The Girls I've Been(79)

“I saw him downstairs,” Lee says.

“We’ll get him,” I tell Iris, but Lee shoots me a look and shakes her head a little.

“He’s with his parents, Nora,” she says, like that’s going to matter to me.

“We’ll get him,” I say again, and I shouldn’t be mean when my sister looks as wrecked as she does, but I’m not leaving him after this horrible day that was supposed to start with donuts and hurt feelings and end with, I dunno, French fries and forgiveness and our friendship intact.

But here I am again, changing in the span of a few minutes and choices that maybe were bad, maybe were good, and might not be survivable.

He’s in the lobby just like Lee said he was. His parents are flanking him, as if he needs protection from the world instead of from his father.

“Steady,” Lee says under her breath as we cross out of the elevator bay and head into the lobby.

“Nora.” Mrs. Prentiss comes over and hugs me. It’s brief and achingly gentle, and it’s meant well. She always means well, I remind myself as I grit my teeth and let it happen. “And, Iris, honey, are you two okay?”

“We’re good,” I say. “We’re just going home.” I look at Wes over her shoulder.

“I’m coming,” he says immediately, and Mrs. Prentiss is right in front of me, inches away; I can see her stiffen.

“Wes.” It’s the first time he’s spoken, but my eyes narrow at the mayor.

“Honey, I really want you home with me,” Mrs. Prentiss says, and the pleading in her voice is real, because Wes is just months away from being eighteen and there’s not much she can do about the fact that he’s spent years dodging time under her roof.

“Lee Ann, please.” Mrs. Prentiss lowers her voice, her cheeks tinged with the kind of humiliation a mother doesn’t ever want to feel.

Wes bends down and kisses his mom’s cheek. “I love you,” he says. “I’ll be at breakfast tomorrow before we all have to go to the sheriff’s station to give my statement.”

She strokes his arm, her hand shaky. “Okay,” she says, trying to save face but losing the game. Behind her, the mayor is stony silent, the disappointment radiating off him. He probably wishes I had gotten shot or burned up. Things would be a lot easier for him then.

Lee pushes Iris’s wheelchair out of the hospital, with Wes and me bringing up the rear like we still need to protect each other.

The sun’s shining as we cross the lot and head toward Lee’s truck. It seems strange that it’s still bright outside, that not even a full day has passed, when everything’s changed.

Lee gets us all carefully loaded into the truck’s back cab, bruised and raw in more ways than one. It takes a while because the pain pills the doctors gave me are starting to kick in and my seat belt is not working the way it’s supposed to.

“Christ,” she says, batting my hands away gently and clipping me in. “You’re all drugged up. What about you two?”

“They didn’t give me anything but oxygen and burn cream,” Wes says, and Iris just waves listlessly, which I think Lee takes as a yes.

“You’re the designated friend, then,” she tells Wes. “Don’t let them walk into the pool or anything when we get home.”

“I’m fine,” I protest.

“I’m not.” Iris leans against the window. “I want to lie down.”

“Soon,” Lee promises, getting into the front seat. Her fingers flex around the steering wheel. “Gotta hand it to you kids,” she mutters as she starts the truck. “My life’s never boring with you.”

“You love us,” Wes says easily, like it’s easy, even though it’s never been, for me or Lee, and maybe that’s why the two of us folded him into our family like a missing ingredient.

“Yeah,” Lee says. “I really do.”





— 64 —


7:25 p.m. (403 minutes free)

2 safe-deposit keys (stashed in my room)



The sun sets, and we are still alive.

We lie out on the pallet lounge near the pool. It’s hot this time of year, dry to the point of danger as we head into the worst of fire season. But tonight it’s calm, sky shimmering from the orange heat as the darkness sets in.

Iris is wearing my pajamas, Wes’s College of the Siskiyous shirt used to be Lee’s even though she never went there, and I wrap up in my robe because the idea of pulling a T-shirt over my raw shoulder sounds like hell. I’ve got an ice pack against my cheek and two more on the table to break open and use later.

Lee watches us from the house, but she doesn’t try to make us go inside to sleep. For a long time, Iris stares out at the reflection of the stars on the pool, and Wes plays a game of solitaire with a pack of cards he brought from his room. He pauses only when she finally speaks.

“I didn’t want him to die.”

It takes me a second to realize she’s talking about Red Cap. I suppose we’ll find out his name sometime in the coming days. Does he have people? A family?

“You didn’t kill him,” Wes says softly. “His partner did.”

“But if I hadn’t made the Drano bomb, maybe . . .”

“Duane was always going to kill him, Iris,” I tell her, and it’s not gentle, because you can’t be gentle with that kind of horrible truth. “He had his escape plan in his pocket the whole time. There was no way he was walking out of there. If you hadn’t made the bomb, we wouldn’t have either.”