17 & Gone (41 page)

All I can see on her face is that any

possible thing in the world could happen

to her—her fate is completely unwritten.

That’s not me being psychic; that’s me

being kind and not corrupting her with

what I know.

There’s another knock on the door,

and then he’s here. He seems surprised

to find Rain in my room with me, also

disappointed he hasn’t found me alone.

But he still comes in; he still leans up

against the wall beside the bed.

There’s a difference in what Rain

believes about me, and what Jamie

believes. Rain
wants
to believe any

wild thing to the point that I could tell

her there is, right this very moment, a

shrunken shadow crawling on the ceiling

directly over her head, about to bound

down to her shoulders, about to come

and curse her future, and she’d believe it

because she wants to believe. But she

only wants the horror-movie shiver, so

delicious because it can be turned off

when the lights go up and the movie’s

over.

Jamie believes that
I
believe, and

that’s all that matters to him. He knows

what the doctors have said; my mom told

him. Besides, I can tell by the way he

looks at me sometimes, the unsaid

diagnosis scuttling beneath his lips. How

terrifying that must be for him, to not

know for sure what’s happening to me

yet.

“Oh hi, Jamie,” Rain says, blushing.

“I should go.”

She slips out and pulls the door

closed with her, so now it’s just Jamie

and me.

He edges closer until he’s beside the

bed. I move my book so he can climb up,

and he does, leaning against the pillows

propped up behind me so our shoulders

touch. “So glad you’re home,” he says.

He takes my bad arm and holds my hand.

“Me too,” is all I say. I don’t

apologize again about the arson charges;

he’s told me to stop bringing it up. I

don’t say how even though I’m home

from the hospital, that doesn’t mean I’m

cured. Because I’ll never be the way I

was before, and there’s a reason I know

this, there’s a reason I hold it like a

whisper in my ear, hearing it again and

again, even when I tell myself not to

listen. There’s a reason.

“How’re you feeling?” he asks, his

fingers laced in my fingers, his wrist

against my bad wrist.

“Tired,” I say. “It’s the meds. I don’t

know if they’re helping, except that they

make me tired. So tired I can’t even read

this book.”

He sits up straighter. “They’re

helping,”

he

says.

“They’re

not

helping?”

“Sure. They’ve helped a lot.” I turn to

the window.

“What’s out there?” he asks. “What

are you looking at?” Whenever I look at

anything, anything at all, he’s going to

ask me what I’m seeing. I need to get

used to it.

“Just that tree,” I say. And I
am
gazing

at the tree I have no memory of standing

so close to my house in the backyard, the

tree brushing its branches against my

window. How is it I never realized a

tree was right beside my bedroom

before? A whole tree?

I don’t want to say what else I’m

seeing.

“Did you find out about any others?” I

ask, changing the subject.

He hesitates. “You sure you want to

know?”

“Always.”

Jamie’s been helping me. My mom

keeps track of what sites I visit on the

computer, but he understands my need to

know what happened to them.

“Shyann Johnston,” he says, pulling a

printout from his backpack to show me.

“She made it home. See?”

I take in a breath, holding my mind

very still in fear of its reaction, as I read

the story he’s printed out about her.

Apparently she won a prize at the

senior-class science fair, and this is

dated just last month, which means she

couldn’t have frozen to death in a vacant

lot in Newark, she couldn’t have died.

It’s always a beautiful thing when a girl I

thought had found a tragic end turns out

to still be alive. I feel choked up about

it, in my throat, and I hold my hands

there, hovering, letting the relief sink in.

I felt the same when I learned about

Yoon-mi Hyun and Maura Morris, who

ran away to Canada and did make it up

there together before they got sent home.

Some girls don’t have such good ends.

Hailey Pippering’s remains were found

in a landfill during the time I was in the

hospital. And Kendra Howard was

pronounced deceased even though she

hasn’t washed ashore yet. The lake is

deep, and town officials say they may

never find her body.

Whenever I learn a bad thing about

one of the girls, it breaks me up some

more. Which might be why Jamie usually

only brings me the good stories, the

happy ends.

Besides, I won’t need his help soon.

I’ll have private access to a computer

again, and I’ll be able to take up the

searching. I’ll keep checking, with or

without him.

Silently, to myself, I’ve vowed to

check up on all the girls. Whether we

had a true connection or not doesn’t

much matter to me. These are real girls.

They’re important. The runaways, too,

even if the police don’t act like it. Even

if the girls’ families don’t care and don’t

go looking, I vow to. These girls matter.

I need to know what happened to every

last one of them.

“Thank you,” I tell Jamie. Knowing

about Shyann has lifted my spirits a

little, and I find myself turning to the

window again, almost smiling.

Jamie’s eyes follow mine, but he says

nothing. It’s best if he doesn’t ask what

I’m seeing out that window or what I’m

thinking.

Because I’m thinking how I know

what’s going to happen. I couldn’t see

Shyann’s true fate, not in the real world,

but mine is another story.

