Throwaway Girls

by Andrea Contos

  There’s the briefest of pauses before Jake flings open the door and the scents of earth and rain rush into the car. I’m out a second later, jogging to catch up as he heads toward Chrystal’s trailer.

  The blinds in the front window shift just as my knuckles hit the door, but two knocks later it’s obvious she has no plans to answer.

  A beam of light shifts in the woods behind the trailer, and we both freeze.

  Jake whispers for me to stay, and then he’s inching toward the tree line.

  I creep toward the door, listening so hard it’s almost painful.

  A murmur filters through the wall of the trailer, so low I can’t make out the words even with my ear pressed to the frigid vinyl.

  Twigs snap amidst the crunch of leaves, but it’s too dark in the woods to see past the first layer of trees.

  Jake rushes from the woods, gripping my arm as he leads me back to my car, but he doesn’t speak until we’re sheltered inside. “She was at the window. I saw the blinds move and there was a light, like she was on her phone. Someone was in the woods, and the light earlier … I think she was talking to someone out there.”

  The engine turns over and he jerks the car into drive as I say, “I’m not leaving. I —”

  He holds up his hand, cutting me off. “You’re right. Madison wouldn’t want us to wait. And right now, the only thing we have to go on is Chrystal, and she won’t even answer the door.”

  His jaw flexes, eyes narrow. “If she won’t talk to us, maybe there’s a reason. So maybe we talk to someone she will talk to. Maybe we find our own answers.”

  Chrystal’s trailer shrinks in my mirror until we turn the corner, and his words sink into my gut. The insinuation is that people who won’t talk have something to hide. That Marcel has something to hide. “Marcel wouldn’t —”

  “He didn’t throw you out for no reason. And he wouldn’t let Chrystal talk about Sydney being missing. And then there was all that ‘low-profile’ shit.”

  He sighs when I shake my head. “He seems like a good guy, Caroline, but if Madison went to his bar and he won’t talk about it, then you can’t guarantee what he would or wouldn’t do.”

  I press my head into the headrest and breathe through my nose, because even thinking Marcel may be involved is enough to trigger a spasm of anxiety.

  Jake tucks the car into the driveway of an old house, so hidden by overgrown grass and weeds I didn’t realize it was there.

  By the time I make it to my trunk, Jake is stuffing my backpack with whatever he finds useful.

  Things Jake finds useful: Band-Aids and individually packaged alcohol swabs from the first aid kit my dad put in the car, my shirt, another shirt, my flask.

  Maybe he’s not hopeless.

  He stuffs a hoodie into my arms and grumbles, “Put that on.”

  I ditch my jacket in favor of the hoodie, and my battered skin stretches and stings as I pull it over my head, but it’s worth it for the way the thick cotton blocks out the chill.

  Something smacks into my palm and my fingers curl reflexively around the hilt of a flashlight. “It’s the middle of the day.”

  “Preparation is important.” He holds up another hoodie, then checks the size tag. “Whose is this?”

  When I shrug, he tugs it over his head, but the little crease between his eyebrows shows he’s not at all happy about putting on the sweatshirt of some rando. Jake’s sweatshirts are probably stacked in his closet with the precision of a Neiman Marcus display.

  I flip the hood over my head even though my skin gets twitchy at the idea of muffling my hearing. “This is sort of dangerously stupid.”

  He slams the trunk shut and beads of water jump from the metal. “Now? We ditched school in the middle of the day and went to a bar and now you want to develop common sense?”

  “All I wanted to do was talk to Chrystal!” I drop my voice without losing any of the heat in it. “Not snoop through creepy neighborhoods looking for kidnappers.”

  “What if she’s here, Caroline? What if she’s ten fucking feet away and we left?”

  His words freeze me in place, cold prickles of anxiety crawling up the back of my throat. He’s right.

  The cops aren’t here, we are. They’re too busy walking the halls of St. Francis, acting like they’re investigating. If stupid Preston Ashcroft’s rumors about Mr. McCormack answering a call from Madison’s burner phone are any indication, the cops are convinced he’s involved.

