17 & Gone(54)

Not then, not to him. “Never mind. I’m not supposed to say.”

He shifted a little, a flinch almost.

Like I’d said something that scared him.

I found myself longing for it. I longed for the motion sensor to come on in another part of the yard and show him.

There’d be Abby, moving fast across the snow with one flip-flop and one bare foot, but not fast enough. Natalie’s long hair would hide her face, but a shimmer of glass would shine through. Shyann would be concealing herself in the branches, well-practiced from her days of living off nature in the vacant lots of her city. Madison would speak first before anyone, saying could we hurry it up already since she had somewhere to be, and Isabeth would have the most concern in her eyes, thinking of how it feels to lose the people you love, so she’d tell Madison to be quiet. Eden wouldn’t care about any of this. She’d just want me to find my keys so we could go home. Kendra would want to leap out and go, Boo! And Yoon-mi and Maura would be shaking their heads because they tried to warn me; they tried to wave me away.

And the others? It was unbearable to think of how many girls the dark expanse of woods could contain.

Then there’d be Fiona Burke herself.

She wasn’t really one of them, but she was more like them than she was like me. She was missing, and I was still here. She was a ghost, and I was alive for however much longer I was allowed to be. She’d try to talk me out of him. We don’t need him, she might say. Walk away, Lauren. Walk away.

But none of the girls came out, and no one spoke up from the vacant darkness.

And so Jamie kept on disbelieving me.

So I tried to correct it. “I lost my keys.

It’s just that I lost my keys.” I started looking again but came up with nothing.

“Fuck it,” Jamie said—to the sky, or to someone, something I couldn’t see. He said it while looking upward, as far away from me as he could. His body went rigid and I thought he was going to kick something. Then he let out a long breath and said, “It’s too cold out for this shit. C’mon, I’ll take you home.

You’re too drunk to drive yourself anyway.”

He took my arm. It was the first time he’d touched me in days and days.

— 43 — WE were silent on the drive home. I was cursing myself for losing my keys, and Jamie was next to me probably cursing himself for caving and being nice to me.

When we got to my place, Jamie turned to me in my driveway and said, “You’re freaking me out a little, Lauren.

It’s like you’re this whole other person all of a sudden. Or else you’re just trashed. Is that it? Is it that you’re just really drunk?”

If only that’s all it was. If only I could sober up and take an aspirin to erase this tomorrow.

I leaned forward, and this wasn’t Abby’s memory or any of the other girls’

memories cascading over me—it wasn’t their wants but mine. I wanted to feel my lips against his neck, or his neck against my lips. I wanted to remember for one small second what there was before the shadows blotted it all out. I wanted to know if his mouth still tasted like cinnamon.

But he pushed me away. “We broke up,” he said. “Remember?”

For an increment of time in the darkness of his car, I didn’t. But it passed and then I did.

“I have to ask you something,” he said. “It’s about this.”

From his pocket the folded Missing flyer emerged, and he didn’t have to open it all the way for me to know Abby’s face would be on it.

“You left it,” he said. “In my hoodie.”

I nodded. It was still in his hand, and I absolutely needed to take it back.

“What’s up with this girl Abigail? For real. Is that why you were with Luke Castro?”

“Abby,” I corrected him. “But I wasn’t with him. I told you, I dropped my keys.”

“You don’t really know that girl . . .

Do you?”

I took the folded flyer from his hands and protected it in mine. “Jamie . . .

what if I told you something and I couldn’t explain it and you couldn’t ask me why or how I know or anything?

What if I told you that Abby is here in the car with us, right now? What if I could see her sitting in the seat behind you and she’s waving at me to stop talking now, but I’m not going to, I’m going to tell you. What if, Jamie? What if I told you all that?”

He shut his eyes and held them closed.

At his back, in the seat directly behind his, Abby Sinclair glared at me. I could see the dirty reflection of her face in the rearview mirror even if I didn’t turn around to be sure.

Finally Jamie spoke. “I’d say you were really trashed and you should go in and have a glass of water and go to bed.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m glad I didn’t tell you then.”

There was a stunned look on his face when I slammed the car door and headed up the walk to go inside.

— 44 — MY mom knew I’d been drinking before I’d even taken off my coat. She wasn’t going to punish me over it, but she did remark on it, and she did ask how I got home and how I was going to get a spare key for my van if I couldn’t find the one I lost, and she did comment that I deserved a hangover if I got one.

She said that last thing with a vindictive little sparkle in her eye.