by Cylin Busby
“Nico, can I talk to you a sec?” Max’s younger brother looked anxious.
I grabbed my tray from the table and followed him outside, dumping my trash along the way. Gabe looked like Max, but the junior version—he was smaller and wore his hair longer, as shaggy as our private school would allow, with a braided leather choker around his neck like a surfer. For about a minute, our freshman year, I think he wanted us to be the mini of Sarah and Max, and he started hanging out with my group whenever he could. At a school dance, he lingered in my peripheral vision, trying to sidle up to me and make conversation. It took Tessa discreetly telling him it was never going to happen for him to back off.
“Something’s up with Max and Paula,” Gabe said quickly. “Like, I think they’re breaking up.”
“Why?”
Gabe leaned against the wall outside the cafeteria. “I heard them fighting all weekend. Talking about Sarah. Mucho drama.”
I thought back to how Paula had been at our house with Max—so possessive. Clinging to him. But Max hadn’t been that way with her. When Sarah had disappeared, he was in love with her. And now it looked like he still was. Part of me was elated, knowing that Sarah would be thrilled with the news that her boyfriend might be hers again. But a little part of me, deep down, was bummed. Of course, Sarah got her way. Again. Without even trying. Paula had to be devastated.
I noticed that Gabe was the only one who didn’t have questions about Sarah—Max must have told him everything.
When I got home after school, anxious to tell Sarah the gossip, she was upstairs. She had been at doctors’ appointments all day and was taking a nap after the MRI they had done. I could hear Mom pacing in her office, getting records sent where they needed to go, from the shelter in Florida and over to the police. She needed X-rays from our pediatrician, but it sounded like they didn’t have them.
When she came out and saw that I was home from school, she pushed her reading glasses up on her head. She hadn’t checked with me to be sure Tessa’s mom was driving us home and didn’t even ask how my first day back was. “Oh, Nico, I’m so glad you’re here. Tell me I’m not going crazy: Sarah never had a fracture in her arm when she was little, did she?”
“No,” I answered quickly—that had been me. The time I fell down the stairs, Sarah standing at the top, looking down at me, a smirk on her face. An “accident,” just another accident. “Why?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, they think the break in her arm might have happened earlier, like ten years ago or more, from how it’s healed. But I was sure that couldn’t be right. She’s never broken a bone, from what I remember. But maybe a fracture, I mean unnoticed . . . from cheerleading, gymnastics, or something?”
I shrugged. I really couldn’t remember.
“Well, someone broke her arm.” Mom raised her voice, holding up a pile of papers. “You should see the things that have happened to her, it’s not just the burns. What they did . . .” I could tell from Mom’s face that she was talking about sex.
“Why does it matter?” I felt the words come out of my mouth and instantly regretted them.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Mom stood in front of me, her eyes narrowed.
“Nothing,” I mumbled, heading for the stairs.
“Nico, stop. I want you to explain to me what that meant, right now.”
I heard a small sound and looked up to the top of the stairs as a shadow moved there—Sarah, standing in the dark hallway, listening to every word.
“I just meant that I don’t know why this stuff matters—if she hurt her arm before or last year, who cares?”
“We are building a case against whoever did these things to your sister,” Mom pointed out. “And I want everything accounted for, every single thing they did. When this report”—she shook the papers in her hands—“when it goes to the police and the detectives, I want them to know about every burn, every broken bone, every time they raped her.” She stopped there and met my eyes, looking daggers at me. As if what had happened to Sarah was somehow my fault.
“Okay,” I said. “I get it. Maybe she did hurt her arm before—I remember her having a sling, from something—gymnastics.”
Suddenly Mom’s face changed with realization. “You know what, I remember that too—maybe it will be in the photo album, or Dad might remember. He has a better memory of these things.”
I wanted to ask her what the MRI showed about her brain damage, if they had an explanation for how she had changed so much, but Mom was already digging open the storage closet, pulling down old photo albums. And I was glad not to have asked when I saw, as I went up the stairs, Sarah’s door quietly close behind her.
CHAPTER 18
WE STARTED TO SLOWLY ease into a pattern of days as a family. I went to school, Mom stayed home with Sarah, and Dad went to work. I started to do my usual schedule again, with after-school stuff like tennis and the yearbook—everything but working at the help line. I had gotten a super-nice email from Marcia telling me to take a couple of weeks off to spend time with my family. “We welcome you with open arms as soon as you’re ready to come back, and look forward to meeting your sister,” she had written.
Sarah’s schedule was pretty full. She had doctors’ appointments during the day, mostly with a psychiatrist in the city—a two-hour round trip—but they seemed unhelpful for much other than her transitioning back into our lives.
“She still can’t remember anything, not one thing—not how they got her to Florida or how many people it was or even if they were male or female or both,” I heard Mom tell Dad one evening. The detectives hadn’t been back, but I knew that Sarah’s doctors were obligated to share their reports with the police. Any detail might be the clue that would allow them to track down her abductor or abductors.
