42
Rachel
After Mama left, I lay in bed, missing Wyatt, but I knew it was too late to call. Wyatt had told me that the phone in his house would ring and wake everyone. That’s why I had to wait for him to call me.
I was sorry. For all the disadvantages of my upbringing, the one advantage was that I had never missed anyone. Now, I did.
Since I couldn’t call Wyatt, and I couldn’t sleep, I did the only thing that interested me.
I took out the letter.
It was surprisingly crisp looking considering the date on it was almost eighteen years ago. It was written on white paper with blue lines and stuffed in an envelope that was the wrong size. The handwriting was pretty, in purple ink.
Dear Danielle:
Are you okay???? I’m worried about you. Your last letter has me so freaked out. You have to know that it sounds a little (please don’t take this the wrong way) crazy. Is it pregnancy hormones? Fear of your mother? Those weird hallucinogens you took before you got pregnant? All understandable (especially about your mother—she sounds a lot different than I remember her!). But please hold it together. I wish you could come stay with us until your baby comes. I know it’s hard for you. But my parents are just barely managing not to throw me out of the house due to my own, er, delicate condition. I can’t spring you on my mom—especially since she (again, no offense) never liked you very much. This would sort of prove her right and I hate to prove her right!!! Is there someplace else you can stay? I read once about a home for unwed mothers. Do they actually have those, do you think? Or is it just something in books? Also, my mom mentioned that sometimes, when people want to adopt a baby, they’ll find a pregnant girl and pay all her living expenses until she gives birth. I told Mom I am not doing that, but maybe you would. It would allow you to run away.
I know what you’ll say, that someone is after your baby, that that druggie Suzie Mills told you Zach was dead, and that you need to protect your baby because she’s some kind of magical creature or whatever. But that’s the part that sounded crazy. I know we always wanted to think of ourselves as special, but face it: We’re not. We’re like maybe a million other girls who met a guy who said he loved us—then found out he didn’t. Zach is probably in the city with some other girl.
Honestly, Dani, you need to get out of your fantasy world. The child you’re carrying (which you somehow already know is a blond girl) is not the key to thwarting an enchanted drug ring. There is no destiny, no prophecy. She’s just a baby!
Please tell me you’re getting some help.
I love you but—again—I’m worried.
Emily
After reading the letter four times, I fell asleep.
I woke to the morning’s first light, and I said, aloud, “Call me.”
It may have been my imagination, but I thought I heard him say, “I’ll be there soon. An hour, maybe.”
But by eight o’clock, I still hadn’t heard from him. Perhaps, I thought, I could simply call and, if the old lady answered, hang up (that’s what Wyatt had called it) or say I had made a mistake dialing the number. Did people do that? And then, Wyatt might realize it was me and call. Probably.
I knew! I’d say I was a friend of his, if the woman answered, a friend from town.
I turned on the telephone and touched the square that said, “Phone.” A list of names and numbers showed up, Mom, Josh, Astrid. Who was Astrid? Celeste Greenwood. I touched that number. The phone began to make a noise, more like rattling than ringing. It did it twice, then someone said, “Hello.” I drew in my breath.
It was not Wyatt.
I had meant, if someone who was not Wyatt answered, to remain calm, to simply say, “Hello?” and ask to speak to him. That would, I suspected, be a perfectly normal thing to do.
Instead, I sat, mouth slightly open, listening to the voice on the other side of the phone, saying, “Hello? Hello? Who is this?”
The thing is, I knew that voice. It was too familiar not to recognize. And I knew if I recognized her voice, she would also recognize mine.
I touched the part of the screen that said, “End call.”