  It’s not that Mr. McCormack doesn’t have secrets of his own, but they’ve got nothing to do with Madison. And if Jake’s telling the truth about the night she went missing, then it’s when, not if, they’ll assume Jake’s involved too.

  The cops need someone to blame, and if those are the leads they’re following, Madison’s odds of being found are zero.

  I nod. “Okay.”

  He holds out the canister of mace I’d forgotten I had and shrugs the backpack straps over his wide shoulders before he walks away, tire iron swinging lazily at his side.

  Soggy leaves slip beneath my shoes as I follow, my eyes trailing over the ground, searching for I have no idea what.

  It’s easily five million footsteps and an hour later and I still don’t know.

  We’ve searched the entire grounds of the creepy, abandoned house and found nothing more than a whole bunch of rusted, twisted tool parts and one very angry cat that nearly clawed Jake’s face off. The only thing I’ve gained is a sharp throb in my right temple and knots in my shoulders.

  I can’t pretend Madison left on her own anymore.

  There’s a countdown in my head now, seconds barreling faster toward an end I can’t quite fathom — where’s she not there to walk with me, hand-in-hand, across the stage to get our diplomas like we’ve planned since we were thirteen. Where all the inside jokes we’ve created shrivel and waste because there’s no one to share them with.

  I close my eyes and we’re floating side by side, my skin sticky with sweat against our matching pool floats, the gentle lap of water carrying us beneath the blazing sun. And then her voice — the quiet one she used when her heart lay open — murmurs against the thick air. “Hey, Caroline?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you, bitch.”

  My smile stretches, slow and lazy like the clouds that float overhead. “I love you too.”

  I’m not good at those words. They’ve never come easily. Except with Madison.

  And then, with Willa.

  My eyes snap open to darkness — memories of sunlight draining from my skin.

  The clouds form a fortress around the sun, leaving everything in a haze of drizzle and muted light, and I scramble to catch up to Jake.

  Every time I look at Jake’s hand around the tire iron, the tendons in it look tighter, popping farther beneath his skin.

  The air feels wrong here — the clean that comes with rain overrun with the sharp scent of decay and smoke. Jake and I have made eye contact exactly once, and it ended in a race to see who could look away faster. I’m afraid to look at anything, terrified of what I might find.

  But I’m even more terrified of what I might miss.

  I swipe the glaze of rain from my cheeks, then clear my throat and pray it won’t sound as rattled as I am. “Maybe we should just move on to the trailer park.”

  Jake’s gaze snaps to mine and skitters away just as quickly, his eyes going wide like he’d forgotten I was even there. He drags the tire iron over a heap of crinkled plastic bags. “Yeah. Okay.”

  He nods just as my eye catches on a tiny glint of mirrored gold in the dark foliage at the edge of the woods, familiar enough that I know it doesn’t belong here. “Hey, wh—”

  Metal slides against metal. A quick click, slide, click.

  A gravelly voice says, “Neither of you move and maybe I won’t blow your little boyfriend�
��s head off.”

  I force myself to look, my gaze dragging over Jake without focusing and moving up to the mountain of a man behind him.

  Rain trickles from the man’s unkempt beard and seeps into the ribbed shirt where it’s not protected by his yellow raincoat. But the shotgun that forms a bridge from his hand to Jake’s back, he holds that steady.

  My brain tries to convince me this isn’t happening, but the neurons firing through my body, pumping my muscles with the need to move move move are on full alert.

  Mountain Man’s eyes narrow, and the only thing I can think to say is, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  It’s a stupid comment but it breaks Jake free from his statue impersonation. His lips part in shock. “Is that really the most important thing here?”

  He has a point. “No, but —”

  Mountain Man shoves Jake into me using the barrel of the gun, and I stumble back before my body remembers how to work right.

