“Sure makes the world seem less scary,” he said.
I turned and looked out the window. How different might my life have turned out if I’d had that at fifteen? I’d been an outcast at school, barely spoke to anyone. More days than not, I ended up just sitting behind the building, watching leaves fall from the trees while I waited for the bell to ring. What would it have been like if I’d had someone to walk those halls with me or someplace safe to run to when my home wasn’t? Maybe I wouldn’t have dropped out at sixteen, wouldn’t have run away and ended up here, with no name and no history of my own.
I started to see that imaginary person’s face, and it was Ren’s.
Nicholas hit my arm. “Hey, look.”
I turned and saw him pointing forward. Jessica was exiting the freeway.
? ? ?
She drove down a series of smaller roads, orange dust billowing up behind her SUV, until she reached a parking lot with a couple of picnic tables and a sign designating it a SCENIC OVERLOOK. We watched from a distance as she parked her car and just sat there, staring out at the vast stretch of desert.
Despite the hot sun slanting in low through the window, I shivered. I didn’t know why. My body had made sense of the scene before my mind did.
Nicholas suddenly revved the car and threw it into reverse.
It was only as we were leaving that I understood why Jessica would make a pilgrimage out to a deserted corner of the desert to sit and stare at the endless expanse of barren orange dust.
Because she knew there was something out there, somewhere, hidden in that dust.
Nicholas and I didn’t speak for the entire ride home. Not even when he pulled over to the side of the road and retched. We both knew what we’d seen, and neither of us wanted to say the words aloud.
We’d just followed Jessica to Danny’s grave.
? ? ?
Nicholas dropped me off at the house and immediately left again, headed to Asher’s. I guess if I had someone who made me feel like the world was a less scary place, I’d want to be with them right then too. I walked blindly into the house, mind racing, and bumped into Lex on her way out the door.
“Oh, Danny, I was just—” She stopped and touched my cheek, drawing my eyes up to hers. “Hey, you okay?”
Her show of concern suddenly made me want to cry. Or break something.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just tired.”
“Well, I’m on my way out for the night,” she said. “Mia’s spending the night at Eleanor’s house, so I thought I’d meet some girlfriends. Will you be okay on your own? I can bail if you want.”
“I’m fine. Have fun.”
She looked at me closely. “You sure?”
I suddenly really wanted her to stay. More than anything. We could sit in the rec room and watch soaps and eat popcorn and everything could be the way it was before. All I had to do was ask.
“No,” I said. “You should go.”
“Okay, call if you need anything!” She kissed me on the forehead, and then she was gone.
I spent the rest of the evening wandering the house aimlessly. I couldn’t focus on anything for more than a minute or two at a time. The image of a little boy’s body—probably just bones now, surrounded by scraps of fabric—kept rising in front of me. Buried in a shallow grave in the sand, maybe discovered by predators, fought over by coyotes and carrion birds. It made everything too real. This wasn’t just playacting anymore, and my horror at what I’d done was dizzying. It was a real boy’s life. A real boy’s death. I thought of the smiling boy on the baseball card hidden in the pillowcase upstairs and imagined him still and cold, not breathing, his body thrown away like a piece of trash. By any logical assessment, it should have been him instead.
I had to get out of that house.
There was only one car at the house, Robert’s beloved Jaguar. Patrick kept a key for it in a junk drawer in the kitchen. I didn’t have a license, but Patrick had given me several lessons in the Jag. I was reasonably certain I could get it from here to Ren’s house or LAX or the Canadian border in one piece, and if I couldn’t, well, maybe that was for the best anyway.
I was in the kitchen, fumbling through the drawer for the key, when the front door opened. I should have just ignored it. Should have gone straight to the garage, gotten in the car, and left.
“Hello?” someone called. I didn’t recognize the voice. “Anyone home?”
I went into the foyer and found Jessica slumped by the door in one of the fancy chairs I’d never seen anyone sit in. A middle-aged man wearing a Bluetooth earpiece and a rumpled polo was hovering in the open doorway.
“Can I help you?” I said.
“You can pay me,” he said. I looked past him to see the cab idling in the driveway. “She couldn’t find her wallet.”
“Oh God.” I took Jessica’s purse out of her lap. She looked up at me blearily, reeking of alcohol. “Where did you pick her up?”
“Sherman Oaks. The parking lot of a liquor store.”
I found her wallet and gave the guy one of the hundreds inside. “At least she didn’t try to drive.”
“She was out of gas,” he said.
Of course. I thanked the driver, and he left while I turned to Jessica.
“Can you walk?” I asked her.
She struggled to her feet, and when she stumbled, I caught her around the waist.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“Just leave me . . . ,” she mumbled.
“I’m not going to leave you,” I said. “Come on.”
Slowly we moved up the stairs, pausing often. Jessica talked most of the way, but I could understand very few of the slurred words. All that was clear was the anguished tone of them. So this is what she did. Drove out to the desert to be near her son’s bones and then drank herself into oblivion. I saw my mother sitting impassive in front of the television, and I swallowed and tightened my arm a little more around Jessica’s waist.
We finally reached her bedroom, and I lowered her to the bed, where she buried her face in the mounds of pillows. I went to the bathroom and filled up the cup on the counter with water. I sat on the edge of the bed and handed her the glass.
“Try to drink some of this,” I said.
She took the glass with a quavering hand and dissolved into tears.
“Danny . . . ,” she keened.
“It’s okay, don’t cry,” I said. I helped her take off her jacket, while she, childlike, did nothing to resist me. “You just need some sleep.”
“My boy,” she said. “My Danny.”
I took off her shoes and tossed them along with the jacket into a nearby chair. The rest she could sleep in. She was sobbing now, and I helped her lie down and covered her with the comforter. I turned off the lamp on her bedside table, but when I started to stand, she grabbed my arm.
“Don’t go,” she said. “Danny, don’t leave me.”
“I . . . okay.” Did she really think I was Danny? Had she had so much to drink that reality and the lie were starting to blur?
“I told you,” she murmured. “I told you!”
“What did you tell me?”
She was saying something softly, and I had to lean to make it out.
“I’m sorry,” she was whispering. “I’m so sorry,”