The woman shook her head. “No, no. No job.”
“No job?” I clenched my hands together. “But the sign in the window says—”
“No job right now. You come back later, okay? Later.” She nodded and turned away.
I stood there, confused. Did she mean there were no jobs for me because of my face? Or did she mean to come back later that day, when someone else would be there?
Another customer looked at me, curiosity and sympathy in her eyes. I rushed out of the store, and I never went back. Never tried anywhere else, either. Maybe I did act like a victim.
No. I wanted to be treated with respect, and I didn’t get it there. Okay, maybe I tried to shield myself from more rejection. But who doesn’t do that? That’s not being a victim. I’ve got to keep myself from being sucked into Brian’s lies. Nothing he says to me is true.
I get up, feel my way over to the window, and tug on the boards again.
NICK
Day 27, 5:30 P.M.
I HOPE SARAH’S STILL alive. I pray that she is. But it’s getting harder to believe that she might be. It’s been almost a month since she went missing.
I square my shoulders and walk into the police station, where I get the clerk to call the detective down.
“You again,” the detective says, looking at me sourly. I’ve come by once a week since Sarah disappeared. You’d think he’d expect me by now.
“Don’t want me to drop by? Then find Sarah!”
The detective shakes his head wearily. “It’s not like we haven’t been trying. Your coming here, hassling me like this—it only eats up valuable working time.”
“Right. Like you were searching for her when the desk clerk phoned you.”
“Hey—I’ve got twenty-five other cases I have to deal with on top of hers. And all are just as important.”
“Just as important as a missing girl?” I say.
“You’d be surprised. Look, kid—you can’t keep coming by here, asking for me. I want to get Sarah Meadows back, too. But this isn’t the way to do it.” He takes a step toward the door, holding out his hand to usher me out.
“Then what is?” I say, not moving.
The detective shrugs. “If I knew, we’d be doing it. We’re already doing everything we can.”
Code words for “we’ve almost given up.”
“Just—don’t stop looking. Sarah’s a good person. Brave, smart, and kind. She doesn’t deserve this.”
“None of them do, son,” the detective says sadly.
I leave before I yell at him. That won’t get me anywhere. I can’t believe how easily a missing person gets pushed aside after barely a month. A life has to be worth more than that. Sarah is worth more than that. I rip open a bag of chips and stuff a handful in my mouth. Anger churns through my gut.
I head toward the Meadowses’ house. I go over as often as I can. They’ve become a second family to me. We find comfort in one another’s grief, and in our hope. In a world that doesn’t seem to care, that doesn’t support our belief that Sarah is still alive, we buoy one another up. The reporters have stopped calling. The only ones who talk about Sarah now are the gossip rags, and even they don’t have much to say, and nothing hopeful. But as long as they keep Sarah in people’s minds, I guess it’s a good thing. I throw my empty chip bag in the trash and dust off my hands and face.
Brian is leaving just as I come in. We nod at each other, our faces tight with worry. “Distract her, will you?” he whispers. “She wouldn’t let me.”
“I’ll try,” I whisper back. I close the door behind him.
Mrs. Meadows is sitting at the kitchen table, printing off photo after photo of Sarah. She painstakingly places them in an album while tears stream down her cheeks.
I sit down tentatively at the table with her. “Wow, that’s a lot of photos,” I say.
Mrs. Meadows looks up at me, scissors in one hand, photo that she’s been trimming in the other. “I never took the time to go through all our photos; I was always too busy. Sure, I kept an album, and one for Sarah, too—but there are so many other photos that should be in them. So many sweet images.” She’s crying harder now.
“Here, let me help you,” I say, and gently take the scissors from her shaking hand. I think she needs someone else to remember and love Sarah along with her more than she needs to be distracted. I finish trimming the photo of six-year-old Sarah lying in a hammock reading a comic. “Tell me about this one,” I say.
Mrs. Meadows’s face lights up as she tells me about what Sarah was like as a kid, and I soak up every word.
