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Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Acknowledgments
Nothing Like You excerpt
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Her and Me and You excerpt
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
About Lauren Strasnick
For my best girls and my ex-BFFs
They don’t love you like I love you.
—YEAH YEAH YEAHS, “MAPS”
prologue
She’s standing, clutching a Coke can, dancing in front of my broken mirror. “Turn the music up?” Her moves are sluggish and slinky, and while she watches herself, she takes small, dainty sips from her soda.
“Who’s singing?” I ask, leaning over, adjusting the volume on the stereo.
She puts down the Coke and swings her arms overhead. “Think I could be on the radio?”
“Sure.”
She smiles. Her teeth are crooked. “Who’s your favorite friend?” she asks.
“Favorite friend?”
“Yeah.” Her arms drop. Her eyes are wide and she’s twisting back and forth like a jittery kid. “I wanna know who you love best.”
“You already know who I like best.”
“Not like, love.” Her mouth goes taut. “Seriously. Your favorite. Who’s the person you love more than anyone else in the world?”
“Excluding my mother?”
“Obviously.”
We both smile. “Hmm . . .” I stretch the moment. For once, making her wait for it. “You?”
So pleased: “Me?”
“Yes, you,” I say, eyes rolling. “You’re ridiculous.”
She winks, turning back to her reflection.
1.
Dakota Webb.
Boys love her. Freak freshman girls worship her. She’s pretty and bitchy and her dark dresses always look perfectly rumpled, as if she’s slipped them on fresh from the cleaners, then rolled around in the barn for a bit.
“Adrienne?”
She wasn’t always this way: shiny and cool. A baby rock god. A high school deity. She used to be just plain Dakota. Fickle, sure. A little wicked. But still, just a girl, my friend.
Right now it’s seventy and sunny. I’m on my back in a plot of curly weeds. I’ve got my hot cell pressed to my ear and here’s what I hear: my name, her voice, muffled, off-beat breathing. Squeaky noises that ride the line between giggles and sobs. I replay the message. Then again, twice more. I’ve heard this thing sixty times since Saturday, when I first saw her name pop up on my caller ID screen.
“Adrienne, it’s me. Remember? Call back, please?”
I haven’t. I’ve done the opposite. I’ve ignored her call all week.
I flip my phone shut. She’s been MIA since the weekend: three successive school absences and an unsubstantiated rumor that she hasn’t been home since late Sunday night. Should I be worried? Guilty?
I dial back. Four days late. I bite my tongue so hard I taste tin.
2.
“Straight to voicemail,” I tell Lee.
We’re in his room, on his bed. He’s sliding a hand under my hip and rolling me forward. “Come closer. Come on, come’ere. Relax.” He kisses me, and for a split second I feel warm, superswell, then:
“You think I should’ve called sooner?”
He pulls back, his lips twisted into a sloppy frown. “I don’t think you should’ve called at all.”
“Why not?”
Lee flicks me with two fingers. He grips my hips, then yanks me to the center of the bed. “You haven’t talked in two years.”
“Sure.” But before that it was every day, all day, always—school lunches, crap snacks, R movies, heart-shaped pancakes—I loved her till she stopped loving me.
“That girl’s a loon,” he says.
I cup Lee’s cheek. I like Lee’s cheek.
“And her band sucks.”
They don’t. I wish they did. They make pretty, moody music. Music that makes me want to screw everyone, then stab myself in the heart. “You’re just jealous.”
“No, you are.” He undoes my top two blouse buttons. “And you shouldn’t be.”
He’s right. I want to look hot and talk hot and do bad things and be forgiven. I want to sing and swing my hips and make the whole world love me.
“Hey.”
“Hmm?”
Another kiss. And this one’s slow and so warm and Lee’s clutching my top with two fists. “Hate this thing . . .” Baby buttercups on dingy white silk. Peter Pan collar. Pearl buttons. “Shit taste in shirts,” he coos, slipping both hands under my bra. Then, “Love these things.”
I laugh, looking sideways, to the mirror above Lee’s bureau. There I am: splotchy from all the groping. Lee’s in his soccer uniform, his head buried between my breasts. A trophy, catching late light through Lee’s bedroom window, reflects spots onto both our faces.
“Hey, Lee?”
“Hey, what?”
“Make me a sandwich?”
“Sexy words.”
“I skipped lunch.”
He groans. Moves down my body. Pushes up off the bed. “Extra mustard? You want Havarti or Swiss?”
I screw my face into an appreciative grin. “You’re a good boyfriend.”
He scrunches one eye shut. Adjusts his shorts. “Havarti, right?”
“No. Swiss,” I say softly. “Please, thank you, you’re the best.”
3.
“Drink this,” Kate instructs.
We’re at school, on the quad, sipping gin from a Sprite bottle. Kate’s eating leftover pad see ew out of a Tupperware container. “Bite?”
