She could hear her mother upstairs, pacing around. They hadn’t spoken in days. Zoe still felt angry and hurt, but she missed her mom. She felt disconnected from the world, like she was floating in space without a tether. The fact that X was gone made it worse. Zoe listened as the ceiling creaked under her mother’s step. Every sound made her feel lonelier.
Zoe was going caving because Jonah needed her to—why couldn’t her mom understand that? Did she think she was only doing it to cause trouble? Or because she needed a distraction while she waited for X? Jonah was still in too much pain to step outside the house. He was waiting for Zoe or the police to make it to the bottom of Black Teardrop. He’d become pale and weepy. He gnawed endlessly at his fingers. Every weekday morning, Rufus rumbled up in the truck with the waving bear, but even he—with his vast repertoire of silliness—couldn’t cheer the kid up. When Rufus and Jonah played hide-and-seek, Jonah hid in the old freezer in the basement like he used to with their dad, but even that seemed to upset him. Rufus refused to take any money for caring for him. At first, Zoe assumed this was all part of his one-mile-per-hour courtship of her mother. Then, one afternoon, she saw Rufus holding her brother’s hand and delicately clipping his tiny fingernails—and she realized that he actually just cared about Jonah. That was the day Zoe decided the guy was a saint.
Tonight, before Jonah went to bed, Zoe had dictated some extra supplies she’d need, and—in a rare burst of energy—he’d written it as best he could in a spiral notebook.
Zoe went over the list one more time:
H2O
Proteen bars, 3?
Hair ties for tYing hair
Raisens
Flashlights, 2
Swis ArmY Knife
Battories
Wool socks reallY thick ones
Dish-washing gloves (WIERD!)
Knee pads for knees
Garbig bag for poncho, just in case!
Everything was stuffed into packs now. Zoe let the paper float to the floor. There was nothing left to do but somehow make it to morning.
She was still awake at 2 a.m. She forced herself off the couch. She went to the front hall closet—why hadn’t she thought of it before?—and took out X’s blue overcoat. It shimmered even in the muted light of the hallway. The metal hangers made a tingling sound when they touched.
Zoe pressed her face to the coat. It smelled of wood smoke, pine, and the faint tang of sweat. The memory of colliding with X on the lake, of feeling his body collapse beneath her, of breathing him in for the first time, flooded over her. She squeezed the coat hard, as if he were in it. Dallas was cute. He had a sweet, lopsided grin, but X … X was kind of astounding. Zoe rubbed one of the buttons on the coat. It was made of stone. It warmed in her hand.
She carried the coat to the couch and huddled under it. X was five or six inches taller than Zoe, so the coat engulfed her, cascaded over her, made her feel certain and safe. She imagined X finally returning. She imagined him walking up the steps. He would be too nervous to look at her at first. She would say … What would she say?
She would say, You forgot your coat.
At 3 a.m., she decided to write X a letter, even though she had no way to deliver it and he didn’t know how to read. The pen with the beaded chain that Jonah had taken from the bank lay on the coffee table. She picked it up. She took the supply list off the floor, turned it over, and pressed it against her knee. She didn’t care that X would never see the letter. She just wanted, just needed, to capture some of the thoughts flying in circles in her head.
She wrote without pausing until she’d filled the page. At 3:15, she folded the letter and slipped it into a pocket of X’s coat as if it were some kind of supernatural mail slot. She fell asleep within seconds. The stolen pen was still in her hand. The coat flowed over her like warm water.
At 8:58, Zoe woke to the sound of Dallas blasting his horn. He was two minutes early and, since she had last been in his car, he’d apparently customized the horn to play the first five notes of The Simpsons theme song. Zoe stumbled to the kitchen window. She made a slashing motion across her throat (Stop honking!), spread the fingers on her right hand (I need five minutes!), and then repeated the slashing gesture (Seriously, honk again and you die!). She was exhausted. Her neck ached from sleeping on the couch. She was in no condition to go caving. Adrenaline was going to have to get her through the day.
Upstairs, she pulled on her wet suit and, over that, as many layers as she could handle without walking like a mummy. She did a quick check of her backpack and the duffel bag that held her gear. All good. On the way down the hall, she peeked into Jonah’s room, hoping he’d be awake so she could hug his toasty little body before she left. He was deeply asleep, though—flushed pink and 20,000 leagues under the sea.
Downstairs, her mother hovered like a ghost in the kitchen. She was at the counter, stirring tea.
“I’m going,” said Zoe.
Her mother didn’t answer. Didn’t even turn.
Zoe didn’t want to leave like this.
She could hear Dallas outside, blasting a Kendrick Lamar rap in his 4Runner.
“I’ll be careful,” she said.