Silence.
“You’re talking about Liv Lapin,” he says.
“I am indeed.”
“Liv was basically using me, because I was there,” Kellan says.
“Oh, that’s rich. The classic story: girl uses guy.”
“Did Liv say she was pissed that I never called her?”
“Well, no,” I answer.
“Then why do you care?”
“She’s my friend.”
He smiles slyly. “Sounds like your mom would prefer you hang with Alice.”
I hold the sides of my head. “Oh my God. I was friends with Alice in fifth grade! Liv is my best friend!”
“You sound like you’re trying to convince me. But I don’t need convincing: you risked your life to save her. Maybe you’re trying to convince yourself.”
“Where do you get off saying that?” I ask him.
“All I know is that there’s a pattern. I blow off Liv. Liv couldn’t care less, but you want to raise an army against me. Some chick gets killed in the woods, the same way you could’ve got killed in the woods, which should freak you out. Yet it’s Liv who hides while you want to go examine the body.”
“You’re saying I have a pattern of overreacting while Liv underreacts?”
“I’m saying you and Liv together are a hot mess.”
“You think I’m a mess?”
“Together you’re a mess. Alone, I think you’re fascinating. And a little bit of a mess. But mostly fascinating,” Kellan says.
I shoot him my best dirty look from under my eyelashes, which I hope is at once meaningful and alluring. He smiles wider. But I’m just getting started.
“You mean morbidly fascinating. I get it. You can’t look away. I’m the girl who had interactions with a sociopath. Extended, day-long, night-long interactions. We hung out together. He fed me. Offered me hits off his joint. And everyone wonders: Did he touch her?”
Kellan drags a knuckle across his forehead. Didn’t think I was going there so soon, did ya, buddy?
“The supposition makes me automatically creepy,” I continue. “And there’s the automatic next question: What did I have to give away to escape?”
“You don’t have to go there…” Kellan says, trailing off.
I circle the table. “Donald Jessup was a paroled assailant of women. He played a soft-porn video game that involved hunting women in the woods. He lived with his shut-in mother and barely left the house, except for that one day, when he happened to get some kind of stirring that involved dressing in camo and packing a hunting knife. So how could I possibly have escaped untouched in that most carnal of ways?”
“But you did.”
“I did.” I sit on the table’s edge and slap my thighs. “And now, no one really knows what to do with me. Every time I ask too many questions, they shut me down, or redirect me, or tell me to move on. It’s like I’m this oddity. In 88.5% of all abductions, the girl is killed within the first two hours. What do you do with the girl who comes back?”
He sits near me. “What happened in the woods?”
“You really want to know?”
“I’ve always wanted to know.”
I pull back. “What do you mean, always?”
“I’ve lived with your story for the last year. It’s where my dad was, in his head, all the time. With you, I mean.”
“Your father found and arrested Donald Jessup within forty-eight hours. What was he preoccupied with for the last year?”
He looks down for a moment. “Maybe I’m not supposed to talk about this.”
“You’re the one who wanted to go there.”
He meets my eyes. “Once my father realized there were lapses, he felt sure you and Liv weren’t Donald Jessup’s only victims.”
“Oh.”
We’re quiet for a moment. Laughter booms from the kitchen. Erik swears he’s telling the truth about something, and Mom is flirtatiously dubious. In a flash, I realize that it’s a relief for my mother when I’m not around. She sounds young and happy and maybe drunk, but still, young and happy. Happy to have the attention of a gorgeous guy; happy to be brilliant and pretty. Light. Free of slithering black things in your belly.
Kellan slides closer. “You don’t have to tell me what happened. Just tell me what it was like.”
“When I was alone? Or with him?”
“Both.”
I drop my head. “Moments were splintered, in the woods. I have no way of knowing how many pieces there are, or if I have them all.”
“I can imagine. I mean, I can’t imagine.”
“You can’t. See, absolute darkness isn’t absolute. You can still make out shapes, ripples of movement. Branches buckled. Things flapped and scuttled. After a while, it started to rain. Your skin feels spongy, like it doesn’t belong to you. Water fills your ears. It slips between your lips, even when you jam them tight. You don’t bother brushing it from your eyes. Soon you stop feeling it. Sometimes, I think Donald Jessup isn’t what changed me. It’s the woods that changed me. It’s where I learned to live inside my head.”