When I walk into the kitchen the next morning, my father is hunched over his coffee, scowling at the paper. I accidentally clang my spoon against my cereal bowl, and he about takes my head off.
The explanation is in the sink—a wine glass with a purple stain at the bottom. The empty bottle’s in the trash. He’s hung over. This is new. Does he know about me and Jeremy and it’s driven him to drink? If so, why doesn’t he say something?
His bad mood continues at the park. He lectures everyone on preserving the integrity of the ruins—basic archeology 101—and reminds us that being inside the ruins is a privilege, not a right.
“Glad you could join us, Mr. Brown,” he says as Jeremy slips into the back of the room.
I look away but not before Jeremy flashes a smile at my father. “Sorry, Dr. Duke—car problems.”
“I’ll see you in my office immediately after this briefing.” His tone promises that this is a conversation Jeremy won’t want to hear.
A sick feeling fills me. I look around the room for Emily, but don’t see her. I know she’s here because I saw her Prius in the parking lot. It seems a pretty big coincidence that my father is angry, Jeremy is late, and Emily is conspicuously absent.
My father finishes the briefing, and the group breaks up. Jeremy leers at me as he passes. There’s no hint of apology in his narrow face. It’s more of a smirk, like we share a secret. I feel a rush of hatred for him.
“Paige,” my father adds, “Stick around, please. I’ll talk to you after I’m done with Jeremy.”
I nod, but the tone of his voice tells me that, like Jeremy, I’m in trouble. As soon as his back is turned, I push past everyone else and head for the exit. I’m pretty sure Emily is avoiding me, but I know her. If she’s hiding anywhere, it’s in the ruins.
The sun has risen, but the temperature hasn’t reached its full strength. I jog down the path, trying to get to the ruins before anyone else. I need to know what she told my father. My legs are strong from soccer, and it almost feels good to tear down the path, as if I can outrun the conversation my father and Jeremy are having.
I’m sure Jeremy is telling him how I led him on, how he thought it was a game we were playing. He’ll make me look like a tease or, at best, a troublemaker. My father will probably believe him. See it as my way of acting out, of finding another way to hurt him.
So what? It shouldn’t bother me. Let Jeremy say whatever he wants. It isn’t like my dad has any power over me anymore. It isn’t like I care what he thinks of me.
I climb the three ladders in record time. At the top, I’m breathing hard and soaked in sweat, but I’m still upset enough to keep going. The full sun hasn’t hit the ruins, and the shadows in the windows are deep.
Inside, I scan the gloomy darkness for Emily. She isn’t on the second level, so I crawl up through the tunnel between the floors. She isn’t on the third level, either.
“Emily?” I say loudly, but there’s no answer. As I listen in the silence, the hair on the back of my neck stands straight up. The walls seem to press a little more closely around me. “Emily?” I call, but softer.
Chamber by chamber, I search every inch of the ruins, every dark passageway. I use my cell, but it does little to illuminate the deeper rooms. I can feel a heaviness—a certain stillness in the air that doesn’t seem right. I keep stopping, looking over my shoulder, and listening.
It’s exactly like the hide-and-seek games that we used to play, especially the ones at night, when the moon was full. We would always hide where we knew it would scare the other the most to search. The fear, after all, was the purpose of the game.
“Emily! Where are you? I’m not kidding!” I yell as I climb into the fourth-floor chamber. It’s huge, empty, half-dark, half-bathed in the morning light. The walls look torn, wounded by the railing half-pulled from the limestone walls.
I’m shaking with anger now—that she not only betrayed me, but now she’s hiding, forcing me to wander through this graveyard in the cliffs looking for her. I turn slowly, studying the emptiness, my heart beating harder.
Maybe, I think, we’re playing the game, only this time she’s started it. And if so, then Emily has chosen the place I’ll fear the most to look for her—the basement chamber.
It seems cruel to think she’d put me through that, knowing what she knows. But I can see her thinking that unless I face my fear of going down there, I’ll never get past it. It’s all bullshit, I think.
Anger strengthens my resolve. I’m not doing it. Not playing her game. If she’s waiting for me down there, she’s going to be waiting a long time.
Walking to the front, I stare out at the valley framed by the giant stone oval window. Far below, I see a group of people approaching the ladders. I know it’s my father and the other interns. My face gets hotter, and my stomach knots with dread. There’s still time to avoid my dad and Jeremy, but I’ll have to hurry.
