Seventeen

MY WORDS COME out, “Can we talk?”—so similar to how I approached Kincaid last night that it’s a physical stab in my chest, making me press my lips together, cringing inside.

Bree gives me a skeptical look. “You okay?”

She cares if I’m okay. I should be shot. Granted, she said it in her usual deadpan way, with a trace of distracted annoyance, but again: Bree doesn’t lie. She wouldn’t waste the words if she didn’t care. “Yeah. I just need to talk to you later.”

We’re at the cool table this time, our usual lunchtime vibe disrupted by Trace’s unsinkable grin. “You better wipe that off your face,” Sage says, holding out one of her hot-lunch delicacies to him, a plastic cup of what’s supposed to be a trail mix but is mostly pale, unsalted peanuts and withered raisins. “Crack takes one look at you, he’s going to know something’s up. You’re never this happy at school.”

“I can’t help it. It’s so funny.” He ducks his head, snorting laughter, something he’s been doing periodically since we sat down. Tries to compose himself, which only gets him laughing harder. He digs his fingers through the cup. “I only like those raisins covered in Elmer’s.”

Nobody seems to know about the hidden Bug but us—none of the students, anyway. Trace checked out the window during gym class; the VW still isn’t back in the teachers’ lot. I guess the administration and the cops must be keeping it hush-hush while they search for it, figuring drama is exactly what we attention whores want. I lost some sleep over it last night, the dread of getting caught, though it wasn’t the only thing preying on my mind. Crackenback made it to work today anyway—I heard his rusty tones over the intercom this morning—and if the teachers’ gazes are a little sharper, it could also be due to the general unease laying over everyone like the thin fog from a February thaw.

Everybody’s gossiping, not about the principal’s clunker getting stolen from school grounds last night, but about Ivy. The seven-day mark seems to have shaken everyone, the Lucky Number tearing through all those platitudes about runaways, kids hiding out somewhere nearby until they get too cold and hungry, then coming home, tail between their legs, desperate for mac and cheese and a free Wi-Fi connection. Word is, Ivy’s mom in West Virginia still hasn’t seen or heard from her. So that leaves darker explanations. Hitchhiking. Murder. Shallow burial in some interstate drainage ditch. We’ve all seen enough trash TV to know the score, and it’s chilling. Sickening. Thrilling.

“About what?” Bree brings me back to the now, picking her sandwich into pieces as she watches me.

I hesitate when I notice Sage watching me, too, her gaze intent, a faint line between her brows. A silent signal to change tactics? I’m so close to spilling everything in totally the wrong place and time that I can almost taste the words, and I sit back, as if from the edge of a precipice.

Obviously, Sage knows about me and Kincaid. Trace must’ve told her, maybe gave her a heads-up that there was a nuclear detonation due any day now, and she might want to duck and cover. Kincaid isn’t here today—apparently not even hanging out with me can make school tolerable for more than a couple days. I could borrow somebody’s phone during break and text mine, hoping he’d answer, but that would open a can of worms I’m in no way ready to deal with. Besides, I know what he’d say if I told him about what I sensed last night, on the trail. More smoke, more flimflam.

“Have you ever had anything weird happen to you on the trails?” I say to Bree, as if this was where I was going all the time. “The ones behind the Terraces?” My yogurt requires stirring. Vigorous stirring. “Seen any animals or anything?”

“Squirrels.”

“Deer,” Sage puts in. I think I hear relief in her voice.

“You’ve seen deer out there?” Bree says.

“No, but there are some. They come up from the marsh.” Sage surrenders her tray to Trace, who’s still grazing.

I turn my spoon over. “Do deer ever, like . . . attack?”

Trace chokes on another laugh as whispers ripple through the room, making all of us look up in the direction of the double doors that open onto the main hallway.

Landon’s come in, walking through the tables, making heads come together so fast half the school will be sitting down to our next class with subdural hematomas. It’s obvious she’s been crying hard, her face puffy, splotches of red on each cheek, usually a sign that somebody’s just been released from Guidance. She doesn’t have lunch or a backpack with her. Her gaze is fixed unwaveringly on us.

She lowers herself slowly onto the chair beside Sage, like a deep-sea diver navigating the dark, silent ocean bottom, the sights and sounds of the lunchroom only reaching her distantly, as whale song echoes.

Silence falls over us, stiff, uncomfortable, drying up any thought of condolence. We all stare at the tabletop.