Later, walking home, I feel closer to Sarah, even though it hurts, too. I wish Charlene would come with me to the Meadowses’—her pain and guilt is eating her like cancer—but she can’t handle their grief. She says it’s so heavy and dark at the Meadowses’ that it’s like being underground. It’s funny that she can’t feel the hope there. It’s what helps me get through.
I worry about Charlene. I know she’s flunking classes, spacing out like I do, but she’s also got her crap of a dad going at her, tearing her down. And her mom, while nice, doesn’t seem to understand. At least my dad kind of gets it—we both went through something like this when Mom died. Only Sarah’s not dead. I won’t give up believing she’s still out there. And in a way that makes it harder. The grief just keeps dragging on and on; we don’t know when or if she’ll ever be found. But I have to believe she will be. Alive.
I try to explain to my dad why I’m spending so much time with the Meadowses. He doesn’t think it’s healthy, and we’ve had a few yelling matches, but he always comes around. His mom left him when he was little, and he spent most of his life looking for her. So I guess he gets it. I just wish Charlene’s parents did.
She’s spending more and more time with Gemma. People are talking about them, but I don’t think she cares, maybe for the first time in her life. Sometimes she looks almost happy with Gemma. I know I should be glad for her, but I envy her that. I don’t know how to be happy without Sarah. And maybe I don’t want to be.
SARAH
I WONDER IF THEY’VE forgotten me. If they’ve all gotten on with their lives. Not Dad and Mom—I know they must be missing me the way I’m missing them. But Charlene, Nick—do they even think of me anymore? Do they take a moment from the drama in their lives to wonder where I am?
It’s been thirty-five days that I’ve been gone—at least, as far as I can figure. I make a new ball whenever I get up after a long sleep, and I count them whenever I’m too tired or depressed to do anything else. I’ve got to stop feeling sorry for myself. Stop feeling so lost. But I do feel lost. And forgotten.
Every day I grow more desperate, more afraid that this will be the day he gets tired of me, the day when I feel his knife slice through my flesh—but so far it hasn’t happened. So I try to keep hoping I’ll get out of here alive. And I imagine what it’ll be like if I do. How I’ll be different.
If I ever get out of here, I’ll stop judging people by how they look. It’s all a lie, anyway. Take Brian—he looks gorgeous, but he’s the ugliest person I’ve ever met. He should be rated a minus five, not me. I keep wondering how I missed seeing his cruelty. Every time I think about it, I remember those twinges of uneasiness that I pushed away. The instincts I ignored. I swear if I ever get out of here, I’ll never ignore my gut again.
If I ever get out of here, I’m going to give Nick a chance. Who cares what other people think? It’s my life, for however long I’ve got. If I don’t do what feels right to me, what I need and want to do, then am I really living?
If I ever get out of here, I won’t hide my face anymore. I swear it. If anyone should hide his face, it’s Brian. I practice tucking my hair behind my ears and holding my head up higher.
I’m afraid I’ll forget these promises to myself if I ever get back to the real world. Afraid I’ll lose my courage and let what’s important get buried by all the tiny stresses and worries of everyday life, things that seem so important at t
he time, but sure aren’t now. So I make the promises into a comic, and I tell the story over and over to myself. Diamond always hid her scarred arm, wounds her father cut into her when she was a child, but after she faces a monster who looks so sweet that he draws his victims to him, Diamond knows what she has to do. She rips the sleeve off her costume, baring her jagged scars, and keeps rescuing people. When some people in the crowd act shocked or repulsed, Diamond calmly tells them her scars are part of her past, part of what made her who she is. And then when Diamond sees the boy she loves in the crowd, she asks him out, right there in front of everyone. Even though some people in the crowd laugh, Diamond feels stronger than ever. That’s what I want to be—emotionally stronger. Able to do what feels right to me, even if no one else understands.
I drag myself up off the floor and walk the circuit of the room once, twice, three times. I have to force myself to; it’s getting harder to care. But I’ve got to keep myself warm, and fit enough to escape. Ready for the moment when my chance comes.
