We Told Six Lies(57)

Blue pulled back and watched her face.

“You wanted someone who could care for you,” she stated. “And when the time comes, you wanted someone strong enough to not back out.”

Molly wrapped a hand around the back of his head. Touched her lips to the plastic where his ear lay, tasted the chemicals on her tongue. “I don’t want to be the one to kill you,” she said. “But I know it’s what you want.”

He struggled against her. But not hard enough.

“You want release,” she continued, pressing their heads together. “And I will give it to you. Just not quite yet.”

His hands relaxed on her as he took in what she was saying. What she was injecting, like a vial of poison, straight into his bulging, blue vein.

“Not yet, Blue,” she whispered, and swayed with him and swayed with him. “But soon.”

She could almost feel him soaking up her words. Making them his own to have and to hold. It would take him time to accept his fate as one of his own invention, and so she knew to give him time.

Slowly, his hands tightened around her. And as the music played, he allowed himself to bend his head toward her shoulder. She felt his back quivering with emotion, and a smile flashed across her face.

But as he held her closer, and closer, and the emotion overtook his body, her smile dropped away. His sadness seeped into her, and she felt her own despair—despair she’d carried her whole life—reach out to embrace his own.

She found herself holding Blue differently.

Almost immediately, she recognized what was happening to her. She’d been trapped here too long. Had only this person for company. This person who listened to her. Who cooked for her. Who brought her birds to sing away the loneliness. This person who scared her. And feared her.

She knew what it was called when, in order to survive the mental turmoil, a victim forgave the fact that they’d been taken captive.

That’s what this was, she told herself.

It wasn’t because she was so royally fucked up by her father that she craved real emotion, regardless of the delivery.

Blue held her tight.

And Molly held him tighter still.

And the two danced long after the music ended.





NOW


“Thanks for coming in, Cobain,” Detective Hernandez says.

“Didn’t really seem like you gave me much of a choice,” I snap, tiring of these meetings. “Have you figured out what happened to Molly?”

“That’s what I’d like to talk to you about.”

I lean back, hoping beyond measure that they’re about to give me a name or an address. Something that will tell me they’ve finally figured out where she is and that she’s safe. And that they’re this close to bringing her home. Is that too much to ask?

“What happened at the party the night before Molly disappeared?” she asks me.

I freeze.

I mean, I fucking freeze.

She already knows the answer.

I hesitate too long, and then want to punch myself in the face when I blurt, “I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there.”

I fidget under her stare because if she finds out I just lied, this won’t look good. But it was just a fight. A bigger fight than we had at Molly’s house that day we skipped school, sure. But a fight all the same. I try to appear confident.

She smiles. “I have no fewer than six witnesses who tell us differently.”

I clench my hands into fists beneath the table and keep my mouth shut.

The detective studies my face. Dissects my reaction. “One of those same witnesses informed us that you and Molly were engaged in quite the heated argument.”

Fucking Nixon.

She nearly smiles. I can see how badly she wants to. Clearly, she knows I’ve figured out who she’s talking about.

“We called him to ensure he didn’t have anything else he cared to share.” She shrugs one shoulder. “Just covering bases, of course.”

She leans forward, her fingers splayed across a facedown piece of white paper. “I can understand how upset you were. Molly had just broken up with you. Maybe you saw her with another person that night. Must have been hard to see your ex-girlfriend there, having a good time, and you weren’t the one with her.”

My mind clicks on trees in a forest, growing too tall, too thick. Crowding each other for space to breathe.

I clench my eyes against the image as a storm of denial floods my system. Even now—even with all these eyes on me, with all these fingers ready to point me out in a lineup—even then, it’s impossible to accept that I did something to my own girlfriend, one of the only people to ever truly see me.

I know I shouldn’t say it.

I know they won’t believe it.

And yet I find myself throwing a Hail Mary anyway.

“Molly and I weren’t broken up,” I say.

Too loudly, and without enough confidence.

Glances are exchanged. Lips press together.

Detective Hernandez opens the red bag.

Inside is a phone. I’ve seen it before, I think.

“Recognize this phone?” she asks.

I shrug.

“It’s Molly’s best friend’s phone. Rhana?”

I shake my head because I already I know what’s coming. All I had were the words from Coach and Rhana, but I’m about to see the physical proof. And it won’t look good for me.