by Jenny Han
“Sorry, bad joke,” she says with a grimace.
“Hey,” I say. “Kat, I’m so sorry I—”
Kat waves her hand, like Forget it, and I’m relieved. She hitches her bag up on shoulder. “Yo, have you seen Mary today?”
I shake my head.
“I went by her locker to put a note inside, and it was cleaned out.” Kat chews on her fingernail. “Did you ever tell her what happened with you and Reeve?’
Biting my lip, I say, “I’ve been meaning to, but things have been so crazy . . .”
“Maybe she found out somehow and that’s why she’s been MIA.” Kat shoves her hands into her pockets. “What’s going on with you and Tabatsky now? Are you a couple?”
The derision in her voice makes me want to curl up and die. “No! We are definitely not a couple. We aren’t anything.”
“I’m not accusing you, Lil. I mean . . . it is what it is. I just want us to be real with each other.”
I look around before I take a breath and start over. “That stuff with Reeve, it’s over. It was just that one night and it hasn’t happened again. And I’m not purposefully avoiding you guys either. I’ve been at Paige’s every day with Ash and everybody, trying to get her to eat. She’s a mess. All she does is sleep and cry. It’s been really hard.”
“Well, at least you’ve got people around you. I mean, who the eff am I supposed to cry with? Pat? My dad? They don’t get it. I mean, sure, they feel sad about what happened to her. But nobody knew Ren the way we did.” Kat’s voice cracks on Rennie’s name.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Kat wipes her eyes with her sleeve. “It’s fine. Whatever. I just needed to say my piece.” She grits her teeth and forces a smile, and it looks terrible. In a deadpan voice she says, “I feel better already.”
I reach out and give her shoulder a squeeze. I’m going to have to face Mary eventually. I owe her that. I close Rennie’s locker door and hoist up the box of her things. “Let’s go over to Mary’s.”
We take my car. As we get closer, Kat says, “Here’s what I’m thinking. If Mary’s home and it doesn’t seem like she knows about you and Reeve and what happened on New Year’s Eve . . . maybe you don’t tell her.”
I draw in my breath. “I can’t not tell her.” Can I?
“But like you said, it’s over, and it would only hurt her. So there’s no point, right?”
“I guess so.” I don’t want to hurt Mary. That’s the last thing I want. And this thing with Reeve really is over. Maybe Kat’s right.
I park in Mary’s driveway, right behind her aunt’s Volvo. It doesn’t look like anyone’s shoveled the snow; it’s melting in patches. When I get out of the car, the bottoms of my boots crunch on broken glass. Kat and I look at each other, uneasy.
We go up to the front door and ring the bell, but no one answers. I have this weird feeling, like someone is watching us. It’s the prickly-back-of-the-neck feeling I get late at night when the whole house is asleep and I go downstairs to get a glass of water. I always run back to my room fast.
Kat starts knocking on the door, hard.
“This is creepy,” I whisper.
Kat keeps knocking until her knuckles turn red. “Shit.” She presses up close to the window. “It looks like a tornado blew through there.”
I press my nose up against the glass. Oh my God. The dining room chairs are knocked over; the entryway table is on its side. “Kat, Mary could be in serious trouble. We have to call the police!”
“The police?” Kat repeats. She’s craning her neck, trying to see up the stairs. “Why don’t we just break in ourselves and see what’s what?”
“Because there could be an intruder in there! Who knows what we’d be walking into!” I grab her by the arm and drag her back to the car, where I take out my cell and dial 911.
Chapter Four
KAT
IT’S A FREAKING HALF HOUR before a cop car rolls up to Mary’s house. So much for a goddamned emergency.
Lillia jumps out of the car and walks down the sidewalk to meet the officer at the walkway. I’m a few steps behind her when Eddie Shofull climbs out of the squad car like a damn cowboy.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I say.
Officer Eddie Shofull is all of twenty-two years old. He looks way more like a boy dressed up in a cop uniform than an actual cop. He used to be friends with Pat back in high school. Scratch that. Eddie used to smoke weed with Pat back in high school. After graduation, too. Basically until he joined the Jar Island Police Force. His father is a deputy sheriff. Jar Island nepotism at its finest.
