by Katie Wismer
“Get away from him!” I yell, surging forward. I know I can’t do much damage, but I distract her long enough for Sam to push himself to his feet and get out of her reach.
“Start the car!” he yells to Jo.
As I reach the woman, fist raised to do I-don’t-know-what, she beats me to it. I have never been punched in the face before, and God, I don’t ever want to experience it again. Pain laces through my head, momentarily staining my vision black.
“Mare!” Sam catches me before I can hit the ground.
Tires squeal, and I turn to see Sam’s car heading straight for us. He yanks me out of the way and the headlights flash across the woman’s face as the vehicle barrels toward her. Her friends have caught up. Some are holding knives. The woman jumps back just as Jo yanks the car to the side, blocking her off from us.
“Get in!” she screams.
Sam and I both jump into the backseat and she takes off before we shut the door. I climb over Sam to get to the next seat over, and he yanks the door shut as Jo peels out of the parking lot and speeds down the main road.
Sam and I collapse against our seats, breathing hard. My face throbs in sync with my pounding heart. I pull Squirt onto my lap, trying to calm her trembling little body. She lets out a low whine.
“Well, that was the most terrifying experience of my life,” Jo says calmly from the driver’s seat. “Why couldn’t we have just finished The fucking Princess Bride?”
28
The shock weighs heavily in the car, leaving us all speechless as Jo barrels down the empty road. When I pull out my phone to call the police like we planned, a notification informs me the call that nearly killed us tonight was another from Harper. There’s also a text from Maman: I’m so sorry. Please come home tonight. We’ll sit down and talk about this. Just please come home. Love you xx
The moment I unlock my phone, the battery dies.
“I’ll do it,” Sam offers, pulling his own out.
I climb into the front seat to help Johanna with directions. Once we manage to find our way back to the highway, Jo seems confident enough to get us home.
“My place?” she asks.
I glance at the dead phone in my lap. “Mine, actually.”
A quirked eyebrow is her only response.
“My mom texted me,” I explain. “It sounds like they want to apologize. Like they want to have a real conversation.”
“And you trust that after what happened last time?” Jo asks, not unkindly. “Hell, what’s been happening the last eighteen years?”
I lean my head against the window as Sam starts talking on the phone. I can’t help but think how differently everything could have turned out if I’d just given him a chance. I won’t make that mistake again.
“I have to at least give them a chance,” I say. “I owe them that much.”
✦✦✦
It’s well past midnight by the time we get back to our side of town. Squirt is asleep in my lap, and we sit in silence. I turn around in my seat to see Sam leaning against the door with his eyes closed.
“Sam?” I whisper. He straightens and opens his eyes. “Can I borrow your phone? I should call Harper, tell her I’m on my way back.”
He hands it to me, and I lean my head against the seat as I listen to it ring.
“Hello?” her groggy voice answers. I must have woken her up. I can easily picture her—rat’s nest hair, bleary eyed.
“Hey, Harp. It’s me. I’m sorry, my phone died—”
“Mare!” she screeches so loudly into the phone that I have to pull it away from my ear. “Oh my God, Mare! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all night!”
“I know,” I sigh as Jo pulls into my neighborhood. “I’m sorry, but I’m almost home now, so we can talk about it—”
“What?” she almost yells, and I hear shuffling in the background. “No! You can’t come home, Mare. Do you hear me? Don’t come home.”
I sit up straight. “What are you talking about? Is everything okay?”
“Wherever you are, just turn around and get as far away from here as you can. They’re waiting for you to show up. That’s what they want. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! You can’t come back here!”
“Harper, take a deep breath. You’re not making any sense. Who is waiting? What are you talking about?”
Jo pulls onto my street, and I spot three black SUVs parked outside of my house.
“Stop the car,” I say hollowly.
Jo’s eyes are fixed on the cars, too, and she slams on the breaks in the middle of the road.
“Mare, what’s going on?” Sam demands.
The headlights of the SUVs alight at once.
“I overheard Maman and Papa on the phone,” Harper says so quickly that the words stumble over one another. “They were talking to some kind of camp. Like a Jesus camp or something. You know, the bootcamp ones that help reconnect you with God or whatever? Do you remember Silvia from church—?”
I don’t hear anything she says next, my eyes fixed on the cars waiting in our driveway. A black hole erupts in the pit of my stomach. This can’t be happening. They wouldn’t do this to me. They wouldn’t.
“Is that who’s in those cars outside the house?” I whisper. “Are they here to take me?”
“You’re here?” Her voice is shrill again. The front door of our house flies open, and Harper steps onto the porch in her little plaid PJ shorts, her phone to her ear. Lights flicker on upstairs. “Get out of here!” She waves her arms at us from the porch. “Go!”
The SUVs pull away from our house. One pulls out, blocking the street in front of us so we can’t advance, one comes right toward us, and one disappears down the other side of the street, probably to circle around and block us in.
“Get us out of here!” I gesture wildly at Jo, tears in my voice. She throws the car into reverse and backs us straight into the next street.
