17 & Gone(21)

Somehow she made it past the counselors—in

there

laughing

and

popping bottles, not one of them glancing out the windows to catch Abby or the girl streaking past—and she caught up to Abby by the bike shed near the edge of the road. What did she expect Abby to do once she saw she had company?

Welcome her with open arms? Let her ride the handlebars of the borrowed bicycle and join her on the hill past the fence with Luke, lying between them and making a game of searching out constellations in the sky? Even better, making it so Abby changed her mind and didn’t go see Luke at all?

She didn’t exactly know. But she sure hadn’t expected Abby to get so mad.

Abby snapped at her, called her a nosy brat, and a few worse names besides, and told her to get her butt back to Cabin 3 before she got them both kicked out. The girl happened to mention that the bicycles in the bike shed were for counselors only—she believed in following rules—and since Abby was only in training to be a counselor she wasn’t allowed to ride them, and that made Abby madder still.

The girl backed away, stung, and then watched dejectedly as Abby pedaled off on the old, rusted Schwinn bicycle toward the main road.

That was how I pictured it.

I could put myself in place of either girl: the witness, willing her not to go, or Abby herself, the wind in her hair, the blur of the road, those last moments of gorgeous freedom.

— 15 — WHEN I pulled up in my van, Luke Castro was in the garage, the sliding door raised open so I could see him from where I’d parked at the bottom of the driveway. He was a pair of legs under the body of a car, so still it seemed at first the car had fallen and crushed him.

I knew it was Luke, the guy Abby liked and maybe could have loved, in the way I knew that Abby had been to this house before. I could sense what patches of lawn she’d walked on, because the ground was still warm months after, snow melted through to grass in spots no larger than a size-eight shoe.

He must have heard my van pull up, because he wheeled himself out and sat up, staring down the driveway at me. He didn’t wave.

From that distance, I wasn’t sure at first if I recognized him from Abby’s memory, but I did recognize him from school. Jamie was right: Luke Castro had graduated a year ago, and apparently he hadn’t gone off to college or he was home on a break, because he was still here at his parents’ house, the same address listed in last year’s school phone book.

Luke glared at my van, his gaze drilling holes through the windshield. I wondered who he saw in the driver’s seat, who he thought I was. I got out and started walking.

I’m not so tall, and I’m not so short.

I’ve got long fingers, I’ve been told, and long legs for my height, and, I’ve noticed, a long nose. I was earringless and lipstickless, but the pendant was there around my neck, the round, smoky stone mounted on the long string and hidden under all the layers of my clothes where no one could tell it was hiding unless they pressed a hand up to my chest. Then they’d feel its hot, hard lump.

From where Luke was in the garage, though, I would have only been a hooded face outside an unmarked van. I lowered the hood of the sweatshirt I wore under my coat—one of Jamie’s hoodies, his red one; he’d left it in my room weeks ago and I hadn’t washed it or given it back—and when Luke saw my face, saw I was just a girl, his stillness broke.

He lowered a wrench and moved out of the garage, coming closer. I realized he didn’t exactly look like he had in Abby’s memories. For one, his body was . . . thicker. He probably had thirty pounds on Jamie. He was also less glowy than I remembered, the shimmer of Abby’s gaze noticeably absent, making him just some guy standing in a driveway in broad daylight. He was good-looking in that obvious, overly

symmetrical way I’d never been into, and I found myself wondering about Abby then, about what kind of girl she was if she’d gone all gaga over a guy like him.

Was this the same Luke that Abby had known? I thought back to the declaration of love carved letter by letter into the wooden wall against where she rested her head:



abby sinclair

luke castro

forever



That’s what I’d seen. Luke Castro.

This guy. This guy, here.

My legs walked me over to him.

“Luke? Do you remember me? I’m Lauren. I’m—”

“Jamie Rossi’s girlfriend,” he said, stopping me, like that’s how I’d introduce myself to someone, my identity in relation to a boy’s. “Yeah, I know who you are. What’s up? What’d I do this time?” This last added with a grin, as if he were happy to be known around town for doing mischievous things.

“I don’t know,” I said, “what did you do?”

His smile cracked wide open, my tone lost on him. Besides, he wasn’t even looking me in the face. “Hey, I like the van,” he said. “No windows. Good and private. Nice.” He wasn’t looking at the van, either. His eyes were running up and down my legs. His eyes took their sweet time finding their way back up to my face, and when they did the arrogant look there showed me he didn’t care if I had a boyfriend. Or who I was. I could have been any female in skinny jeans standing in his driveway and he’d assume he had a shot at tugging them off.

I pulled the coat down and lifted the hood of the sweatshirt.