I go to the boards on the window, find the one I always work on, and yank at it. Its rough surface nips at my skin like a piranha, but I grip the board harder and yank again. It may be hopeless, but I can’t stop trying. I can’t bear to just sit here. So I work the board, my fingertips getting raw, and I tell myself another story. A story of escape.
NICK
Day 43, 6:30 P.M.
I MISS SARAH EVERY day. It’s not getting any easier. No, that’s a lie—sometimes I find myself laughing at a joke, or looking up at the bright blue sky and finding it beautiful. But afterward I always wish that Sarah were here sharing it with me, and then I’m back to sad again. Sad and determined. I’m not giving up on her—but it feels like I am.
I can’t believe that Dad dragged me to the mall to get new jeans. I don’t care that my old ones have holes in them. But it was easier to go with him than to put up a fight, and besides, he looked lonely. I haven’t seen much of him, what with all the time I spend at the Meadowses’.
When I saw Charlene and Gemma together in the food court, I couldn’t look away. Charlene was crying, but then Gemma reached out and took her hand, all tender-like, and a little later they were laughing.
I wanted to grab hold of the railings and scream down at them. I was surprised by how furious I felt. And then I realized I was angry because they have what I want.
I want to reach for Sarah’s hand and feel her startle, all surprised. She’ll look at me with big eyes, and then see how much I love her, and then pretty soon the two of us will be laughing, just for the joy of being together. I want that so much, my chest hurts.
I don’t know what to do with all my emotion. I usually try to eat it away, but it’s not working. So lately I’ve been putting it into my art. Into the comics I draw for Sarah. I draw her defiant and strong, the way she was when she protected Googly Eyes from those boys. I draw her bold and sure, the way she was when she stood up for Madison. I keep drawing her until my fingers are numb, hoping to draw her back into my life.
Every panel, every pencil stroke, is for her. I draw in black-and-white; there’s no color in my life. But if she gets home—when she gets home—the color will come back.
I know some of the guys online think I’m lame, mooning over a girl who might never come home, a girl who may never love me back. But I think that’s because they’ve never felt real love. Because if they had, they’d be crying with me. Not that I cry. Okay, I do. But so what? I’m human. I hurt. I love. I hope. I still effing hope.
Maybe I am crazy, holding on to hope. But at least I’m not alone in it. Mr. and Mrs. Meadows hope just as hard as I do. Even Brian has hope. Today he told Mrs. Meadows, “I can’t even pretend to know how you feel, but I think everything will be okay in the long run.”
Mrs. Meadows burst into tears, and Brian pulled her to him, hugging her. “Remember, I’m here for you, anytime you need me,” he murmured, patting her back while Mr. Meadows and I watched, our own eyes tearing up.
You’ve got so many people who care about you, Sarah. So come home.
SARAH
I AM TIRED OF my if-I-ever-get-out-of-here daydreams. I’m even tired of creating comics—never being able to write them down, just composing snatches in my head, forgetting bits, and starting all over again. The stories I tell myself aren’t enough anymore. I’m just so tired. I want an end to this. I want to be home. And when my despair is strong, like it is now, I think maybe I’d rather not be here at all if I can’t go back. If I have to keep living this hell that’s not quite a life. I’m tired of hoping, of trying so hard and never succeeding.
I tell myself I need to get up and work on the board again, but I just sit here, hopelessness like lead in my bones, weighing me down. What’s the point of trying when I know I’ll never escape? It’s been more than a month, and I haven’t managed to get even one board off. But Diamond would never give up. Neither would my mom and dad. I have to keep hoping.
Outside this room, time is passing without me. It’s getting warmer, turning into spring. I can tell by the air blowing through the hole; it doesn’t have the same cold bite. I’m missing it all. I long to feel the sun on my skin, to press my fingers into the dirt and smell its richness, to look up at the bright blue of the sky and see the birds flying across. I long to be outside, free, the way I always was, without even being aware of it. If I ever get out of here, I swear I will notice things like that. I will appreciate them.
