All the Missing Girls(33)

“That’s not why I don’t . . . I have a job and a life. I can’t just stop because my dad literally drank himself into oblivion.”

He nodded. “Fine, Nic. You don’t need to convince me. So I visit him. That’s my choice, too.”

“He said he wasn’t supposed to tell me,” I said, because that had to mean something. I’d felt like Tyler was keeping something from me, and now I was sure of it. “What do you talk about? What did he tell you?”

He tipped his head back, looking at the ceiling. “Nothing. We just . . . talk. He’s not supposed to tell you because of this, Nic. This is the reason.”

I stuck my finger at the center of his chest. “Don’t lie to me.”

His jaw twitched. “I don’t lie to you. And you know it.”

That used to be something I was sure of. There used to be nobody I trusted more. But the fact remained: He hadn’t told me that he visited my father, and he didn’t want me to know. “Just tell me why, Tyler.”

“Give it a rest, there’s nothing to tell!” He stepped closer. “He’s your family, and you were mine. You left, but he didn’t. I don’t just cut people off when they no longer suit me. It’s that simple, Nic.”

I wrapped my arm around my waist. When they no longer suit me. “I haven’t been yours in ten years. He’s not your problem anymore. How’s that for simple?”

I thought for a second that he was going to argue. Tell me all the reasons I was wrong, all the ways I didn’t understand. Instead, he laughed. He laughed with his eyes closed, and it came out like a grimace. “Okay. No problem.” He took a step up, then pulled out his key ring. “Ten years, huh? I could’ve sworn it was sooner.” He took a key off his ring—mine—and threw it to me, but I let it clatter in the stairwell, echoing as it fell. “Listen, I have to take care of some stuff. Do me a favor and stay away.”

And then I felt it—the punch to my stomach—the feeling that there was something worth holding on to, and I was losing it. Again.

I put my hand up to stop him, but his eyes were closed.

“Get him out of here. I want to come downstairs and have a f*cking drink, and I don’t want to have to look at him.”

“Tyler—”

“Don’t, Nic.” He gestured toward the bar. “I can’t—” He dropped his arm. “Look, let’s make this easy. You asked me to leave you alone, and now I’m asking you to do the same. It’s what we both want, right? See? Simple.”

And there I stood, an eighteen-year-old girl breaking up with her boyfriend. The finality of metal on concrete in a dingy stairwell. We’d never had this moment, and maybe it was my fault for slipping away, or his fault for pretending I hadn’t, but we’d never officially called us off. Silly to think about now. That those scattered moments made up the longest and most meaningful relationship of my life. That maybe we’d been together these ten years because we never broke up. I just left. Just cut people off when they no longer suit me.

This was the feeling I couldn’t stomach the thought of back then. Why I slunk off in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye. But ten years’ time didn’t change it at all, didn’t stop the nausea from rolling through, didn’t change the look on his face.

I turned away so he couldn’t see what it did to me.

I floundered for my key, stomped back into the bar, and slammed my hand down on the counter.

Jackson watched me out of the corner of his eye. “Went that well, huh?”

“Don’t be an *,” I said. “Please.”

He placed one last vodka on the bar. “On me. Time to go.” I took the glass, but he grabbed my arm. “Really,” he said. “Go.”

This time I downed half the drink myself before making it back to the table.



* * *



“COME ON.” I HAD to pull Everett toward the car; he was solidly past his tipping point. I rifled through my purse to find my keys, and Everett put his hands on either side of me on the car roof.

“Hi,” he said as I looked up at him. He kissed me, his teeth colliding with mine, his hand sliding up my side.

“Hold that thought,” I said, pushing him back. Tyler’s apartment had a view to the parking lot, and I was not, as Jackson implied, that cruel.

“I think,” he said, “I’m drunk.”

“That would be an accurate assessment,” I said, helping him to the passenger side.

He paused, his hand on my shoulder, his gaze tilted up at the building. “Someone’s watching us,” he said.

“Get in the car, Everett.”

“I’ve felt it all day, though.” He swayed slightly, then eased into his seat. “Like someone’s watching. Do you feel it?”

“You’re just not used to the woods,” I said. But a chill ran up my spine, because I did. I felt eyes in the woods, outside the darkened windows. I felt them everywhere.



* * *



THE LANTERN WAS MOVING on the front porch again, casting shadows and ghosts.

“This place is trippy in the dark,” Everett said, following me up the walk.

“It’s trippy when you’re drunk,” I said, leading him inside.