Mom’s biggest fear was that whoever had taken Sarah let her go but might be holding other girls. Or what if they were running a ring of underage prostitutes, releasing them when they got too old to be interesting to clients? “They may have just replaced her with another girl, which means some other family out there is suffering like we were,” Mom said. Her crusade continued, looking for answers and trying to right the wrongs. It was as if she had been doing it so long, she couldn’t stop, even now that Sarah was finally home.
Part of me wished she would just let it go, so we could all move on. Sarah was back, our family was together, and I didn’t want to question where she had been or what had happened to her anymore. But it was hard for any of us to let go when we spent our days constantly reminding Sarah of things from the past: stuff she had done, what she had liked or disliked. It was all simple things, like her favorite foods, actors and singers she liked. Once we told her, she seemed to remember. “Right, I saw all of those vampire movies already,” she’d say, nodding. But I could never tell if it was true or if she just wanted us to believe that she remembered.
And nights—not every night, but a couple of times a week—she would wake with screaming night terrors. Mom usually went in to her and was able to calm her down quickly, but the whole house was awake until it was over, every time, her voice cutting through the dark: “LET ME OUT, STOP IT, STOP IT.”
When I got home most days after tennis or yearbook, she and Mom were in the kitchen fixing dinner. Sarah often sat with me and helped with my homework, her calm, simple way of explaining things a welcome relief from Mom’s shrill complaints that the teachers gave us too much work (covering for the fact that she was just as confused as I was about the math and science). Somehow, Sarah had a firm grasp on the subjects, and what was expected. “Next I bet you’re going to have plate tectonics,” she said, paging through my science textbook. And she was right. The teacher jumped ahead two chapters, just as Sarah had predicted.
“You should really be a teacher,” I told her one night, and Sarah shook her head.
“Me?” she asked, the southern lilt returning, just for an instant. “I like to help you, but that’s because you’re my sister. I could not han
dle a whole classroom of kids.” I liked the way she said sister. My sister. She pulled out the GED prep book Mom had picked up for her, and we studied together.
I had told everyone about Max and Paula, how it looked like they might not be an item anymore, and I could tell from Mom’s face that she was pleased, but she would never admit it. “Well, I’m sure it was something going on before, and not Sarah’s fault,” she said.
Sarah was harder to read; I had thought she would be thrilled with the possibility that Max could be hers again, but instead she seemed cautious. Max had planned to return on the following weekend and wanted some time with her—alone. The prospect of Sarah being out of the house with anyone but family was terrifying for all of us and became the main topic of conversation when Dr. Levine, the counselor from the center, returned on Wednesday night.
“Again, if Sarah feels ready for it, she probably is,” Dr. Levine counseled. This applied to a visit from Gram as well, who was anxious to see Sarah even though her declining health made it almost impossible for her to travel. She had plans to come in the next week or two to see her oldest grandchild and stay with us for a few days.
That night, when I finished brushing my teeth, Sarah called me into her room. She was sitting on the bed, still reading Rebecca, only halfway through now. “Can you tell me . . .” She bit her lower lip and smiled a little. “God, this is so embarrassing!”
I sat on the bed and waited for her to go on.
“It’s just . . . about Max, how I was with him, what we did together,” Sarah started to say. “I don’t remember any of it, and I’m just worried. I don’t want to disappoint him, he’s gone through a lot, right?”
She didn’t know—couldn’t know—how much.
“It’s just weird to go on a date with someone you haven’t been with in four years,” Sarah went on.
I nodded, thinking back over their relationship. What could I tell her? “You guys ran away once, to a cabin,” I said. But Sarah cut me off.
“Yes, we went to his parents’ cabin, up in the mountains and stayed overnight, right? That was why they thought I had maybe run away again, when I went missing. They thought I did it again.”
The way Sarah explained it, I knew she had gotten that information not from her memory but from some newspaper story about her case. She couldn’t know—wouldn’t remember—how much that one night had changed all our lives. Even though it was four years ago, the memories were still so clear. Mom and Dad were frantic. When it got to be around two in the morning and Sarah hadn’t come home, wasn’t picking up her phone, they called the police. Then Mom called the local hospitals, giving Sarah’s description, but they didn’t have any patients who matched. Of course they didn’t. I already knew that.
Because I knew exactly where she was. That time.
Sarah was with Max, at his family’s cabin up north. A two-hour drive away. She wasn’t in a hospital, she hadn’t been in an accident, abducted, raped, left for dead somewhere. She was with her boyfriend.
Finally, after waiting up for hours, I couldn’t take it anymore. My parents were in agony. So I told. Mostly because it wasn’t fair for Mom to think her precious daughter had been hurt, or was lying in a morgue somewhere, but part of me also wanted Sarah to get in trouble.
Instead of being relieved when I told them the truth, my parents just seemed angrier. Angry at me for not telling sooner, and angry at Sarah for making them worry. They sent me to bed in tears, sick and sobbing, unsure if I had done the right thing or made the biggest mistake of my life. I was only eleven, but I knew one thing for sure: Sarah would make me pay. She always did.
