Welcome Home

by Eric Smith

  Right now, I needed to get out of here. Wait, I should make a quick copy of the report. I slipped my phone out of my back pocket and snapped a picture of the page.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  I froze. My heart, oh, my poor heart, hated me. Standing behind me was Shay, who knew where I was supposed to be, and where I wasn’t.

  Busted.

  Program Director Shay Kingston stared at me unflinchingly from across her desk. “Well, Ms. Malone. You want to explain why you had this girl’s file in your hand?”

  I could invent a reason. I could say I was trying to file the misplaced folder in the right place. But I wouldn’t get to touch that file again. I couldn’t give up as if I’d never found this missing piece to the mystery of losing my friend.

  That was the thing. How do you erase someone who used to be your other half? People talked about love as being two halves coming together. No wonder people were a mess when they broke up. If fractured love was anything like a broken friendship, I never wanted to fall in love.

  “She’s somewhere safe?” I asked Shay.

  “Yes.”

  “What about her mom? Her brother?” I had so many questions.

  “You understand this is information that cannot simply be shared. It violates laws.”

  I tried to squelch the panic rising up. I would lose service hours, and Shay could report my violation to the school. To the police. To my parents.

  “I have to tell your parents.”

  I cringed, the shame and panic now fully alive and pulsing inside me. “I’m sorry. It was stupid what I did. I was just so freaked out and I thought I could . . .”

  All I had left was my trusty rule-following. “I know her. Knew her.” I stared at my hands, folded in my lap and clenched together. “She was my best friend, and just like that she was gone.” I kept talking, telling Shay how I’d begged my teachers for information, how for two years I detoured by her house, just in case, even after new renters moved in. “I can’t believe an agency like this would take kids away from a mother who loved them.”

  Shay watched me. Her expression changed. Not kind, but softer. “You wanted answers. Is that why you signed up for this internship?”

  “No. I swear. I didn’t know anything until I found her name and picture. Then I needed to know more.”

  She considered this. “You were young. You would have been, what? Twelve? People get themselves involved in bad things for all sorts of reasons. Oftentimes the drug-running starts small—make a little extra money to keep the lights on. To feed the kids. Things escalate. You didn’t know what was going on because your friend and her family didn’t want you to.”

  Like a switch, my shame at breaking into the files vanished. “You didn’t know Becca. She wouldn’t have kept this from me. I didn’t even get to read the file. Can you tell me what happened?”

  She gave me a steady look. Then she picked up the file again. “It says here your friend’s family ran a drug house. The night of the arrest, the kids were taken into foster care.” She skimmed the pages. “The police were watching the house. They had an informant looking for the drug stash, but the stash was moved. Drugs and a large amount of cash. A few days later they found it. They questioned some teachers at the school.”

  All of this information was coming together too fast. The police report. The drug charges. Her mom’s in-and-out salon clients. The skeevy boyfriends.

  “Which teacher?” My words barely surfaced. “Please, can you tell me?”

  Shay gave me a conflicted look. She let out a breath. “Marissa Gallagher.”

  Mrs. Gallagher. She’d known! I clenched my fists, fighting to keep myself together. “She should have told me. I asked her so many times, and she never told me.” All this time wondering and my teacher already knew Becca had been taken.

  “Hannah, your teacher could have jeopardized the investigation. She could have risked your friend’s safety if she gave you Becca’s location. Besides, chances are she didn’t know.”

  This still didn’t feel right. “Becca wasn’t in danger. I would have known.”

  Shay returned to reading the file. “It says here a backpack was recovered, which led to the arrests.”

  “A backpack?” Icy horror raced through my veins. “I need to go.” I stood, shaking, as the memories flooded back.

  “Hannah, I’m contacting your parents,” Shay said. “You were found in a secure area with someone else’s security badge. I can’t let this violation go.”

  I nodded, not even caring about the volunteer hours for once. “That’s fine. Call my folks. I just need to get out of here.”

  I only told my teacher the one thing. That one time when Becca and her brother stayed the night at our house on a weeknight because their power had been shut off. Becca’s mom stayed with her boyfriend.

  When Mrs. Gallagher asked about Becca’s homework in class the next day, Becca said she forgot it, but that wasn’t true. I told Mrs. Gallagher Becca had the homework in her backpack. We’d worked on it together at my house. I was so excited we’d had a midweek sleepover, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about it.

