Throwaway Girls

by Andrea Contos

  She was better than any of us. And I won’t let anyone forget her.

  I choke out, “She comforted you. She did everything she could to make you, a complete stranger, feel a little less alone, and when she needed you, you walked away.”

  I’m nearly out the door when Madison’s voice slices into me, opening all the wounds that had only begun to scar.

  “So did you, Caroline.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  I hold tight to the rough concrete of the curb beneath me and close my eyes. The sun warms my skin, bakes into the parking lot surrounding me. There aren’t any cars aside from mine. The diner closed so staff could go to the funeral.

  Willa’s funeral.

  It took the cops nearly two months to find her. Some girls and their families haven’t been that lucky.

  A car rushes by, throwing a roadside puddle into a wave that flows toward the sloped lot, inching closer to my outstretched legs.

  My vape rests in my hand, a temptation I don’t submit to, no matter how much I want to. Because I’m trying. Because I told Aubrey I would.

  Because I want to be a person whose promises are real.

  Broken concrete pops beneath the weight of a car entering the lot. Whoever it is, I don’t want to see them.

  I’m still weeks away from eighteen, and for once, that’s worked in my favor, because the police haven’t released my name. I’m not facing any charges either. Of everyone, I’ve come out of this the most unscathed. Cherished and protected in all the ways Willa never was.

  Jake’s family has done their impressive best to keep details from reaching the public. It hasn’t stopped the reporters from trying, and there’s no shortage of magazine and newspaper covers bearing Thomas Monaghan’s face.

  If it weren’t for Jake, I’d tell the world about the person Thomas deprived the world of. I’d talk about Willa. Not about Thomas Monaghan and his shocking double life or his professional accomplishments. I’d talk about a world that honors power and influence above twelve girls’ existence. I’d show what he did by giving life to the ones he took.

  The car engine quiets and a door thumps shut.

  Aubrey shuffles forward. “Is it okay that I’m here?”

  At my nod, her steps grow bolder, until she’s not even pretending not to run, nearly knocking me over when she drops to my curb and smothers me in a hug.

  I inhale the sweetness of jasmine like it’s a gateway to the night I spent sleeping next to her in her dorm, both of us safe.

  Aubrey whispers, “You went away again.”

  “I know.”

  “Come back?”

  I laugh because I don’t think I can come back. I can’t face what’s waiting for me if I move anywhere but forward. “Sure. I’ll just join in the Senior Spirit Week festivities and show up to prom and pretend everyone isn’t whispering about all the rumors they’ve heard.”

  Her mouth twitches into an almost smile. “I heard Tabitha is going to ask you.”

  “To prom?” My shock overrides everything else, and this time my laugh is genuine. “Hard pass.”

  “She helped you though, in the end. And she said sorry.”

  “Still.” The truth is I can’t look at Tabitha without seeing those pictures.

  Silence grows into its own presence, and I roll the vape between my palms to buy Aubrey time to say whatever’s making her fidget and squirm.

  Finally, she says, “You could go with me.”

  “With you with you?”

  She rolls her eyes. “I don’t know, Caroline. Can you just not make this weird? Going with anyone else feels wrong, okay? I don’t let just anyone wear my pajamas, you know.”

  “They are nice pajamas.”

  “The best.” She breathes deep. “Think about it, okay? Let me know?”

  I don’t know if I’m ready to think about the possibility of anyone else after Willa. If I’ll ever be. But maybe Aubrey’s not suggesting that at all, or maybe it’s exactly why she asked the way she did. “I will. And thanks.”

  There’s another thing I need to thank her for, but if I know Aubrey, she’s done her best to forget it. “I didn’t know Mountain Man was going to give you the box to take to the cops.”

  “Nope. Don’t go there.”

  “Will you just let me thank you?”