After that, I saw my parents second-guessing themselves at every turn, questioning every decision. Even with me. I told Mom I didn’t feel like going to tennis practice one day after school—Sarah had “accidentally” closed my hand in the bathroom door and my nails had turned black on two fingers and my hand hurt. Mom let me stay home, but it prompted a whole in-depth conversation after dinner with both Mom and Dad about whether they were pushing me too hard, and did I really want to take tennis two times a week, because if I didn’t, that was fine with them. They were fine with everything; they just wanted me to know.
Even with all their concessions, everything they did, it wasn’t enough. At the end of the summer, she disappeared again. Of course, the first person questioned that time was Max.
“The cops came down pretty hard on Max,” I told her now. “And Paula too—the detectives thought they had something to do with your disappearance.”
“Did they?” Sarah asked innocently. She met my eyes and I realized that she really had no idea.
I shook my head. “No,” I said honestly. Max had been their number one suspect. They searched his parents’ house, the cabin, even his car. Mom spent hours with the cops, trying to convince them he couldn’t have done it. He would never do that. He loved her.
“Max would never do anything to hurt you, I know that,” I said quickly.
“And Paula?” Sarah met my eyes for a moment. “What about Paula?”
I took a deep breath before answering. “You and Paula had some problems. . . .” I remembered the article from two years ago, the one that reopened Sarah’s case. The journalist had really exposed the issues between the girls at school—the fierce competitiveness, the arguments—that stuff was all documented on social media, even though Paula had tried to delete some of it. They investigated the phone call that Sarah had received on the day of her disappearance and tried to interview Paula. She wouldn’t talk, but that didn’t stop the reporter from speculating.
I had heard later that the article made it hard for Paula to apply to college, that anyone could look up her name and find her connection to the case. The specter of Sarah’s disappearance haunted both Paula and Max, casting a shadow of doubt on everything they tried to do. Was it any wonder they had found each other, had become a couple in the wake of that?
Sarah and I sat there awkwardly for a moment, neither of us speaking. I tried to think of what else I could tell her, to set her mind at ease.
“Max might want to see . . .” I pointed to my left hip. “Where you put the tattoo, of his initials. That little M and V.”
Sarah looked down and touched her own left hip gingerly. “I gave myself the tattoo?” she finally said. “Why?”
“It was when Mom and Dad said you couldn’t see him anymore, they told you he was too old. And Paula said you were dating him just to hurt her. You wanted to prove something.” I paused, remembering. Sarah, coming out of the shower, wrapping a towel around herself. She knew I had seen the tattoo.
Now he’s mine, forever. If you tell anyone about this, she said, I swear to God you will be so sorry. I’ll kill you, I mean it, Nico. I will seriously kill you.
“I saw it by accident. You told me that you did it with a pin and ink. I think they’re still in your top drawer.” I glanced over at her white desk, my eyes traveling down to where I’d found the duffel bag. Was it still there?
“Max has your initials, too—same place—in case you don’t remember that. But I think the whole thing was your idea.” I gave a weak smile and looked at her, but she just nodded, slowly, as if taking it all in. I stood up and turned to go.
“Nico,” Sarah said, stopping me. “Thank you.” Tears welled in her eyes.
I shrugged, leaning against the door for a second. “What are sisters for, right?”
She nodded. “Right.” And she met my eyes for an instant.
I pulled the door behind me, almost closed but not quite, the way Sarah liked it now, and stepped into the dark hallway.
SARAH
SHE HAD TO PART my hair very carefully and comb it into braids to hide the red part on my scalp. I watched her hands in the mirror as they moved, quick and effortless. “I used to cut hair,” she explained. “Still could if I wanted.”
There was writing on her wrist, a name, but it was in cursive so I couldn’t read it. “That’s for my angel,” she told me. “I
don’t believe much in tattoos, but I had to get this one. Had his name put on me so he’s always with me. Hurt like a bitch, too, but it was worth it, every second.”
When she was happy with my hair, it was time to clean the house. She kept talking about this person coming over, and how important they were—a Very Special Visitor, she said. When the person got there, I wasn’t supposed to talk about him, or any of that stuff that had happened before.
We had to clean and clean everything, and then one day she came home with a new bedspread for me, with Disney princesses all over it. Pink and white and fluffy and perfect, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I knew the bedspread was just for show, just for the Very Special Visitor, and she didn’t get it for me because she loved me or even cared about me, but it didn’t matter. I kept it until I was seventeen, through all the moves and different houses and apartments and trailers where we lived, until it was no more than a bunch of rags and stuffing—that’s how much I loved it.
CHAPTER 19
THE WEEKEND VISIT WITH Max didn’t go as well as we had all hoped. Mom and Dad wanted Sarah to slip back into her old life: Max, school, friends, everything. But Max and her friends had moved on; they were all in college now. Max was a man, not a teenager. And the Sarah who came back to us was not the Sarah they remembered, not the one who Max had fallen in love with.
We all stayed up, of course, waiting for Sarah to get home that night. But she was home early, before ten. I was in my room, but when I heard his car outside I came downstairs. Sarah looked pale as she closed the door behind her.