I’ve been in love with part-imaginary, part-real Cameron for so long it’s hard for me to know which part is which anymore.
I wonder if this happens more to writers than to other people, that we fall in love with characters we make up in our heads. It wouldn’t even be so terrible to fall in love with a purely imaginary person. It’s hardest if you fall in love with someone who is partly imaginary and partly real, and the real part ends up breaking your heart.
He really is a good writer. Those rock formations he made in the creek really were amazing. He really did travel all over the world. He really did write a song Hunter’s band played; it just wasn’t the song I thought it was. The weirdest discovery of this weird evening is that the beautiful song I loved so much was written by my own awful brother.
In a lot of ways, Real Cameron isn’t all that different from Imaginary Cameron. The main difference is that Imaginary Cameron was in love with me and Real Cameron isn’t. And I was in love with Imaginary Cameron, and I’m not in love with Real Cameron. But that’s pretty much a total deal breaker for our romance.
“Is it okay if we leave now?” I ask Kylee, after I’ve told her everything. “Or do you think Tyler might ask you to dance again?”
“We can go,” Kylee says.
Have I recently said that I love Kylee more than anyone in the world?
Then she adds, “Dancing with Tyler was pretty great. But I’d rather go now, anyway. I want to keep my first memory of dancing with a boy and not let anything ruin it. You know what I mean?”
Boy, do I know.
Kylee calls her parents to pick us up. My parents are out on a date night; they have a subscription to the symphony down in Denver. Mom wanted to cancel to stay home tonight to keep Hunter company—family Scrabble game, anyone?—but Dad knows how much she loves classical music, so he made her go.
“Did you girls have a good time?” Kylee’s mother asks as we buckle our seat belts in the backseat.
“Yes,” Kylee says, just as I say, “No.”
“I have to say,” Kylee’s mom remarks, “that junior high dances are not my life’s favorite memory. Autumn, maybe you have material for a story here?”
Kylee’s mom is as supportive of my career as Kylee is.
“Maybe,” I say.
But maybe not.
Usually when something bad happens to me, all I want to do is get home to write it down, to find a way to make peace with it by putting it into words with my pen.
But not this time. I don’t feel like a writer anymore, and, besides, this is too embarrassing. On my deathbed, when my life flashes before me, I’ll be out there on the dance floor doing weird awkward motions while Cameron is in his mystical trance, the Zen guy in the Zen zone.
I’m glad when Kylee’s mom drops me off at home to an empty house with no worried mom to ask me any questions and nobody to interfere with my plans to cry myself to sleep all by my little, lonely, miserable self.
Which I do.
* * *
Something wakes me up. The digital clock next to my bed reads 11:30. It’s pitch-black outside, so it’s clearly still nighttime.
I hear my father’s voice. He and Mom must have just gotten home from the symphony down in Denver. He’s not shouting, exactly, but his voice is louder than usual, and he definitely sounds upset. Like, really upset.
The dance ended at ten, an hour after Kylee and I bailed. Was Hunter’s ungrounding just meant to be long enough for him to play at the dance? Was he supposed to be home again right afterward? Is Dad yelling at him for staying out too late? Or is he yelling at Mom because Hunter’s not home yet?
I try pulling my pillow over my ears. I’ve had all the hideousness I can take for one night. But curiosity gets the better of me, the fatal flaw of cats and (former) writers. I slip out of bed and creep to the top of the stairs in time to hear Dad race out to the garage, banging the door behind him. The big garage door whirs open. The car’s engine starts.
Back in my room, I tie on my fluffy robe and scuff my feet into my bunny slippers. I’m shivering now from cold and from dread.
I find my mother in the kitchen, her head buried in her folded arms on the kitchen table.
“Mom?”
She looks up as if she doesn’t recognize me.
“Oh, Autumn, honey, go back to bed.”
“Is everything okay?” I ask, claiming the prize for dumbest question asked in the history of the world.
“Hunter’s gone,” she says.
“I know,” I say, puzzled at her telling me something I obviously already know. “He was at the dance.”
“The dance?” she asks, as if what I’ve said makes no sense. Then, as if I haven’t spoken, she adds, “The Subaru’s gone, too.”
It all starts to sink in now.
“But … Hunter couldn’t have taken the car. He doesn’t have a license. He only has a permit, so it’s against the law for him to drive without a grown-up in the car.”
“I know,” Mom says dully. “Believe me, I know.”
* * *
So Hunter wasn’t ungrounded for the night, reprieved from “consequences” by Dad so he could honor his commitment to play at the dance. He’s AWOL and a car thief, too, though I guess the crime of taking your own parents’ car doesn’t count as grand larceny. But driving without a license, when you don’t even have a license, is definitely illegal.
Plus there’s the small matter that Hunter doesn’t really know how to drive.
Dad’s been out looking for him; Mom just called to tell him that Hunter was last seen playing with the band at the dance. So maybe Dad’s driving past David’s house? Timber’s? Moonbeam’s? I don’t know if he called their parents to ask if they’ve seen Hunter. Maybe they’re already asleep for the night and not answering their phones.
If Dad doesn’t see our Subaru parked in front of someone’s house, where would he look next? I guess he’s just so worried about Hunter he has to be out of the house at least doing something.
Mom and I are sitting at the kitchen table drinking herbal tea, not even trying to talk anymore about anything—because what is there to say?—when the phone rings. It’s the landline, not Mom’s cell phone, which she has right beside her mug. I can see the caller ID light up with the words “Broomville Police.”
She snatches up the receiver.
“Yes, this is the Granger residence.” Then: “No,” she says. “Oh, no!”
There has to have been an accident. Why else would the police call our house at one in the morning?
And the last thing I ever said to my brother was that I wished he was dead.