Burn Our Bodies Down(18)

Connors adjusts his grip on me, holding my elbow loosely. “And we need to call Vera.”

“Well, sure,” Anderson says, rocking back on his heels. “But not just yet. Margot still has some things to tell us.”

“Hey,” I hear, and I watch Tess push off from Eli and come toward us. She gives the body a wide berth, but apart from that you’d never know she’d noticed it at all. There’s nothing in her of that fear I find under everything I do. “You can’t just take her, okay? Everybody here is a minor.” Her shoulder just brushing mine as she edges in front of me. “And like I said, Margot’s been with me all morning. So whatever you think happened, you can drop it.”

Anderson shuts his eyes briefly. “Save it for the station, would you?”

“She has to come too?” I ask.

“Of course. All three of you do.” Anderson nods to Connors, who turns away and speaks into the walkie-talkie strapped to his shoulder. “You can call your families once we’re there.”

Our families. Mom. I haven’t even thought about that. But I should’ve. I should’ve been worrying about that from the start, because they’ll tell her where I am, the trouble I’m in, and she’ll be so angry.

“It’s all right,” Tess says to me. And when I look at her I’m surprised by the earnestness I can see shining out of her. I can’t really fit it together with the girl from town, the one with stolen bubble gum and a sly smile. “My dad will take care of it. I’ll talk to him.”

“You do that,” Anderson says, and the bare amusement in his voice makes me nervous. He’s enjoying this. A mess, a nightmare, a girl out of nowhere. And he’s enjoying it.

They walk me to the nearest cruiser. I guess I’m lucky they don’t handcuff me, but I haven’t done anything, I haven’t.

Still I can’t ignore it. Her face, staring, and I can see it even as they load me into the backseat, the vinyl sticking to my thighs, the seat belt too hot as it grazes my arm. I can see her looking at nothing, and I can see her looking at me.



* * *



—

The Phalene police station is back in town, on a corner opposite the pharmacy. It shares a parking lot with a church and with the town hall, a two-story brick building with dirty windows and a sign out front missing half its letters.

The station doesn’t seem like it’s in much better shape, but I barely have time to get a good look at it before Anderson is hauling me out of the cruiser and marching me through the lobby into an open room full of desks, the kind they call a bullpen on cop shows.

He leaves me there, in an uncomfortable plastic chair pulled up next to his desk, and disappears into an adjacent conference room, but not before telling me I won’t go anywhere if I know what’s good for me.

It’s cold in here, the air-conditioning running so hard that the window unit leaves a puddle underneath it, dark on the carpet. I wrap my arms around myself, think longingly of the clothes I left behind in Calhoun. It used to get cold like this in the winter, money too short to turn the heat up, and we’d stay up late, sitting on the couch, Mom’s body pressed close to mine, keeping me warm whether she wanted to or not. That’s the best care I got from her. The kind she didn’t mean to give.

What did she do when she noticed I was gone? Did she try to call me, realize I left my phone behind? Is she looking for me at all? Or is this what she’s waited for my whole life? For me to decide to leave on my own so she doesn’t have to make me?

I don’t know which would hurt me more. I left to get away from her, and I left to get closer, and I try to imagine explaining it, sometimes, to other people. That yes, it’s exactly what they think, and nothing like it, and a hundred other things at once. I will always wish I were hers, and will always want to be only my own. I haven’t found a way yet to make the two fit.

Today only complicates it. The police will call her, they’ll call her to tell her what happened, and for her it’ll be like a gift. Here it is, a reason to stay as far away from me as possible. I know something I shouldn’t. I’ve seen something she didn’t want me to. My sister.

Because that’s the only way to put this together. Maybe I imagined it, the way our faces matched, but everyone else saw it, too. Anderson said it himself. Me and my sister, a girl I never knew. Will never know.

But I can’t swallow it. It won’t work. Mom, in the hospital, two babies in her arms. Mom, choosing me. Keeping me. That’s the impossible thing of it.

Why didn’t she leave us both?

And if she had a choice, why was I the one she wanted?

Maybe that’s where all of it comes from. The wrong choice, the wrong girl, and Mom with resentment souring in her blood. I slump forward, rest my head in my hands. I came here looking for my grandmother, looking for family, and this is what I get. Of course it is.

The bullpen door swings open. I sit up as Tess and Eli come in, Officer Connors behind them with a look on his face like there’s nothing he’d rather do than die right on the spot.

“—can’t wait to give him a call,” Tess is saying, victory in her smile as she turns to face Officer Connors, walking backward, nearly colliding with one of the desks. “Because you really do have to call our parents right away. I’m only seventeen.”