A missing student. A singular investigation. A new romance. Every bit of it is a mystery in a delightful novel of cosmic twists by the author of How to Win a Breakup.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Farah Heron’s Remember Me Tomorrow, which is out October 1st 2024.
East House is the oldest and least desirable dorm on campus, but it has a draw for lonely university freshman Aleeza Kassam: Jay Hoque, the hot and broody student who vanished from East House five months ago without a trace. It’s irresistible to an aspiring investigative journalist like Aleeza.
But when she starts receiving texts from Jay, the mystery takes an unexpected turn. To put it mildly. His messages are coming not only from Aleeza’s own dorm room but from the past—only weeks before he disappeared. Sharing space, if not time, Aleeza and Jay are living the impossible, and they start working together to prevent his inevitable disappearance. Causing a temporal paradox that could blow up the universe is a risk they’re going to have to take.
Aleeza digs through Jay’s suspicious friends, enemies, and exes, determined to find out what happened to him. Or what will happen to him. But it’s becoming more than a mystery. Aleeza is catching feelings for her charming new roommate. Wherever, and whenever, he may be.
ONE
For me, this story starts the day I realize I don’t need my best friend anymore and move out of our shared university dorm room. But really, it started before that day. And also, after that day. I just don’t know it yet.
“Aleeza, stop. You can’t move out. We need to live here together all year,” Mia, the aforementioned former best friend forever, says.
I snort at her using the words need to. Because she’s wrong. I simply don’t need Mia anymore.
As one of the only non-white kids in my hometown, years ago I developed a theory that there are two ways to survive socially when you’re different. One—be like everyone else. In other words, make sure that my skin color is the only difference between me and my classmates. But I always knew that strategy would never work for me. Because I’ve always been . . . well, odd. Which was fine when I was a little kid living in Toronto, because being a weird Brown kid was pretty common in the city. But not in Alderville, the tiny town that my parents moved us to when I was seven. I realized then for the first time that my strangeness—not adorkable quirkiness but uncool nerdiness—could be a problem for me.
Case in point. Many kids in my Alderville elementary school were into horses, or sometimes goats or sheep. (Which, fair. It’s farm country.) And of course, lots of kids were into cats and dogs. But me? I was into octopuses. Obsessed with them, actually. Ever since I saw an enormous one in an aquarium when I was four, I’ve been fascinated by their big heads, nine brains, and unreal problem-solving skills.
Which brings me to the other weird thing about me. While other girls were into romances and fantasy books, I like old—like, practically ancient—mystery books. My mom’s a librarian, and she always ordered Nancy Drew and other whodunit books for me, and I inhaled them. Movies too. I love old Agatha Christie films. I used to fanaticize that Alfred Hitchcock was my long-lost uncle.
Anyway, since being the weird, Brown new kid was making me a bit of a social pariah in Alderville, I put all my energy into my second strategy to survive—find a white friend as weird as I am.
Mia became that ride-or-die weird friend that all Brown girls living in small towns need. We became tight after noticing we were both obsessed with this kid-detective graphic novel series. Soon we were borrowing each other’s books and movies. Mom started ordering Mia’s favorites for the library—still mysteries, but Mia liked thrillers instead of classic whodunits. We had weekly movie nights in my living room dressed up as characters from whatever old movie we were watching. We daydreamed about opening a detective agency in New York City one day.
I thought our friendship was genuine. I honestly thought we’d be friends forever.
It took six months of higher education for me to realize that I didn’t know a thing.
“Aleeza, seriously,” Mia says again when I ignore her. “Stop packing.”
I glance at her once, and keep shoving items into the box. I can’t believe I was so dazzled to have a best friend who was popular and well liked and who loved all the same stuff as me (except octopuses), that I failed to notice Mia wasn’t actually a very good friend at all. Because over and over, pretty much since the day we met, Mia has been pushing me aside whenever anyone she deems “cooler” is around.