Landon speaks flatly, not letting tears get in the way of what she needs to ask us: “Do you think she could have gone back?” I realize she’s trembling, a low-level shudder affecting even her knotted fists pressed against the table edge. “That night?”

I meet eyes with Bree, then look to Trace. He’s the only one facing Landon, his expression serious, but not pitying, or pained, like mine. “Back where, dude?”

“The marsh.” She takes a breath, releases it slowly, trying to keep control. “Maybe she went back”—sharp gesture—“after the fight, after she left home.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she thought she lost something. Maybe she just wanted to get away from people for a while.”

“It would’ve been really dark,” Trace says.

“Yeah, and she doesn’t know those trails. We’ve never been out there without everybody else. Maybe she got turned around, and”—she shakes her head helplessly—“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

No one speaks. Sage shifts in her seat. “Lan. Maybe you should ask to go home.”

Landon bangs her palm down, then again, harder; all of us flinch. Gets to her feet, in motion again, no longer interested in us. “I’m going.” She walks around the end of the table. “I’m going to find her.”

The cafeteria watches in stunned silence as she goes, shoving through the double doors with a teacher right on her heels, Sage’s quiet “Now?” fading without response.

I catch a ride with Trace after school. Nobody has much to say. The princess mask is nowhere to be seen, maybe hidden in the glove compartment, or under the seat.

First, we pick up the bag of demons at D&M. It is Thirsty Thursday, after all.

But when we reach the park, there’s no skating, no hanging around bullshitting while everybody gets their buzz on. Because you can hear her. Landon. She’s in the woods, not far off. Calling for Ivy.

It’s horrible, like listening to some animal call for her young after a poacher has already done his damage. Kincaid’s here, and I keep my distance. He looks, but doesn’t approach, not with Bree so nearby. This sucks. I know what I need to do, but not how to do it—and that isn’t a good enough excuse for silence anymore. A friend would tell Bree the truth, straight up. Because I know from experience that if I was lost in the woods, Bree would go looking for me.

Once the booze has been sold, Trace says, “I’m going to help her.”

Most of us follow, pairing off in twos, which we all agree is the way we’ve seen people do it in the movies. Partner up, so nobody else gets lost.

We find Landon on the trail to the marsh. She’s exhausted beyond crying, her face pale and drained, eyes deeply shadowed. She doesn’t speak when Trace asks, “Where have you looked?” instead gesturing vaguely in the direction we came from. That leaves a lot of woods, more than the eight or so of us can hope to cover, but we’re going anyway, into the marsh.

Bree and I pair together without words, without a plan, dovetailing down a slope covered in knee-high water grass bleached to a dry, autumnal blond, following muddy flats where standing water rises over our sneakers.

The others are already out of sight, their voices echoing back to us. Kincaid’s walking with Moon; last I saw, they were climbing the ridge above the murals, going to check out the woods that stretch that way, off toward the cemetery.

“Gross.” Bree stops, shaking mud off her laces. “You know, I bet real search parties wear things like boots.”

“Do you really think Ivy might’ve come out here?” I say.

“No. Why would she? The night was over. We all know she got home in one piece. Of all the places she could’ve gone after a fight, she comes back here? It would’ve been pitch-black out, not to mention subzero.” Bree sinks, swearing as the cuffs of her jeans get dunked. “I think Landon’s lost it, personally.” She hesitates, looking up ahead of us, her tone softening. “Look at that bird.”

It’s the egret, or a close relative, standing like a monument to patience. One leg bent, the other a stilt.

I say, “Bree,” and, at my tone, she glances back. “Remember I said we needed to talk?” She turns, the embankment of pitch pines and brush providing a stark backdrop, and maybe there’s no better place for this, no better time, nowhere more solitary. “It’s about Kincaid.”

The topic seems to surprise her. “Yeah?”

I rub my eyes. “We kind of . . . he and I have been talking, and . . .” My stomach is acid, and my mouth suddenly tastes bad, metallic, like old pennies scraped off the bottom of a wishing fountain, and I spit out the last of it because there’s no other way: “He likes me back.”

The silence goes on. Her face, looking back at me, inscrutable, eyes a fraction wider than normal, taking me in. It’s Bree, so she’ll give me nothing, I know this, but it doesn’t stop me from babbling, cramming the silence full of words to the point where I’m begging to be put out of my misery: “I’m sorry, I never thought he would, but he says he does and—” A small, weak laugh escapes me, and I wish I could stomp it. “Is it okay?”

