Never Missing, Never Found

by Amanda Panitch

  “I don’t remember promising you horses.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “I promised myself horses.”

  He raises an eyebrow right back. “I can show you the horses. If you want?”

  His words trail off into the smoke. I know what he’s saying. If I go with him to see the horses, there’s no coming back.

  Cady. Cady. Cady. I try to drum up my mental image. Cady is there crying her heart out over this guy. It should be easy, considering she was just crying on my shoulder. This is wrong. Cady will hate you, and so will everyone else. Think of Cady.

  But Cady is far away, and the pleasant buzz of the fire in my brain is blocking all pictures other than the one of Connor sitting a few inches away. Heat floods me, heat that is decidedly not from the bonfire. “I would very much like to see the horses,” I say, lowering my voice, hoping it sounds sexy.

  His face doesn’t change. “Really?”

  “Yes,” I say. I don’t think about it. I don’t need to think. “Let’s go. Right now.”

  We go.

  This is the fourth choice. And it’s the choices we make that make us who we are. By making this choice, I know I’m removing the possibility that Cady and Connor will stumble back into a relationship. I’m not a girl who could be a bridesmaid at their potential future wedding. I am the girl who pulls Connor into the barn in hopes that any thought of that potential future wedding will poof into a cloud of smoke.

  The barn is at the far end of the field, far away from the crowd of people. Connor and I race to the barn at the edge of the woods, tossing off laughs as we run, using the darkness as cover.

  We burst into the barn gasping, still laughing, and Connor shuts the door behind us. Panic swells for a moment in the dark, but my eyes soon adjust, thanks to the stripes of light filtering through the uneven boards of the wall; there’s also a dim glow coming from the other end, where the snorts and creaks signify the presence of the horses. I inhale deeply and smell the sweetness of the hay and the warmth of the horses and the smoke clinging to Connor’s shirt. “The horses are over there,” Connor says. “Ernesto and Bessie.” He points, but his eyes don’t move from my face. He’s staring unabashedly, as if memorizing my eyes, my nose, my lips. I flex my fingers. Somewhere on the run I lost my drink.

  “I don’t care about the horses,” I say, and somehow he’s got me in his arms, and somehow we’re up against the wall, nails digging into my back and probably giving me tetanus. He gazes into my eyes, hesitating, so I swoop in, and then my mouth is on his and it’s hot and tastes like sugar. A little noise, almost like a growl, escapes his throat and reverberates through all my bones. I press myself against him and feel him shudder. A breeze dances over my skin, standing all my little hairs on end.

  He draws back for a moment, and I resist, pressing my face into his throat. His pulse throbs like there’s a moth fluttering under his skin. I kiss it, gently, to feel it flutter against my lips.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, his voice rough.

  “Well, duh,” I say, putting on my best imitation of Connor’s braggadocio, and we can’t help but laugh. One of his hands rests on my hip, pressing me into the wall; the other traces the line of my jaw, drawing a trail of fire so intense I have to close my eyes or I’ll burst into flame.

  “You really are,” Connor says, and he kisses me again. This time his tongue eases its way into my mouth and touches all the little hidden crevices where food sometimes gets stuck. Fortunately, I flossed before I came. I’ve never felt so thankful for the dentist who terrified me into daily flossing with his slides of decaying gums.

  No, Scarlett. Don’t think of decaying gums now. There is a time and a place for decaying gums, and this time and place is so far from that place it might as well be on Jupiter. “You are too,” I murmur, and lick at his lips just as he pulls away. He laughs as he catches me with the tip of my tongue poking through.

  “Sometimes the barn cat does that,” he says. “She’ll be licking herself and get distracted in the middle and just walk around with her tongue sticking out.”

  I jab him in the ribs—on the side, obviously, because we’re still pressed together so tightly there isn’t space for so much as a nudge. His belt buckle is carving a permanent mark in my belly. “Are you calling me a barn cat?”

  “Hey,” Connor says. “It’s about the cutest thing in the world.”

