“You know better than to keep a secret like that,” Alex said sharply.
Greyson kept her eyes on the table.
I felt a twinge of sympathy for her. She’d only done what Mia and Kitty had asked. Greyson and Mia were only a few years closer in age than me and Beth. At thirteen, I would’ve done anything Beth asked of me. I groaned at the thought of her. “What am I supposed to tell my sister?”
“You haven’t called her yet?” Alex said.
I shook my head, then looked up at him. “Maybe she already knows. Maybe she knows where they are.” I walked into the living room, hands shaking as I called her.
“Beth,” I said, relieved she’d picked up. “Have you—”
“I was just about to call you,” she said.
“So you’ve heard from the girls?”
“Mia texted me a few minutes ago.”
I was so relieved I thought I’d swoon onto the floor, like Kitty had last night. “Do you know where they are? They left a note but didn’t say.”
“Look.” Beth’s tone was as angry as it had been the day the girls had arrived and she thought I’d abandoned them at the airport. “They’re safe at a hotel. They booked flights home for tomorrow morning. I don’t know how they did all this or what happened between the three of you, but they made me promise not to tell you which hotel they’re at.”
“Beth, I didn’t mean for—”
“I shouldn’t have sent them. It was too much, too soon.” Too much for them or for me? I didn’t want to know. “They’re fine. No one’s hurt. They promised not to leave the hotel and will go directly to the airport.”
“I can explain—”
“I can’t talk about this right now,” she said. “I’ll text you when they get here.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, but Beth had already hung up.
“Your sister’s heard from them?” Alex said when I took my seat at the table again. “What did she say?”
“They’re at a hotel.” The icing on my untouched slice of lemon cake had melted, making a sticky puddle on the plate. I thought of Kitty, who loved lemon everything—lemonade, Lemonheads, the lemon-flavored Girl Scout cookies—she would’ve devoured it whole. “They made her promise not to tell me which one, but they’re safe. They have flights home in the morning.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex said.
I shook my head. How could he feel sorry for me about anything after what I’d said to him that morning? “It’s my fault.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“No, it is. You didn’t hear what I said to them after you left. I went too far.”
“How can we help?”
What was there to help with? They’d left, and it was my fault. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do.”
I stood to go, and Alex walked me to the door. We lingered awkwardly on either side of the threshold, our fight from the morning hanging between us.
He drummed his fingers along the doorframe. “You’ll tell me if you need anything?” he said. “If you hear from them?”
“Yeah, I will,” I said. I avoided looking him in the eye. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, but what could I say that would be enough? My words had already hurt him. And so I left, crossing the parking lot to my empty condo, where three pints of melted ice cream were waiting for me.
—
I was half-asleep on the couch when a knock on my door roused me. I sat up, disoriented when I realized it was dark outside. As soon as I’d come back from Alex’s, I fell onto the couch and watched episode after episode ofMy Super Sweet 16.
Mia and Kitty.I moved the blinds aside but didn’t see the girls or their oversized suitcases. Instead, there was Greyson, still wearing Mia’s tie-dyed hoodie, though it was over eighty degrees out. Greyson perked her head up when I opened the door, and I felt a surge of hope. Maybe she’d heard from them.
