Mom is standing now, too. My underarms are drenched in sweat. I’ve never wanted to avoid my mother’s gaze more than at this moment.
“He told me he was going to stop taking them, and he tried to get rid of them, but I convinced him to give me the bottles.” My voice is raspy, as if my throat is resisting the words. “I thought he would realize he was better off with them and he’d want to take them again. I thought…”
It doesn’t matter what I thought. I fucked up.
“How long has he been off them?” Mom’s voice is so sharp that I flinch.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to keep track of days during the summer…” I think back to our walk on the trail. “He told me a couple of days after Saul and I went to Ora’s shop. But he’d already stopped taking them before then. I don’t know how long…”
“He has it written down,” Rafaela says, and her voice sounds too loud. Like she’s standing too close to me, even though none of us has moved since I told them.
We all stare at her until she goes on, but I’m staring because I wasn’t aware he’d told her about the meds.
“He’s been journaling… about being off the meds and how it makes him feel. He called it a mood journal. So that might be in there, exactly when he stopped.”
“I’ll go look in his room,” I say at the same time Mom grabs her phone and says she’s going to call Dr. Tarrasch.
Saul starts dialing the police.
Emil and Rafaela thunder up the stairs after me. I throw open Lionel’s bedroom door, hoping, like I did at the Brite Spot, that the last place we look will be where he’s been hiding the whole time. That there’s some way he could have slipped past Mom and Saul without them knowing. But his room is empty. It smells mostly of books and a little like unwashed sheets. His computer hums on the desk and I look at the spot where I was standing when we had our last fight.
I feel guilty going through Lionel’s things but we tear the room apart, leave nothing untouched. The mood journal never turns up—it’s not in his nightstand or tucked under his mattress or squeezed between the spines in his bookshelves.
“Did you find it?” Mom asks as soon as she hears us coming down the stairs.
“He must have taken it with him,” I reply, shaking my head.
“Dr. Tarrasch wants us to call her as soon as we hear something,” she says.
“The police said there’s not much we can do, but they’ve filed a report,” Saul offers and then pauses. “He’s still considered a child.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Rafaela looks back and forth between my parents.
“Just keep our phones charged and on,” Mom says. “And we need to make a list of his friends and start calling them.”
“We are his friends,” I say softly.
“I’ll call Justin and Catie,” Emil says.
I call DeeDee and Tommy, and Rafaela gets on the phone with Alicia and then Grace, trying to cover all our bases.
Eventually, we’ve gone through everyone he could possibly be with, even people he hasn’t spoken to in years. Nobody has seen Lionel.
For a while, no one stops moving. Lists and calls are being made, and Mom jots down a time next to each person we call. Saul puts on a pot of coffee and makes sandwiches that nobody eats.
We take turns charging our phones, and everyone jumps when someone so much as receives a text, but it’s a false alarm every time. And every time, my heart sinks further as I realize how very badly this could go.
“You kids should go home and get some rest,” Mom says around two a.m., looking over at Emil and Rafaela.
She’s been quiet for some time now. Same as Saul. I haven’t said anything to either of them unless they speak first. And I don’t want Emil and Rafaela to leave because I don’t want to hear what my parents will have to say when we’re alone.
“I don’t need to go home,” Emil says, scratching his arm.
Rafaela nods blearily. “Me either. I want to stay here until we find out something.”
“Well, you should try to get some rest here, then,” Mom says. “Call home to let them know you’re staying here. Emil, the couch pulls out, and Rafaela, you can take the guest room.…”
I go to the linen closet upstairs without being asked and stuff my arms with a pile of sheets, blankets, and pillows. We didn’t shut Lionel’s door after we searched his room. I pull it closed and pass Saul on my way down, but he retreats to his and Mom’s bedroom across the hall without another word. I can’t tell how angry he is with me, but I know he’ll have plenty of time to think about it. He won’t be sleeping tonight.
Emil and Rafaela have pulled out the sofa bed and we all go to work, putting the sheets on the mattress and slipping the pillows into fresh cases. We don’t talk but I’m sure they feel the same way, like it’s good to have something to do, even for a couple of minutes.
When we’re done I shift my weight, trying to figure out what to say before I leave the room. Apologizing for what I’ve put Emil through tonight doesn’t seem like enough, and thanking Rafaela for sticking around seems like too much. I decide brevity is best and simply say good night.
Mom is in the kitchen, refilling her mug of coffee before she goes up to join Saul. She doesn’t smile or frown. She just looks at me.
“I’m sorry.” I look right at her as I say it, as much as I don’t want to. “I know it’s not enough, but I am.”
She takes a sip of coffee, gives a brief nod. “I know.”
“Should I go talk to Saul?”
“I think you should try to get some rest. He’s not going to be up for talking much right now.”
I remember the way he silently passed me on the stairs.
“Come here.” She sets her mug on the counter next to the sandwiches nobody ate.
I walk across the room until I’m standing in front of her. Up close I see all the emotions her eyes convey, none of which I like: sadness, irritation, and a little bit of fear.
“I’m very unhappy with you for not telling us about Lionel,” she says evenly. “It was beyond irresponsible and foolish. You know better than to keep something like that from us. Your brother’s mental health is nothing to play around with, and I thought you understood that.”
I feel tears rising up, but I know I don’t deserve sympathy or even the release that comes with those tears, so I hold them in. Blink and blink and blink so they won’t come.
“But you are not responsible for your brother, and we never expected you to be. This isn’t your fault.” She takes my cold hands in her warm ones and holds them. “I love you, okay? No matter what happens, I love you, Suz.”
I’m lying in bed, not sleeping, when the door to my room opens.
I look at the clock. Four a.m.
The house is too still for this to be good news, but I’m hopeful. And if it’s not good news, then I at least hope it’s Emil, coming up to say that he doesn’t hate me.
“You live in an actual princess tower,” Rafaela stage-whispers once she’s reached the top of the stairs.
I sit up. “It seemed a lot cooler when I was younger.”