Terror snakes its way through my chest. I can’t let them can’t take me. I’ve seen the documentaries and read the articles about those camps. They basically torture and abuse the kids there until they’re so emotionally, physically, and mentally drained that they’ll agree with any bullshit the “counselors” tell them to believe. The betrayal guts me, and my breaths start coming in short gasps. Maman said they wanted to talk. But really, it was just a trick to get me back here. If they can’t force me to believe like they do, they’ll send me to someone who can.
As Jo shifts the car back into drive and makes to exit the neighborhood, the other SUV rounds the corner, blocking our way.
Jo curses, tries to make a U-turn, but the SUV that was following us blocks her path. We’re boxed in. The men in the car closest to us jump out and start toward us. Jo hits the locks, and they all sink into the doors with a click. A tall man in a black cap leans over and raps his knuckles against the window. Another stands just outside my door, peering in at me.
“We’re here for Meredith Beaumont,” says the one on Jo’s side. His words are muffled by the closed windows, but between the aggressive intensity of his voice and reading his lips, the message is clear. “Her parents signed a waver and a contract. She’s coming with us. There’s no need to make this difficult.”
Jo cracks the window, not even an inch. “She’s eighteen, shithead,” Jo yells, and the man finches back at the volume. “You can’t take her if she doesn’t want to go. Sam, call the police.”
“Already on it,” Sam says, the phone to his ear, glaring through the window at the man outside my door.
“Her parents have the right to make this choice for her,” the one with the hat continues calmly. “Now unlock these doors.”
“Unless you want me to start honking the horn and screaming that you’re trying to kidnap or rape us and wake up the entire neighborhood,” Jo says through her teeth, “I suggest you get the hell away from my car.”
I hear Sam explaining the situation into the phone behind me, but my
eyes never leave the man just outside my door. His eyes are locked on me, too. My heart pounds against my chest. The only thing between us is this measly window. What if he just breaks it and drags me out?
Jo places her hand on the horn. “Get the fuck away from my car! You’re not getting anywhere near my friend. Not on my account.”
Both men take a step away. “We can wait,” says the one closest to me. “But we’re not going anywhere.”
“What you said is true, right?” I whisper. “They can’t take me? Not if I’m eighteen?”
“They can’t and they won’t,” Sam assures me, leaning into the front seat. “I just got off the phone with the police. They’re on their way. No one is taking you anywhere you don’t want to go.”
“I just can’t believe my parents would do this,” I whisper. And really, I can’t. We disagree about a lot of things, but this seems too extreme for them. Too desperate. Too impulsive. How long have they been planning this? Or did they make the call after Papa threw me out?
He reaches forward and grabs my hand. “It’s going to be okay.”
I start at the unexpected contact, then meet his eyes. For a second, he looks at me the way he used to.
Someone knocks on the window beside Sam’s head. We all jump and my body tenses, prepared to see that man again, but instead, it’s my father.
He peers in at us, his bathrobe tied around his waist, his hair rumpled. “Meredith!” he calls. “Come out of there, now!”
I shake my head, my throat tight. “No.”
“Can’t you see that we’re doing this to help you? We just want to help you, sweetheart.”
Behind him, I glance Maman and Harper on the sidewalk. It appears as if Harper is trying to get to us, but Maman is holding her back. Harper’s face is tearstained and creased with anger and determination, and I press my fingers against the window’s surface.
I try to communicate through my look how grateful I am that she tried to warn me. If I hadn’t known—sure, I would have thought it strange that those cars were in front of my house—but what if I’d gotten out of the car? Would they have grabbed me right there on the sidewalk, shoved me in their car, and peeled off down the street before anyone could do anything about it? She may have just saved my life.
As terrified and angry as I am right now, all I can think about is how I can’t leave Harper in that house. If Maman and Papa find out she likes girls, could this be her next? And if that happens, she wouldn’t have the protection of being eighteen and having the right to make her own choices. Could they just snatch her out of bed and ship her off?
Seemingly noticing Sam for the first time, my father turns his attention on him. “Samuel,” he says, his voice almost exasperated. “Surely you must see why we’re doing this? The importance of Meredith finding her way back to the church? What she’s doing, how she’s living, it’s wrong. As parents, the only thing we want in the world is the best for our child. We’re just trying to save her. If you love her, you should want that for her, too.”
“And if you loved her,” Sam snaps. “Then you’d respect her decisions and let her live the life that she chooses for herself. You wouldn’t try to force her to into something she doesn’t believe in.”
“With all due respect, Mr. Beaumont,” Johanna adds, turning around in her seat. “This,” she gestures to the men surrounding us, “is batshit crazy, and you should know that. This is wrong. Not your daughter.”
He shakes his head and looks heavenward, as if we’re all lost causes, too clueless and ignorant to see the wisdom of his ways, and turns away, rejoining the rest of my family on the sidewalk.
I reach my arm toward Jo. She takes my hand and squeezes.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
“We’re here for you,” Jo says, surprisingly sincere for once. No sarcasm. No wicked grins. “Always. If they want to take you, they’re going to have to go through me.”
