Lies You Never Told Me(78)
He stops, turns to face me. Puts his palm on the back of my neck so I’m looking up into those warm, dark eyes.
“You didn’t drag me anywhere.” He caresses my hairline with his fingertips. It makes my breath catch a little in my throat. “And besides . . . if we got into some kind of apology contest, I don’t know who would win. Sasha could have killed either one of us. Or both.”
“It’s different,” I whisper. “You didn’t choose that. She was unhinged. But I . . . I’m the one who got in that car in Portland and let Aiden drive me away. I’m the one who set my own life on fire.”
A sweet little crease springs up between his eyes.
“You know you’re the victim, right? That guy was twice your age. He knew better. You . . .”
I look away. “Yeah,” I say quickly. “I know.”
For their part, the cops and the D.A. seem to agree that I’m not at fault. It doesn’t look like they’re going to press any charges against me. Bit by bit the whole story’s come out. It’s been all over the news—KIDNAPPING VICTIM KILLS CAPTOR IN TENSE STANDOFF. Or: MISSING SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD FOUND AFTER A YEAR ON THE RUN WITH HER TEACHER. I don’t recognize myself in the story. A part of me wants to; to be able to absolve myself of all responsibility. To be able to shake off the guilt, the shame. But some other, bigger part of me can’t let go of all the choices I’ve made in the last year. All the lies, all the mistakes.
Becky says with time, the story will change shape for me. She says I’ll see it a lot of different ways—because life is messy, and weird, and hard, and no one story is the absolute truth anyway. And she says that’s okay, that I can be in charge of my own story. I’m trying to believe her. I keep getting messages from journalists and true-crime writers who want to interview me, but I’m not going to talk to anyone for a while. Not until I can step back and see things more clearly. I’ve been manipulated enough for a lifetime.
“Anyway.” I brush a lock of hair out of my face and force myself to meet his eyes. “Neither one of them can stop us anymore.”
“You’re right. Now it’ll just be half the United States between us.” He leans against the railing looking out over the water.
Tomorrow morning I’m getting on a plane to Redding, California, to live with an aunt I didn’t even know I had. She’s my father’s sister, though she said she hadn’t heard from my dad in about twenty years. Her name’s Roberta—Bobbi, she told me to call her. She has two kids. My cousins. Insta-family, I guess.
Gabe glances at me sidelong. “You nervous?”
“Yeah.” I play with the zipper on my hoodie. “She didn’t know about me—she didn’t even know Dad got married. And it’s not like he ever told me anything about his family. So I don’t know what to expect. But she seems nice. And Portland’s only about seven hours away—my best friend might drive down to see me over her Christmas break.”
I’ve talked to Brynn almost every day since Aiden died. I remember that first call, sitting hunched in the private room they gave me in the hospital, my heart hammering as the line rang and rang. I was so afraid she’d be mad at me.
But she answered the phone sobbing. “You dummy,” she’d said. “I’ve been waiting.”
And of course because she cried, I cried. We cried for what felt like hours. But it felt good. It felt like letting go of something.
“Why didn’t you call back?” she’d asked. “Why didn’t you let me know where you were?”
It was an impossible question to answer, at least in that moment. How could I make her understand how desperate I’d been, how scared? How could I tell her that I’d been embarrassed to ask for help after tossing everything so casually away? How could I explain that I’d had to stay with Aiden after my mom’s overdose, because otherwise, I’d have paid too high a price for nothing?
Maybe someday we can talk about it. Or maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll decide that it’s more important to have fun. We can go thrifting in Redding and she’ll find some Dior cocktail dress I’ll have to zip her into. We’ll get the sugariest drinks they make at Starbucks, and we’ll drive around singing show tunes with the windows rolled down. She’ll give me all the theater gossip and tell me about her conquests. I’ve missed that for so long now. I am ready for some lightness.
But even with Brynn back in my life, even with a new family to get to know . . . I won’t feel complete. Because I have to leave this boy behind. This beautiful boy, who came for me. Who drove out into the darkness and found me.
He puts an arm around my waist now. “I wish I could come with you.”
“Me too.”
Would it be so crazy? Why couldn’t we go together? He’s seventeen, and I’ll turn seventeen in May. That’s not so young. Especially when I’ve been on my own so long, anyway.
But that answers my question for me. I’ve been on my own so long. And I’m tired. I don’t want that life anymore, and I don’t want him to have to live it, either.
“We’ll text nonstop,” I say. “And Skype. And I’ll write letters—real ones, on paper.”
He grins. “I’ve only ever gotten paper letters from my grandma.”
“Didn’t you know? I’m ninety years old.” I nudge him with my hip. “And maybe . . . maybe we’ll be able to meet halfway between, this summer. I can get a job, save for a bus ticket . . .”