I nod, leaning forward. Kate shovels a glossy heap of noodle into my mouth. I chew, and watch her watch the smoggy skyline
. Sun, clouds, brown mountains—all hidden behind a gray, hazy film.
“Imports.”
“Hmm?”
She points. “Palm trees.” Picks a baby carrot off my untouched plate. “They don’t belong and now they’re dying.”
I follow her gaze. “They don’t look sick.”
“Fungal disease,” she says, gnawing the carrot. “Here, finish this.” She passes the noodles. I take the tub. Another bite. “Good, right?” Her eyes fix on my mouth.
“New Thai place on La Brea.” She dumps the last of the Sprite/gin down her throat, then says: “I feel sorry for them.”
“Who?”
“Hello.” She knocks my head with her knuckles. “The trees.” We stare at each other for a bit. Kate has drunk eyes. Her blond waves look windswept and shiny. “Am I boring you?”
“I—”
“I’m boring you.”
“No.” I’m itchy and restless and worried. “You haven’t . . . ?” I pull my cardigan close to my body. “I mean . . . you haven’t heard anything, have you?”
“About?”
I shrug. Kate’s loyal and loves me and hates: “Dakota Webb.”
“Oh, Knox.” She groans, leaning back. “Stop, okay? Stop obsessing. She’s fine. She’s in a band. Rock people pull this shit. She’ll turn up, I swear it.”
But that voicemail. That sad, screwy message.
“Knox?”
“Hmm?”
We look left.
Wyatt Shaw, Kate’s crush, in the distance. He’s skinny, Wyatt. Tall, too, and everlastingly clad in military boots, a navy peacoat, and thick-rimmed glasses. Dandy meets suburban punk. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” Kate whispers. Then she extends a leg, tripping him.
“What the fuck?” He stumbles, rights himself, then ogles Kate quizzically.
She winks. No shit.
“What the hell was that?” I ask, half freaked, half impressed.
“I can’t get him to like me,” she says—zero irony. We both watch Wyatt stagger off, dazed, amazed.
“Yeah, well, you’re on the right track,” I say, patting her thigh enthusiastically. “Next time, sucker punch him in the kidney. Guys love that.”
She laughs. Looks at me.
“Right?”
Her smile withers. She pokes my shoulder. “Hey. Promise me something.”
“Hmm?”
“If she calls again. You won’t pick up.”
“Katie, no.” I lean forward. “No. Why would you ask that?”
“Because. She’s trouble. She’s messy and gets herself into stupid situations and then people like you have to clean up her shit.” She grimaces. “Remember when we met? You and me?”
“That was different,” I say. “That was me, the mess.” Freshly dumped by D. Webb. “I was lonely.”
“You were so sad.”
“I’m okay now. I have you. And Lee.”
I expect a smile or some sort of off-kilter joke, but Kate just looks at me, really looks at me, and says this: “She’s not better than you. You know that, right?”
I wince. “I don’t think that.”
“Yes,” she says, rocking my shoulder with one hand. “You do.”
• • •
On the walk to lit, I’m on my cell, dialing and redialing Dakota. Voicemail, voicemail, voicemail. Her cracked outgoing message? “Whom the Gods love die young.” New recording? Old? I shove my phone in my pocket and slip into class. The bell shrieks like a banshee.
Lit with Nick Murphy. Everyone worships the guy because he’s young, cute, and yes, believe it: He makes learning fun. He’s married to an equally likable, preggo math teacher named Gwen. Blond and cheery. Kate has her for trig.
“Jane Eyre, people. Take out your books.”
I’m a shit student, solid Cs, but I’ll read pretty much anything: comics, trashy romance, The Iliad. Murphy’s class is the one class I like. I like books. I like the guy telling me which books to read. But now, with Dakota gone and my brain mashed and scrambled, I can barely read the backs of beauty products. My focus is shit. Murphy talks but I don’t listen. I riffle through my bag for Jane.
“Anyone?” Murphy rubs his head, back to front, smiling while he does it. “Anyone with mind-blowingly awesome perspective on Brontë?” There, again, back to front. He does it daily. He punctuates sentences with that move. Such a nothing gesture—rub-a-dub-dub—but he looks so freakin’ affable (F-able?) doing it. “Who likes Jane?” A bunch of hands fly up. “Yeah? What do you like about her?”
Meg Rofé—tiny nose, sweet voice—screams, “Orphan!”
Everyone laughs. Murphy nods. “Sure, orphans. Likable. What else?”
“No boning what’s-his-name.” Lynn Rofé, Meg’s twin. “The guy with the wife.”
“‘Boning,’” Murphy muses. “Choice word.”
Julian Boyd, Dakota’s quasi boyfriend/bandmate, sits two rows down and one aisle over. If I lean backward and a little left, my view is perfect. He looks miserable. He always looks miserable—under-eye circles, down-turned mouth—but today, he looks puffy and red and sincerely forlorn. Is she the one fucking his face up? Is he obsessed, perplexed, down, and done wrong by? Maybe he just really hates Jane Eyre.
