Vanishing Girls

by Lauren Oliver

  I pull myself up between the rocks, using thick ropes of beach grass for purchase, sand slipping beneath my feet, threatening to send me tumbling backward. The growth is so thick, I can barely make out the highway: just the sudden dazzle of headlights, lighting up a vast network of Virginia creeper and sea oats, as a car sweeps by. I keep pushing, holding one arm up to my face to shield it, feeling like I’m the knight in a fairy tale, trying to fight my way through an enchanted forest that just keeps growing thicker and thicker.

  But this isn’t a fairy tale.

  Andre crashes through the underbrush, cursing. But he’s falling back. I risk a glance behind me and see a cluster of switchgrass tossing violently as he attempts to work his way around it. At last the growth releases me and all at once the highway is there, the smooth ribbon of pavement glistening like oil in the moon.

  I scramble the last few feet up to the road, doubling over, crunching over empty cans and plastic bags. I hop the divider and turn left—away from Orphan’s Beach, away from Beamer’s, toward the empty coastline where the houses are unfinished and the beach splinters increasingly into huge formations of stone. I can lose him out there in the darkness. I can hide until he gives up.

  I take off down the road, sticking close to the divider. A car blasts by me in a hot rush of sound and exhaust, windows rattling with bass, blaring the horn. Somewhere in the far distance, police sirens are wailing—someone hurt or dead, another life destroyed.

  I twist around. Andre has made it up to the highway now. It’s too dark to see his face.

  “Jesus Christ,” he shouts. “Are you out of your—”

  But whatever else he says gets whipped away as another car blows by.

  More sirens now. I haven’t been this far south since the night of the accident, and everything looks unfamiliar: on one side of the highway, spiky stones rising up from the beach; on the other, craggy hills and pine tree.

  Did Madeline Snow run this way? Did he catch her and bring her back to the lighthouse?

  Did she scream?

  I turn around again, but there’s nothing behind me but empty road: Andre has either given up or fallen back. I slow down, heaving in breaths, my lungs burning. The pain is everywhere now; I feel like a wooden doll about to splinter apart.

  The night around me has turned very still. If it weren’t for the sirens, still shrieking—getting closer?—the world would feel like an oil painting of itself, perfectly immobile, clothed in dark.

  It must have been right around here that Nick and I crashed. A strange feeling comes over me, like there’s a wind blowing straight through my stomach. But there’s no wind: the trees are motionless. Still, a chill moves down my spine.

  Pull over.

  Bright starbursts of memory: images suddenly illumined, like comets in the dark.

  No. Not until we finish talking.

  We are finished talking. For good.

  Dara, please. You don’t understand.

  I said, pull over.

  Ten feet ahead of me, the divider twists away from the highway. A portion of metal has been snapped clean away. Faded silk ribbons hang side by side along the portion that’s still intact. They sway ever so slightly, like weeds disturbed by an invisible current A battered wooden cross is staked in the dirt, and the huge rock face just beyond the breach is covered in scraps of paper and bits of fabric, mementos, and messages.

  Several new bouquets are grouped around the cross, and even from a few feet away I recognize a stuffed animal that belongs to Ariana. Mr. Stevens: her favorite teddy bear. She even buys him a Christmas present every year—always a different accessory, like an umbrella or a hard hat.

  Mr. Stevens has a new accessory: a ribbon around his neck, with a message inked in marker on the fabric. I have to squat down to read it.

  Happy birthday, Dara. I miss you every day.

  Time yawns open, slows down, stills. Only the sirens shatter the silence.

  Notes, water-warped, now indecipherable—faded silk flowers and key chains—and in the center of it all—

  A photograph. My photograph. The yearbook photo from sophomore year, the one I always said I hated, the one where my hair is too short.

  And beneath it, a shiny metal plaque screwed into the stone.

  RIP, DARA JACQUELINE WARREN. YOU’LL LIVE IN OUR HEARTS FOREVER.

