I nodded.
When we all sat down, Gram asked that we take hands. “Let us pray, and give thanks that our Sarah, my grandbaby, is finally back with us,” she said, her eyes filling again as she bowed her head.
CHAPTER 20
DAYS OF SARAH BEING back turned into weeks, and soon the cool spring air started to change over to summer heat. Dad spent a weekend getting the pool ready and trimming back the shrubs in the yard while Sarah and I went shopping for new swimsuits at the mall with Tessa.
“Are they still really bad?” Sarah said, turning her back to us in a string bikini. Mom had been taking her to the dermatologist for laser treatments on her burns, but they were still there.
Tessa’s eyes narrowed. “I can barely see anything, I would never notice,” she said, looking to me to chime in.
“Much better,” I lied, looking at the pink and peeling spots. They had said full healing could take months or years, and even then the scars would still be visible, just not as bad as before.
When we grabbed lunch at the food court, Sarah seemed more relaxed. Gone were the days when she was so nervous in public—scared of crowded places, of anyone recognizing her. We hit up the makeup samples at Sephora after lunch, and Sarah expertly applied a cat’s-eye with dark liner to Tessa’s lids, making her look like an old-fashioned movie star. As I snapped a few photos with my phone, I saw what anyone else would see: three teen girls, having fun together on a Saturday afternoon.
Tessa leaned in to hug Sarah. “I’m buying this,” she said, palming the liner. “But can you come over, like, every morning and do my eyes?”
“Of course!” Sarah smiled.
Later, Tessa would tell me how much she loved my sister. “She is awesome, you’re so lucky. I wish I had a sister.” She had never known Sarah before, and I was thankful that she had forgotten—or chosen to forget—the portrait I’d painted of my sister before she’d returned.
As the weather warmed and the days lengthened, everything got easier, just like Dr. Levine had predicted. The detectives and reporters stopped calling. It seemed that the investigation into Sarah’s reappearance was following the same course as her disappearance—slowly falling away from people’s minds.
And Dr. Levine was good for something else too—a bit of marriage counseling for Mom and Dad. They started a new Friday “date night,” at her recommendation, leaving me and Sarah to do our own thing. We usually ordered a pizza and rented a movie, nothing special—sometimes Tessa came over, too, but mostly it was just me and Sarah. The only thing that was off-limits was horror movies—anything where girls were being chased or in peril. They seemed to set off Sarah’s nightmares, which still came about once a week or so, but could happen all night if she watched anything scary before bed.
Even though it wasn’t a big deal, I found myself looking forward to our nights on our own. I began planning our pizza order, discussing movies with Sarah days before. Once I came home on a Friday afternoon to find a rack of chocolate chip cookies cooling on the counter. “You know, for movie night,” Sarah said, scrubbing the cookie pan in the sink. I knew that she looked forward to it too.
I decided I was ready to go back to work at the teen help line, and went one spring evening after the time change—it felt weird to be there while the sun was still up, filling the call center room after a long winter of dark afternoons. It was like a new place. That wasn’t the only thing that was different: as soon as I walked in the door, Marcia came over to pull me into a hug, a warm embrace that felt real, and she held me for a few moments. “I want you to meet someone, Nico,” she said softly. She led me to the seat where I usually took calls, but it was already taken by a petite girl with short dark hair.
“This is Shivani. She’s your trainee.” Marcia smiled.
“Hi, I’m Nico.” I shook the girl’s hand and added, “I love your bangs,” noting the thick straight cut she was pulling off—it was striking.
Shivani blushed. “I know who you are.” She smiled. “You’re, like, famous.”
I swallowed, caught off guard. Famous for what? Then I realized: Sarah. Marcia cut in, “Shivani specifically asked to train with you, and I think it’s a great idea.”