And today is the absolute last time I’m putting up with it. After Mia once again ditched me for her boyfriend, Lance (or specifically, Lance’s sister this time), I am not accepting her apologies and promises. This time I am walking away.
Apparently fed up with my packing, Mia comes toward me in our dorm living room. She takes a bright-orange octopus stuffy out of my box and throws it across the room. It lands legs up on the floor near the tiny sofa. “Tentacle Ted belongs in this room, remember?”
Of course I remember. And I knew she would claim custody of the orange stuffy we bought at a county fair near Alderville the day we found out we’d be rooming together, just like I knew she wouldn’t let me leave without a fight. Because Mia hates feeling like the villain. She hates feeling like she’s losing. It screws up her perfect mental image of herself. But I also know that despite her vow to stop standing me up and letting her boyfriend and his family get in our way again, Mia will eventually cave to one of their demands at my expense.
“I’m taking Ted,” I say. “I bought him with my dollars. And octopuses are my thing, not yours.” I cross the room to get poor Ted, brushing the dust from the cheap gray industrial carpeting off him.
“We said that Ted would be our first jointly owned dorm room accessory,” Mia says, practically pouting.
“Since I’m moving out because of your actions, I’m entitled to keep the cephalopod that I paid for.” I toss him back into the box.
Mia and I dreamed about moving to Toronto for school for years. I thought she would be better here, since we’d be making new friends together. She was always ahead of me—born and raised in Alderville, she knew all our friends first. But now that we’ve actually moved to the city, Mia is even worse than she was back home. She’s like two different people. In our room, Mia and I talk about movies and books, and she seems to love my octopuses. Outside our dorm room, Mia ignores me. She’s unreliable. She does whatever Lance or any of his friends want. In my opinion, she’s trying way too hard to fit in with her new boyfriend’s friends.
“You can’t move out!” Mia says. “You’re supposed to be my roommate all year!” She looks genuinely upset, but I know that’s only because we’re alone. If someone else were here—especially Lance or any of his crew—she’d be mocking me for my attachment to octopuses.
“Tell your precious Taylor to move in,” I say. “I’m already gone.” I’m not sure where my new bravery is coming from, but I am loving it right now. I hold up the university pass hanging around my neck. “This card won’t open the building door anymore. My ResConnect profile is already updated. I am no longer your roommate.” ResConnect is the campus residence app. I put in the room change request only hours ago, and I’m lucky they had a spot for me.
Mia shakes her head, her wavy brown hair falling out of its messy bun. She’s always been pretty—her light-brown hair and big blue eyes give her a kind of girl-next-door vibe. She’s dressed almost the same as me right now, in jeans and a sweatshirt. Hers has a Roots logo on it, while mine, of course, has an octopus.
“You’re being stupid, Aleeza!” she says in the same voice she uses to yell at her dog. “You are not giving up years of friendship over a YouTube series!” She tries to snatch my favorite coffee mug—the one with a tentacle for a handle—but I beat her to it.
It’s honestly a little bit surprising just how badly she’s taking this. But I guess it makes sense—she’s not used to me having a spine. I’ve been her doormat for years, but we’re in the city now and I can make new friends. I don’t need Mia anymore.
“No, Mia, you are throwing away years of friendship over a YouTube series! You’re the one who replaced me with your boyfriend’s sister!”
I pick up the top sheet of our campus newspaper to wrap the mug in. I’m a first-year journalism student and I wrote a film review in this edition, but it isn’t on the front page. “We planned our TCU Mysteries web series for months,” I say, not looking at my former friend. “We did market research, had a logo made, and bought a camera. One episode in and you want to replace me with your boyfriend’s sister?”
“I don’t want to replace you! I’m adding Taylor to the web series because she has a huge social presence; this will be great for our reach. We could be huge! I thought you needed to do this for your media project?”
