There’s a lot you can do with a phone. Send a message or a picture. Get the weather, news, or horoscope. See and talk to someone in real time, play games, pay for parking. One thing technology still hadn’t mastered, though, was the actual act of being there. I’d been all right with settling for distance with the showcase. But not this.
It didn’t even occur to me to ask permission to go to the hospital. It was well past midnight and I’d had enough negative responses to more reasonable requests. Instead, in those panicked minutes after getting that three-sentence text, I put my phone aside, sat down at my desk, and wrote a note.
I wasn’t kidding myself. I knew my mom would probably only get to the second sentence before coming after me, disregarding the rest. It seemed important, though, that for this last argument, I get to have my say. If I was to be sentenced, I wanted the details of my crime, too, to be clear.
Mom,
I’ve gone to U General. Layla and Mac’s mother is there, and I want to be there for them. I never wanted to disobey you, that night in the studio or now. I’m not Peyton. I’m doing this because I’m a good friend, not a bad daughter. I know you might not understand, but I hope you will try.
I left it on the keyboard of my open computer. Then I got my purse and jacket and left, shutting my door behind me. After all these months of watching the clock and biding my time, I knew I only had so long before being found out. I wasn’t the only one who could always hear the garage door opening.
Downstairs, the house was dark, except for one light on in the kitchen. I glanced in: it was empty. But then, when I put my hand on the door to the garage, someone was right behind me.
I felt a presence first, the heaviness of a body. Then heat. Finally, breath, right on the back of my neck. I froze, and a hand appeared right in front of my face, fingers spread across the door.
“And where are you going?”
Instinctively, I gripped the knob, turning it, and pulled hard. The door didn’t budge. I closed my eyes, willing myself to turn around, even though I knew it would mean us being face-to-face, if not nose to nose.
“Leave me alone,” I said to Ames, struggling to keep my voice both low and firm.
“Sydney, it’s midnight.” His voice was high, mocking. Clearly audible. Shit. “I don’t think your parents would like this.”
I turned around. All I could smell was cigarette smoke. We were uncomfortably close. I couldn’t step back, as I was against the door. He chose not to.
“Leave me alone,” I repeated. Instead, he moved in. When I lifted my hands, palms out, to push him back, he grabbed my wrists.
I surprised myself with the sound I made, a gasp, almost a shout. All this time, with him first just around, then living under our roof, I’d considered myself trapped. But I hadn’t been. I saw it clearly, now that I really was.
“Ames,” I said, but now my voice was wavering, “back off.”
Hearing this, he smiled, then tightened his grip on my wrists, pushing them back, back, against my ears. That was when I got scared.
But as he leaned in, closing his eyes, I knew I had to act. I’d been passive for so long. Watching TV all those long, lonely afternoons. At the nearby table, not telling my parents the things that scared me. All around, in this house, there were evidence and symbols of the girl I’d been but no longer wanted to be. Peyton wasn’t the only one locked up inside something.
I tried to turn my head as he put his lips on mine, squeezing my eyes shut, but he grabbed my face, jerking me back to face him. I could feel his fingers digging into my chin. “I want you to look at me,” he said.
I kept my eyes closed. “No.”
“Sydney.” The grip tightened. “Look at me.”
“No.” My voice came out tight, like a scream. It was only when I heard it that I realized my right hand was free.
“Just—” he began, but then my palm was connecting with his face, the sound of skin to skin loud, a smack, and he stumbled backward, bumping into the wall behind him. I reached down for the doorknob, now pressed into my spine, my fingers grappling and sliding, trying to get a grip on it. I’d just twisted it open and turned around, almost free, when he grabbed me around the waist. This time I did scream, and pulled as hard as I could away from him, throwing every bit of my weight in the opposite direction. I wasn’t budging, totally stuck, and then suddenly, in a snap of a moment, I was stumbling forward, loose, down the steps to the garage.
I put out my hand, touching the front fender of my mom’s car to steady myself. Then I turned, expecting him to come at me again. Instead, I saw my dad.
He had one arm hooked around Ames’s neck, tight, the fist clenched, and was pulling him backward down the hallway, away from me. It was all so crazy and quick, and the only thing I could concentrate on was the sound of Ames’s feet jerking across the floor. My father had a look on his face I’d never seen before. I almost didn’t recognize him.
“What were you going to do?” he was saying, the words punctuated with deep, jagged breaths. “What were you going to do?”
“Hey,” Ames squeaked, reaching up to try to free himself. “I can’t—”