She stands in her spot as if rooted. I rush on, hating how I sound, like one of Those Girls, a whole different species from me, ones who would choose boys over their friends. But that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it? I could’ve broken it off with him after that first time in the woods, stopped things before we went too far, put Bree first. But I wanted Kincaid. Even now, trapped in this torturous moment, I still do. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to hurt you. I’d never do that. You know that, right?” You’re my friend—maybe my best—I’m pretty sure you’re my very best— “It just kind of happened, and I know that sounds like the biggest cliché ever, but it’s true.” I could slump to the ground right now, sink into the mud, be buried forever without complaint. “I’m just really sorry.”

I look back at her, wincing, bracing for an explosion, for her fist crashing into my face. I can almost see her internal adjustments, a pattern of slight movement from her throat, to her jaw, then her eyes, some fast blinks before her gaze settles on distant trees. Maybe the direction Kincaid went off in. “Why? I wouldn’t be.” Rough sound in her throat, signaling her sharp turn away from me. “He’s hot, so. Enjoy.”

She walks off, fast, and I follow because I don’t know what else to do. No chance that I’ve been forgiven, but I don’t want to make things worse by leaving. Ditching my partner.

We’re the only ones not calling Ivy’s name. Nothing here but the sound of our feet splashing through the shallows, and the heavy beat of the egret’s wings as he takes off in search of calmer waters.

She’s ditching me. Or trying.

I almost fall twice, following her up an embankment so steep that falling would mean rolling all the way back down to the flats in a battered heap. We clutch roots and clumps of bushes with our hands, reaching the top of the slope with our knees soaked through, our palms raw.

Bree pushes straight into the woods, letting branches snap back, one whipping my cheek so sharply that I stop, check for blood. “Will you slow down?”

“Why? We’re supposed to be looking.” The remoteness of her tone lands the punch that I was waiting for, forcing the air from me.

I watch her go, plowing a one-woman path through the undergrowth, then start after her again. Not sure where to draw the line—how many ravines should I fall down to pay penance? But if Bree fell, got lost, I’d never forgive myself. It’d be my fault, no matter how hard I’d tried to call her back.

We’re in unfamiliar woods, no sign of a trail, no sign of anything but the usual maze, and I wish I could call Kincaid. I could describe a tree, and he’d give me directions home. Bree’s breathing hard, I can hear it, and it’s not until we hit the next gully that she snags her shoulder on one of those jagged pitch-pine branches, catching her fleece on it and swearing, giving her no choice but to stop.

“Let’s turn around,” I say, breathless, supporting myself against a trunk behind her. “Come on. We don’t know where we’re going.”

She hesitates, looking ahead, shoulders moving as she breathes. “How long have you guys been hooking up?”

I don’t like that she called it that—“hooking up”—even though everybody does; Kincaid just said it last night. But it’s like saying that he and I aren’t real, like what we’ve done in private is some cheap, disposable thing. “Only a couple days.”

“Have you had sex with him yet?”

Another internal objection, this one stronger. My voice sharpens. “No. I just said, it’s only been a couple days.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend.”

I press my lips together, trying to absorb it, the snark, remembering that I’ve got a lot to make up for. You can’t say, Oh, hey, by the way, I stole your dream date, and then get pissed when the person acts upset about it. “We should find the trail. I’m sure everybody’s back at the park by now.”

“Go, if you want.” She’s starting down the bank, sliding on mud and dead leaves, grabbing anything for a handhold, still showing me only her back.

I breathe out through my nose, going as far as the edge to watch her descend to another muddy cove, my sense of responsibility dulled by exhaustion. I could go back alone. Secure my spot in the Worst Friend Hall of Fame now and quit screwing around.

Instead, I follow. I’m not letting myself walk out on this. I’m part of the way down, eyes on where I’m stepping, when I hear her call my name. Just “Clara,” no “belle.” I’d think she was punishing me, but her tone is all wrong. Faint, disbelieving.

She’s standing at the edge of the flats, looking down. It’s low tide, the water receded far beyond my line of sight. “Yeah?” She doesn’t answer, doesn’t turn. It strikes a cold note. I start to hurry, skidding on my heels, falling on my ass at one point, smearing mud up the back of my coat, wet and cursing and miserable by the time I reach her. “What?”

When I see what she’s looking at, I stop, staring, transfixed, just like Bree.

It’s caked in mud, the denim jacket, like it’s been submerged for some time and was only recently dislodged by the tide. Stiff, the embroidered band patches barely legible, one sleeve up, the other down, both bent at the elbows like there could be arms inside, like that’s how she fell, and was swept away.