I blink. Yes, the web series was supposed to be my major project for my media class, but not all YouTube series are equal. Our series, TCU Mysteries, was supposed to be about mysteries associated with our school, Toronto City University. The first episode was about a student found dead in her apartment on Easter in the fifties, and we just started the research on our second episode, about this wealthy alumni who donated a ton of money to the school, then mysteriously drowned a few weeks later. But Taylor wants to change the entire focus of the series to be about skincare and makeup instead. I like a good face mask as much as the next person, but Mia knows my future goal is a career as an investigative journalist, not a beauty editor. My media project is supposed to align with my journalism career goals.
I look down, the picture in the newspaper catching my eye. It’s that second-year student who disappeared off the face of the earth a few months ago. I wave the paper at Mia. “We were going to do an episode on this missing student! A TCU mystery that’s literally happening right now! Maybe we could have found him!”
“There are already eight student podcasts about that missing guy,” Mia says. “I know you’re, like, obsessed with him, but I heard he was a huge asshole. He’s not worth finding. And, he’s been missing so long, he’s totally dead. Just like our mystery web series is dead! Skincare is hot now! Taylor says we can leverage off her existing TikTok brand, and we’ll have a hundred thousand subscribers in a month!”
I really don’t want to have this discussion. If I let it go on too long, Mia will win. She always wins. This is a pattern, and patterns become cycles until someone breaks them, and I am in the mood to break things. But not this mug. I wrap the octopus mug in the newspaper.
Mia is finally silent, so I fold the flaps of the box closed, then put on my boots, parka, hat, and mittens. After I’m fully suited up to brave the snowy March weather, I look around the small living room of the apartment-style dorm room Mia and I have shared since September. The sturdy wood furniture that is surprisingly comfortable. The K-pop posters we framed. This building, West Hall, is considered the best residence in our downtown university, and Mia and I cheered when we found out we got a room here. And now I’m willingly leaving it behind, just like I’m leaving behind my best friend of more than a decade. With a duffel bag hanging off each shoulder, a knapsack on my back, and the box in my arms, I leave the room without another word.
I should have walked away from this friendship a long time ago. Actually, I should have walked away from Mia when an octopus told me to five months ago. Ironically, it was the same night that Mia first met Lance.
Five months earlier—October 29
It was a mistake to wear a mustache to my first ever university party. A fake mustache, mind you. True, as a Brown girl, I do grow visible upper-lip hair, but my mom found me a threading aunty in Toronto even before frosh week. Fake or not, though, I am the only girl with a mustache at this party.
Actually, even before gluing the handlebar mustache to my upper lip, I made a mistake by not dressing like an octopus like I had for the last few Halloweens. Last year I was Ursula the sea witch, and the year before that Henry the Octopus from The Wiggles. But this year, Mia insisted that for our first university Halloween, we needed to match each other, and our costumes should be tied to our upcoming YouTube mystery series so we could create content for our socials. She would be Sherlock Holmes, and I would be Watson. My mom mail-ordered me a tweed jacket, a bowler hat, and a very realistic fake mustache, and I assumed Mia did the same.
But the moment I show Mia my Victorian physician costume, I know I miscalculated. Mia’s costume isn’t accurate to the period at all. Instead, she got a cheap “sexy Sherlock” costume, complete with fishnets and a skirt short enough to make a Victorian faint.
I suppose her costume does what she actually wants it to do, because seconds after we walk into the campus pub, she catches the attention of some dude wearing a bad Spider-Man costume without a mask. He admires Mia’s legs and makes fun of my mustache in the same breath. Mia laughs her fake, flirty giggle, and the dude orders her and all his friends (but not me) tequila shots. I head to the bar alone, yanking the bowler off my head. I didn’t bother to put any product in my shoulder-length, curly hair since I figured it would be stuffed into a hat all night, and now frizzy strands fall into my eyes. I brush them away and keep walking. I can get my own damn tequila.
I order a shot from the mad scientist tending bar. I have to show my ID, of course. I’m nineteen—legal to drink here—but I look younger, even with the mustache. When I get my shot, I take a tiny sip instead of drinking it all at once. It tastes like turpentine.
