Chapter 11

Alice

School is total hell. Rumors are flying. People are whispering. I can feel their wide-eyed stares. I'm not exactly popular, but people know me. The price of infamy, I guess.

Monday and Tuesday pass in a blur. Maya and I don't talk about what we found. We don't actually know what we found.

When Spanish ends Wednesday afternoon, I grab my backpack and head to my locker. The hall smells of cafeteria lasagna. Nausea claws at my stomach. Somebody's locker creaks open, a sound that makes me shudder. Sharp staccato laughter hits me between my eyes. My head pulses.

"Hey, guurl!" Runy falls in next to me.

I flinch. Why's he talking so loud? One arm is looped around Taylor, a pretty sophomore I've literally heard one teacher describe as "American as apple pie," which is dumb because apple pie was actually invented in England.

"Dude, I was, like, soo hungover after Maya's party!"

Runy grins at me from under a tawny flop of hair hanging in his brown eyes. He'd actually be kind of cute if he'd stop doing all the drugs.

"It was lit." Taylor giggles. "Remember when Brad stripped and dove into the lake? It was totally extra!"

I unlock my locker. I have trig next. A test I never studied for. It doesn't matter. Math is my best subject. I like that there's a right and wrong answer, nothing subjective about it. And I'm good at tests. I'm that weird kid at the back of the class doodling cats and seeming tuned out, but who knows all the answers. Sometimes I get a few wrong on purpose, just so people don't look too hard at me.

"I waited for you guys. Thought you might come back," Runy says.

I shake my head. "I couldn't."

Something sparks in his eyes. Runy's dad died when we were in junior high. He'd battled schizophrenia for a long time, but the voices found him. He killed himself and another guy at the UPS Store where he worked.

It's taken Runy a while to shrug off who he used to be in relation to that. He started smoking pot, creating this new image, a stoner dude always up for a good time.

I get it. I know what it's like to want to step outside your own skin. To be a freak. Sometimes you just don't want to be yourself anymore.

"Is it true?" Taylor lowers her voice. "Did you find the body?"

I recoil like I've been hit.

"Dude!" Runy glares at her.

Taylor blinks. "I just wanted to know if she—"

"Fuck. Off." Runy's eyes glow.

"Wait. What body?" I pluck at Taylor's sweater to stop her from huffing away. "What are you talking about?"

"The house we were partying at on Saturday? The cops found a body in the basement."

I'm speechless. That isn't what Maya and I found.

"Who told you that?"

"My uncle's a detective. I heard him tell my mom."

I have a sudden weird feeling, like I'm balanced on a cliff, about to be pushed over the edge.

"Get outta here," Runy snaps.

Taylor huffs away, but I hear what she mutters.

Freak.

"Ignore her," Runy tells me.

"We found a backpack, not a body." It feels important he knows that. I shove my trig book into my bag with numb fingers. "It looked like my sister's backpack."

"Shit. Really?"

"Yeah. It went missing the night of the accident."

"You still don't remember?"

That's what I told everybody. At the time. It was an easy excuse. The truth is, I remember everything .

I just don't want to.

"Maya took the backpack to the cops." I avoid his question. "They must've searched the house. I thought the detectives would come and interview me or something, but I haven't heard anything."

"So they found a body with your sister's backpack. You don't think ..."

"They would've told me, though. Right?" My voice sounds weird. Like it's been pinched somewhere in my throat. "If it was one of them, they would've told me?"

We stare at each other, but Runy has no response.

Loud laughter comes from down the hall. It's Maya and Jinx, holding hands now. Maya towers over Jinx, tall and slender in her pink hoodie and ripped jeans. Jinx is wearing some sort of black lacy corset with a leather skirt, her hair spiked with a glossy gel. She has, like, six earrings in one ear. I never got my ears pierced. The thought of a needle stabbing my ear ... I shiver.

Runy follows my gaze. "You okay?"

I'm still mad at Maya for not letting me look inside that backpack. I didn't even really get to look at it. Maybe I was wrong about it. Maybe it was just some regular old backpack. I have a similar one at home. Mom got them from Walmart; it's not like they're unique or anything.

The bell rings, saving me from answering Runy. He says goodbye and rushes off. But instead of going to class, I duck into the bathroom. My throat feels like a giant ball of metal is lodged in it. I lock myself in a stall, feeling sick. What does the body in the basement mean?

I don't know why I bothered coming in today. Last night, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't shake the sight of that backpack lying there in the basement, the sense that something was coming.

Since the accident, I've kept my memories safe, buried deep inside. But now it feels like they're stirring, eating their way to the surface.

Did you know that over 600,000 people are reported missing every year in America? And how many of those turn up dead?

Last night, after looking up that fact, I curled up in bed, scared to be awake but scared to sleep. Lately I've been having these crazy, vivid dreams. Of That Night. When I wake, my clothes are soaked, my covers tossed on the floor. Reality is like an icy slap in the face. Then the loss sinks in, crushing and raw, and all I can do is cry.

Eventually I took one of the Ativan I'd stolen from Mel. When I'd finally drifted into an uneasy sleep, my dreams were worse than usual. I was in the woods, running, branches snagging in my hair, ripping at my skin. And then I burst through the trees and there was our car, lying on its side. And lit by the headlights ...

The image pushes up against the inside of my skull, but I bat it away. The dust of bad memories is usually best left alone, unswept, untidied. A nice layer of dirt to cover it. But it's like someone's dragged a fingertip through it, revealing more than I want. I know what happened. I know what I saw that night.