  The report said the stash had been moved. The backpack.

  “Just leave it alone,” Becca had said to me after class. “I’ll get a new one.”

  That wasn’t like her. Becca wasn’t careless with her things. “Someone stole your backpack. With your homework!”

  Becca shrugged off my shock, so I’d gone to Mrs. Gallagher later to have her report the stolen backpack. That’s what friends did for each other.

  Two days later, Becca was gone.

  For all the times my best friend had my back, I should have protected her. The cops were looking for a drug stash and I’d tipped off our teacher about the stupid backpack. Of course she’d tell the police about it when she was questioned. I’d led them right to it.

  I was the reason Becca was gone. Her family had been arrested and I couldn’t breathe. The memory pressed sharp points into my skin.

  I stumbled through the back door at home, barely able to keep from crying. My parents, being of the hovering variety, demanded to know what happened. Hiding what happened was useless. Shay would be calling them about my violation.

  So I told them. Everything.

  “First of all, you’re grounded for this trouble you caused at the agency,” Mom said, looking to my dad, who paced the kitchen. “Second, Becca’s mother and brother were arrested on drug charges. They were breaking the law. You seriously think you have any blame here?”

  “Obviously I didn’t cause that. But if I’d only—”

  “What? Not said anything? People only get away with crimes for so long. Eventually they get caught. It’s not your responsibility to protect anyone. Even we were duped. We didn’t know what Becca’s family was involved in.”

  Dad nodded. “It sounds like her mother knew the house was under surveillance and used Becca to get the drugs out of the house.” He blew out a breath of air, probably realizing those drugs may have briefly been in our house before some kind of transfer.

  Which meant Becca knew. She had to have known. And she’d chosen not to tell me. I would have kept any secret for her. I desperately wanted to believe I would have.

  Mom rested her hands on my shoulders. “You did the right thing by telling your teachers what you did. It’s unfortunate what happened to Becca. Her mother must have lost parental rights.” Mom’s eyes softened and she pulled me into a hug. “I’m so sorry, Hannie. This can’t be easy.”

  I let myself cry. A cry that drained my anger and left me hollow.

  I tried to forget about Becca all over again. I wrote an apology to the staff person whose ID I’d taken, and I signed off on an incident report to the honor society. So much for my pristine school record. But even that didn’t deter my endless questions. What happened the pas
t five years? Was Becca happy? Maybe she’d wanted to contact me back when everything went down, but it was too dangerous.

  I’d never know.

  Knowing Becca was adopted simply wasn’t enough. So many holes existed in this story. I was only now beginning to fill them.

  Of course it was a school night when I realized I had Becca’s address captured on my phone. When I was grounded.

  I had to find Becca or I’d never be satisfied. It was as if Becca herself reached out to me through that file. Her past called out and I had to know more. I needed to know.

  Mom was out at an evening meeting, and Dad wore headphones while he worked in the den. I slipped out unnoticed.

  I cranked the music in my car. I drove fast. I didn’t think.

  A seamless string of houses and businesses passed by with cross-streets leading into new towns. I dipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out the chain I’d grabbed. One half of a broken-heart that read “Friend.” The inside of my lip was dented from my teeth clenching the sensitive flesh between them. If I turned back now, I’d never know.

  My GPS instructed me to turn. These houses were nothing like the worn brick homes in my neighborhood. These houses were built in this century and had three-car garages. I stopped in front of a house no different from the rest of the block. Lights on both downstairs and upstairs. Two cars in the driveway. One with a sticker stretched across the back window reading Central High.

  I scratched at my skin. Took a few breaths. This was a whole lot of stupid to come here. Someone could call me out for stalking. Becca, if she even lived here, could slam the door in my face. She could call the cops.

  Maybe she wouldn’t know who I was. A heaviness dropped in my gut. That would be worst of all. To be forgotten. As much as I’d pushed Becca aside in my thoughts over time, I’d never truly forgotten her.

  A door between the garage and the front of the house opened. Someone in a hoodie pulled out a garbage bin on wheels. A guy.

  I had two choices. Throw my car in reverse, or ask him about Becca.

  Or a third choice: I ducked down, out of sight.

  I’m a coward. Why am I even here? This is ridiculous. I’m leaving. As soon as this guy is back in the house, I’m out.

