I don’t know if Ryan will ever text me again after how I left things when he dropped me off. I don’t even know if Iwanthim to text me… but I have other friends I could ask.
“Uh, sure. Okay. I’ll probably ask Nora next time I see her.” I smile to myself, imagining her in the mandatory black pants and white button-down, serving the public, carrying a tray full of plates and pouring glasses of red wine. It could actually be really fun.
“Great, and I already recruited Savannah and Rory. I called their moms this morning,” Mom says, and I deflate a little.
“Oh, uhh…” I try to imagine them hanging out with Nora, but I can’t.
“What? Did something happen between you three?” she asks.
“I don’t know. Not really, I guess. It just… feels like I’m growing apart from them,” I tell her, leaning against the counter. She turns the burner off under her sauce and comes to stand beside me.
“How so?” she asks.
I can’t very well tell her about Truck Night, because she thinks I went out to see a movie with them, but it really isn’t just that night.
“Things just don’t feel like they used to. They’re just… different. We’re different. We used to just be able to hang out at each other’s houses and eat snacks and watch movies and stayup late, and that was enough. But now… well, they just like to spend their time in ways that I don’t, really. And they don’t seem to care what I want or how I feel,” I tell her.
“Maybe it’s just part of this adjustment period, you know?”
“Maybe. But it feels like it was already happening before. I just wonder when it started, and how. I wonder about a lot of things, still,” I admit. I’ve tried so hard not to want to know any more, but it’s impossible. I wonder what it was I used to feel with Ryan. I wonder what happened between my mom and me. And I wonder why all of a sudden, it feels very much like Nora, the person I thought was a clean slate, might be hiding something from me too. Whatwasthat at the meat shop today? She had something important to tell me and then she just completely shut down.
“Sweetheart, remember, whatever you’re wondering is in the past. Just be thankful for a second chance with them. Move forward,” she says, as if that’s all there is to it. I feel a flash of annoyance at her. I don’t want to, but I can’t help it. Whatever happened between the two of us might have been my fault, but why is she assuming this thing with Savannah and Rory is too? Like I’m the only one who needs to do things differently.
“Do you want me to make you up a plate before I take some over to your dad?” she asks.
“I think I’ll eat a little later.”
“Okay. Well, maybe I’ll make up two containers so I can eat with your dad, then.”
“That’s a good idea,” I say, standing up. “I’m going to run up and take a shower, so I’ll see you tonight.”
I go upstairs to my room as my mom’s voice calls out behind me, “There’s something for you on the bed!”
I turn into my room, curious, and find… a Bower campus magazine, the cover featuring a group of students in navy-blue sweatshirts and matching beanies. Either those are natural smiles or they hired some grade-A models. I guess it doesn’t look like theworstplace for me to spend a year or so.
I toss it aside for now, though, my mind set on something else as I look around my room,myspace. There has to besomethingin here that could help me make sense of some of the questions I can’t get out of my head.
I can’t just move on. There is no moving on from this. I need to figure out the missing pieces of this puzzle and how they’re all connected.
I watch through the window as my mom pulls out of the driveway, then I get to work. I start again with my computer, hoping there’s something I missed that might make sense now. I comb through every one of my social media profiles, then move on to my email, then I open each file I have saved on my laptop.
Still nothing. There’s absolutely nothing here.
I rifle through my closet, digging to the bottom of each drawer and opening every box along my top shelf, but all I find are clothes and shoes and all the framed family photos that used to line the top of my desk. I clean out all the dirty clothes that got shoved under my bed. I open every drawer and fan through every book on my desk, but again, there’s nothing of any new value to me. It’s almost… too empty. Where are my mementos? Where are the things I’ve wanted to keep from my high school years? Where did I putanythingthat’s personal to me? I’m an eighteen-year-old girl; surely I havesomethinghidden around here that was just for me and no one else.
But the only thing that even sort of stands out is the little orange-and-black rock that matches the one I picked out of the grass at the farm that day. I let out a sigh, pick it up, and toss it up in the air over and over, catching it in my hand as I look around my room for more potential hiding places.
Why do I have this? Does it connect to why I was at the farm?
On the next toss the rock slips through my fingers and lands on the floor by the wall. As I bend over to pick it up, I notice that all four screws on the AC vent are stripped down to nothing.Odd.
I grab the pocketknife from the ring toss off my desk and use it to loosen each one until the vent falls onto the floor and…
What the fuck is that?
An orange Nike shoe box inside the duct sends my heart hammering in my chest.
I reach in and slide it out. The corners and hinges are so worn that it’s been taped back together in several places, the brown cardboard showing through the orange outer coating on the sides.
