*
We passed a McDonald’s on the highway. I remembered picking up Lacey only days before, how I’d been so sure that I’d find Crystal and bring her home. I’d thought I could do it all on my own. My eyes stung with tears.
“I know he was my father,” I said. “I know it was Brian.”
Mom sucked in a breath beside me. “Skylar … I’m so sorry.”
I turned to look at her. “Why did you really run away? What did Crystal do?”
Mom hesitated for a second. I glanced in the rearview mirror, saw Dallas watching. She looked back at the road.
“Our father was really violent,” she said. “We were terrified of him. We had to leave.”
“It was more than that, Mom. Crystal felt guilty about something. What was it?”
Mom’s eyelids were flickering, like she was thinking hard.
“She … she’d been seeing a married man. Our dad was late coming home from camp, but we thought he’d be back any day. If he found out what Crystal had done, he’d beat her. We had to get out of town as fast as possible.”
“What were your real names?”
“Our last name was Campbell. My real name was Jessica, Dallas was Danielle, but we called her Dani, and Crystal was Courtney.”
I spent a minute thinking about that, trying to fit these names to my mom and aunts. They felt all wrong, all bunched up and stretched out, both at the same time.
“Were you really from Golden?” I said.
Mom sighed. “Littlefield.”
“Why did you lie?”
“I was trying to protect you.” Her eyes were shiny with tears.
“You lied about everything.” My voice broke.
“Baby, you don’t understand. You were just a child—”
“I don’t want to talk anymore.”
“Honey…”
I turned away. “I said I don’t want to talk.” I focused on the wheels of a big truck passing, swallowing hard against the lump in my throat.
No one spoke for the rest of the drive home.
*
We’d been back a couple of weeks when I ran into Aaron—the guy with the big scar across his face who trained at our gym—leaving Victim Services one day. I had a flash of remembering how Crystal had said he liked me.
“What are you doing here?” I said. We were standing on the front steps of the building in the shade. It was nice, after the heat inside. I couldn’t be in hot rooms anymore, ran around at home opening all the windows.
“My shrink’s here,” he said.
“You see one of the counselors?” My counselor, Tina, was okay. She was an Asian lady, maybe around my mom’s age. It was still hard to talk about what happened, but it was getting a little easier.
“Yeah, because of my dad.”
I nodded, not wanting to ask about his father, and definitely not wanting to think about mine. I looked down at my sandals, the tan line on my toes, and wondered what had happened to my daisy sandals.
“You haven’t been at the gym,” Aaron said.
“No.” I’d come in one day when we’d been back for about a week, thought it might help me feel better, but it was worse. The way people looked at me, either like they were trying too hard not to act weird, or being way too nice.
“You all right?” Aaron said.
I looked up at him, startled. People didn’t ask me that. Well, Mom did, but that was like almost every day, which was annoying. I snapped at her every time she asked, then she’d get a hurt look, and I’d feel like a jerk. Patrick didn’t ask me anything, so I liked going over there. We watched movies while Karen cooked and Mom hovered in the kitchen, looking over at me when she didn’t think I could tell.
“Things are pretty messed up,” I said. I was surprised I was being honest, but Tina had told me it was okay to tell people how I was really feeling.
“Sorry about your aunt,” he said.
“Thanks.” I squinted at a car, a blond woman driving with sunglasses. I saw Crystal everywhere, in stores, on the street, turned to say something, then remembered. We hadn’t had a funeral yet—Mom and Dallas weren’t ready to say good-bye. I wasn’t either. I went down to the park sometimes, smoked a joint, and thought about her. Sometimes I’d tell her stuff. I tried to just focus on the good memories, like watching her behind the bar, how she’d make drinks so fast while laughing and joking with everyone, or hanging out at her place, music on loud.
“What are you doing now?” Aaron said. “Like, this afternoon?”
“I don’t know, going home, I guess.”
“You want to time me? I’ve been running the stairs at the park.” He put his hands up like he was boxing. “Training Rocky-style.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You going to help me or what?”
“I should go. My mom’s waiting.”