  The sirens are screaming now, so loud I can feel the noise all the way in my teeth—so loud I can’t think. And then, all at once, noise returns to the world in a rush of wind, a tumult of rain that comes sweeping in from the ocean, blowing me backward. The world is lit up in flashes. Red and white. Red and white.

  The sirens have stopped. Everything feels like it’s going in slow motion—even the hard slices of rain seem to be frozen in the air, a sheet of water turned diagonal. Three cars have pulled onto the shoulder. People are running toward me, turned by the headlights into faceless shadows.

  “Nick!” they’re shouting. “Nick! Nick!”

  Run.

  The word comes to me on the rain, on the soft tongue of the wind against my face.

  So I do.

  BEFORE

  Nick

  The summer I was nine was a wet one. For weeks it seemed to rain nonstop. Dara even got pneumonia, and her lungs slurped and rattled whenever she inhaled, as if the moisture had somehow gotten inside her.

  On the first sunny day in what seemed like forever, Parker and I crossed the park to check out Old Stone Creek—normally shallow and flat-bottomed and barely two feet across—now transformed into a roaring, tumbling river, barreling over its banks, turning the whole area to swampland.

  Some older kids had gathered to throw empty cans in the creek and watch them twirl, bobbing and resurfacing, in the current. This one guy, Aidan Jennings, was standing on the footbridge, jumping up and down, while the water pummeled the wooden supports and went swirling up across his feet.

  And then, in one instant, both Aidan and the bridge were gone. It happened that quickly, and without sound; the rotting wood gave way, and Aidan was swept up in a swirl of splintered wood and churning water, and everyone was running after him, shouting.

  Memory is like that, too. We build careful bridges. But they’re weaker than we think.

  And when they break, all our memories return to drown us.

  It was raining, too, on the night of the accident.

  I didn’t mean for it to happen.

  He was waiting for me at home after Ariana’s party, jogging up and down a little on the front porch, his breath crystallizing in the air, his sweatshirt hood tugged up over his head, casting his face in shadow.

  “Nick.” His voice was hoarse, as if he hadn’t used it in a while. “We need to talk.”

  “Hey.” I tried not to get too close to him as I moved toward the door, rooting in my bag for my keys with fingers that had gone numb from cold. Dara had insisted I stay to watch the bonfire. But the rain had increased steadily, and the fire never materialized: only a blackened, pulpy mess of diesel oil and logs, crushed paper cups and cigarette butts. “I missed you at the party.”

  “Wait.” He grabbed my wrist before I could push open the door. His fingers were icy, his face raw with some emotion I didn’t understand. “Not there. My house.”

  I hadn’t noticed until he gestured that his car was pulled over a little ways down the road, half-concealed by a group of straggly pines, as if he’d been deliberately trying to stay hidden. He walked a few feet ahead of me, hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the rain, almost as if he was angry.

  Maybe I should have said no. Maybe I should have said I’m tired.

  But this was Parker, my best friend, or my once-upon-a-time best friend. Besides, I didn’t know what was coming next.

  The drive to his house took all of fifteen seconds. Still, it felt like an eternity. He drove in silence, his hands tight on the wheel. The windshield was almost completely fogged over; the wipers squelched against the glass, sending sheets of water
plummeting down toward the hood.

  Only after he was parked did he turn to me. “We haven’t talked about what happened on Founders’ Day,” he said.

  The heat was on, feathering his hair under his trucker hat. Come to the nerd side, it said. We have pi. “What do you mean?” I said carefully, and I remember I felt my heart like a fist, squeezing slowly in and out.

  “So”—Parker was drumming his hands on his thighs, a sure sign he was nervous—“it didn’t mean anything to you?”

  I said nothing. My hands felt like deadweight in my lap, like enormous, bloated things pulled up by a tide.

  At the Founders’ Day Ball, Parker and I snuck into the pool and climbed up to the rafters, trying to find a way up to the roof. We did, eventually: we found a trapdoor through the old theater. We ditched the dance and sat together for an hour, sharing a bottle of Crown Royal Parker had siphoned from his dad’s stash, laughing about nothing.

