17 & Gone (28 page)

maybe I was. It was just that there were

so many, and my head had been crowded

up with them, like a smoky, dim room at

this party, except my head was filled

with girls. And also with myself—

because I was a girl, too. I was 17 and

maybe in danger, just like they were.

A flicker of shadowy movement

caused me to look toward the woods.

And there she was, the dark shape of her

at least, shaking her head no.

“No?” I said aloud.

Luke said something I didn’t catch,

and a voice in my head said,
It wasn’t

him.

“Are you sure?” I asked to the trees.

Yes,
she answered sadly.
Not him.

Not him.

She meant he hadn’t hurt her, not that I

ever really thought he did—besides how

she’d gotten her heart broken. Hearing

her made me know they were outside

with me now. All of them.

I could see a girl. Then two more

girls. Then another. Another. Girls I

recognized, and some girls I didn’t.

There were so many girls I had yet to

meet.

The lost girls’ eyes glowed, fire-lit,

from the sweep of pine trees nearby.

How far were we from where Abby

went missing? It was close, I realized.

So close.

If Luke could see them there, he’d be

scared the way I should have been

scared. I squinted and tried to picture the

girls as he would: the one girl with the

glittering shards of broken windshield

encrusted into her cheeks; the girl with

the frost-blue lips; the girl soaked

through her clothes, dripping from an

absent rain. Then the two girls melded

together as if their bodies met in the

most intimate tissue- and sinew-filled

spaces that Siamese twins share,

shoulder muscle growing into lungs and

liver, their sides fused hip to hip.

These two girls were motioning to get

my attention, waving at me to stop,

waving at me to get away from him, to

get in my van and get away. I should

have listened, but what struck me was

how it looked like they had three hands.

Two individual hands of their own, and

the third hand, the one they shared, far

larger than the other two.

“What are you looking at? What’s

over there?” Luke asked.

“Nobody,” I said.

“Aren’t you happy to see me? You

sure seemed to be two minutes ago.”

“Yeah, right.” But I didn’t bother

arguing. I heard what the girls were

trying to tell me, and I was feeling

around in my pockets. The pockets of my

cargo pants—there were many—and my

coat pockets, too, inside and outside,

every last one. Then I was down on my

knees, there at Luke’s feet, searching the

snow to see if I’d dropped them when I

passed out. I was drunk, probably, and I

was seeing ghosts, definitely, and now to

top it all off I’d lost my van keys.

With my movement, the motion sensor

made the back porch light flick on. It

spotlit us, beaming down on the crown

of my head.

Luke laughed again, and I realized

how this looked to him, where I had

myself positioned on the ground, with

such easy access to his zipper. “You’re

something else, aren’t you?” he said. I

had absolutely no idea what Abby saw

—sees, even still—in the guy, why she

got so intoxicated by him and took off in

the middle of the night on her bike to see

him and let him stomp on her heart.

But then I wasn’t looking up at him

anymore. The side door of the house had

come open, and the person standing there

let go of the door and let it swing closed.

When it slammed, Luke turned toward

it, too.

“Hey, man,” Luke said, all nonchalant,

when he saw it was Jamie. “What’s up?”

This was what the two girls had been

trying to warn me about. Now I knew.

Nobody wanted Jamie to get the wrong

idea.

“I was looking for you,” Jamie said—

to me, not to Luke. His voice was flat; I

couldn’t decipher any emotion from it.

His hair had fallen over his eyes like it

always did.

“Oh, I’ve got her,” Luke said, a game

in his voice and a hard hand on my arm,

pulling me up to my feet so he could jerk

me closer.

I pushed him away and disentangled

myself, fumbling on clumsy legs but at

least standing on my own without his

help. “He doesn’t,” I told Jamie. “This

wasn’t . . . It’s not, it’s not anything.

What?” I turned fast, in the other

direction. One of the girls was talking to

me, trying to tell me what to say to fix

this, but I couldn’t make out the words

because there was this panic in my chest

and it was cold and there was all the

wind.

“That’s not what she said before,”

Luke said.

I turned around to see Jamie backing

up, away from us. That was it. He was

going to believe that liar over me,

thinking I’d gotten together with this

sleaze so soon after our breakup. He

was watching me with a strained,

strange look on his face. But he didn’t

leave.

Luke cracked up laughing. “I’m

kidding, man. Dude, just kidding. She’s

all yours. I’m going inside for a beer.”

Jamie stepped away from the door

and let him through. But he didn’t join

me in the pool of light, where I was still

standing.

“I . . . that wasn’t what it looked like,”

I told him.

He didn’t say anything.

“I’m only talking to him because she

wants me to.”

“She, who?”

“She . . . oh.” I stopped. I had to quit

saying things out loud. I couldn’t talk

anymore about her or about the others.

Not then, not to him. “Never mind. I’m

not supposed to say.”

He shifted a little, a flinch almost.

Like I’d said something that scared him.