  I breathe out through my nose, then tilt my head back for another kiss. When Connor doesn’t bite—literally or figuratively—I bury my face back in his neck and nibble, feeling almost like a vampire. He sighs, and I pull back. “I shouldn’t be doing this right now,” he says. “It would break Cady’s heart all over again.”

  My heart, previously so light, fills with dread and drops to my feet with a thunk. “She’s not your girlfriend anymore. Not your responsibility.”

  The dim glow from the horses’ corner illuminates flyaway strands of his hair, turning them into molten copper. It flows into the darkness as he shakes his head. “That’s not true, though,” he says. “I still care about her a lot. She’s still one of my best friends. I don’t want to hurt her any more than she’s already hurting.”

  His words are making my stomach hurt, but my not-so-sober state makes it easy enough to ignore them, and it. I stand on my tiptoes and press against him, and he leans back down, and I drink him in, his smell and his taste and his heat.

  It’s somewhere in the middle of our sixth kiss, his hand beginning to trace circles of gold and glitter over my waist, when we realize something is different. I put it down to a shift in brain chemistry, or the amount of smoke and vodka I’ve inhaled. But it gets to the point where I can’t deny it anymore; the horses are stomping and snorting, and the wave of chatter outside has reached a fever pitch, and someone is screaming.

  I pull away. “Do you hear that?”

  He purses his lips, which have swelled and turned red with the force of my own. “What’s going on out there?”

  There’s definitely screaming now, and crying. Someone is shrieking loud enough for us to hear it clear across the field and through the wooden walls of the barn.

  He eases back reluctantly. His hands don’t slip from my waist. “We should see what’s going—”

  The door slams against the wall. Connor leaps back like my skin’s turned into a hot stove, and I gasp a mouthful of hay pollen. Somewhere in the middle of all the coughing and choking, I realize the small, squat figure standing silhouetted in the doorway is Rob. He spares a cursory look at me, one that fills my belly with shame because I know I’ve done wrong by Cady and now he knows too, but he focuses on Connor and his words melt everything else away.

  “It’s Monica,” he says. “They found her.”

  Outside someone wails, a high, desolate sound that tears apart the sky.

  After my night in Candy’s bedroom, I expected everything to go back to normal: I’d clean everything up, eat a quick lunch under Stepmother’s watchful eye, help the girls at night, eat a quick dinner under Stepmother’s watchful eye, and then get shooed into the basement to curl around Pixie and fall into an exhausted sleep.

  That’s not what happened. I cleaned everything up. Ate a quick lunch under Stepmother’s watchful eye. Helped the girls at night. But when Pixie and I were excused to the kitchen to shovel down our usual tuna fish sandwiches, Stepmother was waiting. “I would like to thank you again for your loyalty, Jane,” she said. “You were such a good girl, you deserve a nice dinner.”

  I glanced over at Pixie, who was determinedly staring at the floor. Maybe she was looking for an escape tunnel. I’d just regained her goodwill. If I lost it again so quickly, I might have a much harder time getting it back. “I love tuna fish, ma’am,” I said earnestly. “It’s exactly what I’m in the mood for.”

  Stepmother laid a hand on my hair. My head bowed forward under its weight, and my hair prickled. I had to fight the urge to shake it off. She’d never touched me like this before, and she didn’t move her h
and now, just let it sit. “I want you to have a roast beef sandwich. I won’t take no for an answer, Jane.”

  From the corner of my eye I could see Pixie’s lips thin. Roast beef was one of Pixie’s favorite foods. “It’s really okay, ma’am.”

  “Nonsense,” Stepmother said, and she removed her hand. I suddenly felt so light I might float away. “I’ve already made it. Eat it.”

  I glanced again at Pixie. She was looking at me, but as soon as my eyes met hers, she looked down at the floor. “Okay,” I said helplessly.

  Stepmother sat us down at the table and placed our food in front of us. Pixie’s was the usual: chunky tuna fish on white bread, cut in half. On my plate was what looked like half a crusty baguette, stuffed full to bursting with roast beef and pickles and dripping with sauce. There was even a mountain of chips on the side. Despite myself, my mouth watered.

  If I’d had the choice, I would have shared half of it with Pixie. But I didn’t have the choice.

