32
The book Sam had read called Starting Over: Life After Years of Abuse said that guilt causes confusion.
And confusion leads to irrationality.
And irrationality means that you can see things and hear things that aren’t really happening.
Like when you see your father (who is locked up in prison in another state) standing on a porch in the middle of the night.
And seeing things that aren’t real is why it can be hard to breathe and why you feel like running as fast as your legs can carry you straight into a brick wall.
Or maybe into the ocean.
Over an edge.
Out of this town.
But you don’t.
Instead, you realize that you have a big problem.
You ask for help.
Sam sat in front of the church in the dark of night. He couldn’t go in. It was locked, but that didn’t matter.
He spoke to the universe. He needed his world to be right again.
Sam felt his heart now beating somewhere inside his neck.
He wiped his face, wet with sweat, and got to his feet.
By the time he got home, the sun was coming up, and he was exhausted and grateful for that.
Riddle couldn’t get back to sleep for a long time after seeing the light in the window coming from the house next door.
He lay in the dark and listened to Jared’s heavy breathing as he thought about the band of thieves who were robbing the Binghams.
In his mind he saw them taking the fancy spice set that was in the silver rack in the kitchen. He had admired those containers.
He imaged them scooping up the helpless tropical fish from the aquarium and putting them in clear plastic bags tied at the top in leaky knots.
Riddle shut his eyes and saw the bandits stuff ropes of jewelry into backpacks.
He could see them making off with the six-slice toaster that he so admired on the countertop next to the sink.
And then finally, just before the sun came up, he drifted off to sleep.
But like so many times before, no one would listen to him.
It was after ten o’clock when Riddle opened his eyes to see the other bunk bed empty.
He pulled on clothes and went downstairs to find Jared eating a bowl of soggy cereal as he watched an old movie that he’d seen countless times about a bunch of kids playing soccer in a small town in Texas.
Jared looked up from the TV and said, “I thought you were gonna make pancakes. I waited for a while.”
Riddle picked up the cat that was rubbing against his legs.
“I hope we don’t get blamed, because I think robbers got into the neighbors’ house last night.”
Jared kept chewing. “How come you think that?”
Riddle was only looking at the cat. He was staring into her yellow eyes, which looked like liquid marbles.
“I know that I’m sort of blind, but I see things.”
And Jared had to agree.
Jared called Beto, because there was no way he was going next door with just Riddle, even if he didn’t really believe him.
Beto arrived right away, but he had to eat a bowl of cereal before he went over to check things out.
So it was almost eleven when they stood behind the house and discovered that the key was missing from under the brick.
They circled the yard in a three-headed cluster, peeking into windows for clues.
It wasn’t until Beto tried the knob on the back door that they realized it was open.
Jared suddenly got very nervous. “Okay, let’s go home and call my mom and dad. We could be messing up clues.”
But Beto looked energized. “We locked this door. I remember. We locked it last night, and we put away the key!”
Riddle nodded. “We locked it. And now it’s open, because someone got in.”
Jared reached out and grabbed the back of Beto’s T-shirt. “Don’t go in. I mean it.”
But Riddle was already in the kitchen, and Beto was right behind him.
Bitzie Evans cursed Emily Bell.
The shopkeeper wasn’t happy that Emily didn’t show up that morning to open the store. She didn’t find out until she stopped by the Orange Tree after her weekly foot massage.
Bitzie held a new shipment of battery-powered candles in her arms and buzzed the back door of the store with the point of her elbow. And when Emily didn’t answer, Bitzie angrily returned to her car, dug out her shop key from the snarl of crap in the compartment in between the two seats, and then set off the building alarm as she entered.
The place was still locked up from the night before.
She next checked her cell phone and the store phone, only to find she had no messages from the new salesgirl.
Bitzie punched in Emily’s phone number, and when a message came on Bitzie felt her jaw tighten. She waited until the beep to say:
“Emily, this is Bitzie Evans from the Orange Tree. I just got here, and the store was locked up with the alarm still on. No excuse is good enough for not calling. I’m letting you go. That’s just the way it is. No excuse will work with me.”
Bitzie put the phone handset down hard into the cradle and turned on one of the battery-powered candles.
But the flameless flicker didn’t make her feel any better.
Sam woke up, and the sun was high in the sky.
The first thing he did was reach for his phone and call Emily.
He was both relieved and upset that it went straight to voice mail. When he spoke into the phone, his voice cracked:
“Hey, Em. It’s me. I had a rough night and needed to think some stuff through. So call me—okay? I’m going to class—but call me anyway. I love you. That’s really what I want to say. I’ll explain the other part when I see you.”
Sam pressed End and felt better. He’d started the process. He would explain what had happened with Destiny, and Emily would understand. He would make her understand.
Because she was the kind of person who understood everything.
Nothing had happened that would change anything between them.
Nothing.