  Until he took my hand in his.

  Until there was nothing funny about the way he was looking at me.

  We came so close to kissing that night.

  Afterward, when the rumor started going around that I’d ditched the dance to hook up with Aaron in the boiler room, I let everyone think it was true.

  Rain diced the light from his front porch into crazy patterns. For a while he said nothing. “All right, listen. Things have been weird between us for months. Don’t argue,” he said, when I opened my mouth to protest. “They have been. It’s my fault. Jesus, I know that. It’s all my fault. I should have never—well, anyway. I just wanted to explain. About Dara.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I need to,” he said, with sudden urgency. “Look, Nick. I screwed up. And now—I don’t know how to fix it.”

  Cold crept through my whole body, as if we were still outside, standing at the edge of the ruined bonfire, watching the rain fizzle the flames into smoke. “I’m sure she’ll forgive you,” I said. I didn’t care if I sounded mad. I was mad.

  All my life, Dara had been taking things and smashing them.

  “You don’t get it.” He took off his hat, shoved a hand through his hair so that it stood up straight, electric, defying gravity. “I should never have—God. Dara’s like a little sister to me.”

  “That’s gross, Parker.”

  “I mean it. I never . . . it just happened. It was all wrong. It was always wrong. I just didn’t know how to make it stop.” He couldn’t sit still. He jammed his hat back on. He twisted around to face me and then, as though he couldn’t stand to, immediately turned away. “I don’t love her. I mean, I do love her. But not like that.”

  For a moment, there was quiet. I couldn’t see Parker’s face—just his profile, the light sliding off the curve of his cheek. Rain drummed against the windshield like the sound of hundreds of tiny feet, stampeding away toward something better.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I said finally.

  Parker turned back to me. His face was twisted in a look of pain, as if an invisible force had come down on his chest, knocking the wind out of him. “I’m sorry, Nick. Please forgive me.” His voice was raw. “It should have been you.”

  Time seemed to glitch. I was certain I’d misunderstood. “What?”

  “I mean, it is you. That’s what I’m trying to say.” His hand found mine, or my hand found his. His touch was warm and dry and familiar. “Do you—do you understand now?”

  I don’t remember whether he kissed me, or I kissed him. Does it matter? All that really counts is that it happened. All that matters is that I wanted it. I had never, in my whole life, wanted anything so badly. Parker was mine again: Parker, the boy I’d always loved. The rain kept falling, but now it sounded gentler, rhythmic, like the pulsation of an invisible heart. Steam patterned the windshield, turning the outside world to blur.

  I could have stayed like that forever.

  And then Parker jerked back, just as a loud thump sounded behind me.

  Dara. Her hand splayed on the passenger-side window, her eyes hollowed out by shadow, her hair plastered to her cheeks—and that strange smile on her face. Gloating. Triumphant. As if all along, she’d known what she would find.

  For a second, Dara left her hand there—almost as if she expected me to place my hand there as well, almost like a game.

  Mirror me, Nick. Do what I do.

  I may have moved. I may have called out to her. She withdrew her hand, leaving a ghost imprint of her fingers on the glass. Then this, too, was gone—and so was she.

  She had slipped onto the bus before I could catch up to her, the doors hissing shut when I was still a half block away, shouting. Maybe she heard me, maybe she didn’t. Her face was white, her shirt dark with rain; standing under the fluorescent lights, she looked like a photo negative, color in all the wrong places. Then the bus slid away beyond the trees, as if the night had opened its jaw to swallow it.

  It took me twenty minutes to catch up to the bus on Route 101 in my car, and another twenty before I saw her get off, walking head down on the shoulder, arms crossed against the rain, past blinking-light businesses advertising Bud Light or triple-X videos.

  Where was she going? To Beamer’s to see Andre? Down to Orphan’s Beach and the lighthouse? Or did she just want to get far away, get lost in the rocky beaches of East Norwalk, where the land ran into the angry sea?

  I tailed her for another half mile, flashing my headlights, blowing my horn, before she agreed to get in.

  “Drive,” she said.