“And me.” Sam agrees. “But as you showed us in the parking lot earlier, obviously you can take care of yourself.”
I laugh, wincing at the memory of getting punched.
“How’s your face?”
“How are your ribs?” I retort.
We make eye contact again and his expression softens. I’m not forgiven—even I know I don’t deserve that—but he still stuck around when I needed him most, which is more than I could have asked for.
“Look.” Sam points out the back of the car. We turn and watch as the cop cars pull up the street.
29
It feels like we stay locked in the car for hours, though it’s probably no more than twenty minutes. Even after the SUVs pull away, I can’t bring myself to get out of the car. What if they come back? What if they just wait until the police leave before turning around, plucking me out of my bed at three in the morning and disappearing with me halfway across the globe? No one would be the wiser.
My gaze finds my family through the window. Harper is in the same place, now sitting on the curb. My parents stand a little further off to the side, talking with one of the police officers. Papa is nodding slowly, arms folded over his chest. Maman is crying and pacing back and forth.
“I need to talk to my sister. Will you guys wait here for me?”
“Of course,” says Jo.
As I approach, Harper leaps up from the curb, sprints forward, and meets me halfway. Throwing her arms around my neck, she nearly tackles me to the ground, but I cling to her just as tightly. We stand in that embrace, silently, for a long time. I feel her face press into my shoulder, her fingers dig into my back.
“Thank you,” I finally whisper. “You saved me tonight.”
“You would’ve done the same for me.”
I pull away to look at her. “I would,” I agree. “In a heartbeat.” Which is why I need to figure something out for her. With me about to move out of the house, I can’t just leave her here with them, not after this.
She must read something on my face, because her expression falls. “You’re not coming home, are you?”
“No, Harp. I’m spending the night at Johanna’s. But so are you.”
“Yeah?” There’s a note of uncertainty on her face. I never let her hang out with me and my friends. Ever since I reached my teen years, we went from doing everything together to me excluding her whenever my friends were around. Whatever reasons I had before seem so stupid now.
I squeeze her shoulders. “Yeah. Come on.”
She notices Sam in the backseat of the car and pauses. “Wait. Can I run back to the house and get something first?”
Brow furrowed, I release her. “Sure.”
With a quick nod, she turns and runs up the street to the house. As soon as she’s gone, my parents and the police officer approach me. I refuse to look at my parents, and instead focus on the cop. His face is cracked with age, his hair tired and gray, but he has kind eyes. Understanding eyes. And it might just be because I’m so tired, but I could have sworn there was a little anger, maybe even disgust, at what my parents tried to do.
“I don’t think it’s necessary to make a formal report about this,” he says. “I’ve talked it over with your parents, and they agree.”
“Of course they agree!” I snap. “That just means they get away with it, and can do it again.”
“Meredith,” Papa admonishes, but he has lost all right to parent me right now.
The officer seems unfazed by my outburst. “You’re eighteen years old. I’ve made it very clear that if they try anything like this again, we’d know, and they could get into some very serious legal trouble.”
“And my little sister?” I demand. “Who’s going to protect her? Who’s going to stop them from shipping her off when they don’t know how to deal with her anymore?”
“Meredith,” Maman breathes. It isn’t admonishing this time, but heartbroken at the accusation. Dark tracks of mascara trail down her cheeks, and I can’t help but notice the amount of distance she’s put
between herself and Papa, her body angled away from his.
The cop exhales and glances at Harper as she comes running back down the street, a folder tucked under one arm. “How about you come into the station in the morning and we can talk about this some more? After we’ve all gotten some rest?”
After we’re all in agreement, I nod for Harper to join Sam in the backseat, and she eagerly obliges. As I turn to loop around to the passenger side, Maman makes as if to grab my arm and stop me, but I yank away.
“Meredith!” she pleads, her voice raw. “I understand that you’re angry, but we’re still your parents.”
“What you tried to do to me is unforgiveable,” I say in a low voice. “So don’t expect me to act like nothing’s changed between us. Yes, you’re my parents. You will always be my parents. But that doesn’t excuse what you just did. I’m not sure if anything will ever excuse what you just did.”
I slam the door.
30
It’s well past two in the morning by the time we make it to Johanna’s house. She, Harper, and Squirt immediately dart inside, leaving Sam and me on the porch. I perch myself on the first step, looking up at the stars, and Sam does the same, except he sits as far away from me as the porch permits. For a while, we don’t say anything. Johanna’s house is removed enough from the city that the view is nearly as good as it had been at the drive-in. This tiny reminder just sends a pang through my chest.
“You came back,” I squeeze out, my throat tight.
Sam shifts, his arms crossed over his chest, gaze trailed forward. “As soon as I saw that news report, I knew I had to do something. For Squirt.”
For Squirt. As in: not for you.
I can’t blame him for being angry. I haven’t given him a single reason not to be angry. But still, the short way he snips the words for Squirt feels like getting punched in the face all over again.