by L. E. Flynn
I used to see the notes Jasper left Trixie, sticking out the door of our shared locker like white flags. She tore one up like confetti in front of me once and tossed it in the garbage can. When I asked her what it said, she just laughed. “He’s too in love with me. I need to make him hate me more. That’s the only way you can be with a guy.”
“Weren’t you just with him last night?” I had asked. “Don’t you want him to be thinking about you?” She shook her head and smiled knowingly, that Fiona-you-have-so-much-to-learn smile that drove me insane.
“I fucked him last night. But that’s all he is to me, and all he’ll ever be.”
I felt sad for him, because I could tell she meant it. Once, I opened one of the notes and shoved it in my pocket before she could see it and destroy it, because it didn’t deserve to rot in the garbage with banana peels and wads of gum.
It said: You’re the moon because you only come out at night and aren’t there in the morning. Maybe one day I’ll wake up and you’ll be the sun too.
When I open my car door to wait for Jasper after school, I’m hit with a dizzying wave of hot air. I barely have a chance to sit down before someone grips my shoulders.
“Jasper?”
Beau swims in front of my vision. “Hey,” he says, prodding me gently, and there’s concern in his eyes that makes me hold my breath because he’s here, whole, not the broken version he shattered into. “Earth to Fiona. You okay?”
His voice is rough, coarse. And You okay isn’t the nicest thing anyone could say. But somehow it sounds like the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. Because it’s coming from Beau and everything coming from Beau is amplified a thousand times.
“I’m fine. Just hot.”
“I can get you some water,” he says, but it’s more like a question. Even though my mouth is parched, I shake my head because if he goes somewhere to get water, he might not come back and it will be like this never happened.
“Look, I need something,” he says, and suddenly I feel like an idiot, because I know exactly why he’s here. Because of the bottles under my passenger seat. The ones I should have gotten rid of but didn’t because secretly I hoped a variation of this exact moment would happen. That I would have something he wants.
“No,” I say, even though it would be easier to just say yes.
“I need it. I’m having a terrible goddamned day. Look at my hands.” He places his hands, palms down, in front of my face. And sure enough, they’re shaking violently. Maybe he’s doing that on purpose, faking it so I’ll cave.
“You need help,” I say. “It’s obvious, what you’re doing. You have a problem. And people let you get away with it because Toby … But you can’t keep doing this.”
Beau claps his hands together so loudly that I jump. “I do whatever I need to do to keep breathing. Nobody knows what actually happened that night. Especially not you, because you weren’t there.”
My heart falls into my stomach. You weren’t there. It’s an accusation, a dagger, something that punctures my skin and settles underneath. I wasn’t there. I stayed home the night Toby disappeared. If I would have gone to that party, would everything be different?
“He’s not coming back,” I say gently, even though I’m not sure exactly what I believe anymore. “You know that.”
“Says who?” Beau says, his voice rising in a crescendo. His hands ball into fists and I wonder if he’s going to smash the hood of my car.
“Says you,” I shout back, my voice louder and angrier than I thought was possible.
Maybe he doesn’t remember saying it. There’s probably a lot Beau doesn’t remember saying.
“And you should talk,” he spits out. “What a coincidence that she disappears too.”
Beau abruptly stops talking and sets his lips in a thin line. He bows his head and scratches his hair with his hands, runs his fingers through the roots like he wants to yank it out.
“What do you mean, what a coincidence?” I say, my voice shrill. “What do you mean by too?”
“Nothing,” he says, rubbing his hands over his face, the word coming out in a muffled thud. “Nothing. Fucking nothing.”
My heart beats so hard I can feel it everywhere inside me. I’m a ticking time bomb and I’ll explode any second. I know he’s lying, that he didn’t mean fucking nothing. I know that Beau swears when he lies, probably to cover everything up in something slick, making it easier to swallow. He never even used to swear. He had the perfect word for every situation, words that bloomed on his tongue. Now it’s like he can’t be bothered to find them anymore, so he layers them in ugliness on purpose.