Eddie glares at me. “What’d you expect, Kat? A detective?”
“Um, yeah. Considering we’ve got a missing-persons case here. Or a possible hostage situation.”
Eddie rolls his eyes and radios in that he has arrived on the scene.
“Officer,” Lillia says, and nudges me to the side. “Please. We haven’t been able to get in touch with our friend. Her guardian had mental health issues, and we want to make sure she’s okay.”
Eddie looks over the tops of our heads at the house. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“Before New Year’s Eve,” Lillia answers quickly.
“Have you tried calling her?”
I throw my hands into the air. “Of course we’ve tried calling, you dumb-ass.”
“Kat!” Lillia throws me a warning look before turning back to Eddie. “There’s no answer, Officer. Her school locker was emptied out, and—”
“She probably moved.”
Finally Lillia returns my look—that Eddie is a freaking moron. “Then tell me why her house is in complete shambles and there’s a ton of broken glass in the driveway!”
Lillia takes him by the hand and leads him over to the pile. He clicks his flashlight onto the shards even though it’s bright and sunny and we can see just fine. He crunches a few shards under his boot. “You can’t tell when this glass was broken. It could have been months ago. Years ago, even.”
“Years ago?” I scoff. “Come on, Eddie. You sound like a damned idiot!”
He narrows his eyes and puts a hand on his radio. “All it takes is one call, and you girls will both spend a night in jail for calling in a false report and insulting an officer of the law.”
Lillia’s eyes widen. She’s totally falling for his fake-ass, weak-ass threat. “We’re not trying to be disrespectful—”
“I am!” I shout.
“Please just check out the house, okay? Because if our friend is up there being tortured by her psycho aunt, and you didn’t properly investigate, you’ll be the one in jail!” And with that, Lillia folds her arms and purses her lips.
Eddie stares right back, and then slides his nightstick out from his belt. “Fine. I’ll do a quick perimeter check. You two stay here.”
But of course we don’t. We follow Eddie as he walks around to the back of Mary’s house. We both call out, “Mary? Are you there?”
Eddie walks up the back stairs and knocks hard on the kitchen door with the butt of his nightstick. And, wouldn’t you know, the thing pops wide open.
Lillia and I share a look before we push past Eddie and enter the house.
“You girls get back here!” Eddie shouts from the doorway. “I’m serious, Kat! Come on!”
“Mary?” Lillia calls out. “Are you in here?” Her breath makes tiny clouds. The heat is off. It’s even colder in here than it is outside.
It’s dead quiet.
And shit really is everywhere.
I walk around the kitchen table. “This is so weird.” It looks like Mary and her aunt literally up and disappeared without any notice. Why else would there be dirty dishes left in the sink? There are empty plates on the table. I lean in close and see some mouse droppings.
“Kat, come on. Let’s check upstairs,” Lillia says.
Eddie groans and takes one step inside. “This is unlawful trespassing!” he whispers.
“You coming with us or
not, Eddie?”
I pull my jacket up around my neck, and the three of us go deeper inside, through the hallway, through the living room. The place is still full of Mary’s family’s things. There are lighthouse and seascape paintings hanging on almost every wall and a bunch of family pictures on the fireplace mantel. I walk up to one. It’s of Mary as a girl, posed with two people who I guess must be her mom and dad. She’s barely recognizable. I remember her telling us that she used to be overweight, and I couldn’t imagine it. But she was chubby. Big red cheeks, a double chin, round potbelly.
I can totally see Reeve picking on her, that bastard.
Lillia looks at the picture too. “Maybe this means she’ll come back here eventually. Her family will want to get their things, right?”
“Maybe,” I say. But I don’t believe it. Looking around the rest of the room, I can see that most of it’s trashed.
Lil and I make our way upstairs. Eddie’s already there, pointing his flashlight up another set of stairs, probably leading to the attic.
