Throwaway Girls

by Andrea Contos

  He asked me once if my parents questioned my absence. I defended them, and how easily they accepted my lies. I acted like any parent would’ve believed me. It was because I had so many extracurriculars. Sports and clubs and friends and things that kept me out late.

  It wasn’t that they didn’t care, I told him. It was that I had a best friend who knew to automatically lie for me, and me for her.

  None of that stopped the pity that crept into his eyes.

  Willa never pitied me. Willa understood — the way only another person who knows they’re on their own can.

  “Marcel.” I stumble back because my anchor is gone and the floor feels uneven. “I won’t cause trouble. I’ll be quiet and no one will see me. I’ll be good.”

  I hate the pleading in my voice. I hate that Jake is witnessing me fall apart. And I hate that I’m begging, just like I did with Willa.

  But it didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.

  My vision tunnels and I still can’t fucking cry.

  The door swings open and I have to jump so it doesn’t slam into me.

  A woman enters, bleached hair piled high on her head, and her greeting fades the second she sees me.

  But when she sees Jake, everything in her face closes down.

  There’s a weighted pause, a silence so heavy it thickens the air, and when her expression changes, it’s filled with an illogical level of hatred for a complete stranger.

  I place that she’s one of the day waitresses right before she says, “Is this your boyfriend?”

  “What? No.”

  “But you came here to ask questions about your friend, didn’t you? She’s the missing girl everyone cares about. Crooked cops and PIs and television crews aren’t enough for you? Pretty rich white girl goes missing and everybody’s interested. Not like she’s white trash or Black or Brown, ’cause then she’s —”

  “Chrystal.”

  If she notices the threat in Marcel’s voice, she doesn’t cower under its force. “You know I’m right. They’re not looking for anyone else. Not for any other girl —”

  “Chrystal.” Marcel’s baritone booms in the open space.

  They have an unspoken conversation in some eye-language I can’t begin to understand.

  I shouldn’t have brought Jake here — Chrystal barely had time to take a breath before she connected Jake to Madison.

  Chrystal wraps her arms around her middle, fingers twisted in the fabric of her shirt. “I just came to grab my check.”

  Marcel unlocks the check drawer and not for any other girl rings in my head as he says, “I’ll walk you out.”

  I don’t know which one of us he’s talking to. But then his broad hand strokes over the back of my head, just like I’ve seen him do to his daughters when they come to visit. It’s meant to be comforting and it is, until reality snaps into focus.

  I’m not wanted here anymore. All the places I’m free to be my true self are gone. All the people I love are too.

  I duck from Marcel’s outstretched arm and maneuver around Chrystal, stomping my way toward the back exit.

  I’m barely past the men’s bathroom when someone barrels out of it.

  I bounce off the wall of muscle and crash into a row of liquor boxes someone neglected to put away, and I suck in a breath, my ribs throbbing, my tattooed skin screaming. Maybe I should sue Marcel for however much The Wayside is worth, and then I can buy it so he can’t kick me out.

  I shrug off the apology and ten seconds later I’m bursting into the lot, where the sun’s gone into hiding again, giving way to drizzling rain and the gray haze of clouds. My lungs heave like I haven’t taken a breath in hours.

  The heavy door whooshes open, then thumps shut, gravel crunching beneath Jake’s tentative footsteps. “Are you okay?”

  Nope.

  I nod a yes anyway. I take in a breath so big my lungs burn, then let it out slowly, my best Ujjayi Pranayama, even though I’m sure Jake’s wondering why I’ve transformed into Darth Vader.

  I can’t stay here. I can’t think about what just happened.

  I force myself upright, pin my shoulders back. St. Francis Prep posture. “Let’s go.”

  I’m two steps closer to my car when the rain slants sideways, rippling the puddles, dredging one of Madison’s posters from its depths. Even from ten feet away, it’s obvious it’s not the same as the ones from school. The picture is all wrong. The smile not bright enough, the hair too dark, the lighting all wrong.

  Madison would never let a picture like that past the delete key. Head yearbook photographer. Selfie queen. She knew everyone’s best angle, but none better than her own.

  I ignore whatever Jake’s saying and grab the limp poster before the wind steals it.

  Beads of water leak from the paper’s edges, trickling down my forearm as Jake reads over my shoulder. “Who’s Sydney Hatton?”

  I’m about to say I don’t know when my thoughts snap into place.

  Sydney Hatton is the girl no one cares about. That’s what Chrystal said.

  Everyone cares about Madison. Not Sydney.

  Sydney. The other missing girl.

  Other.

  Two girls have disappeared, and both their posters hang in the bar I call my second home. The bar Madison went to visit. Where she got someone’s number.

  I grasp tight to the matchbook in my pocket, let the hard edge press into the pad of my finger.

  I’m missing something, and if Marcel won’t talk to me, then I’ll figure it out on my own.

  Jake matches his pace to mine, heading toward my car. “Why do you have a fake ID?”

  “Why don’t you have a fake ID?”

  “I’m serious, Caroline.”