The therapist will stop asking me

questions about the lost girls, and I’ll

stop bringing them up. It’s safer that

way. Because even though the pills I

swallow have taken the girls from me,

it’s not like I’m alone. Not entirely.

There’s one girl who’s always here

and always will be. Even through the

Brillo Pad walls the meds create in my

mind—through which I can sometimes

only see her in the space of the tiniest,

fuzziest pinhole—she’s here. She stays

with me because she never felt at home

in that house next door.

We’ll grow up together, though Fiona

Burke will stay perpetually 17, with the

red dye never inching out of her dark

roots, the
FU
never fading from her

frayed jeans. She’ll wear the scowl she

always has; her mouth has grown into the

shape of it, even though she’s softened

on me and I can make her smile

sometimes.

That’s something I can be sure of. I

can see my life with Fiona cascading on

into the distance, and I’m not so sure

about my life with Jamie. We’re back

together, but I don’t know how long he’ll

end up staying.

Fiona will stay. She’ll be with me on

my first day back to school next week,

and she’ll keep me company during

summer school so I don’t have to repeat

the eleventh grade. Sometimes she’ll

whisper the wrong answers to me during

trig tests, but mostly she’ll sleep through

class, as she did when she was a student.

If there were a way to sever the

invisible ball-and-chain that connects

her to me, and me to her, she’d be the

first one there with the chain saw.

Fiona Burke will continue to be with

me next year. Hers will be the first face

I’ll see on the morning of my eighteenth

birthday, before I even look in the mirror

to confirm I can still see my own. She

won’t make a big deal of it, even though

my mom will bake up my favorite box-

mix cake and bring out the balloons. But

Fiona will be happy for me, to know I

survived. I’ll catch her staring at me, not

only with jealousy, because she knows

she’ll always have a place at the table

with me, even if my mom doesn’t see her

in the third chair and doesn’t set out an

extra piece of cake.

Fiona will join me at prom, meeting

me in the bathroom when I go in to touch

up my eyeliner, and she’ll try and fail to

keep quiet when Jamie tries to slow

dance with me after spilling the spiked

punch all over his rented tux.

She’ll be in the back row during my

graduation ceremony; when I cross the

stage she’ll be one among many who

will cheer my name.

We’ll spend years together, Fiona and

I, like childhood friends who grow old

side by side. Some might say that means

I’ll spend my life being haunted. Or that

I won’t ever be better because of her.

Either way, whatever the explanation, I

know I’ll forever hear her voice

thrumming through my head.

Still, I can’t blame her for staying

with me. She doesn’t have a life of her

own anymore; the only way she can live

is to walk alongside mine.

There will come a day, decades from

now, when I’m again in a bed much like

this one. I might have cancer, I might be

lucky and simply be dying of old age, I

can’t know that part of my fate yet. What

I do know is that I won’t be alone for it.

I’ll look across the room and there

will be the 17-year-old girl I’ve known

all my life. Not a wrinkle or a mark of

age on her. She’ll want to jump on the

bed. She’ll want to poke the home-care

aide with her needle and eat all my Jell-

O before I can get to it. She’ll simply be

trying to lift my mood before I go.

Because Fiona Burke will never grow

up and she won’t want me to, either.

This is what I don’t tell Jamie. He’s

looking out the window right now, and

he doesn’t even see her.

She heaves a sigh, stretches out her

arms, and cracks her knuckles, then

balances on the branch of the oak tree to

climb inside the room. She eyes the two

of us sitting on the bed together and stays

perched on the windowsill, not willing

to get any closer.

You’re not going to do it while I’m

here watching, are you?
Fiona says.

I feel my cheeks go hot and shake my

head.

Can’t we go out somewhere and have

some fun or something? God! I’m so

bored. You were in that hospital so

long, I thought I’d go INSANE,
she

says. She giggles a bit at the last word.

She enjoys using it around me.

“You sure you’re all right?” Jamie

says. “Do you want to get out of here, go

for a walk or something? Get a coffee?

Take a drive?”

“Maybe later,” I answer them both.

Fiona sighs again, loudly, letting me

know her deep discontent, but Jamie

leans forward and brushes my hair from

my face, and by the way he’s sitting, his

shoulders are blocking the view of Fiona

at the windowsill. “Hey,” he says, “we

don’t have to go anywhere. We can stay

right here.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Okay. Let’s do that.”

The vanity mirror over my dresser

reflects this scene back to me:

Jamie with his arm over my shoulders

and his other hand keeping ahold of my

hand. A lock of curly hair drops forward

into his face like he can’t ever stop it

from doing. Beside him is a girl with

choppy, dark hair with lighter roots

growing in, and her eyes are wide open,

and her cheeks are a little hollow,

though there’ll be couscous for dinner

later and she’ll eat two plates. She’s

wearing black and gray, like she does

most days, and the room she’s in is

brightly lit by the sun streaming through