17 & Gone(4)

Then I lost sight of her. The bike dipped under, but the image of the road stayed still. I was leaning forward, trying to see farther, when the mirror went dark and I realized someone was pounding on the window of my van.

My neck turned until I was face-to-face with the intruder.

It was Mr. Floris, ninth-and tenth-grade biology teacher by trade and prison guard in his dark dreams and deepest fantasies. Everyone knew Mr.

Floris loved trolling the school grounds during his free periods, itching to hand out detentions. And even though it was no surprise to find him in the parking lot seeking to foil late sleepers and slackers, it was still a shock to be caught. I’d forgotten where I was.

He rapped his knuckles on the glass, then lowered the red scarf that he’d wound around his face to keep out the cold. When his mouth was free, I saw the chapped lips beneath his mustache shape out the words: You. Roll down this window this instant, young lady.

There was only a single layer of window glass between us, but I couldn’t hear him. I heard nothing but the distant whirring of two bicycle wheels. Then he pounded again, and I heard that and flinched and was rolling down the window and saying, “Sorry, Mr. Floris.

I didn’t see you there.”

At the same time I was taking another glance in the rearview mirror, needing to know—was she still in the van with me?

Was she huddled behind my seat, in the dark cavern in back? But something was blocking my view: the reflection of the pale girl in the mirror who must have been rubbing at her eyes again, a bad habit. She had smoke-gray tracks of mascara streaking down her cheeks as if she’d been holed up in the van crying.

She wasn’t. I hadn’t cried in years.

On top of my head was the puffy wool hat my friend Deena Douglas stole from the mall and didn’t like on herself and so gave to me. The hat was pulled low over my eyebrows, hiding my ears and hiding the view of the backseat where Abby still could be.

“Miss Woodman,” Mr. Floris said, “you do realize it’s third period and you should be in class? Get out of this van and come with me or I’ll have to write you up.”

I’d never been written up before. This was before I started skipping all that school, before the “marks” on my “permanent record” that I’d “regret” for the “rest of my life.” This was before I shattered into the particles and pieces I’m in now.

Even so, I didn’t get out of the van.

“But . . .” I said, pausing there, waiting.

Because didn’t he see?

I was expecting him to notice her behind me. He was close enough to my window that he must have been able to see the bench seat and who was in it.

There . . . the apparition of a girl hiding behind her hair, wasn’t she there with her grimy face and her scratched-up knees?

I could still smell her. I could sense her breathing, too, her mouth sharing air with my mouth even though logically I knew it wasn’t possible.

But Mr. Floris’s eyes landed on something else: The lighter in my dashboard had thrust itself out with a hard pop.

“That’s it, Lauren, get out. Now. I’m writing you up.”

He didn’t see—he was blind to it. To her. Soon enough he was opening the door for me and waving me out onto the icy pavement. I glanced directly at her only once, when I was reaching down to rescue her flyer from the floor.

Her long hair was tangled with leaves, I noticed then, stuck through with loose green leaves and pine needles and matted with twigs and sap. One bruised knee was bleeding, and the trail of blood had wound down her leg to between her toes. She was wearing one flip-flop. The other had been lost somewhere I couldn’t imagine.

I knew she fell off the bicycle; I could see it happening, a loose rock under her tire catching her off-balance in the dark depths of the night. But did she get up again, or did something stop her? What and who did she meet at the bottom of that hill?

She didn’t say. I wouldn’t have expected her to tell me in front of him, anyway.

I stepped out of the van, closed and locked the door, and followed Mr.

Floris to the front office, where I was about to be awarded a block of after-school detention. But I did look back. I kept looking back. Nothing would keep me from looking for her now.

— — —

That was the first time I was visited by Abby, who met her fate outside the Lady-of-the-Pines Summer Camp for Girls. Now, there are so many more things I know about her.

She’s Abigail Sinclair of Orange Terrace, New Jersey. Yes, there’s that.

But she’s really only Abigail to her grandparents and her homeroom teacher.

To everyone else, she’s Abby.

Abby with the smallest speck of a stud in her nose, so it looks like a sparkling star has been plucked from the sky and hung low beside her face, a star that follows her wherever she goes, night or day. Abby who chews her nails, just the ones on her thumbs. Abby who never wears skirts. Abby who’s afraid of clowns and isn’t kidding when she says so. Abby who doesn’t mind when it rains. Abby who played flute, for three months, then quit. Abby, solid C student.

Abby, still a virgin, on a technicality, which does count. Abby who can tap-dance. Abby who can’t whistle, no matter how hard she tries. Abby who likes, maybe even could have loved, Luke.

Abby with brown hair, brown eyes, 120 pounds, 5'7", small scar on her right knee from tripping over the back step when she was five.