We come to a bedroom and linger in the doorway. Unmade bed, closet doors wide open, clothes tossed about. Strangest of all, the entire floor is covered with hundreds of books open to random pages.
“This has to be her aunt’s room,” Lillia whispers.
Suddenly there’s a hand on my arm. “The house is empty,” Eddie says, pulling me back toward the staircase. “We’re getting out of here. Move it!”
“Wait, Kat! Come look at this!”
I shake Eddie off and follow the sound of Lillia’s voice into another bedroom.
It’s the only one that’s been completely emptied out. There’s a dresser, a stripped bed, an empty bookshelf, and a bare closet. I walk to the window and look down at the spot where Lillia and I threw rocks to get Mary’s attention when we came to visit her once in the middle of the night. That was the first time she told us about Reeve and what he’d done to her.
“She must have packed up her things.” Lillia shakes her head. She can’t believe it either. “I guess she really did leave without saying good-bye.”
* * *
On our way out, Eddie pulls the back door shut and makes sure it’s locked. Then he drives off. Lillia and I get back into her car. We should leave too, but we don’t. Not right away.
“The last time I saw Mary, she was happy,” I say. “Singing and dancing about you shutting Reeve down that night we both slept over. You know, she never showed up at Ren’s party on New Year’s. Maybe by that time she’d already peaced out. She got what she came for; she left on a high note.”
“Maybe . . .” With a sigh Lillia turns on her car and heads to my house.
“Or, you know what? Things have been so crazy with Rennie’s death. Maybe Mary came to say good-bye when we were both at the funeral.” I fiddle with my seat belt. “Or it could be that something happened with her aunt. Like a family intervention and she didn’t have time to come find us. Whatever it is, I bet she’ll call us soon.”
I can come up with a million excuses. The problem is that I don’t buy a single one.
Chapter Five
MARY
FROM THE PEAK OF THE lighthouse roof, Jar Island looks small, like a play town with play people. That’s where I’m perched, a seagull waiting out a storm. I’m as close to the sky as I’ve ever been, and everything is tiny. A man walking his poodle, a car driving up Main Street, a child crying for his mother. I’m too far away to care. What does it matter? What does any of it matter?
Before, I would have been afraid to be up so high. Now I’m not afraid. I’m not even sad. I’m nothing.
It’s funny how my whole life, I never wanted to leave Jar Island, and now in death I can’t. I remember when I first came back here, waking up on the ferry once it had reached Jar Island. Or had I ever left? There was that time, after the first few days of school, when I’d had it with Reeve. I wanted to be back with my mom and dad. I packed up my suitcase and came down to the docks, ready to leave but unable to go. I didn’t know why then, but now I do.
For some terrible reason I’m trapped here. I’ve been trapped here, maybe since the day I killed myself.
What I want to know is why. Why am I still here? Rennie got to leave. Is she in heaven? Or did she go straight to hell? Hopefully my dad is in heaven. He was a good dad. He deserves to be there. I wish I were with him.
It starts to snow. I’m not wearing a coat. I’ve got no socks, no shoes. Just me in a simple white dress. If I close my eyes, I can almost feel the cold wind whipping around me, I can almost feel the chill of the winter sea spray. Almost.
All those months of pretending, playacting like I was alive, like I was somebody. Only I didn’t know it was pretend. I thought it was real. It felt real.
My friendship with Lillia and Kat, that was real. In their eyes I was alive. I never had friends like them before. It was the only time in my whole life when I felt a part of something.
They made me real. For a little while anyway.
If I let go of them, maybe then I can finally move on. To heaven, to hell, to wherever. So long as it’s not Jar Island.
Chapter Six
LILLIA
SATURDAY NIGHT THERE’S A CANDLELIGHT vigil for Rennie in the courtyard outside the school. It’s freezing, and the wind is blowing so hard people’s candles keep going out, so they cut it short. Kat comes, but she leaves early.
After, Paige goes around telling everybody to come over to her place, that she cleaned out the gallery and found the leftover liquor and beer from Rennie’s party. She says she wants to get rid of it. She says, “We can cry and drink and tell Rennie stories. Everyone can just camp out afterward and sleep there.”