  Jake gives my arms a little squeeze and whispers, “It’ll be okay,” at the same time Mountain Man barks out orders to start walking.

  A droplet of rain sneaks across my collarbone and trickles down my shirt, but I’m afraid to move. Sticking my hand down my shirt seems like it might give our present company ideas I’d rather he not have, so instead I loop my arm through Jake’s and propel us both forward, Mountain Man close behind.

  Branches scrape at my face as we trudge through the patch of woods that separates the abandoned house from the trailer park, and my heart ricochets against my ribs.

  I stumble over a slick rock embedded in the dirt and Jake keeps me upright, his elbow locking down on mine hard enough to wrench my shoulder. But it’s the flare of pain along my forearm that reminds me he never ditched the tire iron.

  And I have mace in my pocket.

  Mountain Man yells to keep moving so I do, scouring the path for anything that might give Jake even half a second to yank the tire iron from his sweatshirt and get the hell out of shotgun range.

  I see it just on the outskirts of the trailer park, where the gravel meets the woods.

  A slightly deflated soccer ball tucked against a line of white rocks.

  The deflated part doesn’t exactly work in my favor. Neither does the shotgun trained on my friend.

  The “rainbow flick” is always a favorite with the kids at soccer camp. Roll the ball up your leg and kick it with the opposite heel until it arches overhead.

  Except I don’t need it over my head today — I need to kick it into Mountain Man’s face. I’m just praying years of muscle memory is enough to not get us killed.

  I inch my fingers toward my pocket, until the tips brush against the cylinder of mace, the metal warm to the touch. “I’m just waiting for a rainbow.”

  Mountain Man yells at me to shut the fuck up and Jake’s eyes are so wide it’s clear he thinks I’m suffering from shock, but then his gaze flicks to the ball and he gives me the subtlest of nods. Almost like he trusts me to not screw this up, which proves Jake doesn’t know me as well as he thinks.

  Beads of sweat roll down my back, and my mouth is so dry I have to stop myself from sticking out my tongue to catch the rain.

  A twig snaps beneath my foot and I swallow a yelp, and then we’re five feet from the ball. Then three.

  We stumble from the protection of the trees and the rain spikes against my skin, but I barely feel it.

  Two feet away and everything goes quiet.

  The ball doesn’t roll like it’s supposed to but my heel still connects, and the world snaps back into existence the moment the blur of black and white leaves the ground.

  Momentum carries me forward and my palms slam into the gravel just as Mountain Man shouts a garbled curse. I swear the ground shakes when he plows into it, and I fling myself over in time to see his chin bounce off the grass.

  Before he can get up and reclaim the shotgun that’s wedged beneath his shoulder, Jake has the tire iron free.

  Still, Mountain Man is surprisingly spry, and he’s to his knees before Jake swings.

  It’s a brutal stroke that holds nothing back. The crack of ribs is unmistakable.

  Mountain Man lets out a guttural howl and I’m not sure Jake even hears it.

  His jaw is locked tight, eyes narrowed viciously, and when he pulls back for another swing, I can’t tell what body part he’s aiming for next.

  Baseball, hockey, lacrosse, golf. Jake’s muscle memory puts mine to shame. If he makes use of it again, we’re both going to find out what brain tissue looks like.

  I scramble forward, screaming Jake’s name.

  I flick the safety off my mace and get way closer than I need to. The liquid jets out of the canister and blasts Mountain Man’s face, splattering back so far I have to jump to avoid it.

  A door crashes open behind me and a woman shouts something I can’t make out because Jake is yelling at me to run, run, run!

  We sprint back through the woods, the sounds of our breaths the only thing grounding me in this overcast tomb of a forest. We pass the spot where Mountain Man found us and the memory of a click slide click echoes in my head.

  I skid to a stop, the wet leaves beneath me giving way so my ass collides with the ground and the mace tumbles from my hand.

  I crawl to the place I’m looking for, that hint of gold that doesn’t belong. Jake’s hand clamps around my arm to haul me up but I yank myself free.

