“We missed you, too, sport,” Eddie said, kissing me on the top of the head. “And we would’ve been here sooner, but we were cut off by some jackass in a Lexus in the parking lot.”
Mom said, “Now, dear, it’s fine.Youweren’t looking at the road, either.”
“How could he miss the RV? It’s huge!”
“Yes, yes, dear. It’s very big.”
I wondered if that jackass with a Lexus was a certain blond-haired Hale, but just as I went to ask, I caught sight of Juliette coming down the Lily Walk from the party, looking more frazzled than anything. I excused myself from my parents for a moment, and met her a few feet away. “Is something wrong, Jules?”
“Everything! Nothing! I don’t know. I feel like I’m missing something, and theonetime I want Oliver, he’s, like, vanished! I can’t find him anywhere.”
“I thought he’d be with Eula,” I said.
She agreed. “I thought so, too, but she hasn’t seen him today, either. I’m worried.”
A thought occurred to me, and I turned back to Eddie. “Do you remember what the guy who cut you off looked like?”
Eddie puffed up. “Yeah! Blond and kinda scrawny, why?”
Juliette asked, “Did he have, like, arevoltinglyhandsome face?”
“Yeah! That’s the jackass!”
Mom added, “You know, I saw him a few minutes ago, too, heading off that way with a tall redheaded man.” She motioned down the path toward the Central Garden. “He lookedverycharming—the redhead,” she said. “There are so many nice-looking men here, sprout.”
I knew what she was getting at, and I absolutely ignored it because the only part of that sentence that I cared about was—“They went off into the gardens?”
“Yes, why?”
Oh—ohno. “Oliver,” I groaned, and told Juliette I’d tell him that she was looking for him if she’d escort my parents to the party, and hurried in the direction Mom had pointed. It felt like I would spend all my life chasing after Cyrus Beck.
I rounded the path into the Central Garden, but he and Oliver were already gone. I ran through the Wildflower Garden and the Rose Court—I even peeked through the secret tunnel to the greenhouse—but they had vanished, so I looked the last place I could think of:
The Hedges.
After two wrong turns, I found Oliver sitting on a bench. It was the same corner I’d found myself in all those years ago, across from a bust of William Shakespeare. Breathless and desperate, I grabbed Oliver by the shoulders. “Where is he?”
He gave me a tired look. “Who?”
“Rus! Where did he go?”
He shrugged me off. “I don’tknow, okay?” He clenched his teeth in aggravation. “I don’tcare. I thought he was going to actually talk to me. Say ‘Hey, man, how’s it been?’ But he just doesn’t fuckingcare. Seems like he’ll trap me here forever if he gets his way. And he always does,” he added darkly.
Dread coiled tightly in my belly, hurting. I was going to be sick.
I stepped away from him.
I could still find Rus, I told myself.
Iwould.
Leaving Oliver there on the bench, I met every dead end in the Hedges. I didn’t give up, I never gave up, even when I probably should have. Even when I should have gone home. Even when the nurses told me to in that waiting room, as I watched the clock tick, tick, tick, waiting for the inevitable.
I held on to the hope that—thatmaybe—
I wouldn’t give up.
“Think,” I whispered. “Think.”
