All the Rage

“I’m just—” I take another step away and turn my face from his, so it doesn’t look like I’m talking to him, exactly. “I wasn’t expecting this.”


“Okay,” he says slowly. “But it’s fine with you I’m here, right?”

Brock’s voice blares over the megaphone again, makes me twitch.

“If you haven’t signed in, please sign in. We need everyone accounted for.”

Leon reaches out his hand. I can’t hold his hand.

“Should we do that?”

“No,” I say. One more step back. How many more can I take before he catches on? He lowers his hand, looking more and more confused. “I mean, let me do it for you. I’ll write you in. The guy behind the table is a—he’s an asshole, okay? I’ll be right back. Wait here. Don’t—”

Don’t talk to anyone.

“Just wait here,” I say.

Don’t even look at them.

I leave him there. My heart is beating too fast and my palms sweat badly. I wipe them on my shirt. I reach the table, Brock. He takes me in and he’s so hungry but the only thing he can do in front of all these people is look. It’s enough, though. It’s enough to be looked at by a boy like Brock like you’re meat, like he’d take you to satisfy himself.

“Sign in,” he says. “Or out.”

I stare at the paper. I’m supposed to note my arrival time and there’s a space to fill for when I leave. Next to the binder, there are bottles of water, a pile of whistles (TAKE ONE) and a card with a phone number on it that says POINT OF CONTACT—if you get lost searching, call. It’s the sorriest possibility I never considered: someone going missing during a search.

“Forget your name?” Brock asks, after a minute. “Want me to write it down or are you afraid I’ll get it mixed up with another four-letter word?”

I write my name, but not Leon’s. I don’t want Brock to have it.

I don’t want anyone here to have it.

“How do we do this?” a girl asks beside me. I move down the table quickly, grabbing two bottles of water and whistles. Brock’s attention drifts from the girl to someone behind me— Leon, behind me.

Brock nods at him. “We’re asking people to sign in—”

I can’t handle it. I move because if the two of them are close, I want to be far, far from it. I’m almost halfway out—am I leaving? I should leave—when Leon catches up.

“Hey! Romy—” He said it, my name. Too loud, like he knows me. “Ro—”

I face him quickly, holding the water out. It keeps him from saying it again, keeps him from asking what’s wrong with me, but I can tell he wants to. He takes the bottle.

“I told you that guy is an asshole,” I say. “I told you I’d sign you in.”

Leon glances back at Brock. “He seemed nice enough to me.” It hurts, that he’d give Brock the benefit of the doubt, instead of trusting what I say. He looks around. “Are those Penny’s parents?”

“Yeah.”

“I could tell from the posters. She really looks like them,” Leon says. “Who’s the boy with them? She have a brother?”

“Boyfriend. He’s the sheriff’s son—” As soon as it’s out of my mouth, it feels like too much information. I hold out a whistle. “Take one of these too.”

He takes it and I pull my hand back too quickly, like our skin would burn if it touched. I look around. Brock is still at the table but—Tina. When did she get here? Tina’s here and she’s sidestepping people, making her way over to … me? My stomach clenches, imagining all the things she’ll say if she sees me with a boy who likes me. I move away from Leon and she—passes us. Waves down Yumi. Leon bridges the distance I’ve created—it’s too noticeable now—and touches my arm.

“Romy, what—”

It’s like Brock senses it, Leon touching me, because he looks at us then. It turns Leon’s closeness against me. My body revolts. I yank my arm away and it makes his eyes widen, makes him step back and I think—good.

The whine of the megaphone sounds again.

“If we could have your attention,” a deputy, Cory Scott, says. His voice is all business and his expression is grim. Leanne Howard stands beside him, looking equally grave. “There’s a few things need to be said before we break you into groups—”

“We shouldn’t search together,” I tell Leon quickly.

“Are you kidding me?” he asks.

The crowd begins filtering between us to get closer to the table.

“We can’t search together,” I say. “We’ll just distract each other.”

“First of all, thank you for coming,” Cory says at the same time Leon opens his mouth to protest it, call me out, something. He closes it, though, because now’s not the time to talk.

Thank God.

I keep my eyes straight ahead. The Youngs are just behind Cory, and Alek and Helen, just behind Leanne. Alek pulls at his fingertips, his eyes darting past faces, toward the opposite side of the lake. There’s something in the way he holds himself that’s—expectant.

“And thank you to Grebe Auto Supplies for funding this search.”

Helen nods stiffly. I hear the soft click of the cameras, from the Ibis and Grebe reporters. They continue to take photos while the deputy speaks on behalf of the Youngs, who are too distraught to talk. Their faces belie everything that’s coming out of Cory’s mouth. He says they believe in us, that we’ll be what brings Penny home, safe and sound, where others couldn’t. Not the law, not some strangers she didn’t know, not the helicopter last weekend. Just us. Here.