  “So am I.” I hit the button on my key fob and my trunk pops. My fingers slip off the edge the first time I try to shove it all the way open. Because it’s wet, not because my hands are shaking.

  I get it right the second time and shove a tendril of drippy hair out of my eyes.

  Jackets, hoodies, skirts, shoes and bags get tossed around before I find the backpack I’m looking for. I rip open the zipper and pull out my flask.

  The warm shot of shitty vodka hits my stomach, and Jake throws his arms in the air in what I can only assume is a moment of deep regret for asking to come along today.

  I slam the trunk shut and head for the door but Jake beats me there. “Give me the keys.”

  “My dad says I’m the only one who’s allowed to drive my car.”

  “Does your dad say it’s okay to smoke and hang out in low-rent bars and keep a flask in your trunk?”

  I stare at the sharp lines of The Wayside and wait, a theory forming in my brain.

  Jake shoves his hand out again, even though he doesn’t actually need the keys to start the engine — I think he’s just afraid if he gets in the car, I won’t follow.

  He says, “Can we get in the car?”

  “No. I need clear vision.”

  “What?”

  “For when Chrystal comes out. I need clear vision.”

  “No offense, but she seems a little nuts.”

  I shake my head, rivulets of water dancing across my skin. “I found a body once.”

  His eyes flare wide, lips parting while he attempts words. “A dead body?”

  I nod and he says, “Where?” like that’s the important part of the story.

  But actually, maybe it is.

  I flip my hood over my head to block the rain, and maybe a bit of the memory too. “Somewhere around here. I think. I wasn’t exactly paying attention.”

  Truth is, I wasn’t paying attention to where my dad was driving that day, nor any of the mind-body connection or real estate knowledge he attempted to throw down during the ride.

  It didn’t matter where we were headed, because I didn�
��t plan on coming back.

  I spent the ride with my hand around a bottle of pills he’d never allow me to fill the prescription for. When he met with his associate and told me I could go enjoy the sunshine, replenish my vitamin D, I didn’t argue.

  But I don’t say any of that to Jake. “My dad was looking into a big chunk of real estate. Crappy houses on land he thought he could build up. He sent me to go explore and I found her.”

  “Holy fuck.”

  “Pretty much. But here’s why Chrystal isn’t crazy. I called the cops, Jake. Sure, I gave them shitty directions because I didn’t know where I was, but do you know what the cop who answered the phone and listened to me talk about a dead girl just … lying in the middle of nowhere … said to me? He took my name and number, and then we got to my address. He paused, and then he asked me where I went to school. When I told him, he said, ‘St. Francis, huh? Listen, sweetheart, that girl you found is probably a junkie who got herself into trouble. We’ll take care of it, but you go on home.’”

  My hand curls into a fist, just like it did then, nails biting into the flesh of my palm while the other holds tight to the poster of a girl who is not Madison. “He didn’t care. He basically patted me on the head and sent me back to my little rich girl life, and you know what? I went. I called the station for a few months to ask for updates. I googled. But eventually, I forgot about her too.”

  “You’re not a cop, Caroline. It wasn’t your job —”

  “Not the point.”

  “Well, what did your dad do about it?”

  “Nothing. Because I didn’t tell him.”

  His face goes slack with shock and I know I won’t be able to explain this to him.

  I mumble, “I don’t really tell my parents things,” because it’s close to the truth — I don’t tell them anything that matters. I don’t trust them to hold the things that count, because I’ve learned how much damage those can do.

  But Jake will never understand what it’s like to have parents that make things worse instead of better, so I say, “It wouldn’t have helped anything, okay? I told the people whose job it was to care. That should’ve been enough.”

  I hold the poster where he can see it. “You think Chrystal’s crazy? Have you heard of Sydney Hatton?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither. No news reports. No … flameless-candle vigils. No journalists around here, right?” I slam the soggy poster into his chest. “Google her, Jake. Tell me what you find.”

  Chrystal bursts from the building, a plastic bag slung over her head in a terrible attempt to keep her teased hair from wilting under the rain. Her mouth is still stuck in the scowl that appeared the moment she saw Jake. Right before she talked about crooked cops and missing girls.

  I don’t need Chrystal to like me for her to tell me what she knows.

  I whip out my phone and dial the number that’s branded into my brain, scripted in Madison’s handwriting. It rings once, twice. And then, on the third, Chrystal drags her phone from her purse and all the jumbled pieces start to fall in line.

  Chrystal stops, brows pinched in confusion over a number she doesn’t recognize, and then she sends me to voice mail.

  Jake says, “Jesus Christ. Are you bleeding?”

  “Highly probable.” My ribs hurt like hell.

  “What happened?”

  I could lie. Say I fell or something equally unlikely. But then Chrystal’s car sputters to life, a gust of white smoke coughing from the exhaust and dying beneath the force of the rain. “I got a tattoo. It’s a flower. Totally cliché.”

  I ignore his widening eyes and shoo him toward the car. “We have to go.”

  He holds out his hand, palm up, and the gesture looks a little too mirror-image of me showing him my scars. Rain pools in his palm, droplets clinging to his fingertips only to fall when their weight gets too heavy.