  “No. Because I don’t want your ‘thank-you’ for me being stupid enough to accept some box from a huge dude in full camo, with a shotgun and black stuff smeared all over his face. I almost wet myself. ‘I’ll watch out for your friend. You take this to the cops.’ That’s what he said to me. He yanked me into the woods and I thought I was going to die and he’s just all, ‘Hey, can you do this delivery real quick?’”

  Her voice squeaks higher. “And I did! I just panicked and did what he asked and I was so scared I went fifteen over the speed limit the whole way!”

  It’s all too horrible to be anything close to funny, but I can’t stop my smile. “A whole fifteen over, huh?”

  She shoves me and says, “It’s not funny,” even though she’s laughing too.

  Until she’s not. “I couldn’t have done it if I knew what it was.”

  I tell her I know because I do. Because the feel of that box, the cold circle of Madison’s ring against my palm, the weight of Willa’s necklace against my chest, they never seem to leave. “I wish you wouldn’t have had to, but thank you anyway.”

  That’s the truth too. I would take that away from her if I could, but there’s also a part of me that still finds comfort in knowing Mountain Man was out there that night, watching and waiting.

  He had justice to seek too.

  And I can only hope that Sydney, wherever she is, knows the man who killed her aunt is dead. Thomas Monaghan ruined her life too. Took the one person she had to look out for her. But no one will ever hear about Sydney — no smiling school photo of her next to all of his other victims. That doesn’t make her less of one. Apparently, it just makes her one that’s even easier to overlook.

  Aubrey sucks in a breath and I steel myself for whatever she’s about to ask, because I guarantee it’s not about prom. “Can I ask —”

  “Just do it.”

  “It’s just, you always called her Willa.”

  “That’s who she was to me.”

  She was Willa and I was Livie, both of us new versions of ourselves, free of the ones that didn’t fit.

  I didn’t lie to her about my name. In that one thing, I was true from the beginning. I close my eyes and I’m back there, on that night that was so unlike this one, when I looked up at her from my spot on the curb, watching as her narrowed eyes warred over whether to trust me …

  Willa’s head tilts. “What’s your name?”

  My lie stalls in my throat. “Well, I don’t —”

  “You don’t know your own name?”

  I smile, because in that very moment, I know she’s the person I thought she was. “Yes, I know my own name, but I hate it, and it’s … it’s not who I am. And I wanted to lie but then I didn’t … want to lie.” I didn’t want to lie to you.

  “Well, maybe it’s not a lie if it’s your truth. So, what’s your name?”

  I shove off the curb so I can stand closer, so I can reduce everything to the two of us, surrounded by walls of steel and a starlit sky. “I’m Livie.”

  Some of her wariness gives way to an amused smile. “Okay then. I guess, lovely to meet you, Livie.”

  “You as well. Now who do you want to be?”

  “Oh.” All the hardness flees her face, leaving nothing but hopeful wonder. Leaving the girl I met on the shore that day from my place in the twisted tree. “That’s not a fair question. I need time to think.”

  “No you don’t.”

  Her gaze snaps to mine and the understanding in it raises goose bumps over my skin. Sh
e breathes out, “Okay. Lovely to meet you, Livie. I’m Willa.”

  Aubrey clears her throat in a way that tells me we’ve both been silent too long, and I answer her question with words that feel inadequate. “When we were together, she was Willa and I was Livie. We both got to be the people we wanted to be, instead of the people we were.”

  She nods like she understands, but the truth is, there’s only two people who truly can. “Without her letters, you wouldn’t have known she wasn’t really in California, and without those clues, you might never have believed it was really Jake’s dad — or known to look for the cabin. She saved Madison’s life, you know? And you did too.”

  I don’t tell her what it cost Willa to save Madison’s life. I don’t tell her Madison might be alive but I’m not sure she’s saved.

  I haven’t visited her again. Maybe one day, when I can erase her voice from my head, reminding me of all the ways I failed.

  But I took her picture to Thomas Monaghan’s closed-casket funeral and burial.

  I took Madison’s picture and Willa’s and one of each of the other girls.