But sometimes it feels hard to separate what's real from what isn't.

I leave school.

By the time I get to Mel and Jack's, it's snowing. Inside, the house looks like somebody vomited up Christmas. A giant tree with white lights and silver tinsel fills the living room. Fir branches are scattered around, fairy lights draped all over, white stars hanging in every window.

"Mel?"

Silence.

I unravel my scarf, yank off my gloves and coat. There's the faint whiff of something I can't quite identify. Something sweet and floral. And then a heavier scent. Cigarette smoke. Except neither Mel nor Jack smokes. I circle the downstairs, but nobody's home.

Most of the yoga classes Mel teaches are early or late, so I wonder where she is. A flicker of anxiety sparks in my stomach. I'm overreacting, being irrational. But I don't know how to control this fear and dread that's coexisted inside me ever since my family went missing. The fear that maybe my aunt, uncle, and cousin have disappeared, too.

That I've been left behind again.

I grab my phone with sweaty palms, about to call Mel. My eyes land on Runy's sister's number.

I looked up her podcast. It's called The Darkest Night . Last year they investigated the twenty-three-year-old disappearance of this high school girl. They found her body, hidden all those years under the patio of the school janitor's house. Now he's serving life in prison.

I imagine calling Chloe; then I imagine upsetting Mel and Jack. I grab my purse and take out an Ativan, looking between my phone in one hand and the pill in the other.

The truth is, finding that backpack has raked up memories I don't want.

I think of everything that happened after the accident. The search, the media chaos, the talk-show chatter, the invasive news reports and my parents' deepest secrets dug up, an investigation that found no evidence as to where they were. And then the theory that my dad had killed them, then himself.

I can't go through that again.

I delete Chloe's number and swallow the Ativan.

In the kitchen, I pour milk over a bowl of Whoppers and eat it like cereal, staring out the window at the black lake, a dull smudge blurred by the falling snow. Alfie winds around my legs.

Soon numbness settles over me, like I've been coated in glue. My limbs are thick and sticky, my brain dull. I ride my Ativan wave up the stairs, trailing my fingertips over the pictures lining the wall. They follow me like ghosts, their eyes on me. The pictures are of their family and mine. Mel and my mom. My mom and Jack. Jack and my dad. Finn, Ella, me.

My mom was Jack's twin sister, but she was Mel's best friend. They were friends in college before Mel ever met Jack.

Dr. Pam's words circle through my mind. Closure can mean different things to different people. Perhaps your version isn't just about getting answers, but in learning to feel grateful that you lived.

It's shrinky bullshit. There's no way to thrive when I don't know where they are and why I'm still here.

When I reach the landing, I notice something red, a splash of scarlet against the pale carpet. I pick it up. It looks like a petal of some sort, crumpled and broken, like it's been stuck to someone's shoe and carried inside. My gaze jerks up. Is someone here?

My palms have started sweating. And then I notice something else. That subtle, light scent, sweet and floral. I breathe it in. Lilacs and vanilla. My mom's body lotion.

"Mom?" I whisper.

I swallow hard, my throat dry, and notice that Finn's door is cracked. I jam the petal into my pocket and push the door open. Finn is starfished across his bed, his arms thrown over his head.

I frown, confused. I thought Finn was at day care. If he's home, where the hell is Mel? And why is he asleep? Finn's four. He doesn't nap anymore.

From somewhere far away, I hear my phone ring, but it sounds weird. Like it's echoing in a tin can. The shadows shimmer and shift. A strange, low-level buzzing starts at the corners of my brain. Something catches in my peripheral vision.

It's Mel. She looks different, wild and disheveled, her pale silk top filthy, streaked with something. Dirt? Her hair is wet, her mascara smudged, eyes feral as a cat's.

"What are you doing?" Her voice is low-pitched, barbed.

"I . . . I . . ." I don't understand what's happening.

I turn back to Finn, but he's no longer there. In his place is a little girl. Long blonde braids and a pink Hello Kitty satin bow headband.

I've seen her before. The night of the accident.

I remember waking in the car, snow falling on my face. My arm was broken. Blood dripped down my head, its sharp, metallic scent filling my nose. I became aware of a presence, and when I turned my head, I saw a little girl, maybe seven or eight, next to me in the car.

She raised one hand to her lips. "Shh."

Outside the car, footsteps crunched over broken glass. Someone was out there.

Now the little girl sits on Finn's bed.

What do you want from me? I try to say, except no words come out.

Her mouth moves around a single word that somehow doesn't come out but echoes in my ears.

Run!

My heart is an engine in my chest, and the room tilts dangerously. I stagger out of the room into the hallway.

Something dark trails across the oatmeal-colored carpet. Muddy footsteps. Cold air gushes from under my bedroom door. I slam it open with my palms. It's even colder in here. Not normal cold, but the kind of cold that wraps around you like seaweed. And there's a smell, too. Of something rotting, decaying. Like the dead rat covered in maggots I once found in Ella's toy box.

I gasp.

My dad is sitting on my bed. His face is streaked with blood, his skin loosely draped on his skull.

A sob wrenches from my mouth. "Dad?"

"Why haven't you found us?" His eyes are so black, they look like holes.

There's a roaring in my head. The bedroom stutters, like a camera's lens taking a photograph.

My dad stands and takes a step toward me. And another.

A fresh drop of blood rolls down his face. It hovers on his chin, then falls, slow motion, and lands on the carpet at his feet.

That's when I start screaming.