“Not funny.”
“You’re kind of throwing a temper tantrum.”
So she’s right, but that doesn’t mean it’s not justified. I rock back onto my butt and flip my notebook around so she can see it.
Her face goes dark before she finishes the first sentence. “You cannot let yourself get kicked out of school because you think you’re the only one who can find Madison.”
I shrug and snatch the notebook back before she can read the rest, giving her a stern glare when she nearly rips my page trying to grab it. “I have a favor to ask. Two favors.”
“I don’t like either of them.”
“Very astute of you. I need to borrow your car. You can use mine if you need one but just know it comes with a possible police escort along with Roadside Assistance. Actually, I’m only assuming we have Roadside Assistance so don’t count on that. Two, can —”
“What if I say no?”
“Then I’ll ask Jake.”
“Hmph.” Her mouth twists into a frown. “Fine. You can take my car.”
“You’re a queen.” I hold out my hand for her keys because now that she’s agreed, I want to have them in hand before I move on to the next request.
I gather my gear as her silence grows.
My life fits into one bag. It holds my computer, my notebooks, meds, clothes, shoes and the money I withdrew from my bank account today — which is hopefully enough to do what I need to do. As of this morning, credit cards are not an option.
I woke up a different version of myself. A new Caroline that started like a fog, a formless impression of a thing, barely held together. But each item I chose from my bedroom today solidified me, gave me structure. And even though I fled my house through the back — just the same as I went in — I’ve never felt more like myself.
“Caroline?”
I wince at the tenderness in her voice because I am definitely not capable of fielding high-level emotions right now. “Yeah?”
“Did you, like, break into your house this morning?”
“Yep.” Parked a half-mile away, snuck through the neighbor’s yard, climbed the back trellis and everything.
“Oh. Well. Are you planning on staying here —”
“I have a place I can go.” I heave my duffel onto my shoulder and wince when it slams into my ribs.
“What do you mean you ‘have a place’ —”
“I need you to skip drama practice tonight.”
She stumbles back two steps. Like I kicked her in the stomach rather than spoke words. “Skipping could cost me the lead.”
I can’t meet her eyes for more than a half-second, not when they’re glazed over and her lip trembles beneath them. “You know what? Forget it.”
“No. I —”
“Don’t blow your senior year on this, Aubrey. It doesn’t make sense for both of us to get kicked out.” I squeeze by her before I’m tempted to ask for something else she can’t give.
She says something my ears refuse to hear, but I’m halfway out the door, so I won’t have to answer her. Instead I turn and give her my real smile before I run like hell toward the exit.
Not having Aubrey tonight will make things harder, but not impossible. And even the odds on impossible feel good when you’ve got nothing to lose.
From The Inside
It’s easy to forget there’s a world beyond what you grew up in.
Maybe it’s because of the slowness of youth. How days last weeks, summers an eternity of scabbed knees and dirt-covered feet, powered by the sun that becomes a dictator of the sky. But every year the world spins a little faster and seconds shave off each minute until eternities are mere moments we forgot to enjoy.
Those early years though, maybe they pass slower so we can build our view of the world. We creep through the passage of time so we can take in the details, constructing the size of our stage, our main characters, our antagonist. By the time we assume our role, the lights are down, the curtain set to be drawn. Once we’re in the play, it’s too late to change the stage.
So we don’t.
My stage was any number of trailers in any number of West Virginia towns where the actors may have changed but the lines didn’t.
I should’ve recognized it for what it was when the new character came into frame. But there’s comfort in playing your part. In relying on the script life hands you.
I’d gone off script with Livie, from the moment we met and every one that came after.
Loving her meant rewriting the plot and destroying the stage. Fear cloaked in excitement and bathed in the hope for what came next, for the anticipation of a life lived rather than followed.
But it’s a tenuous thing, burning the house to the ground when you haven’t made it out the doors. So the night John appeared in the restaurant parking lot after my shift, his gun bulging beneath his cheap suit coat, I clung to my role.
A layer of snow rested on the parking lot, making the ground slick and the glow of the restaurant lighting quiet. Cold nipped through my too-thin coat and snaked between the gaps at my wrists, but John stood solid in his long wool trench, even if the edges were worn and the top button chipped.
He smiled. The easy sort of smile born of practice in masking bad words behind a friendly face. “Hi there.”
He may have introduced himself then, but no matter how hard I try to recapture those moments, I can’t remember if he referred to himself as an officer, or just let me fill in the gaps. Instead, I leaned back on my heels, letting the bundles of cash in my shoes reassure me I hadn’t forgotten to hide my tips. “Can I help you?”
“I’m more interested in helping you.”
Any man offering help ain’t doing it for nothin’. And you only got a couple things to offer. If there is anything the collective Larrys taught me, it’s that altruism is a trap laid for the unsuspecting.
I stepped back, wobbling on the chunky rock salt, and out of the streetlamp’s ring of light, but an inch closer to the diner door. “I don’t need anything.”