At lunch, I hike out to Whale Rock and spend a long, hot hour waiting for Emily. She doesn’t show, and as the day stretches longer, it seems clear that Emily is avoiding me out of guilt. She must have told my father; she knows she betrayed me. She thinks I’m mad, which is correct. However, it doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk to her. She owes me that.
I forgive u. Just tell me what u told my dad.
I stare at my cell, willing it to light up with her response, but it doesn’t. Like a fugitive, I stake out the information center, lurking among the racks of T-shirts and cheap souvenirs, skulking around the museum, waiting for Emily and ready to bolt if it’s my dad or Jeremy.
By six o’clock, when my father comes down from the ruins, I’ve pretty much given up on her and resigned myself to face my father.
“Where have you been?” My dad steps into his office and sets his sweat-stained hat on top of a pile of books on his desk. “I texted you five times.”
To my relief, his dusty, sunburned face looks more tired than angry.
“I know. I’m sorry. Have you seen Emily? I’ve been looking for her all day.”
“No.” He drags a metal chair from against the wall closer, and the sound makes me cringe, like he’s scraping his fingernails across a chalkboard. “Paige, we have to talk.” He sighs deeply. “Maybe you already know what this is about.”
I focus on his hair. Sweaty now, a shade darker than blond. When he was younger, he was what was called a “towhead,” which used to make me laugh and think of tow trucks.
“She told you.”
He draws back a little, his brows furrowing in surprise. “Yes, but I didn’t think you knew. She said she planned to talk to you about it tonight. I didn’t want it to come as a complete surprise.”
Why would Emily talk to me tonight? I look at him, puzzled. He’s fingering an empty spot on the fourth finger of his left hand. When he had a ring there, he used to twist it around and around. “What are you talking about?”
He hesitates and then pushes hard at the skin on his jaw. “Your mother, Paige. She’s getting remarried. To Stuart.”
For a few seconds, my mind refuses to understand what he just said. I want us to be talking about Emily, but then it sinks in. Stuart—the short, balding guy with the overbite and weird laugh—is marrying my mom. “Her boss?”
It’s a stupid question. Stuart Lowe is not only a partner at the law firm where my mother works, but also is the attorney who represented her in the divorce.
My father nods. “I know this comes as a shock, honey, but—” He runs his fingers though his hair. “—now that I’ve had more time to think about it, this could be a good thing for you.” His expression softens. “So go easy on your mom, okay?”
I blink at him. Inside I’m shouting, Are you crazy? Do you think you can drop this bomb on me like this and expect me to “go easy?”
Standing up, I shove the chair behind me so hard it bangs into the computer table. Surprise flashes in my father’s eyes.
“Go easy on Mom? What about me?” I don’t wait for him to answer. “Why are you even bothering to tell me? It’s obviously all decided.”
“Calm down,” he says, which only makes me madder.
I sweep the stack of his books and papers off his desk with my arm. As they crash and scatter, I run out of his office. It’s after hours, so the lights are dim in the main room and the lady who sits behind the register is long gone. I tear past the exhibits and T-shirts, past Mrs. Shum’s curtained-off exhibit.
My mother is getting remarried. She’s calling me tonight. I’m supposed to be okay with this. I jerk open the glass exit door, and the heat engulfs me like I’ve stepped into an oven. Fine. It matches my mood—burning hot.
Stuart Lowe is going to be my step-dad. Stuart with that awful, nasal laugh and habit of winking after he says anything to me. Ugh. I want to die.
I’m halfway to the parking lot when I realize that my dad has the car keys, that we are in the middle of nowhere, and it’s not like I can simply walk home.
So I stand by my father’s Jeep for a humiliating ten minutes while the few people who are left get in their cars and leave.
How could my mom do this to me? She had “working” dinners with him, drinks sometimes, but I always thought it was work-related.
What am I going to say to her? Congratulations, you’ve managed to completely ruin my life? Or simply, I hate you?
I’m so caught up in my thoughts that at first I don’t notice my father has come out to the parking lot or that he’s peering into the window of one of the few cars still parked. My own thoughts are consuming me—choking me—so I don’t connect anything until my father walks up to me.
“Were you saying something about not seeing Emily today?” He asks the question casually, but his eyes are a little too intense for him to pull it off.
Only then do I connect the Prius with Emily and the fact that I haven’t seen her all day and I haven’t found anyone else who has, either. Only then do I feel something hard and heavy hit me in my stomach.
Looking into my father’s eyes, I understand that something potentially far worse than my mother’s engagement is happening.