“I’ll give you those bottles,” I say, even though I’m just hurting him, wrenching the sword in deeper. “I’ll give you what you want if you tell me what you meant.”
When Beau takes his hands away from his face, his features are twisted in pain. A whole new layer of guilt wraps itself around me like a too-tight hug. I’m using him to find out something I can’t figure out myself. It’s not fair. But maybe now we’re even.
“Forget it.” He shakes his head. “Just forget about it. I thought I could trust you.” His eyes go wild. “You said I could trust you.”
“You can trust me.”
A car door slams behind us and both of our heads whip around. But it’s just Mrs. Carson, the white-haired music teacher, who smiles at us. Mrs. Carson, who wears giant bottle-cap glasses, probably can’t even make out who we are. Even so, Beau darts around the passenger side of my car and pulls the door open, and before I can stop him, he gets in and grabs one bottle from under the seat. His fingers fumble with the cap. His eyes are greedy and his face is sweating and it’s lust I see all over him.
Beau is fully, impossibly shattered, just like that bottle he smashed in Alison’s kitchen the night Trixie disappeared. He looks at the bottle like he has never looked at a girl before. Not Jenny. Definitely not me. Not back when we looked up at stars together, or when we almost kissed on Alison’s deck, light-years ago. Everything between us up until now has been the biggest lie of all because Beau will never want anything more than he wants what’s in that bottle.
Maybe they shouldn’t call it heartbreak, because everything else feels broken too.
Beau swears under his breath. “Fuck,” he says, crouching down and stuffing the bottle back under my seat. But the cap isn’t on properly and liquid seeps out, soaking into the rubber mat and the dingy carpeting underneath. The smell sets my throat on fire and brings back everything about the night Trixie disappeared.
But it’s too late to care, because Principal Shepherd emerges from behind a blue van two spots down. His smile turns into a frown as he starts walking toward my car.
“Fuck fuck fuck,” Beau chants, and I know he’s looking for a place to run, but there’s no way out of this. This is the moment he gets caught. Unless I save him.
I rev the engine and drive away.
39
YOU MIGHT HAVE known, the night you went away, that you were leaving. But both times my world was upended after Alison’s parties, I was caught off guard. Jenny, Alison, and I went shopping the day of Alison’s first party. We had no idea that less than twelve hours later, Toby Hunter would be underwater.
We were at the mall trying on clothes. Alison was excited because she’d heard some seniors would be at the party, and she wanted to look cool. “I’ve been working out hard all summer. I think I should get something sexy to show off.”
“You totally should,” Jenny said. “We all should.”
So we did. It was the perfect day, going in and out of mall changing rooms, asking each other what looked good and knowing pretty much everything did. After we each picked a new outfit, we went to the food court for ice cream.
“It’s my cheat day,” Alison said. “I’m getting two scoops of Rocky Road. With extra chocolate sauce.”
My stomach started to hurt while we were waiting in line, but I chalked it up to period cramps. I’d take a Midol when I got
home and everything would be fine.
“Look who it is,” Jenny said, nudging her hip into mine. “Lover boy, across the food court.”
I spun around so fast I practically gave myself whiplash. Beau was sitting at a table with a couple guys from the team, eating what looked like Chinese food. I had this vertigo sensation like I might fall over, and my heart pounded like it used to on Christmas morning when I was a kid. I wanted to run to him but also to stay rooted where I was, like some kind of tree, where it was safe.
“You should go over there,” Jenny said. “Show him your outfit for the party. He’ll be taking it off later.”
She was kidding, but I still felt my face go as red as the dress in my bag. Jenny giggled.
“If you have sex in my house, just don’t do it in my parents’ room,” Alison said. “I have to clean up this party before they get home and pretend like it never happened. Remember? You guys said you’d help me. That was the whole point of telling your parents you’re sleeping over.”
“I won’t be having sex anywhere,” I said. “But maybe we’ll kiss. If he’s even coming.”
