I double-check that my mom’s car is still gone as I place it on my bed. Whatever is in here, I certainly didn’t want anyone to find it.
I reach for the lid but draw my hand back, too nervous to find out what’s inside.
This box.
This tiny little shoe box could be holdingallthe answers to every question I’ve been asking. But what if I don’t like them?
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, reaching for the lid again.
Please, God. Please. Please. Please.
Slowly I flip the lid back on its hinges, revealing…
Well… I’m not really sure.
It’s a whole pile of all kinds of stuff. Papers and photos and other random things that I’ve never seen before.
Is all this stuff mine?
I pull out a yellow hair tie from the top, slipping it over my wrist before lifting up a pink Instax camera to reveal a popcorn bag underneath it, a Central Catholic football ticket, and a paperback book with a pressed violet between the pages. None of it means anything to me.
“What is all this shit?” I whisper to myself.And why did I keep it hidden away?
Underneath the book, though, I find a whole pile of small rectangular photographs.
The first one I flip up is a photo of me, surrounded by trees, a handful of wildflowers clutched in my hand. I’m about to flip to the next one, when I look more closely—the tall grass and those trees… I guess itcouldbe a lot of places in Wyatt.
But… it could also be the woods on the Martin farm.
I slide it up to reveal the next one. A side-profile silhouette of a girl looking over her shoulder at the camera. I hold it closer, the smooth line of her nose feeling familiar, but the lighting is too dark to make out any features.
I flip again to the next one, and at first I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking at, but there’s a lump in my throat that I can’t seem to swallow.
I hold it closer, inspecting the blurry face in the corner of the photo.
Dirty-blond hair.
Freckled cheeks.
My palms break out in a nervous sweat.
I shuffle through the next few photos, holding my breath the whole time, my vision shaking.
Nora standing in the middle of two yellow lines running down a street, Pittsburgh’s skyscrapers illuminating the background.
Nora swimming, greenery filling the space behind her, her bare shoulders peeking just above the waterline.
Nora sitting on the hood ofmyVolvo next to a plastic Sheetz bag filled with Doritos and pop.
Nora. Nora. Nora.
I put the stack down for a second, letting my breath out, my head aching for oxygen.
We werefriends.
She’s been lying to me this whole time.
Why would she lie to me?
