For their part, the cops and the D.A. seem to agree that I’m not at fault. It doesn’t look like they’re going to press any charges against me. Bit by bit the whole story’s come out. It’s been all over the news—KIDNAPPING VICTIM KILLS CAPTOR IN TENSE STANDOFF. Or: MISSING SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD FOUND AFTER A YEAR ON THE RUN WITH HER TEACHER. I don’t recognize myself in the story. A part of me wants to; to be able to absolve myself of all responsibility. To be able to shake off the guilt, the shame. But some other, bigger part of me can’t let go of all the choices I’ve made in the last year. All the lies, all the mistakes.
Becky says with time, the story will change shape for me. She says I’ll see it a lot of different ways—because life is messy, and weird, and hard, and no one story is the absolute truth anyway. And she says that’s okay, that I can be in charge of my own story. I’m trying to believe her. I keep getting messages from journalists and true-crime writers who want to interview me, but I’m not going to talk to anyone for a while. Not until I can step back and see things more clearly. I’ve been manipulated enough for a lifetime.
“Anyway.” I brush a lock of hair out of my face and force myself to meet his eyes. “Neither one of them can stop us anymore.”
“You’re right. Now it’ll just be half the United States between us.” He leans against the railing looking out over the water.
Tomorrow morning I’m getting on a plane to Redding, California, to live with an aunt I didn’t even know I had. She’s my father’s sister, though she said she hadn’t heard from my dad in about twenty years. Her name’s Roberta—Bobbi, she told me to call her. She has two kids. My cousins. Insta-family, I guess.
Gabe glances at me sidelong. “You nervous?”
“Yeah.” I play with the zipper on my hoodie. “She didn’t know about me—she didn’t even know Dad got married. And it’s not like he ever told me anything about his family. So I don’t know what to expect. But she seems nice. And Portland’s only about seven hours away—my best friend might drive down to see me over her Christmas break.”
I’ve talked to Brynn almost every day since Aiden died. I remember that first call, sitting hunched in the private room they gave me in the hospital, my heart hammering as the line rang and rang. I was so afraid she’d be mad at me.
But she answered the phone sobbing. “You dummy,” she’d said. “I’ve been waiting.”
And of course because she cried, I cried. We cried for what felt like hours. But it felt good. It felt like letting go of something.
“Why didn’t you call back?” she’d asked. “Why didn’t you let me know where you were?”
It was an impossible question to answer, at least in that moment. How could I make her understand how desperate I’d been, how scared? How could I tell her that I’d been embarrassed to ask for help after tossing everything so casually away? How could I explain that I’d had to stay with Aiden after my mom’s overdose, because otherwise, I’d have paid too high a price for nothing?
Maybe someday we can talk about it. Or maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll decide that it’s more important to have fun. We can go thrifting in Redding and she’ll find some Dior cocktail dress I’ll have to zip her into. We’ll get the sugariest drinks they make at Starbucks, and we’ll drive around singing show tunes with the windows rolled down. She’ll give me all the theater gossip and tell me about her conquests. I’ve missed that for so long now. I am ready for some lightness.
But even with Brynn back in my life, even with a new family to get to know . . . I won’t feel complete. Because I have to leave this boy behind. This beautiful boy, who came for me. Who drove out into the darkness and found me.
He puts an arm around my waist now. “I wish I could come with you.”
“Me too.”
Would it be so crazy? Why couldn’t we go together? He’s seventeen, and I’ll turn seventeen in May. That’s not so young. Especially when I’ve been on my own so long, anyway.
But that answers my question for me. I’ve been on my own so long. And I’m tired. I don’t want that life anymore, and I don’t want him to have to live it, either.
“We’ll text nonstop,” I say. “And Skype. And I’ll write letters—real ones, on paper.”
He grins. “I’ve only ever gotten paper letters from my grandma.”
“Didn’t you know? I’m ninety years old.” I nudge him with my hip. “And maybe . . . maybe we’ll be able to meet halfway between, this summer. I can get a job, save for a bus ticket . . .”
He already has his phone in his hand. “Bluff, Utah.”
“What?”
“That’s the halfway point.” He shows me on a map. I make a face.
“I bet we can find something more scenic nearby.” I look at the map, the towns familiar after staring at Aiden’s atlas so long, so longingly. “Zion, maybe. Or the San Juan Forest. Or . . .”
“Anywhere.” He slides his other arm around me. I press my face against his neck, breathe in. “I’ll go anywhere you want. It doesn’t matter, as long as we’re together.”
So similar to the promise Aiden made. I close my eyes. I try to believe that the worst might not happen, for once.
I make myself imagine it. The two of us—no, why not the five of us? Gabe and Caleb and Irene and Brynn? It’s my fantasy, so I’ll invite everyone. The five of us camping together in the brilliant sandstone towers of Zion. Irene blasting music from her portable speakers, and Caleb building a fire, and Brynn in hot-pink bedazzled hiking boots, and Gabe . . . Gabe with his arms around me, laughing, telling jokes, until it’s very late, the fire goes down, and we go back to our tent.
I’ve been hungry for family my whole life. I wasn’t born with one. But somehow, maybe, I’ve found them along the way—in spite of everything.
Becky’s going to pick me up soon; I have to go back to the group home and pack up my things. Not that I have much to pack. But I leave early tomorrow, and she wants to make sure I’m ready. I lean against Gabe, knowing we should turn back up the trail, not ready to admit it.
“Um. I haven’t been able to do any shopping, what with the hospital and everything . . .” he says. He looks suddenly bashful, his cheeks pink. “But I’ve got kind of a . . . a thing for you. For Christmas.”
Now I’m blushing too. “Oh . . . oh, I didn’t . . .”
“It’s okay,” he says quickly. “It’s nothing big. I mean, I made it. Irene helped me. I . . .” He trails off, then rummages in his pocket. There’s a small lumpy package, wrapped in purple glitter paper.
I take it from his hand. It’s light in my palm, the paper rough-textured. There’s no box; it’s a pendant, a chunk of jagged wood set in resin. The wood’s painted red and white—it looks like a fragment of a design, but I can’t make out the picture. Feathers, maybe? An angel wing?
“It’s . . . kind of dumb,” he says. “It’s a piece of my skateboard. The one that got smashed in the accident? I . . . you know, since that’s how we met, I wanted you to . . . to have it.”
I stare down at it, my fingers curling around the sides. “It’s beautiful.”
He helps me put it around my neck. Light as the wood is, there’s a satisfying weight to it. I can’t stop touching it, the resin cool and smooth beneath my fingertips.
“Thank you,” I say. “I wish I had something for you.”
He shakes his head, looking pleased. “Don’t. I’m just glad you like it.”
Maybe it’s the necklace that reminds me. It’s while we’re walking back to the parking lot that I remember I have one more confession to make.
“Uh. So. About the accident,” I say. My stomach twists into a knot. I steal a glance at his profile.
“Yeah?”
“Um . . . the thing is . . .” I hold my breath for a moment, then say the rest in one big jumble. “I-may-have-been-the-one-who-actually-hit-you.”
His mouth drops open. He stops in his tracks, and turns slowly to gawk at me. I squirm under his gaze, wondering if this is somehow the final straw, the deal breaker. After everything we’ve been through together—is this one foundational lie the one that makes him walk away?
But then the corners of his eyes crinkle up, and he bursts into laughter.
And then I’m laughing too, the two of us clutching each other, breathless with it.