“Just tell me—who’s after you?” I ask when she moves to the door.
She stops with her hand on the knob, and even though I can’t see her face, I know her eyes are squeezed shut when she answers. “Whatever happens, please remember I love you.”
Mom doesn’t call.
The first day, I tell myself there are a lot of things that might have delayed her. Maybe she had car trouble. Maybe she lost her phone or the battery died. Maybe whatever she’s doing is taking longer than she thought.
Maybe a million things that don’t mean anything is wrong.
But also, maybe she’s hurt.
Maybe they found her.
Maybe they killed her.
I don’t sleep.
The second day, I don’t do as good a job lying to myself. Mom should have called. Whatever else she’s hidden from me, her love isn’t one of them. She wouldn’t leave me like this, alone for days, unless she had no choice.
Because she was hurt.
Because they found her.
Because they killed her.
I chew all ten of my fingernails to the quick. I don’t stop even when they bleed.
I huddle on the corner of the bed and rock.
In the middle of the night, I take the cell phone apart. I haven’t slept in two days, and the idea of action, any action, is too hard to ignore. There must be a defect or something that won’t let her call get to me. It’s a delusion, but I cling to it fiercely until I’m surrounded by electronic wreckage and my cheeks are stained with tears.
It’s been three days since I’ve seen or spoken to another livingsoul.
Three days.
I spend most of the day reassembling the cell phone, because why did I think I could take it apart and put it back together again like that? When I’m left with a phone that looks more or less the way it started, I turn it on. The display lights up with a welcome chime, and I want to hurl it against the wall.
Instead, I break Mom’s first rule: I leave the motel room. I don’t go far, but every step makes me feel like I’m in the crosshairs of a dozen enemies. Still, exhaustion mutes my panic, and I have no other choice. I have to know.
There’s a decrepit-looking pay phone fifty feet away—less, even—but it takes an eternity to reach it. Then several more eternities as I feed it change and dial the number for my cell. And when it rings loud and clear across the parking lot, no connection problems whatsoever, my knees give out.
I’m kneeling on the asphalt with my arm hanging from the cord of the phone above me when I realize:
I’m alone.
The walls seem to flee from me the second I step back inside, withdrawing the semblance of safety I’d felt from them when I still believed Mom would return.
Something happened, full stop. I refuse to let my brain hurl itself farther than that one fact. Mom had to change her plans, which means I have to change mine.
The cell phone is in my hand again, and I’ve half dialed Regina’s number before the muscles in my forearm seize up, stopping me. We were both scheduled at the café that afternoon, and it’s just after three, which means she’ll have worked up the courage to squeak a single “hi” to Evan, the new busboy, before dashing off without giving him a chance to respond. I’d bet money on her being in the third bathroom stall from the right at that exact moment, systematically shredding a single square of toilet paper while wishing I was there to give her the report about which side of his mouth had smiled higher in response and whether he’d looked disappointed or relieved that she’d run off.
He was disappointed—always disappointed—and I was so close to getting her to stand still for more than a second so he could say hi back.
Instead, I wasn’t there. I never showed up or even called. The disposable cell phone in my hand turned heavy. My phone, the one I’d been forced to leave, along with more of my life than I’d even realized, was no doubt flooded with texts and missed calls from her and Carmel.
Aiden.
I was supposed to meet him two days ago.
