the top of my screen, and my heart leaps. I scoop up the phone, yanking it from the lightening cable, and answer the call.

"Caleb?"

"Sam? Sam, can you hear me?" Caleb's voice is breahy, and I can barely hear him.

"Caleb, what's going on?"

"Ben was awake when I got in. He's in rare form tonight. I don't think he-"

"Caleb! Where the hell are you, you faggot?"

My blood freezes at the sound of Ben yelling in the background, and I hear Caleb's breath hitch in his throat. Anger starts to coil in the pit of my stomach at the thought of what Ben will do if he catches Caleb.

"Caleb, where are you? Can you come back to my place?"

I'm met with a brief moment of silence before some grunts and shouts meet my ears. Ben hurls more insults at Caleb, and the dense ball of anger in my stomach starts to uncurl and spread through my body until it starts to crawl up my throat. I clench my free hand into a fist, nails digging into my palm.

"I'm coming to get you, Caleb!" I scream into the phone. I'm not sure that he can hear me. "And I swear to God if Ben has hurt you, I'm going to kill him!"

I hang up the phone and dart to my dresser. I yank out my sweatpants and a sweatshirt, throwing them on before grabbing my phone again and shoving it into my pant pocket. Swearing under my breath, I run out of my room, down the stairs, and through the kitchen to the garage.

As I slip behind the wheel of my car, my phone chimes with a notification. I anxiously open my phone, expecting a text from Caleb. Instead, there's a notification accompanied by the white question mark.

Your search for Samuel Brighton has one result. Open and let me tell you something.

I pause. In my haste and hurry to get out of the house and get to Caleb, I forgot that I'd searched for myself on the nameless app. Intrigue and curiosity cause me to tap on the notification. The question mark pops up on my screen for a moment before flashing a small box with the secret. A gasp escapes me, a sudden jolt of confusion and fear surging through me.

Samuel Brighton is a murderer.