After Steve dropped me off, I went to my bedroom and turned on my laptop. I finally had an email from Trevor in my inbox.
Hey Deri, sorry I haven’t written you back since I got here. I wish you were here so badly right now. I had a really shitty day today. It was the worst call I’ve ever been on. We were asked to join a search after a local SAR had already looked for a day. We helped for another two days, but we had to call it off because of bad weather. She probably won’t make it another night. I’ve never failed in a search before. It’s such a helpless feeling. The part that kills me the most is she’s only five years old. Remember when Giselle got hurt, you said you didn’t like emergencies because you felt like you couldn’t help? Now I know what you meant. It sucks. If you were here, I would say thanks for listening and I would need a hug. I miss you so much. Trev
I read his message three times, then wrote back:
Did the little girl have blonde hair? Was she wearing a red jacket? Was she with a chocolate-brown lab? I had a vision like that. I would have told you if I knew it was linked to you. Maybe she’ll make it through another night. It will be so sad if she doesn’t, but it’s not your fault. I know you did your best. You always do. Even though we’re far apart I will always be here for you to talk to. I’m sending you a hug with my mind. I hope you can feel it. I miss you more than words could ever describe. Tell Murphy it’s not his fault either. I know you both did everything possible. D.
My feelings were mixed—ecstatic that he chose to reach out to me when it was something important, but horrible that it was because they couldn’t find the little girl and that she was probably going to die.
Before I went to bed, I wrote in the journal Steve gave me. I hoped that putting everything out on paper would maybe produce some clues or trigger the vision again. Forty-five minutes of writing later, I was frustrated. And exhausted. So, I went to sleep.
My phone rang and woke me up when it was pitch black in my room. Groggy, I had to blink a couple of times to make the numbers on the display less fuzzy. It was three in the morning. “Hello,” I croaked.
“Hey, Deri,” Trevor whispered. “Sorry to wake you. I need you to think for a second. The girl you saw in your vision is the girl we’re looking for. She has blonde hair, she was wearing a red jacket, and her dog is with her. Did you see anything else in the environment that might help us figure out where she is?”
I rubbed my eyes and tried to wake myself up. “Um, it was snowing, and she was huddled in the well of a tree with the dog.” As I said it, an image of a waterfall flashed in my mind. “Are there twin falls near the search area?”
“Yes.” He sounded stoked.
“She’s near there.”
“Thanks, Deri.” It sounded as if he stood abruptly, followed by rushed shuffling in the background as if people were on the move. “You’re awesome. You can go back to sleep now.”
“Okay. I love you.” I hung up and when I realized what had come out of my mouth, I sat up in my bed—fully awake.
I texted Sophie in the morning to tell her I needed an emergency consultation as soon as she got to school. Mornings were not her thing, but she dragged her ass in early because I typed 911 at the end of my text. “This better be good, or really bad,” she moaned and leaned against my locker.
“I don’t even know where to start. Okay, so after lunch yesterday, I found my little grade-eight buddy getting beat up by a bunch of boys and guess who was saving him?” I waited for her to guess, but it was too early. She just shook her head to refuse the effort. “Mason. Mason was saving him. It turns out he also tutors my little buddy in science, and did I tell you that he volunteered for the food drive before Christmas? Anyway, I think he might be a better guy than Doug thinks he is. Not the point, though.” I told her everything that happened after that, Corrine, bowling, and making out on the stairs with Steve.
“Wow. Stevie Rawlings with the moves. Was it clumsy?”
“No. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Mmm. Tell me more.”
“There is no more. I basically jumped away and told him I wanted to take things slow. Do you think my problem is me, Steve, or Trevor?”
“If Trevor tried to get up in your business would you let him?”
“I would let him do way more than that.”
“Easy there.” She laughed. “The problem is you.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I already knew that. So anyway, Trevor wrote to me because he had a really bad call, and he was upset. I wrote back and told him I had a vision with a little girl, wondering if it was the same girl they’d been looking for.”
Sophie opened her mouth as if she were going to ask a question. I held up my hand to stop her.
“So then, Trevor called from Iceland wanting to know what else I saw in the vision. He was excited by the lead and thanked me. Then I said…” I paused dramatically and smiled because I knew Sophie was going to go berserk when I told her.
“Oh my God, what did you say?”
“I said I love you without even thinking. It just slipped out right before I hung up.”
“Awesome.” She clapped as she hopped up and down on the spot. “This was totally worth getting up early for. You’re the best best-friend ever.”
“What’s got her all excited this early in the morning?” Doug asked as he joined us.
“Oh, so you think I’m talking to you now?” I joked.
“You better be. I just signed up to send you a flower for Valentine’s Day.”
“Oh, so sweet. Okay, I forgive you. Sophie’s excited because I have a pathetic love life and it amuses her.”
Doug leaned over and kissed her neck. “I like when she’s amused. Thanks Deri.”
“Our sweet little Derian finally said the L word to a boy,” Sophie crooned as she pinched my cheek. “The next step is to get her to make the L word to a boy.”
“Okay, that’s enough mocking for one day. Bu-bye.”
“Wait.” Sophie pouted over Doug’s shoulder. “We have more gossiping to do.”
“School first. Drama second. I need to graduate with a stellar GPA.”
Sophie laughed. “You could drop out now and still end up with a better GPA than mine.”
“Regardless, all of our feminist ancestors are currently rolling their eyes at me for letting my attempts to acquire a love life take priority over academics.”
Sophie shrugged as if she didn’t agree. “Those goals aren’t mutually exclusive. You can be a strong, independent, educated woman and engage in intimate relationships at the same. Kiss a boy and cure cancer. Kiss a girl and fly on a mission to Neptune. Get a vibrator and design the next Taj Mahal. Or, pine over Trevor in Iceland and ace high school. You can do it all.”
“See.” I pointed at Doug. “You can’t tell me what to do. I can date whomever I want and be whomever I want to be; however, who I want to be right now is an eleventh-grade graduate. I’ll see you guys later. Bye.”