• • •
Lee skips Intro to Economics and meets me behind the gym in the cozy little patch of cacti and rocks that overlooks the school pool. We meet here during free/not-free periods because it’s sunny and secluded, and because Lee likes the smell of chlorine.
“Hi,” he says, clutching my hands and hips, kissing my lips, ears, neck. “You wanna stay here or go to my car?”
“Here, please,” I say, sounding horse but feeling high. “The sun feels nice.”
“It does,” he agrees, backing me into the stucco siding. “How much time do we have?”
I shove my chin past his shoulder and check my watch. “Forty minutes.” Our stomachs are flush. “Pull up your shirt?” I ask. “Just a little?”
Skin-to-skin contact. What Lee and I do best: talk nonsense and push up against each other. “How’s that?”
“Good.”
Eighteen months. That’s how long we’ve been doing this. I met Kate in ceramics toward the end of sophomore year. She and Lee were close. “He’s a great guy,” she said. “He wants to F you,” she joked. He had floppy hair and rich parents. His dad wrote action scripts. His mom, an ex-actress, had done a bunch of crappy comedies in the eighties. But Lee seemed well-adjusted. He liked puppies and sports. He didn’t drink very much or smoke, or do drugs or spend excessively. He made me feel wanted and safe.
“Am I driving you to Kate’s later?” He wraps one arm around my waist.
I say, “Come get me at six?” And, “Can we stop for pie on the way?”
“Pie?” Lee laughs.
“We’re dessert this week.”
“Pie, then.” He snaps my bra strap.
• • •
Home.
Blue stucco, rusty gate, potted succulents, lantana shrubs.
“Hello?” I slam the back door, drop my bag by the hutch, and kick off my flats. “Who’s here?”
“Me.” Sam. Mom’s boyfriend. “Kitchen.”
I follow the smell of sizzling shallots and find Sam hovering over a skillet with a wooden spatula.
“Hi, kid.”
“Hey. Mom home?”
“On her way.”
Sam is always home. He does web design out of the walkin closet by the half bath down the hall. Mom converted the space into an office for him late last year (sloping ceilings with two tiny windows that look out onto our neighbor’s pretty mosaic garden—broken glass, bird baths, Technicolor tile). Before that, it was my favorite place to read and take naps.
“Want some?” He passes me a plate with some roughly cut apple.
I take a slice. “It’s good,” I say. Supercrunchy and tart.
“Farmer’s market. In that lot by the bank off Glendale.”
Sam and Mom have been happily un
wed for ten years now. My real dad lives in upstate New York. Which is, whatever, fine.
“You okay?” He’s eyeing me sideways.
I grab a glass off the drying rack and fill it with tap water. “Dakota’s missing.”
He adjusts the burner heat. Doesn’t flinch. “What do you mean, missing?”
“I mean, she’s missing. Like, full-on gone. Like, troll freshman girls are spreading hideous, shitty rumors about—” I stop myself.
“Have you tried Emmett?” Emmett: Dakota’s stepdad. Less dad, more landlord.
“No.”
“Want me to call him?”
“No.”
Sam spends three seconds looking somber. He’s facing me. He looks so slender and serious. He’s wearing the apron I tie-dyed for Mom for her forty-third birthday. “I saw her,” he says.
I’m mid-guzzle. I swallow, slam my cup down, and wipe my mouth dry. “What do you mean, you saw her? When?”
“Sunday night. Outside the Echo.”
My insides seize. “You saw her?”
“I was picking up pizza for me and Mom, and she was getting dropped off.”
“You didn’t tell me that.” I roll it over in my brain for a bit. “Wait, why didn’t you tell me that?”
He shrugs, turning back to the stove. “Seemed pretty minor. And I didn’t—” One quick stir. “I thought it might upset you.”
I shake my head, embarrassed. Suddenly so see-through. “Why would you think that?”
He looks up, suppressing a grin.
“Why are you smiling?” I say, sounding snappish. “This isn’t funny.”
“Adrienne, honey.” He pauses, tossing some salt into the sauce. “That girl doesn’t exactly trigger your inner angel.”
I flinch.
Sam softens. “No, look, she was pissed and kicking the crap out of some lunatic’s car.”
“Lunatic?”
“No, I don’t know. Just some guy. Or girl, maybe?”
I laugh. Involuntarily. Sam does too.
“Typical.”
“Right?” He ruffles my hair. “Honey, I’m sure she’s all right. She does this. Goes away. Comes back.” He looks at me. “You gonna be okay?”
I nod, shaking off my shit mood and stepping back. “So what’s with the white mess in the pan?”
“White mess?” He picks up his spatula. “No, no . . . white perfection.” He smiles and bites a bit of sauce off the spatula tip. “You’re eating out?”
Then You Were Gone Page 1