The Nowhere Girls(71)

The girls say nothing. Not even Rosina has the energy for a response.

Grace stares at Rosina until she meets her eyes, but nothing passes between them but fear.

In the three hours between lunch and the end of school, Grace experiences a kind of regression. She goes back in time to a pre-Rosina, pre-Erin, pre–Nowhere Girls version of herself. Fear can do that to a person. Fear can do all kinds of things.

There is nothing lonelier than fear. In Grace’s language, it is the opposite of faith. It is when you need God the most.

But Grace cannot think of God right now. She is stuck inside herself with her shame, her secrets. Grace did this. Grace made this mess. Good people are being punished, and it’s her own damn fault. Three lives are being ruined because a nobody wanted to be somebody, because pride got in the way of a good sheep staying a sheep.

What made Grace think she could change anything? What made her think she could even change herself? People can’t change. That’s just a lie to keep therapists and preachers in business. She never should have bothered. She should have just kept her head down, just kept to the invisible middle of the herd where she belongs, where she’s always belonged, along with the other sheep, with the other invisible girls.

She should have painted over those words on her bedroom wall as soon as she saw them. She should have never learned the name Lucy Moynihan.

Grace wants to go back to being empty. Being empty did not hurt like this. There is no risk when you are no one. There is nothing to lose when you have nothing.

Emptiness. What Grace wants is emptiness.

But where can she find it? The house is not empty. Is that Mom Grace sees through the kitchen window? Is she boiling water for tea? Or is it another ghost, another figment of Grace’s yearning?

Grace considers turning around. She could go to one of the places the girls have claimed—the model home, the old Dixon Mansion, the vacant warehouse, the library basement. But as usual, she’s too slow. Mom looks up and sees Grace through the window, and a smile spreads across her face, the kind of smile Grace has been aching for, a look of acknowledgment, the look of being seen, and suddenly all Grace wants is to fill up that not-empty house with her. All she wants is to be her mother’s daughter and nothing else.

“Hey, sweetie,” Mom says when Grace enters the kitchen. “Want a cup of tea?”

What Grace means to say is yes, but instead she starts crying. Mom’s arms are instantly around her, and they are not the pastor’s arms. Grace is a girl again, before everything changed, before all this caring and worrying and growing up, and for a few brief moments she is no longer afraid.

“Oh, Gracie,” Mom says, and leads her to the couch. For a moment love makes Grace brave, and she thinks maybe if you miss someone, you should tell them. Maybe if you want something, you should do something about it instead of feeling sorry for yourself.

“I miss you, Mom,” Grace says.

“Oh, honey, I miss you, too.” And now Mom is crying too. “I’m so sorry I’ve been so busy. I haven’t been here for you.”

“Everything’s changing,” Grace says. “Every single thing in my world is changing.”

“I know,” Mom says. “I know. But I’m here. I’m still here. I promise.” And she rocks Grace in her arms, and she is something Grace can hold on to, something solid and familiar and hers.

“Can we do something?” Grace says. “Just you and me.”

“Let’s have a dinner date,” Mom says.

“When?” Grace sniffles.

“Tonight. I’ll cancel my meeting at the church. Anywhere you want to go.”

Was it always this easy? All that time missing her mom, all she had to do was say something? All that time wanting, all she had to do was ask? Grace wonders how much of her life she has wasted waiting for things to come to her, too afraid to take chances, too afraid to make herself and her desires known. As if it is everyone else who knows things, as if they are the ones who hold the secret to God’s will for her. As if God doesn’t speak through her, too.

Grace decides she is sick and tired of waiting. Her fear is not gone, but it is wavering. It is love that did that, love that gave her the need, and then the faith, to open her mouth and risk speaking. Maybe that was her prayer. She spoke to her mother, she asked for help, and God answered through her.





ROSINA.


Rosina sits in the front passenger seat of Melissa Sanderson’s car. Right next to her. In her car. Their legs are inches apart.

“It feels weird, like, just hanging out while Margot, Elise, and Trista are in such big trouble,” Melissa says as she pulls out of the school parking lot.

And while my best friend and my mother both hate me, Rosina thinks.

“I wish there was something we could do for them,” Melissa says.

“Do you want to cancel?” Rosina says. “We could do this another time.” For a moment she hates those three girls for potentially ruining her first maybe date with the girl of her dreams. She hates Mami and Erin for infiltrating her thoughts.

Melissa looks at Rosina and smiles her intoxicating smile. “Of course not.”

“Keep your eyes on the road, lady,” Rosina says, mostly so Melissa will not see the goofy grin she cannot keep from forming on her face, despite the toxic sludge of gloom swirling around in her chest.