  I wouldn’t have gone if Jake had, but since he didn’t, I went, and I stayed for every minute. Every minute of eulogies that ignored who Thomas was, all the whispers of “I knew Thomas and he would never …”

  Except he would and he did, and when it was my turn to throw my rose on his grave, I spit on it instead.

  I pin my hands between my thighs to warm them. “I’ve watched a lot of the coverage, the press conferences, and there was this one where the lead detective was making excuses for how this could’ve gone on so long without anyone noticing. And he said a bunch of stuff about jurisdictions not sharing information and other bullshit, and then he said it was hard to notice a trend of missing girls because Thomas chose so many perfect victims.”

  I draw my hands into fists to stop them from shaking. “He said they were ‘at risk’ girls. Girls who’d been in trouble, or whose parents didn’t pay attention, or who had run away before. And then he held up a list of missing girls they’d finally taken the time to track down and found alive. Like because those girls actually ran away it was okay to assume the others did too. But —”

  My voice trembles. “‘Perfect victims.’ That’s what he called them. And I waited. I waited for anyone to say they were seventeen, or sixteen, or —”

  Or, if the murmurs behind my parents’ doors are to be believed, even fourteen. They’d yet to confirm her identity.

  “I waited for any single one of them to say, ‘Hey, detective, do you think maybe it’s a problem that one area can produce so many “perfect victims” and no one seems to care?’ But no one did. No one even questioned it.”

  I still don’t know the name of the girl by the lake, or if she was one of Thomas’s victims. The cops say she was cremated years ago when no one claimed her body. But she has a headstone next to Willa’s now, because it doesn’t matter how she died. What matters is that someone remembers that she lived.

  Aubrey huddles close, her body pressed tight to mine. “There was really no cover-up? They just didn’t notice?”

  “You remember the detectives responsible for Madison’s case? Brisbane and Harper? One was a friend of Thomas Monaghan.”

  “No shit.”

  “Yeah, Harper. The same one who picked me up after I broke out of camp years ago.” And not that he’d ever admit it, but that part of me I’ve learned to trust knows that wasn’t a coincidence. Not even back then.

  Hidden connections.

  I stretch my legs in front of me, carving grooves in the dirt beneath the broken concrete. “It’s not like Thomas told Harper what was really up. He just asked him to make sure the other detective didn’t dig too deep. Thomas told him things went south between Madison and Jake and he was trying to keep Jake out of trouble. And then he had Madison text Mr. McCormack to set him up the night she disappeared.”

  “Did he think it would actually work?”

  “It did once before, I guess. You remember that teacher from Howard High?”

  “The one that killed himself?”

  “Yeah. The student was on Chrystal’s list, and then they found her body and Thomas got scared. He planted evidence in the teacher’s house, and apparently it was an easy sell because the guy was coming up on distribution of child porn. Guess who would’ve been the judge on his case.”

  She gives a heavy sigh, and it says all the things I’m thinking. That if not for Madison, he would’ve gotten away with everything. As long as he stuck to the perfect victims, no one would’ve cared.

  Aubrey says, “So I’m volunteering for Project Innocence, to help with Anton Jackson’s case,” and I nod, because Preston already told the whole school.

  “That’s great, Aubrey. Really.”

  Anton’s case is one of the many they’ve started reopening. Cases Thomas Monaghan presided over. Cases he influenced with promises to prosecutors and defense attorneys alike.

  Favors granted and barters made. Subtle suggestions to walk away from a case in exchange for a relative’s theft charge disappearing, for a recommendation letter. Even the land the cottage sat on was an exchange with a VP at the power company — perfectly secluded and perfectly private.

  They’re all coming forward, now that they know who he really was. Now that they know he used the court system to troll for victims. Girls who were part of the system. Girls whose parents had enough charges against them to ensure they weren’t looking after their daughters.

  And Anton Jackson too, whom Thomas Monaghan convicted for the murder of a girl he killed.