“It’s about time,” Jenny said, slinging her arm around my shoulders. “Maybe I’ll meet my soulmate too. I just have a feeling this is going to be the best night ever.”
I looked across the food court at Beau. It was like he knew I was staring at him, because he raised his eyes and smiled directly at me.
“You should go say hi,” Jenny said. “Seriously. Look how much he’s smiling. You can see his adorable little dimples from here. He wants you.”
“I’ll see him later,” I said. I would have gone over if it weren’t for the other guys. It seemed like Beau and I had so few moments alone together. He was always flanked by his football friends and I was always with Jenny and Alison, the tight knot of our little trio. Sometimes I wished everyone else would just disappear so we could say everything we wanted to say to each other.
“You’ll see him now, because he’s coming over here,” Alison said. It was her turn to order, so she grabbed Jenny and turned away from me.
I smoothed my hair down and looked at the ground, because it was easier than watching him walk over. I imagined what would happen if I ran toward him and threw myself into his arms, like girls did in the romantic comedies Alison liked. I didn’t have the courage to find out.
“Hey,” he said when he was standing in front of me. Now I glanced up and met his eyes, matched his smile, and suddenly it was just the two of us, not Jenny and Alison and the football team and the rest of the food court.
“Hey. Hi. What’re you up to?”
“Matt needed a birthday gift for his mom, and I guess he thought I’d be good at that kind of thing, so he invited me to come along.”
I smiled. Beau would be good at that kind of thing because he was thoughtful, because he remembered things about people. He took the time to listen, not just nod and pretend.
“Cool. How’s your summer been going?”
He bobbed his head. “Okay, I guess. I’m kind of glad it’s almost over.”
I hadn’t seen Beau in a while. The same parties were happening just like every summer, but he wasn’t at most of them. We texted back and forth, but I got the feeling he was distracted, and I convinced myself he probably had a girlfriend, that I had lost my chance. I wondered again if I would see him at Alison’s.
“You’ll be there tonight, right?” He said it, not me. I was so surprised that I almost forgot to answer.
“Yeah, I’ll be there. We just went shopping for new outfits, actually.” I held up my shopping bag as proof. I hoped he would like the red dress inside.
“Sweet,” Beau said, nodding. “So you’re going to be there.”
“I’m going to be there.”
“I guess I’ll see you there.”
“I guess you will.” I had turned into an echo, but he was smiling, so it didn’t matter.
But later, the stomachache that started in the food court turned out not to be period cramps but food poisoning, which Mom had too. It must have been the takeout we ordered the night before, because we both spent a good portion of the evening hunched over the toilet. Good thing our house had two bathrooms.
I texted Jenny and Alison, telling them I couldn’t make it. I texted Beau too. He never messaged back. And the next time I saw him, he was somebody I didn’t even recognize.
40
I DON’T EVEN know where we’re going, sort of like I didn’t the day Trixie first got into my car. Beau doesn’t tell me either, so I end up driving past my house. When I see Mom’s car in the driveway—she must be home between meetings—I keep driving.
“Turn right here,” Beau says. “Then your first left, and right on Whisperwood. The big yellow house. Nobody’s home. Nobody’s ever home anymore.”
We’re going to Beau’s house, something I always imagined, but never like this. Everything I imagined with Beau now falls into the but-never-like-this category in real life. In my head, he brought me over for dinner. He would say “This is my girlfriend, Fiona,” and I would be wearing a dress I had made, and Mrs. Hunter would comment on how nice it was, and we’d eat comfort food like shepherd’s pie.
In reality, he gets out and slams his door and I do the same, then I follow him as he fumbles to get the front door open. It’s weird when we’re standing in Beau’s foyer. His house isn’t much bigger than mine and it’s messy, with shoes piled on a dirty mat near the front door. The big white sneakers Beau wears to school, plus a bunch of pumps like Mom wears to work. The hallway is lined with photos, formal family photos. It looks like the same picture, year after year. Mrs. Hunter sitting, Mr. Hunter standing behind her, Beau and Toby on either side. Matching white smiles and dimples.