I’ve already slept over twice this week because Paige doesn’t like to be alone on the nights when her boyfriend has to get back to his restaurant on the mainland. She makes me stay up all night with her, and it’s a roller-coaster ride of her laughing one minute and then sobbing the next. But that’s not the hard part. The hard part is sleeping in Ren’s bed, because when I wake up, I still expect to see her there next to me.
When I get to the apartment, everyone’s already there. Ash is sitting in Derek’s lap in the armchair; PJ is lying on the floor with his hat over his face; a few girls from the squad are in the kitchen. Alex sits on the radiator flipping through a photo album. Reeve is next to Paige on the couch. She has a big shoe box in her lap, and she’s passing around trinkets she’s kept, like the tiny white dress Rennie was christened in. I can tell she’s already drunk. Reeve barely looks at the stuff, just quick cursory glances. I go to the kitchen and fix Paige a turkey sandwich, because I’m sure she hasn’t had anything to eat. From the couch I feel Reeve’s eyes on me, but when I look up, he’s already looking away.
I put the sandwich on a plate and bring it to Paige. “Try to eat a little.”
Paige kisses me on the cheek. Her breath smells like whiskey and something sour. “You’re my angel,” she says, setting the plate down on the coffee table. “I planned on getting some snacks and things for you kids today, but when I went to the store, I felt everybody’s judging eyes on me, so I left.”
Frowning, Alex asks, “What do you mean?”
“All these Jar Island parents are convinced that I’m a terrible mother,” she spits out. “They think Rennie got into that accident because she was drinking and driving. I have the police report. That had nothing to do with it. It was some kind of malfunction with the Jeep.”
“My father said you could sue the car company,” Ashlin says. “You definitely have a case.”
Paige barely notices, and says, “Plus, you know Ren could hold her liquor. She’s her father’s daughter. But people would rather make up stories than believe the truth. They want to make me out to be an unfit parent. These people never liked me. They never accepted me.”
I swallow and look at my lap. My mom has made a few comments just like that. Wanting to know if Paige regularly got us alcohol. I told her no, of course not. And
it wasn’t a lie. Rennie had her own connections. But Paige didn’t exactly discourage us either. Still, she always made sure we were being safe, that no one would drive if they’d been drinking.
Paige glances at Alex. “Sweetie, I’m not trying to be a bitch, but your mother is a perfect example. I know she’s let you kids drink at your house. But it happens at my gallery and suddenly I’m a lowlife?”
“I’m so sorry,” Alex mumbles, his face red.
“No, no, no, no, sweetie. Please. It’s fine. You kids know the truth, and that’s all I care about. So let’s have a good time tonight, okay? For Rennie.” She pats the seat next to her. “Reevie, scoot over for Lil,” Paige commands.
Reeve moves as far away as he can, and I sit down. “Take a look at this,” Paige says, and she hands me a picture of Reeve and Rennie from kindergarten. They are both dressed up because it’s the first day of school. Her curly hair is in pigtails, and he has on a plaid button-down shirt and is missing a front tooth. I can’t help but smile.
“It’s so cute,” I say. I pass it to him, careful not to let my fingers touch his.
Reeve stares at the photo, swallows hard, and then hands it back to Paige. “Keep it,” she says. Then, taking a sip of her drink, she continues, “You know, I always thought you two would get married one day.”
He freezes. I see the pain in his face, the guilt. I see everything he’s trying to hide.
Ash pipes up, “Rennie used to say that if you guys got married, she wanted to get a picture with you and all your brothers throwing her into the ocean in her wedding dress.”
Paige chokes back a sob, and Reeve shoots Ash a look.
Sitting next to him on the couch, I’m too aware of everything. Every time he shifts his weight, or speaks, my heart beats double and it’s hard to breathe, or concentrate. When Ash suggests we watch an old cheering video we made, I jump up to go find it on Rennie’s laptop, and it’s a relief not to be in the same room as him.