I found myself longing for it. I longed

for the motion sensor to come on in

another part of the yard and show him.

There’d be Abby, moving fast across the

snow with one flip-flop and one bare

foot, but not fast enough. Natalie’s long

hair would hide her face, but a shimmer

of glass would shine through. Shyann

would be concealing herself in the

branches, well-practiced from her days

of living off nature in the vacant lots of

her city. Madison would speak first

before anyone, saying could we hurry it

up already since she had somewhere to

be, and Isabeth would have the most

concern in her eyes, thinking of how it

feels to lose the people you love, so

she’d tell Madison to be quiet. Eden

wouldn’t care about any of this. She’d

just want me to find my keys so we

could go home. Kendra would want to

leap out and go,
Boo!
And Yoon-mi and

Maura would be shaking their heads

because they tried to warn me; they tried

to wave me away.

And the others? It was unbearable to

think of how many girls the dark expanse

of woods could contain.

Then there’d be Fiona Burke herself.

She wasn’t really one of them, but she

was more like them than she was like

me. She was missing, and I was still

here. She was a ghost, and I was alive

for however much longer I was allowed

to be. She’d try to talk me out of him.
We

don’t need him,
she might say.
Walk

away, Lauren. Walk away.

But none of the girls came out, and no

one spoke up from the vacant darkness.

And so Jamie kept on disbelieving me.

So I tried to correct it. “I lost my keys.

It’s just that I lost my keys.” I started

looking again but came up with nothing.

“Fuck it,” Jamie said—to the sky, or

to someone, something I couldn’t see. He

said it while looking upward, as far

away from me as he could. His body

went rigid and I thought he was going to

kick something. Then he let out a long

breath and said, “It’s too cold out for

this shit. C’mon, I’ll take you home.

You’re too drunk to drive yourself

anyway.”

He took my arm. It was the first time

he’d touched me in days and days.

—
43
—

WE
were silent on the drive home. I

was cursing myself for losing my keys,

and Jamie was next to me probably

cursing himself for caving and being

nice to me.

When we got to my place, Jamie

turned to me in my driveway and said,

“You’re freaking me out a little, Lauren.

It’s like you’re this whole other person

all of a sudden. Or else you’re just

trashed. Is that it? Is it that you’re just

really drunk?”

If only that’s all it was. If only I could

sober up and take an aspirin to erase this

tomorrow.

I leaned forward, and this wasn’t

Abby’s memory or any of the other girls’

memories cascading over me—it wasn’t

their wants but mine. I wanted to feel my

lips against his neck, or his neck against

my lips. I wanted to remember for one

small second what there was before the

shadows blotted it all out. I wanted to

know if his mouth still tasted like

cinnamon.

But he pushed me away. “We broke

up,” he said. “Remember?”

For an increment of time in the

darkness of his car, I didn’t. But it

passed and then I did.

“I have to ask you something,” he

said. “It’s about this.”

From his pocket the folded Missing

flyer emerged, and he didn’t have to

open it all the way for me to know

Abby’s face would be on it.

“You left it,” he said. “In my hoodie.”

I nodded. It was still in his hand, and I

absolutely needed to take it back.

“What’s up with this girl Abigail? For

real. Is that why you were with Luke

Castro?”

“Abby,” I corrected him. “But I

wasn’t
with
him. I told you, I dropped

my keys.”

“You don’t really know that girl . . .

Do you?”

I took the folded flyer from his hands

and protected it in mine. “Jamie . . .

what if I told you something and I

couldn’t explain it and you couldn’t ask

me why or how I know or anything?

What if I told you that Abby is here in

the car with us, right now? What if I

could see her sitting in the seat behind

you and she’s waving at me to stop

talking now, but I’m not going to, I’m

going to tell you. What if, Jamie? What if

I told you all that?”

He shut his eyes and held them closed.

At his back, in the seat directly behind

his, Abby Sinclair glared at me. I could

see the dirty reflection of her face in the

rearview mirror even if I didn’t turn

around to be sure.

Finally Jamie spoke. “I’d say you

were really trashed and you should go in

and have a glass of water and go to

bed.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m glad I didn’t tell

you then.”

There was a stunned look on his face

when I slammed the car door and headed

up the walk to go inside.

—
44
—

MY
mom knew I’d been drinking

before I’d even taken off my coat. She

wasn’t going to punish me over it, but

she did remark on it, and she did ask

how I got home and how I was going to

get a spare key for my van if I couldn’t

find the one I lost, and she did comment

that I deserved a hangover if I got one.

She said that last thing with a vindictive

little sparkle in her eye.

It was when she was asking me about

the party, when she was saying

something that required an answer from

my mouth, that the room cracked open

and the voices came out. They weren’t

slivers of whispers like usual. They

didn’t take turns, and they didn’t play

nice. I couldn’t see them, but I could

hear them, closing in on all sides, voices

gone raspy and hoarse from breathing

fire and hoarser still from all the