Dad and Mom must still be looking for me. They won’t have given up—even if they believe I’ve run away, like Brian said they do. Despair washes through me so strongly that I don’t want to live. But I can’t let myself go there. So I picture their faces in my mind and try to hear their voices.
Charlene and Nick must be gearing up for spring break. I wonder if they’ve forgotten me already. Or if they think of me fondly sometimes, before they go back to their own lives.
The days are so long, the nights even longer. Without my sight, I have only temperature changes and my body’s rhythms to give me a sense of passing time, and the foil balls I use to mark it with. The monotony, the days and days of no contact with anyone, makes me want to scream just to hear another human voice. I talk aloud to myself. If I didn’t, I think I’d go crazy. I’m not sure I haven’t gone a little crazy already. I never understood that expression that none of us is an island, but I get it now. I need to hear someone’s voice, need to feel someone touch my skin so badly that I start imagining it, hallucinating it, until it’s almost real.
I can almost hear Mom reading me Guess How Much I Love You, but her voice and the words fade when I try to hold on to them. Tears well up behind my eyelids. I must have made her read me that book a thousand times when I was little. So why can’t I remember better? And what does that say about me, that I needed to hear it so often? That I didn’t believe she really loved me? Maybe Brian is right. Maybe I was picking something up from her. From her and Dad both.
But I think of the way Mom would smooth my hair back from my face, her touch so gentle, and the way Dad would sit beside me for hours, the two of us reading comics, playing board games, watching old movies, and I know that they love me.
As often as I imagine them, it’s getting hard to remember exactly what they sound like, the way Mom’s voice rises when she laughs, and Dad’s gets deeper. Brian’s voice is the one that fills my mind, reverberating inside me until it is all I can hear.
I wonder if they’re thinking about me right now, if they can feel me thinking about them—if Mom turns around, startled, putting her hand to her cheek to try to catch my touch, if Dad leans forward in his chair, trying to hear my voice. I want that connection to be there. I don’t want them to give up on me, the way Brian says they have.
His lies find their way inside my skull, building up like sediment.
“Your parents have stopped looking for you. They’re spending all their time trying to save your dad’s company. Money is more important to them. It always is.”
“Charlene’s forgotten all about you—and she found herself a girlfriend; can you believe it? Gemma, I think her name is.”
“Your parents aren’t looking for you, because they’re the ones who wanted to get rid of you. They paid me to take you.”
I don’t believe him, not really. But I’ve heard his lies so many times, they almost sound normal to me, like the sound of my own heartbeat.
I know they’re out there looking for me—Dad craning his head as he drives, looking at every girl my height, my weight, stopping at every gas station to ask about me; Mom walking the sidewalks, carrying flyers that she shoves at every passerby.
They won’t give up on me. They love me too much for that.
But a part of me isn’t sure that’s true.
I clench my fists, scabs breaking open. I can’t let Brian’s lies become my reality. I have to believe I’ll get out of here, and that Mom and Dad will be glad when I’m back.
The first thing I want when I get home is food. Real food, food that fills me up on the inside. My stomach growls, tight with hunger, but I can’t let myself eat tomorrow’s rations. Can’t let myself eat as much as I want or need. I have to be smart.
Time seems endless when Brian isn’t here, but it’s better than when he’s with me. He checks the buckles on my blindfold every visit, tightens the straps when they get loose. And I can feel him watch me when I sit on the bucket. I know he can hear every tinkle, every plop I make, must smell the horrible stink, and so I try to hold it in when he is here. It becomes a test of wills between us, but eventually my body always betrays me. My body betrays me, too, in being hungry when he offers me food, in being thirsty when he brings me water. In making me need him to survive. But nothing can make me like him.
I’ve stopped swatting his hand away from my cheek, stopped shaking my hair out over my port-wine stain. He’ll just force me to expose my cheek again. There’s something about my trying to hide, something about my shame that goads him on. And he’s already seen my cheek, touched it more than anyone ever has except my parents. So now I keep my cheek bare, and let him touch it when he wants. I think it unnerves him.
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