Lost Girls(33)

He looked down at his hands folded in his lap, his words ripping me apart because I knew he wasn’t just talking about Mom. He was the same way, except he didn’t get weak when one of us was hurt—he got tougher. That SEAL inside him came to the surface, his face turned impassive, and he went into some sort of autopilot mode. It had happened when I was in the hospital for two days, when the therapists and doctors were running tests on me, and I wanted to come home and Mom’s eyes filled with tears every time they let her in to see me.

Dad had made two phone calls—I saw him through the window in my room. The blood vessels in his temples stood at attention, his eyes narrowed, and his lips barely moved, like the words he had to say were so threatening they could melt his cell phone. After the second call, he switched off his phone, slid it into his pocket, and not even ten minutes passed before a doctor hurried into my room, scribbled something on my chart, then stopped to talk to a nurse at the nearest station. If I hadn’t been watching, I’d have missed the way the doctor gave my dad a quick nod when they passed each other in the hall, both of them with no expression on their faces, like two spies signaling each other in a foreign country.

When my father said jump, the other guy said, how high.

I was released from the hospital within half an hour. Not even Mom realized that Dad had somehow orchestrated it.

Sometimes I thought Kyle and I were the only people in the world stupid enough to disobey him. Maybe we were the only ones—besides Mom—who knew that he would still love us. Even if we messed up.





Chapter Nineteen


I wanted to go to sleep, but ever since I came back, nights have been the hardest time for me. The house would shut down, from basement to attic, everyone tucked in their beds and sleeping. Outside my window, all of Santa Madre softened until it became muted and still, like a painting. The only thing I could hear was the distant whoosh of cars speeding down the 210, a river of wind that never stopped flowing.

I used to fall asleep with my earbuds in, listening to music.

I couldn’t do that anymore. I didn’t dare.

I needed to stay alert. It was part of my new survival plan.

I stumbled upstairs, two tablets of Tylenol in my system, my fever starting to fade, that headache softening—although it was hard to say whether eating had taken it away, or whether it had been the drugs. Mom had called and it had taken a long time for me and Dad to convince her I was all right and she didn’t need to come home. But Dad, Kyle and I all agreed she didn’t need to know that I might have seriously injured another girl tonight.

I wasn’t sure how Dad was going to ‘take care of it,’ but Molly had been right. He was the right person to turn to during an emergency. Between him, with his quiet strength, and Mom being a nurse, I’d grown up completely sheltered from the world.

Until that day, sometime last year, when I’d stepped out of my safe, little bubble.

One of my arms now wrapped around a toy rabbit Dad bought me when I was ten, the pink fur stained and discolored, the stuffing flattened. I’d hunted through my closet for half an hour before I found it, cursing softly, worrying that the “new me” had decided she didn’t need stuffed animals anymore. I almost burst into tears when my left hand touched soft, plushy fur behind a stack of shoeboxes. Then I sat on the floor, rocking quietly back and forth, clutching the bunny and hoping that no one would walk into my room.

Almost as if I’d summoned it, my phone buzzed beside me. That thing still gave me the creeps. Every time I touched it, I remembered that flashback and how I had tried and failed to call 9-1-1 when I went missing.

I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, then glanced down at the screen. I had a text from Dylan. I grinned and ran a quick hand through my hair, glad he couldn’t see me sitting on the floor hugging an old, stuffed rabbit.

Hey. Can’t sleep, he said.

Me either, I thumbed back.

Wanna see something funny?

Sure.

He sent a photo of him and me trying to ride a skateboard together, both of us laughing, me about to fall off. It made me crack up.

Where was this? I asked.

Skate Park @ The Block.

My hands were on his waist and he was looking back at me. That grin of his made me wish he was here. It didn’t matter if my hair was messed up or I had on sweatpants. He never cared about stuff like that.

I sat up straight, my eyes widening, the phone almost slipping out of my hand.

I’d just had a flash about what Dylan was like, what he was really like. Not all the surface stuff, like how cute he was or how his eyes could almost hypnotize you. This was the Dylan inside. Somewhere between the poet and the wrestler was a guy who knew how to make me laugh and what to do if I was crying.

Do you remember this? he asked about the photo.

No. Wish I did. Looks like fun.

It’s OK. We can go again. Just don’t knock me off the board like last time.

I didn’t knock you off!

JK. You fell off, he said.

Liar!

LOL. Sure you don’t remember?

I paused for a long moment, then typed in, I remember you.

He didn’t say anything for a beat, long enough for me to worry that I’d said the wrong thing.

I missed you, he wrote.

That one comment gave me a feeling like sunshine bursting from my chest.

Hi, I’m Rachel. It’s nice to meet you.