  Stepmother sat there the whole time, watching me. So I ate the sandwich with my eyes on my plate. It was the most delicious sandwich I’d ever eaten.

  That night, Stepmother sent me down into the basement, the feeling of her hand still imprinted in my hair. I knew this wasn’t it, though. More nights in beds and more roast beef sandwiches waited for me if I ratted Pixie out again.

  I could tell Pixie was upset; she crawled to our mattress and curled up, facing the wall. I followed and sat down beside her. “My scar hurts,” I said.

  She didn’t say anything, but she reached her hand backward in what looked like an incredibly uncomfortable position. I took it and squeezed. “Tell me about your school,” she said. “I bet you had a nice school.”

  I’d never thought of my school as nice, but now I couldn’t think of any place nicer in all the world. “I wonder what happened to my desk,” I said. “If they just left it open waiting for me, or if someone else is sitting there now. And all my stuff. I wonder what they did with all my stuff.”

  “Tell me about your school,” Pixie said. “Tell me about your friends.”

  I told her about my school. I told her about my friends. I told her about my old life until my voice literally stopped working and I sagged against her shoulder with sleep. She patted my head, stroking, really, like I was some kind of pet, or a wild animal she was trying to tame.

  —

  In the dizzying moments after Rob leads Connor and me from the barn and into the fray of screams and cries around the bonfire, I think that “They found her” means “They found Monica, here, at the party.” Maybe while Connor and I were kissing, Monica was so incensed by this betrayal of her best friend that she willed herself away from wherever she was and burst from the fire, showering the partygoers with sparks and starting a hundred little fires in the fields, and tore around the party shrieking like a devil before collapsing into a heap of ash.

  But no—as I learn on our walk, Monica hasn’t been found here (obviously). Her body has been found several miles away, half buried under a drift of leaves, somewhere deep in the woods, by police who showed up at the area in pursuit of a drug bust.

  Rob doesn’t tell me, of course. He tells Connor, their heads leaning close together, as I trail behind, no longer a part of the group. It’s probably better this way, I think, or I try to think. This way, nobody will see us walking together. Nobody will know what happened in the barn. This isn’t the time for everyone to know what happened in the barn.

  As if he’s reading my mind, Connor stops and looks over his shoulder, face apologetic. “Oh no,” he says. “Look….”

  The wail I heard in the barn came from Cady, I immediately understand. She’s still wailing, her mouth a pit you could drown in; if there were birds flying overhead, her cries would drop them. She’s draped over one of the bales, curled into a knot like she has a stomachache, one of her hands dangling uselessly over the side. A couple of her friends, Tina included, hover around her, but most of the people here are clustered in knots of their own, foreheads touching, their murmurs forming a roar. Some are leaving; the sounds of slamming car doors echo from the driveway.

  “I need to go to Cady,” Connor says. He rubs his forehead. The creases are back. “I just…I have to.” He looks at me, eyes doleful, like he’s a kid asking his teacher for permission to go to the bathroom. “She’s still my friend, and I’m the only one who’s going to be able to make her feel better.”

  And it’s just that, the fact that he seems to feel he needs my permission, that makes me sigh and nod. “You should go to her,” I say. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Later,” Connor says. He makes an awkward little bob, like he’s going to hug me, but Rob clears his throat and Connor jolts away. He nods his head instead and takes off, running in Cady’s direction.

  Rob clears his throat again, and I realize he’s directing it at me. “He broke up with her,” I say defensively.

  “They’ve broken up before,” Rob says. For someone with piercings in his face and tattoos peeking over the collar of his shirt, he manages to look an awful lot like a disapproving old woman. “He’s a good guy. He won’t do this to her when her best friend just died.”

  I feel like he’s kicked me in the gut. When I realize I’m upset over being inconvenienced by a dead girl, I feel like I’ve kicked myself in the gut. “Not to be a bitch, but it’s really none of your business.” I take a deep breath and am embarrassed to feel it shudder in my throat. “I should probably go.”

  “Scarlett, wait.” I stop, but I don’t turn around. “I know he likes you,” Rob continues. “I know you like him. You’re probably good for each other. But sometimes the timing just doesn’t work, you know?”

