Instead of heading straight home after Coffee Et Cetera, I go inside the library, three blocks down, because I know they have a one-person bathroom, and I know where to find the key. I grab it from the basket on the circulation desk, keeping my head low. Then I lock myself in the bathroom, so it’s just me, among four white walls, under a stark-white ceiling, standing on a gray-and white-flecked floor, with no windows to look out. And, better still, no windows to look in.
I breathe here—or at least I try to catch my breath, to will the binds in my chest to release, to slow the palpitating of my heart. But I feel so out of control—like a car skidding across ice. Relief would be a crash.
But I don’t crash.
I never crash.
There’s just a perpetual sense of dread, a constant bracing for the worst.
I lift the lid off the toilet tank and pluck out the rod inside—for no good reason other than I know how to do it, and I know where it is.
The rod gripped in my palm, I scrunch down in the corner with my cheek pressed against the tile and imagine Mason’s knock, knock-knock, tap, thud, wishing he were here, wanting to feel his hands, dying to hear his voice. I grind the end of the toilet rod into my thigh, but I don’t break skin. Maybe there’s nothing left to tear.
I’m not sure how long I stay, but after too many knocks that aren’t Mason’s, I return the toilet rod inside the tank and head back home.
Shelley’s car is parked out front when I get there. Sitting on the walkway steps, she stands when she spots me.
“Is everything okay?” I ask once I get up close.
“I forgot to show you something.” She hikes up her sleeve, revealing the sterling silver bracelet I bought for her birthday. The amethyst crystals glimmer on her wrist. The star charm dangles toward her thumb.
“You got it,” I say, feeling my skin flash hot.
Norma must’ve found it on the counter at the store. Is that where I left it? Did I even have a chance to grab it from behind the register?
“I’ve never taken it off,” she says, pinching the star between her fingers. “From the moment I unwrapped it, this bracelet was the one thing that kept me going.”
She obviously expects the idea of that to bring us closer, but instead it tears me apart, because as selfish as it may sound, I never want to see that bracelet again.
I take a step back, trying to get a grip, and that’s when I notice. She’s holding the gift bag too—the one I’d carefully chosen, with the words Happy Birthday printed in big loopy letters. The sparkly purple tissue paper sticks out at the top. The ribbon still has its curl.
I clasp my hand over my mouth, remembering using the blade of a pair of scissors to make the individual tendrils.
“Here,” Shelley says, handing me the gift bag; the card I picked is nestled inside it.
“You want me to have the packaging?”
She’s shaking her head. Her eyes focus downward. A mascara-stained tear drizzles down her cheek. “I don’t know what else to do,” she mutters before turning away and heading back to her car.
I close the door behind her and try to breathe at a normal rate. My head feels woozy. I can’t stop shaking.
It isn’t until hours later, in the safety of my closet, with a box of tissues in my lap, that I’m able to slide the card from the envelope. The pink metallic star sparkles against the glittery black background. I open the card up. My handwriting startles me—the slanted letters, the way I like to capitalize at random. It almost looks as though I wrote the note just yesterday.
I read the words, able to feel each one in the hollow of my heart, and at last the answer becomes clear: why Shelley wants me to have this. She wants me to be reminded of how I felt about her on the day that I was taken.
The day I can never get back.