  He took the system that was supposed to protect them all, and he weaponized it.

  Aubrey sucks in a breath and I know she’s about to suggest I volunteer too, and then she bails at the last minute and says, “Did you ever ask Mr. McCormack why he didn’t call you?”

  “Didn’t have to. He told me.”

  He told me everything and I told him everything, cross-referencing our stories so we could fill in each other’s blanks.

  I told him about the statement I gave to clear his name, all the steps I took to do the same and how they led to finding Madison. He told me about the cops searching his apartment. About how there was no probable cause — he let them in voluntarily because he knew he had nothing to hide.

  Except then there was the fake license he meant to take somewhere to properly shred so it couldn’t come back to hurt me. The one he then forgot about, until the cops reminded him.

  He wrote me one hell of a recommendation letter for my file.

  Aubrey says, “So are you going to tell me what he said, or …?”

  It almost draws a smile. “He said Bianca didn’t tell him I came to visit or brought the phone until Marcel called him after I left the Wayside that night. I guess Mr. McCormack played boy scout and gave Marcel his business card the night he drove me home from the bar. Anyway, they went to the cops and used my Mr. McCormack cell to track us down.”

  I shove off from the curb and my head whirls with the familiarity of the movement. Except this time I’m not moving closer to Willa, because she’s gone. “So that’s it. That’s everything I know, everything Preston has told me, and everything my mom knows according to her texts and the research she’s done on her computer.”

  One day, I’ll tell her to start using a password that isn’t my name or birthday. One day, when I’m not on virtual house arrest, surrounded by parents who watch from the corners of their eyes.

  Dad sold Mabel’s house, taking a huge loss in his rush to be rid of it, to pretend it was never there. But we all know it was, and I won’t let them forget who I was then and who I am now.

  Our secrets don’t belong to us anymore. They’re out there now. Passed in knowing nods and pointed looks.

  They’re considering moving — upstate New York somewhere — once I leave for
college. Leaving all of this behind. I don’t blame them for that. I’ve waited years to do the same.

  It was Mom who stepped in when Dad insisted I stay local. Maybe it was guilt, or maybe it’s because of the way she looks at me — like all the versions of me are too much to take in when she’s spent so long pretending they weren’t there.

  But we can’t lie to each other anymore.

  Aubrey’s voice is soft. “Caroline, maybe you should stop looking for information.”

  “Why? Why should I get off easy? I’m alive. Willa spent seven days dying.”

  My head throbs, but now, just like before, there won’t be any tears. “Seven days, Aubrey. And everyone treats her death like some bullshit noble sacrifice to save girls like me and Madison.”

  “It was noble.”

  “It was murder.”

  “And she tried to make sure it didn’t happen to other people. All the clues you said she tried to put in her letters. When she couldn’t save herself she saved —”

  “She shouldn’t have had to!” My voice is a whip through dead air. None of them should’ve. “Everyone in her life failed her. Including me. And all those other girls. Everyone failed them. And most people won’t even remember their names. Where’s the nobility in that?”

  Aubrey’s off the curb and standing in front of me before I can blink. “So what are you gonna do about it, Caroline?”

  She pauses like I’m supposed to have an answer, but I don’t. I’m not certain I even know what she’s asking.

  “Are you still gonna run away to California when you graduate? Leave everything behind? Are you gonna be Livie or Caroline or someone else who forgets any of this ever happened?”

  No new version of myself can forget what happened.

  I’m Caroline and I’m Livie. I’m the athlete with the perfect grades who blackmails her teacher. I’m the girl that will always love Willa. And I’m the girl with the gun, pulling the trigger.

  I can’t run from any of those versions of myself, not without losing who I am now.

  Aubrey’s hand wraps around my fingers, the warmth of her skin bleeding into mine. “You don’t see it, how people listen to you. How you walk into a room and it’s like everyone’s waiting for you to lead them. You could stay, Caroline. I’m going to Johns Hopkins and you could too. Or somewhere else close.”