  I take another deep breath. This one doesn’t shudder. “Like I said, I don’t want to be a bitch, but it’s really none of your business.” I hear him clear his throat again, but I flee before he can say anything else.

  The whole party is trying to leave at once, and so I have to wait in a line to turn off onto the road. As I’m waiting, I wonder about Monica—where exactly she was found, what exactly had happened to her, how long she’d been lying there, alone and unfound, in the dark—and I realize one thing.

  I saw what seemed like every person I’ve ever worked with at Adventure World at that party.

  Except Katharina.

  —

  I feel like I’ve spent years of my life at the bonfire, like I’ve gone from seventeen to eighteen to nineteen and am now an unfathomably ancient twenty, just one year away from being a real legal person. But the bonfire lasted only two hours. Somehow I drove there, got my drink, let Cady cry all over me, made out with Connor, and fled under Rob’s judgy eyes in 120 minutes. I want to laugh at the thought.

  As I pull into the driveway, the living room lights glow through our front windows—not surprising, since it’s only ten o’clock. Seriously, only two hours?

  It’s past his bedtime, so Matthew is sleeping, or pretending to sleep. My dad is the one the lamps light up, and he waves at me from the couch as I walk by. “Good party?” he asks, the glow of the TV flickering over his cheeks. Flashing lights chase a phantom car.

  “Okay,” I say, ready to walk past, and then stop. “They found the missing girl. Monica.”

  “Found her?” My dad shifts in his seat and his mouth twitches, like he’s not sure if he should smile or frown, whether he should clap or jump up to hug me.

  He stays seated.

  “Dead,” I say flatly.

  “I’m so sorry. Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, but he still doesn’t stand.

  “No,” I say. I’m already moving toward the stairs. “I just want to go to sleep.”

  That is a lie. I tiptoe past my bedroom door and nudge Matthew’s open. As I suspected, he’s sprawled out beside the door, under his night-light, his face buried in the pages of a book. Little snores escape his throat. I crouch at his side. “Hey, kid,” I say, nudging his shoulder. “Get in bed.”

  He li
fts his head. A crease indents his cheek from forehead to chin where it had rested against the edge of the pages. “I’m not tired,” he says.

  “Yeah, okay,” I say. “Get in bed and I’ll tuck you in.”

  He lets me lift him up and cart him, heavy and warm and smelling like baby, to his bed. I lower him gently to his sheets, leaning over one extra second to breathe him in. There’s something about the smell of freshly washed little kid. It’s the smell of everything good in the world, and for a moment it makes me forget the way Monica’s body must have smelled lying out there, broken, under sticks and leaves.

  “Can you read some of my book?” Matthew asks. His eyelashes flutter sleepily.

  I practice my stern face, but it melts in two seconds. “Looks like you read plenty,” I say. I draw the covers over him and tuck them under his chin. “It’s way past your bedtime.”

  “Did they find that girl?” Matthew asks. He blinks at me slowly, drowsily. “The one who was missing?”

  My throat closes up. I can’t lie to him. “Yes, they found her,” I say, and pray he doesn’t ask me anything more.

  His blink lasts a shade longer than the last. “You were missing too,” he says.

  “Yes,” I say. “I was.”

  “But they found you, too,” Matthew says, and this time his eyes don’t open again.

  I let the words ring in the room for a moment, hang in the air and paint the walls black with streaks of shadow. Too. My heart beats hollow in my chest. It’s amazing what one word can do.

  “Scarlett?”

  I jerk and immediately glance down to make sure I didn’t wake my brother. He’s still slumbering peacefully. I wish I were seven years old.

  “Yeah?” I ease my way up—Matthew snorts and his lips twitch—and make my way to the door. I’ve shut it behind me before I realize I’m face to face with Melody. I don’t know who else I thought it would be. “Oh,” I say. “Hey.”

  She leans against the wall, still dressed in her going-out clothes—a thigh-skimming skirt and lacy top. Black eyeliner smudges shadows around her eyes. “I heard they found the missing girl,” she says breathlessly. Her cheeks are flushed—I can’t tell if it’s from makeup or blood.