“Hello?”
She picks up on the third ring. The sound of her voice is so familiar my eyes flood with tears. My tongue is clumsy in my mouth; I can’t make it move.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
“Brynn.”
I hear the quick intake of her breath. “Elyse?”
“Yeah,” I croak. I swallow hard. “Hi.”
“Where the hell are you?” Her voice has shot up an octave. “Do you know how scared I’ve been? Oh my God, Elyse . . .”
“I, uh . . . I’m in Nevada,” I say, then give a strangled little laugh. It’s such a relief to hear her.
“Are you okay? Are you safe?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I guess so. I just . . . I miss you so much.” I twirl the spiraling cord tightly around my finger. “I tried calling my mom and she’s not picking up. And I didn’t know who else to call.”
The line goes silent for so long that I wonder if we’ve been disconnected.
“Brynn?” I whisper.
“I’m still here.” She’s crying. I’ve never heard her cry for real before—only on stage. “Elyse, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry too. I wish I could go back and . . .”
“I’m so sorry,” she says again. “But your mom. She . . . she’s dead.”
My lungs clench tight, the breath going motionless.
“No.” I almost don’t recognize it as my own voice. It seems too small, too weak.
“She relapsed. And I guess when people relapse sometimes they don’t know their limits anymore, and she took too much. The doctor wouldn’t tell me much because I’m not family, but her friend Norma—I guess that was her sponsor at NA?—she called to tell me.” She sniffles. “It was last week. I’m so sorry.”
I sink off the bed onto the floor, onto the stained and threadbare carpet. I push my face into the bedspread and scream. Somewhere near my ear I can hear Brynn talking, but I’m not listening.
My mom.
Alone in the apartment. Walking from room to room. Tense, a bundle of tics, her legs shaking, her toes tapping. Pain shooting along her spine. Pain gripping her nerves like a vise. Trying her hardest not to pick up her phone to call that doctor again—any of those doctors again. Going through the roster of useful-not-useful Narcotics Anonymous slogans. One day at a time. This too shall pass. Keep coming back. God grant me the serenity . . .
But she called for the refill. She poured a pill into her hand. She took one with water but it didn’t seem to help. So she took another. She took a handful. She washed them down and went to bed.
My mom.
Somewhere far away I hear Brynn’s voice. “Elyse? Elyse, just tell me where you are and I can be there in . . .”
Someone takes the receiver out of my hand. I look up into Aiden’s face, deep-shadowed, eyes burning. He hangs up the phone with a deliberate calm more terrifying than any rage would be. His teeth are bared beneath his moustache.
“There’s no going back,” he says, and his voice is edged in steel.
And then he rips the phone out of the wall.
THIRTY-NINE
Gabe
“Is that all you’re going to eat?” Sasha asks, hanging on my arm. She picks a piece of sausage off my paper plate and pops it in her mouth. “Aren’t you hungry?”
The question makes me want to laugh. But I just shake my head. “Not especially.”
Tonight’s the annual Mustang Sallys fund-raiser. Savannah Johnston’s dad lets the girls take over his downtown barbecue restaurant. He spends all day cooking, and they show up in their sequined uniforms to serve. For twenty bucks you get a groaning plate of meat, macaroni and cheese, and corn bread, with peach cobbler for dessert.
Usually I can be counted on to eat my weight in barbecue. But I haven’t had much of an appetite in the month since I’ve gotten back together with Sasha.
The restaurant is packed to the gills with kids from school and their families. Most of the Sallys are working. Sasha’s taking a “break” that’s now spanned forty minutes. I’ve seen a few people shoot her exasperated looks, but no one’s tried to call her out.
She’s back to doing whatever she wants.
“Poor baby,” she coos. “Are you feeling okay?” She toys with a piece of my hair. My skin crawls every time she touches me, but I keep my expression steady.
“I’m fine,” I say. My tone must be too brusque, because her eyes narrow. I take a deep breath and force a smile.
Placated, she leans against my arm.
I’m keeping my part of the bargain. I hold her hand in the hallway. I carry her books for her. I wait obediently by her locker while she gossips and combs her hair. I do all this even though I can hear the snickering and whispering all around us. I try not to look at their expressions as we walk past; I try to keep my head straight ahead. Everything’s back to a superficial kind of normal. She even called the cops to drop the charges she’d brought against me. “It was all a misunderstanding,” she cooed, meeting my eyes as she cradled the phone to her ear. Of course they’re still investigating me for arson—but she likes that. It makes me seem like a bad boy. It makes her parents hate me even more.
My parents are more baffled than angry. “I don’t understand why you’d want to be with someone who did all the things you said she did,” my dad said when he found out, shaking his head.
“Why would you risk it?” my mom put in. “She went to the police about you. You can’t afford to get on the cops’ radar, mijo. There are people who will assume that you’re a criminal just because of the color of your skin. They’ll take Sasha’s side over yours every time. This girl is dangerous for you.”
They don’t understand that I’m doing this for them. That I’m trying to keep them safe.
Them, and Catherine.
Though Catherine might be well out of Sasha’s grasp by now. She hasn’t been at school in a month, and I can’t seem to get any information on where she is. I logged into Sekrit on my new phone as soon as I got it, and I sent her half a dozen messages, but she hasn’t responded to any. I had Caleb drive me past her house a few days after the fire—it’s a wreck, a burned-out ruin with police tape across the door. So they’re staying somewhere else, obviously. But where? I look back at my last few messages.
daredevil_atx: I just want to know that you’re ok.
daredevil_atx: I’m so sorry about everything.
daredevil_atx: I love you.
The silence is resounding. It speaks volumes. I’ve given up. Just like I’ve given up on ever getting free of Sasha.
Sasha’s hair’s still dark, but at least she’s not straightening it anymore. She’s back to dressing like her old self, like she fell straight out of an Instagram account. She smirks up at me now.
“Too bad Irene and Caleb couldn’t come,” she says. “They always eat like pigs.”
“Mmm,” I say. She’s testing me; she wants me to stand up for them, to tell her to be nice, so she can accuse me of siding with them. I’m not going to rise to the bait.
“Or is Irene finally on a diet?” she persists.
Irene is currently as far from this restaurant as she can be. She made clear that she was done with my Sasha drama. “You’re nuts,” she’d seethed. “You cannot get back with that psycho. I’m so over this shit, Gabe.”
Caleb was a little more sympathetic, but not very reassuring. “How long can you keep this up? I mean, she’s either gonna kill you or marry you sooner or later, man.” The thought makes me squirm in my seat, even now. I can’t think about the future, or I’ll lose my nerve.
All I can do is keep her happy, here, now.
She raises a morsel of brisket to my lips, and I open my mouth mechanically and accept the treat like a dog.
“There you go,” she says. “That’s not so bad, is it?”
It is, Sasha. It’s the worst thing. This is the worst possible thing, and it’s all thanks to you.
A few of Sasha’s friends make their way to our table and heave themselves onto the seats, looking exhausted. Marjorie Chin’s pinned-on cowgirl hat is listing to one side; Natalie McAfee is covered with a thin sheen of sweat.