“That mom of yours does.”
My exhale formed a billowing cloud of white against the clear night sky. My brain flipped to the list that never left my mind — I’d paid the water bill, and the rent, and the electric. I was a little late on the heat because the current Larry always cranked the thermostat when I wasn’t there to monitor.
But utilities companies don’t send bill collectors who wear wool coats and guns tucked beneath their suits.
I stared at the ground. “What are the charges?”
“None as of yet.” He shoved back the sides of his coat as he tucked his hands into his pockets, seemingly impervious to the cold that left me shivering. “You know she got busted for possession a few weeks back?”
Tears burned in my eyes. I’d been holding my breath, so close to the final curtain call for this part of my life, and now there was this. “I didn’t know.”
“Yeah. The guy she was with — what’s his name?”
“Larry?”
“Don’t think so. Anyway, he took the rap for her weed since he was going down for the Vikes and Pins already.” He paused. “Vicodin and Klonopin. You don’t seem like the kind of girl who’d know those things.”
I kept my face blank. Willed every muscle into relaxed indifference.
I was the kind of girl who helped count and seal those kinds of things in tiny baggies when I was too young to know better. I was the kind of girl who watched every drug imaginable cross my living room coffee table at some point or another. If I looked closely, I could still make out the worn spots in the wood where one of the Larrys kept his scale.
And I was the kind of girl who cried the first time I lied to the cops who came to the front door asking questions about what sorts of things happened on that coffee table. The first time, and every one that came after.
I gripped my coat tighter and hugged myself against the razor-sharp chill. “If the Larry took the charges, I don’t see what you can do for me, or my mom.”
He held up a finger and slipped something from his inside pocket with his free hand.
That’s the other thing people on the outside can’t see. Finding a new stage means leaving your cast members behind. They may not be much, but they were there for you, weren’t they? They understood when others couldn’t. With them, you aren’t a fraud trying to fit into a world that will always be foreign. And those people on the outside, the ones who shake their heads and wonder why we all just don’t leave the theater — they don’t understand the doors are locked. Not just from the outside. From the inside too.
Snow whispered against my skin, soft and light, as my footsteps propelled me forward, until my fingers closed on the sleeve of chilled paper.
The envelope wasn’t sealed. He wasn’t trying to keep anyone out. He was trying to pull me in.
Though grainy and distant, the pictures were unquestionably of my mom. I’ve spent most of my life studying her in one form or another, trying to understand. It wasn’t hard to recognize her.
I paged through the stack of pictures, their glossy faces sticking to the pads of my finger as the snow transformed on their surfaces.
John said, “That’s just the beginning. Those are the small-time deals. You know Max Edwards?”
I shook my head, wondering if I’d been home the night the picture in my hand was taken, my mom silhouetted by the kitchen light as she loaded bricks into her arms.
“She’s running for him. Not petty shi — uh, stuff, either.”
My vision blurred. From rage, not tears, because I was tired of being in that fucking place. I couldn’t take another day of held breaths and burying my screams beneath pain so I could feel something that wasn’t impotent fury.
I did everything right. Every fucking thing. And I was still shivering in a pitted parking lot with a man with a gun on his hip.
I flung my arm in his direction, holding on to the photos only by willpower and desperation, when I wanted to let them sink to the ground to be trampled by heavy boots and rolling tires. “What is it you want?”
“Information.”
My snicker grew into a full-body laugh, until I had to wipe away tears. “Sorry. Sometimes I have fits of inappropriate laughter.”
“You think this is a joke?”
“No. I don’t. That’s why I said inappropriate. But I’m guessing you haven’t met my mother. I guarantee she hasn’t paid enough attention to tell you anything useful, and asking her to go undercover is a death sentence. She’d be better off fighting the charges. Thanks for the offer.”
I turned and headed back toward the restaurant door, tracking over the footprints I’d pressed into the snow. Calling a cab would mean the heat might get shut off, but I could wear a coat and a few extra blankets. What I couldn’t do was walk to the bus stop without him following me.
I sucked in a ragged breath, thin air scratching against my throat.
She wouldn’t survive in prison, and she couldn’t afford a decent lawyer. I could warn her the cops were onto her but I knew my mom — she’d think she could outsmart them. And what was he doing coming to me anyway? I wasn’t the one breaking the law, I wasn’t the one in jeopardy. I wasn’t my mother’s keeper — I was barely my own.
“You’re graduating soon, right?”
I spun, a wall of fat snowflakes falling between us. His voice carried across the distance, too clear and too confident. “Who will pay all those bills with you at college? Will you be able to study and go to parties, knowing your mom is on the streets? Will you be able to leave if she’s locked up somewhere too far for you to visit? We’ve got connections to local halfway houses if she helps us.”
John was one of the others — most cops are. The ones that look at us with disdain and preach about staying clean, staying out of trouble, like those minimums are enough to propel you from your spot on that stage.
