“Good girl,” she says.
I tell her about Mom’s feet disappearing in the bathroom, and a slew of littler things—flickers of changing colors, flashes of trees where they shouldn’t be and construction sites where there should be buildings. I also tell her about Brother Black and Brother Red, and how it was all I could think of after Matt acted like a completely different person at the movie theater, even going so far as to pretend he didn’t know me. Not to mention the terrifying feeling I have that maybe he actually had forgotten me. “I mean, could he have a split-personality disorder or something?”
Alice wobbles her head uncertainly. “Without more information, I couldn’t guess. But, like you said, it could be that Grandmother knows something about Matt, or about your future, events that are going to happen to you. Or the story could be a complete coincidence. We’re getting closer, though. I can feel it.”
Thursday brings my first hypnotherapy session. I’m both nervous and hopeful. I can’t help feeling that if there’s something dark hidden in my past, there’s probably a reason I’ve forgotten it. I guess that’s the point, though. Once I find and face this hidden memory, Alice expects there to be some sort of reaction—the exact kick in the proverbial pants that I need to get Grandmother back. I’ve been sleeping more and more during the day, staying awake all night, waiting for a flash of her face, her wrinkled hands, her gray shawl in the rocking chair, but I’ve had no luck.
When I step into Alice’s office that morning, the first thing I see is Dr. Wolfgang, a white-haired hypnotherapist who’s been living in the area for three decades but still has a German accent so thick he might as well be speaking without using his tongue. Alice seems to catch every syllable, but I have to use context clues as he prepares for the session. When Dr. Wolfgang says something that sounds like “Gerrfansittanonzecurch,” Alice’s eyes flick forcefully toward the leather sofa, and I take the combination to mean “Go sit on the couch.”
I shuffle a bunch of papers aside and plop down. Dr. Wolfgang drags a stool toward me and sits down, leaning over his own belly. His scratchy voice, speaking words I rarely catch, quickly lulls me toward something like sleep, but next thing I know, I’m coming to, feeling like someone just spritzed me with cold water. Alice looks annoyed, and Dr. Wolfgang looks bored.
“How’d I do?” I ask.
“Ve vill hahv to try hotta,” he says. “Zis may take some time.”
Alice says her mantra for the end of our sessions: “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Grandmother or the Universe seems willing to oblige me: On my way home, the clanking in the front of my car reaches new heights, and the gas pedal seems to stop working. I’m lucky to manage to get to the shoulder of the highway, but I’m down in a valley surrounded by scrubby hills and fairly light traffic. I pull my phone out to call my parents, and while I see that I have service, when I press Mom’s name I hear that same infuriating message I got when I called Megan the night of the party. We’re sorry. The number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang up and dial again.
I get out of my car and slam the door, stress mounting so fast a headache starts to spin behind my skull. It’s eighty-five degrees out with ninety percent humidity. I flip open the hood, knowing this will do me exactly no good, then call my dad. “Come on, come on, come on.”
“We’re sorry. The number you have dialed is not in serv—” I hang up and run my hands through my hair, weighing my options.
I don’t want to get in a car with a stranger. Under no circumstances will I get into a car with a stranger, no way in hell after seeing that abduction movie.
I can walk up to the next exit, two miles off, or I can flag someone down and try to borrow a working phone. I turn back to the road and wave my arms at a truck coming my way.
The driver pulls off onto the gravelly shoulder right behind the Jeep, and my stomach drops to the ground as Beau opens his door and gets out.
The Universe has to be kidding me right now.
“Hi,” he says, smiling. It’s the same smile he gave me that night in the band room, all night on the football field, and I don’t understand why he thinks it’s okay to smile at me like that after ignoring my phone number for three weeks.
He shouldn’t be making my heart speed up. He shouldn’t be looking at me like he wants to kiss me, because if he’s wanted to, he would have called me.
“Can I borrow your phone?” I shout over to him. “I mean, I assume you still have a phone, right? I need to call my parents to come get me.”
He leaves the truck door open and comes over to me, looking me up and down before turning his eyes to the open hood. “You want me to take a look at it?”
“No thanks,” I say. “I just want to call my parents.”