  The white glow of Chrystal’s reverse lights reflects in the steady drizzle and we’re officially out of time.

  I slam my keys into his hand as I run to the passenger seat.

  Jake already has the car running by the time I shut the door behind me. He cranks the heat and I can’t stop the shudder that racks through me.

  I point to Chrystal’s fading taillights. “Follow her.”

  Chapter Five

  It’s obvious Jake Monaghan has never tailed another car in his life.

  We spend the entire drive arguing because Jake has no concept of biding his time. He’s so afraid of losing Chrystal he’s never more than two car-lengths behind, which is stupid. And clearly Chrystal notices, because she takes us on a twenty-five minute detour before leading us to her home, which sits not more than seven minutes from The Wayside.

  We pass sleepy, single-story houses set far back from the road, but not so far back you’d forget you had a view of a two-lane highway. A short wooden sign pokes out from a cluster of spindly shrubs at the corner of the street, declaring this neighborhood the “Hampton Estates,” and Chrystal’s car eases through the entrance next to it.

  Jake’s only one car behind now, though in his defense, traffic is light so he doesn’t really have a choice. The car rocks as we switch from highway to gravel and enter a maze of mobile homes. Kids’ toys sprinkle the yards, their plastic faded into pastel versions of primary colors, and Christmas lights still dangle from more than a few gutters.

  Jake’s voice lowers like someone might be able to hear us through the walls of my car, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. “How would you even throw a football in this place?”

  I try to keep my tone light, but it comes out every bit the accusation it is. “Not everyone can have a full-sized basketball court in their backyard, Jake.”

  “I wasn’t saying it like that. It’s just —”

  He pauses, still looking for the end to his sentence. The truth is this, he’s standing on the St. Francis tightrope, and he’s trying not to look down.

  His palm slides over the wheel as we make a sharp left, and Chrystal’s car stops in an empty spot. He keeps driving like we’re not really following her, even though there’s no way my BMW isn’t going to stick out in a trailer park.

  He slides into an empty spot with a big yellow Visitor spray-painted on the concrete. “It’s just that it would be hard to grow up in a place where you couldn’t throw a football around.” His gaze follows Chrystal as she jumps from her car, holding her purse over her head.

  I want to buy her an umbrella. Or give her one of mine.

  Jake flips off the wipers and rain beads over the windshield. “Why are we here?”

  I planned to think about everything on the way over and decide what I could trust Jake with, but I didn’t, and now my brain whirls through a million different arguments so fast I end up staring at him blankly — just long enough for him to figure out what I’m doing.

  A flush climbs up his neck and into his cheeks.

  It’s not like he didn’t see the missing poster, and there’s not much else to tell, so I sigh and focus on the trails of raindrops on the window behind him. “The matchbook I found in my locker had a phone number on it.”

  He stares out the windshield, his reflection blurred. “That’s the number you called in the parking lot, right? And Chrystal answered.”

  “Well, didn’t answer, but yeah.” I rub my palm against my thigh, warming my numb fingers. “Madison is my best friend. I was supposed to be there the night she disappeared. I can’t just walk away.”

  Jake nods, because he may not owe Madison as much as I do, but he was supposed to be there too. “You think Sydney Hatton’s disappearance is related to Madison’s?”

  “Maybe? How many girls have to vanish before it’s a pattern?”

  “I don’t know, Caroline, it feels like the only thing Madison and this Sydney Hatton have in common is that they’re both missing.”

 
; “And they’re both connected to The Wayside.”

  It’s too close to ignore. Impossible to ignore when both posters hang on the walls. When Chrystal’s phone number is in my locker.

  I’m the one thing that straddles both worlds. And I’m terrified I led my best friend into something that got her kidnapped.

  “We don’t even know what they might’ve had in common, because I just googled her, Jake, and there are no search parties, no vigils, no press conferences. Chrystal was mad at the amount of attention Madison’s case is getting, and she’s right. If Sydney’s really missing, the cops don’t seem to care. Just like they didn’t care about the girl I found.”

  He tries to respond, but I’m not done. “And did you see Madison’s poster in the entryway? Why is it there? I mean, I haven’t been in Mads’s French-lace underoos like some people, and clearly there are things she kept from me —”

  I cough to cover the way my chest caves. She didn’t tell me because I didn’t want to listen. I set the parameters on our friendship, and now all the secrets I don’t know might be the only thing that can save her.

  Jake mercifully fills the space where my words should be. “Don’t call her Mads. She hated that.”

  “I know. You’re right.” I can totally respect that. There’s no good way to shorten Caroline either. Care? Line? Ro?

  It’s like my parents wanted to ensure their precious miracle baby would remain pretentious for her entire life.

  I turn toward him, silently begging him to understand. There’s only one person left in my life who knows the most important parts of me, and I don’t know where she is. She may be suffering because of me, and that possibility threatens to wrench me apart. “Maybe there is no connection, but are you willing to sit around and wait for the cops to pull you out of class to tell you how they think you’re involved? Do you think Madison would want us to wait?”