But they’re different too, because they’ve seen the theater from the inside. They may not live there, but they’ve memorized every actor and seat too. They know the doors are locked from the inside. And every word he'd just spoken was the clear sound of him flipping that lock into place.
Chapter Seventeen
Bianca Havens is gorgeous. Thick honey-blond hair, tanned skin and cheekbones that belong in the movies.
I’ve never seen her in person, but Havens has a picture of the two of them on his desk — some black-tie shindig where they’re both holding champagne flutes and smiling politely.
I’m as impressed with Mr. McCormack’s taste as I am baffled that someone like Bianca would ever touch Headmaster Havens.
I don’t pretend to have the slightest understanding of marriage, or the concept of an entire life with a single person. With Willa, I never wanted to envision a life without her, but I never considered forever either. Maybe I should’ve.
Bianca struts through the parking lot, no hint of uncertainty in her stride. She’s the type of woman who has definitely considered forever — every potential version.
I brush the crumbs from my shirt, because I am definitely not the same type of woman as Bianca Havens. We don’t have to be though. We just have to agree on one thing, and that’s saving Mr. McCormack. I can only hope he didn’t throw his career away over a woman who won’t make a single sacrifice to ensure his freedom — and that maybe she can get me access to the last person who spoke to Madison before she disappeared.
It’s Thursday. She’s been gone five days now, and every minute that passes feels like time is moving faster, rushing toward an end I can’t face.
I step from between two cars and she stops so fast her heels scrape the concrete. There’s a pause weighted by recognition and indecision, then her hand darts out to clutch the sleeve of my coat.
That she recognizes me at all is probably not a good sign.
She yanks me forward, her stilettos attacking the parking lot with each step toward her car. By some miracle, I manage to follow without tripping since she still hasn’t let go of my coat.
She releases me with a kind of violence that feels like a slap, even as she’s motioning me into her car. The locks click a second before she slides into her seat, and the keys are in the ignition before I can finish tucking my bag between my legs.
The air holds a hint of peppermint infused with cherry blossoms — harsh and feminine all at once.
My head spins as the car lurches backward, and we don’t speak the rest of the drive. All nine horrible minutes of it while I wonder where she’s taking me but am too afraid to ask because it might make her throw me onto the curb. I keep reminding myself she cheated on her husband, because I need some form of superiority, but not even that stops me from feeling outmatched.
It gets worse when I have to follow her through the back doors of her apartment building and into the elevator, where I focus on the marble floor rather than return her stare.
Her apartment is like nothing I expected Headmaster Havens to live in. Sleek lines and open spaces patterned with warm leather and suede. It’s modern with a marriage of cherrywood and cigar lounge. Breathing the air calms my rapid heart rate, and I don’t know if it’s the subtle taste of coffee and cedar or the quiet order that makes every object feel like it was designed to be in exactly that spot.
I’ve been in Havens’s office — there is nothing of him here. I’m so stuck on trying to envision him in this space that I don’t notice the way Bianca’s studying me — the way she’s clearly been studying me — since the moment we stepped inside.
It hits me then, in a domino-fall of understanding. Bianca Havens is way smarter than I assumed. In my defense, her marriage to Headmaster Havens was ample reason to doubt her intelligence. But it turns out everything she does is a show of Machiavellian grace, every
movement precise and exacting.
She brought me here because this isn’t Headmaster Havens and Bianca’s shared home.
This apartment belongs to Mr. McCormack. And she wanted to see if I’ve been here before.
I say, “He’s my teacher. He has never done anything to me. Never tried to. Not ever. And not to anyone I know.”
“The text messages?”
“School stuff. Always. For every person I know. He wanted people to ‘have an outlet’” — I air quote his exact words — “because he knows how much pressure there is at St. Francis, and how tough it is to be away from home and family in high school.”
I had to stifle my scoff when he said that — there isn’t much I wouldn’t give to be away from my home and family. In high school and beyond.
Bianca’s voice strains. “And the license?”
“He found me and my girlfriend — girlfriend.” I emphasize the word because even though having a girlfriend doesn’t mean I’ve never had a boyfriend, I need her to believe me. “He saw us in a bar and he obviously knew I was underage, so he made us both leave and drove us home.”
The relief that washes over her is a physical thing, a softening of every hard line. I know that look. It’s what happens when you discover the thing you’re most afraid of isn’t a thing at all. It’s a pardoning of your soul.
Terrified as she must’ve been, she asked anyway, and that alone makes me think maybe I can trust her. Her keys clink together when she hangs them on an empty hook. “Why did he only have your ID and not hers?”
“He took them both at first, but then Willa started to cry because there’s this super shitty bar” — even worse than The Wayside shitty — “on the outskirts of town that’s not exactly strict on employment law. As long as she’s got an ID that says she’s old enough to serve alcohol, the owner lets her work under the table.”
“He’s worried about her having ID while letting her work illegally? That’s stupid.”
I shrug, because it is stupid.
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