Lost Girls(14)

“I just turned off my phone during class and forgot to turn it back on, is all,” I said. “I can’t seem to call anyone lately. I try, but I just can’t.” It was the truth and my voice wavered when I spoke, but at the same time I knew I was manipulating my parents. What I couldn’t figure out was, why did it seem so easy? Had I done this before? “Besides, I had to stay after to get homework from a couple of teachers.”

Dad nodded. “Text us next time you’re going to be late, okay?” His gaze went from me to Mom. “You can send us a text, can’t you?”

“I guess so.” My cheeks were burning, but there was a part of me that felt better knowing how much they cared.

An awkward buzz of chatter started then, and it was the first time since I’d been home that we felt like a family again. Mom talked about something that had happened at Methodist Hospital last night where she worked as a nurse. Dad mused about whether he should plant Lily-of-the-Nile or African Iris along the fence in the front yard. He’d turned into a novice gardener now that he wasn’t a Navy SEAL anymore. Most of the time he puttered around, wearing gardening gloves, the knees of his jeans covered with dirt. Kyle tried to get permission to go to Comic-Con in San Diego in the summer. When that didn’t work, he tried to get a Vespa. He finally settled for a Bose multimedia speaker system on his birthday.

He whispered, “Score,” under his breath, so soft no one but me heard it.

I listened to the quiet spaces between their words as I moved the food around my plate, forcing myself to eat a bite of salmon with mango relish. After Grams had cancer, Mom had gone on an organic binge and, honestly, she was a great cook. Problem was, I hadn’t had an appetite since I went missing. I broke out in a sweat whenever I stepped on the scale, terrified I’d gained weight. I’m sure my therapist would have a great time analyzing that.

Dad seemed to be the only one who noticed I wasn’t really eating. He glanced at me from time to time, smiling if our eyes met.

We hadn’t had The Talk yet. The you-were-kidnapped-and-my-life-was-hell talk. Mom and I had discussed my disappearance almost as soon as I got home, and it had been devastating. Kyle and I had talked about it, too, sort of, when we were sparring in the forest after school. In between him being thrown to the ground and getting the crap beaten out of him, he’d said things like, it’s good to have you back and you know I can never get Mom and Dad to do what I want when you’re gone.

But Dad had been quietly watching—maybe waiting for the right time.

There was no right time to watch your father—who’s been sent around the world to hunt down terrorists—start crying. So we’d been avoiding each other, knowing it was coming. It became an awkward dance, looking the other way when we passed each other in the hall, holding each other a bit too long when we hugged.

I needed to get my life back, before all this quiet mourning killed me.

...

As soon as dinner was over, I slipped up to my room. There, I spent half an hour going over the routines Ms. Petrova had given me, warming up my muscles with several grand pliés, then letting my body flow into one rond de jambe after another, until every move felt as natural as breathing.

Finally I paused, wanting to watch some dance videos online. There was one move—the brisé—which involved a small leap while your feet made quick, sharp scissor kicks. I couldn’t seem to get it right and I knew if I just watched another ballerina perform it, I’d be able to catch on. But once I got my laptop powered up, I found myself doing something else. Something unexpected and slightly creepy.

I typed my name into Google’s browser window, then waited as article after article popped up about the Santa Madre girl who went missing after school a few weeks ago. There were photos of me from tenth grade. I needed to give Mom and Dad a more recent picture of myself, I didn’t even look like that anymore—my front teeth crooked because I still had braces, my hair down to my shoulders, my nose speckled with summer freckles, a smile that said, nothing bad has ever happened to me and it never will.

It was weird to look into my own eyes and wonder if I would ever be that person again. I used to be someone who never lied to Mom or Dad. I should have felt guilty for sneaking off to teach Kyle how to defend himself. Instead I felt proud at how quickly he picked everything up, like it had been second nature.

I forced myself to shut off the internet and started clicking through folders on my desktop instead, looking for a better picture of myself than that one from tenth grade. But I quickly found myself checking out random details from the past year. Folder after folder opened, revealing lists of my favorite songs and books, a collection of ballet screensaver images, and photos of Buster, our Golden Lab who passed away sometime in the past six months. Looking at his pictures made my chest ache. I missed him, how we used to go for runs together, and how he used to sleep at the foot of my bed.

I was just about to close that folder when I discovered another folder tucked inside, so far down you probably wouldn’t even see it. It was titled, “More Buster,” but it was locked.

I sat back in my chair, pins and needles prickling the back of my neck.

Why would I lock a folder of dog photos?

It took several minutes and about fifty different passwords before I was able to open it. There was only one document inside, something labeled “Buster’s Vet Records”. One click later and a Word document scrawled across my screen. All just normal stuff at first, until I scrolled down to the end of the page.