“Back to . . .”
She held herself very still, waiting for it.
“. . . rehab,” I finished.
She laughed. “She couldn’t do that.”
But I kept going. “You can’t hate her. Without her, you wouldn’t even be here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re not supposed to be here, London!” I shouted at her. “You should be kissing Ruby’s feet right now. You should be thanking her and calling her a saint. You’re not even supposed to be alive.”
London didn’t get it because all she said was, “Thanks, bitch,” and then she was laughing, like this was a huge joke the whole car was in on, and then she was saying what a ho I was for hooking up with Owen, and how everyone knew, and everyone said so, and I was just like Ruby except barely half as pretty, and then I lunged at her and grabbed her by the mouth and told her to shut up, not because she said I was half as pretty but because of what she said about my sister, and I thought she was going to bite me, but she just started screaming.
The guys yelled beside us, egging us on. The wind was rushing through the open windows, throwing my hair in my face. The guys in the back were telling us to stop fighting and go ahead and make out already. Even Owen was involved, looking at me for the first time since we’d gotten in the car, asking what the hell was going on.
I couldn’t be sure myself. I happened to look out at the road we were speeding down and I recognized the sign for the old turnpike. It had a weirdly bent squiggle on it to warn drivers how the road curved, but in the quick flash that I saw it and lost it, it showed me how far we were from anything I knew, so far I worried I’d never find my way to Ruby.
And maybe it happened then, maybe it was in that instant of passing the sign and entering the next town when her screams went quiet and her cold, bony face was no longer smashed against the palm of my hand, this moment when I couldn’t feel her anymore and I fell back onto the seat and found it empty beside me.
I wasn’t clutching her mouth any longer; there was no mouth to clutch. There was no one in the seat but me.
When I turned, the boys in the car were arguing over what CD to slip into the stereo. Owen had his back to me, his eyes out the window. High Falls was maybe ten, fifteen minutes away.
I patted at the seat. I sat up and stared at my reflection in the rearview.
All I knew is that we’d crossed town limits and the girl crammed into the backseat with me, the girl whose mouth I’d just been squeezing shut, whose name I’d been cursing, London—was gone.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
STOP
Stop!” I shrieked at the top of my lungs. “Stop the car!”
The guy at the wheel swerved to the right and we landed on the shoulder with a jolt. I felt my arms still attached to my hands, my head on my shoulders, my body intact as it should be. I looked around the car wildly—she wasn’t in the seat beside me, not in the front, and not in the back, which was jammed full of the enormous speakers. I twisted in circles, looking at the empty expanse of road behind us. Had she . . . leaped out the window when I wasn’t looking?
Because there was no other place she could have gone.
The music had been shut off and all four boys were staring at me. Over the silence you could hear the wind rustling the leaves of the trees, a calm yet hair-raising hush of a noise, and every once in a while this low whimper, this terrified and truly awful sound, and it took me forever to realize it was coming from down in my own throat.
“What the hell!” the guy driving shouted.
“What’s she on? What’d you give her, O?”
“I didn’t give her shit. Maybe she took something, how am I supposed to know?”
They talked about me as if I wasn’t there.
“Why’d she scream? I think she busted my eardrum.”
“Dude, what’s wrong with her?”
I finally spoke up. “Where are we?”