  I shove aside the pile of plastic bags and reach for the tube of lipstick I saw earlier. I want to search more, to see if there’s anything else, but Jake has me off the ground before I can.

  He doesn’t put me down until we’re ten feet past the spot — too far to go back.

  We fling open our doors in unison and the engine turns over before we’re fully seated. The car lurches backward as Jake pins the gas pedal to the floor, and then we’re moving forward, flying past those same quiet houses, down the same two-lane road, but in my hand is the one thing that might prove Madison was here the night she disappeared.

  Chapter Six

  I’d give my left ovary to avoid this meeting.

  I’ve managed to avoid it for weeks, but this morning I was so distracted by the warring thoughts in my head I was completely unprepared when Mr. McCormack appeared out of nowhere. And now I’m stationed in the quad, shivering against wind that’s too sharp, waiting for him and actually hoping for the cops to show up again.

  If not for the lipstick that sits heavily in my pocket, I would’ve skipped school completely. Especially since every slam of a locker is a shotgun being loaded. Or the way Mountain Man’s ribs cracked beneath the force of Jake’s swing. Or the look in Jake’s eyes when he decided he was going to do it again, just a little higher next time.

  I had to peel myself from the seat last night when we pulled into campus so I could drop Jake off and climb into the driver’s seat. He met me at the front bumper, caught in the dark zone between the beams of my headlights. He paused, every movement halting, and then he gathered me into a hug I didn’t return, because I’m an emotionally stunted asshole who can’t figure out affection, and he whispered, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  He didn’t give me a chance to respond.

  And then I drove nowhere, for hours, before eventually going home rumpled and wrinkled, with spots of mud on my knees and blood on my shirt. My mom overlooked all of that when I told her I’d spent the night hanging out with Jake.

  And in the walk to the room that doesn’t feel like mine, I made more promises than I may be capable of keeping.

  I promised I would find Madison. That I wouldn’t give up on her like I did the dead girl in the middle of nowhere. That I wouldn’t let time dull the memory and erode my sense of responsibility. And I wouldn’t let everything fall apart like I did with Willa.

  I promised that this time I would do everything right. This time
, I’d be enough.

  And then I’ll leave and not look back. That hasn’t changed. It’s been my only goal since the moment I set fire to that kitchen and went home to people who can’t love every part of me.

  In three months, I graduate. Two days after that, I turn eighteen, and then I’m free to be the person I am rather than the person everyone needs me to be.

  But I can’t do that if Madison is still gone.

  If Mr. McCormack tries to stop me, I’ll give him every chance to walk away. If not, I have a plan for that too.

  I shiver as the sun drops behind an army of gray clouds and Mr. McCormack jogs down the steps of Olivet Hall, scanning the expanse of the quad for me.

  He finds me sitting at one of the teak patio tables that are still too damp from this morning’s rain.

  He smiles and waves, and now we have to drop eye contact and pretend we have something better to look at, or engage in some creepy stare-off while he hurries across the thirty-foot separation.

  I choose to maintain. Might as well set the tone early.

  Thankfully his long strides get him to my table quickly, and the wind draws a burst of mountain-fresh fabric softener and starch from his shirt as he hoists the other chair and sticks it next to mine. Close, but not too close. Friendly and attentive, but never inappropriate.

  This is not a man who kidnaps girls.

  He leans back in his seat. “So.”

  I’d give my other ovary for a fire drill that would send hundreds of kids streaming into the quad. “So.”

  “Wasn’t sure you’d show.”

  “I said I would.”

  “You also said you’d attend my class on a regular basis.”

  I want to grab my phone to remind myself it’s still there and I’m not out of options yet, but my hands are shaking and I don’t want him to see. Can’t let him see. I know he’ll ask how I’m doing if he does, and I don’t trust myself not to answer — to admit I’m not okay, that I haven’t been since the day Willa left, and especially not now, when Madison is still gone and it’s partly because of me. “I was in class yesterday.”