I can just make out Sam’s dark blue sedan being swarmed by reporters who are “supposed” to let her, or anyone else trying to get into our driveway, pass. They’re not though. Why would they? She’s Jade Childs’s sister. Jade Childs isn’t around for them to dissect her life into bloody pieces, so why not just dissect everyone else around her?
In some places, they’re five deep around Sam’s car, and she’s still blasting the horn, but I can see her through the windshield of her car. She’s scared. She’s holding that brave face I’ve seen a lot since returning, but it’s a fa?ade. When reporters knock on her windows, tapping their microphones against them, she starts to cry. Her forehead lowers to the steering wheel, and the horn stops.
I’m running through the living room, and when I reach the front door, Mom’s roaming out of the kitchen, phone still tucked to her ear.
“What’s going on out there?” she asks me.
My hand curls around the door handle. Then I yank it open. “Stay here.”
Before her eyes finish widening, I step outside.
At first, no one notices. They’ll all too busy harassing my sister.
She’s still leaning over the steering wheel, her body shaking. My disappearance ruined this family once. I’d never have guessed me being found would ruin them again. If I had known the lives of everyone I loved would be destroyed a second time, I wouldn’t have spent so much time wishing to be found.
“Leave her alone!” I shout, but my voice doesn’t carry above the roar. I jog down the steps and storm across the lawn.
Now they’re starting to notice. What feels like hundreds of cameras and people whip my way. There’s a hush for one moment, then the noise starts back up as questions spill across the front yard at me.
“Get away from her!” I try waving away the stragglers still hovering around Sam’s car. When that doesn’t work, I shove them. “Get away. Just leave her the hell alone.”
When one of the guys I push away trips and lands on the grass, there’s another hush of silence. I look up to see them all staring at me, cameras rolling like I’m a spectacle and nothing else.
“This is what you want, right?” I lift my arms and shout. “This is what you’ve been waiting for? To confirm just how messed up I am now?”
I spin and wave at the man I just knocked on his ass. Flashes fire around me. I feel like with each one, a little of my soul is taken.
“To see just how positively fucked up I’ll be the rest of my life? To see what ten years of being held against my will has done? To see this?” I shake my hair behind my back and draw a line with my finger across my neck.
Photos fire faster. The street has become a giant flashing strobe.
“My family’s been through enough! The people I care about have suffered enough.” I think about the article on Torrin. Lava replaces the blood in my veins. “Can’t you see that?!”
That’s when I drop to the ground because I can’t hold myself up anymore. Adrenaline got me out the door, but now that I’ve burned through that, there’s nothing left to keep me going.
“I’ve been through enough.” I cup my face in my hands. “Just leave us alone.”
The noise blasts through me, encapsulating me at the same time. Questions fire at me, but I’ve given all I have to give. I don’t have anything left.
The front door’s not far, but it feels like I’ll have to cross an ocean to reach it. I can’t stand. I don’t think I can crawl. I’m stuck. Every flash going off catches another shot of me losing myself on the front lawn of the house I grew up in.
I wonder if there’s an inner circle in hell reserved for reporters too. After my experience with them, I think there must be.
When I feel a couple of hands reach for me, I startle.
It’s my mom, and she’s smiling at me with strength in her expression. “Come on, Jade. Let’s go.”
As she starts to help me up, another pair of hands reaches for me from the other side. It’s Sam. She’s not crying anymore.
“I can’t get up,” I say when I test my legs. If I had muscles in them a minute ago, they’re gone now.
“I know,” Sam says, guiding me up with my mom. I drape an arm around each of their shoulders as they turn our backs to the cameras and guide me toward the house. “We’ll help you.”
SINCE I BROKE my silence with the media, I decide to do the same with the police. The detectives working my case have been patient, and unlike the home-wrecking media, I think their reasons for wanting to know what happened to me are legitimate.
The detectives agreed to meet at my house, and even though they said I could have whomever I wanted present during the interview, I’ve decided to do this on my own. My decision practically sends Dad into cardiac arrest. I guess that to him, it feels like I’ve just benched the captain of the team when the championship game is going into sudden death overtime.