  “Dara, listen. What you saw—”

  “I said, drive.” But when I started to angle the wheel around, to turn back toward home, she reached out and jerked the wheel in the other direction. I slammed on the brakes. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t even blink. She didn’t seem angry or upset. She just sat there, dripping water onto the upholstery, staring straight ahead. “That way,” she said, and pointed south—in the direction of nowhere-land.

  But I did what she told me. I just wanted the chance to explain. The road was bad; the tires skidded a little when I accelerated, and I slowed down again. My mouth was dry. I couldn’t think of a single excuse to give.

  “I’m sorry,” I said finally. “It wasn’t . . . I mean, it’s not what it looked like.”

  She said nothing. The wipers were doing overtime, and still I could barely see the road, hardly see the headlights cutting the rain into splinters.

  “We didn’t mean to. We were just talking. We were talking about you, actually. I don’t even like him.” A lie—one of the biggest lies I’d ever told her.

  “This isn’t about Parker,” she said, practically the first words she’d spoken since she got in the car.

  “What do you mean?” I wanted to look at her but was afraid to take my eyes off the road. I didn’t even know where we were going—I recognized, vaguely, the 7-Eleven where we’d stopped the summer before to get beer on the way to Orphan’s Beach.

  “This is about you and me.” Dara’s voice was low and cold. “You can’t let me have anything of my own, can you? You always have to be better than me. You always have to win.”

  “What?” I was so stunned I couldn’t even argue.

  “Don’t play innocent. I get it. That’s another part of your big act. Perfect Nick and her fuckup sister.” She was speaking so fast, I could hardly understand her; it occurred to me she might be on something. “So fine. You want Parker? You can have him. I don’t need him. I don’t need you, either. Pull over.”

  It took me a second to process her request; by the time I did, she had already started to open the door, even though the car was still moving.

  And with a sudden, desperate clarity I knew I couldn’t let her out: if I did, I’d lose her.

  “Shut the door.” I jammed my foot on the accelerator, and she jerked backward in her seat. Now we were going too fast—she couldn’t jump. “Shut the door.”

  “Pull over.”

  Faster, faster, even though I could hardly see; e
ven though the rain was heavy as a curtain, loud as applause cresting at the end of a play. “No. Not until we finish talking.”

  “We are finished talking. For good.”

  “Dara, please. You don’t understand.”

  “I said, pull over.” She reached over and jerked the wheel toward the shoulder. The back of the car spun out into the opposite lane. I slammed on the brakes, spun the wheel to the left, tried to correct.

  It was too late.

  We were spinning across the lanes. We’re going to die, I thought, and then we hit the guardrail, burst through it in an explosion of glass and metal. Smoke was pouring from the engine, and for one split second we were suspended, airborne, safe, and somehow my hand found Dara’s in the dark.

  I remember it was very cold.

  I remember that she didn’t scream, or say anything, or make a sound.

  And then I don’t remember anything at all.

  AFTER

  Nick

  3:15 a.m.

  I haven’t been paying attention to where I’m heading or how far I’ve run until I see Pirate Pete looming above the tree line, one arm raised in a salutation, eyes gleaming bright white. FanLand. His gaze seems to follow me as I jog across the parking lot, transformed by the storm into an atoll: a series of dry concrete islands surrounded by deep ruts of water, swirling with old trash.

  The sirens are going again, so loud they feel like a physical force, like a hand reaching deep inside me to shove aside the curtain, revealing quick flashes of memory, words, images.

  Dara’s hand on the window, and the impression left by her fingers.

  RIP, Dara.

  We’re done talking.

  I need to get away—away from the noise, away from those hard bursts of light.

  I need to find Dara, to prove it isn’t true.

  It isn’t true.

  It can’t be.

  My fingers are clumsy, swollen with cold. I fumble at the keypad, mistyping the code twice before the latch buzzes open, just as the first of three cars jerks into the parking lot, sirens cutting the darkness into planes of color. For one second, I’m frozen in the headlights, pinned in place like an insect to glass.