“I always wondered how you’d look in my house,” he murmurs, leading me into the kitchen, and just like that, he’s the old Beau again, not the raging one from the parking lot. “I guess I just thought it would be under different circumstances. Like, a regular dinner. My mom makes good lasagna. I mean, she did. She doesn’t do much of anything but hide at the office now.”
It makes me want to smile and cry. Beau thought about how I’d fit here. He imagined me at that kitchen table, eating his mom’s food.
“I like lasagna,” I say, and my heart breaks a little more that our entire lack of a relationship has been one giant missed connection.
Beau straddles a barstool at the counter and smiles. “Maybe she’ll make it again sometime,” he says. I want to throw my arms around his neck and tell him there is still hope, that we can be what we were always supposed to be, but a second later his face falls. “But I doubt it. This family is just one big fuckup after another.”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” I say. “They’re inevitable.”
“Not as big as mine.” He leans forward and buries his face in his hands. Then he gets up and pulls a water bottle out of the fridge. A big plastic one, like the ones the football players keep on the sidelines during games. He takes a long swig and his face relaxes, and I realize that it’s not water in there. I think about what I read on the internet about alcoholics, back when I was trying to figure out what made him change. Addictive personalities. Sensitive to emotional stress, with difficulty trusting people and managing feelings. Insecure. Lonely.
“I can help you,” I say. “We can help each other. We can figure out what happened. I know Trixie isn’t dead, and I want to find her.” Find them, I add in my head.
Beau squeezes the bottle until his knuckles turn white. “You never will. Just forget her.”
“Like you’re doing such a good job of forgetting him?” I say, my voice turning into a shrill crescendo. “Like it’s something you can just push out of your brain?”
Beau stares at the water bottle, then pitches it across the room. I duck instinctively, even though he tossed it in the other direction. It hits a clock hanging against the floral wallpaper. The clock comes crashing down and hits the floor.
I grab my purs
e from the kitchen chair and turn around to leave, tears blurring my vision. It’s the second time Beau has made a scene in a kitchen, the second time he has thrown and broken something. Except he’s the one who’s really broken. Maybe that’s how he covers it up, by breaking other things. Bottles. Clocks. Hearts.
“Don’t go,” he pleads, his voice soft again. I stop but don’t turn around. I should keep walking, because there’s nothing for me in this kitchen. Nothing but being stuck in the past. And I’m not sad as much as I’m angry, pissed off, my skin too tight for my body. The anger rolls off me in waves, and I know he feels it and I hope he chokes on it, the same way I do.
“I’ll tell you,” he says. When I turn around, I see that he’s in a heap on the floor, crunched against the counter, his face streaked with tears, and the anger drains out of me like it was never there at all. He’s holding on to a blue baseball cap, and I’m sure it’s the same cap Trixie put on the day we met.
“Where’d you get that hat?” I ask.
“It was his,” he says, squeezing his fingers around it defensively.
I sit down on the floor across from Beau, wrapping my arms around my knees. “But I know that hat. Trixie had it. Why did she have it?”
“I owe it to him not to tell,” he says. “He would kill me for this.”
“But if it can help us find him, you have to tell me,” I say. “He’d want that. He would understand.”
“He wouldn’t understand,” Beau says, a vein emerging in his forehead. “He jumped off that pier, hating me more than anything. And it was my fault that it happened.”
I hold out my hands. I don’t expect him to take them but he does, dropping the baseball cap and clutching my fingers so tightly that it hurts. “He didn’t hate you. You’re his brother.”
“Not that night,” he says, squeezing my hands tighter, almost like he’s sending a message in Morse code. “That night, he said we weren’t brothers anymore. Because I kissed his girl.”
“You kissed Gabby?”
He doesn’t answer, and suddenly it makes sense. I kissed his girl.