“My dear Watson, is it? How do you do?” a deep voice next to me says.
I turn to see an octopus. Literally, an octopus is standing next to me at the bar. I frown. Is tequila supposed to cause hallucinations? I look closer, and it’s not actually an octopus, but a guy wearing a cheap Party City Cthulhu mask. He’s also got on a black T-shirt and jeans.
“How do you know I’m Watson?” I ask.
“The tweed,” he says.
I frown, which makes my mustache tickle my cheeks. “Lots of characters wear tweed.”
“True.” He rubs his hands on his tentacle beard as if he’s thinking. “Are you supposed to be Mr. Bean?”
I snort. The guy nods toward my drink. “What are you drinking?”
“Tequila.” For some reason I don’t want this octopus-man to think I’m as lame as I actually am, so I drink the rest of my shot in one gulp. It burns going down. I suppress a cough.
The octopus-person stares at me. I can’t read his expression because of the mask, so I can’t tell if he’s impressed or laughing at me.
“Are you alone?” he asks. I wonder if he’s trying to pick me up. Maybe he has a thing for mustached Victorian doctors?
I nod. “My friend ditched me for a superhero.” I glance over to Mia, who has her arm around Spider-Man’s waist while she talks to sexy Wednesday Addams.
The bartender takes my empty shot glass and asks me if I want another. I look at the list of drinks taped to the bar top.
“I’ll have a Witch’s Brew.” I give the bartender a ten-dollar bill, and he hands me a can of blackberry vodka cooler.
“I’ll take the same,” Cthulhu guy says, giving the bartender money. The bartender hands him a can. The guy lifts the bottom of his latex mask to take a long sip of his drink. I can’t make out what his face looks like from this distance. In fact, I doubt he’s trying to pick me up, or he’d be standing closer. He pulls his mask back over his chin even before he puts his can down.
“Are you in hiding or something?” I ask.
He laughs again. “It’s Halloween, the only time of the year I can wear a Lovecraftian mask and be normal.”
Him using the word Lovecraftian proves he’s not normal. He may even be as dorky as I am. “Honestly, I think normal is overrated,” I say. “I wish I could wear a tweed jacket all year.”
“Why can’t you?”
I glance at Mia, who is laughing and talking to her new friends like she’s known them for years. What would it be like to be so comfortable with new people? “You ever feel like the whole world is spinning five steps ahead of you?” I ask. “And by the time you catch up with them, they’ve already moved on?”
I turn back to the guy who’s maybe trying to pick me up. I’m sure I’ve scared him off. No one wants philosophical introspection at a party like this. But again, with that mask on, I have no idea what he’s thinking. He’s still staring at me, which is disconcerting—those latex
tentacles almost glow in the dim lights of the bar. Even with a few feet between us, I can smell him. Clean laundry detergent and a hint of . . . cinnamon? He has broad shoulders and strong arms.
He finally speaks again. “Three things, Watson. One, your life is going to get so much better once you step away from the people holding you back, because real friends don’t forget friends when things don’t go as planned. Two, I have a very strong suspicion that it’s not you who has to catch up with the world, but the world that needs to catch up with you.”
The Cthulhu man has a nice voice. And for some reason he’s making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Suspiciously, I narrow my eyes. “Are you flirting with me?”
“Are you drunk?”
“No,” I lie. That tequila went straight to my head. “What’s the third thing?”
“I’d like to try and catch up with you. Do you want to dance?”
The song playing is “Save Your Tears” by The Weeknd, and maybe it’s an omen. I should be saving my tears. I could be dancing with this mysterious octopus instead of whining about my friend ditching me for Spider-Man.
I smile, then take a big gulp of my drink. “Sure, but keep your tentacles to yourself, okay?” I peel the mustache off my upper lip, taking all the natural hair I had there off too. Well, at least I don’t need to see my threading aunty this month.
He laughs. “Agreed, my dear Watson. I’ll keep you safe if you promise to keep me safe too.”
I nod. “Deal.”