  After waiting so long, my neck started cramping, I finally unfolded myself and peeked up. The guy was gone, but someone else stood beside the garbage bin, mere steps from my car. A tall, lean girl with hair the color of autumn leaves. She wore a Central High sweatshirt with shorts, even though we were past shorts-wearing weather.

  Becca never cared for seasonal fashion rules.

  She looked up and our eyes locked. My head grew light and fuzzy until everything focused again.

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I opened the car door. I stood, one leg still in the car, the other tentative against the pavement stretching toward my long-lost friend.

  “How did you find me?” Her face, a mixture of shock, confusion, and a strong shade of guarded. She did not trust me being here. Not at all.

  I swallowed. All the anger, the hurt, the confusion swirled up again. Years of it, thick and hammering to get out. The tears came fast and all at once. “You were there, and then you were gone. Just like that. Gone.”

  Becca still held the trash bag by the drawstrings. She gathered it in front of her, as if for protection. “Things got weird. I didn’t think you’d understand.” She shook her head, as if not believing I stood in front of her. “Why did you come here?”

  If I couldn’t make sense of the answer myself, I would never be able to convince Becca.

  “I couldn’t forget.” The words tumbled out. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. I never knew what happened until now. You’re right. I didn’t understand.” I took a breath, needing to say the rest as much as I didn’t want to. “And I’m sorry I told.”

  Becca’s face scrunched in confusion. “What do you mean you told?”

  I explained about the backpack and what I’d said to our teacher so many years ago. “I’m sorry. I guess I wanted to let you know I’m still here. I’ve always been here.”

  Becca studied the ground. Her toes spread over her flip-flops with nails painted a rainbow of polish colors. “I didn’t want to bring you into my mess. I cut you out on purpose, Hannah. You don’t deserve to have a friend who asks you to lie.”

  “But you didn’t—”

  “I asked you to lie all the time. My whole life was lies.”

  Tiny knives stabbed along my skin. Her words hurt too much to bear. “Not your whole life. Our friendship? Not a lie.”

  Her expression softened. She jammed the trash bag into the bin, then walked toward me, stuffing her hands into her sweatshirt’s front pocket. “I missed you, you know. A million times I almost called your house, but I was scared.”

  “I’m sorry, I know I blurt things out sometimes—”

  “Not scared you’d tell on me. Scared you’d hate me. I’m not good like you.” She swallowed hard, seeming more vulnerable than I’d ever seen her back when we ran our corner of the neighborhood.

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “And don’t go thinking any of it was your fault.”

  I wanted to believe her, but that icy hurt still clung to my insides. I let down my friend when she needed me. I would have broken any rule to protect her, but I didn’t know how then. “Don’t go thinking you’re not good either.” I pulled the necklace from my pocket and handed it to her, hopeful that somewhere inside her huge and beautiful new house she’d kept the second charm that read “Best.”

  She looked the charm over in her hand. The silence of the fall night wrapped around us, swirling with possibilities. A hundred questions arrowed through my brain, but I couldn’t grasp a single one.

  “I like my family,” Becca said, barely above a whisper. “They’re good people.”

  Her new family. “What about your mom? Your brother?”

  “My younger brother lives here. He was adopted with me. Mom, she’s in jail. I can see her if I want.”

  “Do you ever?”

  Her hands disappeared back into her pocket. “I was mad at her for a long time. I didn’t know back then what I was doing was wrong. Keeping her secrets. Stashing drugs. I was trying to help, you know?” She shook her head. “No, you wouldn’t. You shouldn’t.”

  I wanted to understand. I wanted so many things, but maybe it was too late. Maybe too much time had passed. Becca had been my friend in another life, one far past expired by now. I’d done what I’d come here for. She was happy, I’d said I was sorry, and now I could move on. “Thanks for talking. Again, I’m sorry.” I turned, heading for the solitude of my car.

  “Hannah.” Becca caught my sleeve. I turned, seeing the face of my old friend, but with years of maturity. “Hang on to this.” She held out the necklace. “I still have the other part.”

  She’d kept the other piece! So she hadn’t forgotten. I hadn’t been forgotten. I shivered from the night air and the emotions coursing through me.

  “You want to come in?”

  The question was more than an invitation out of the cold. It was an invitation into Becca’s new life.

  “I should probably go. I have a curfew.”

  Becca tipped her chin. “Have you ever broken it? Like, ever?”

  “Actually, I’m grounded.”

  She laughed, then I laughed. Her grin sprang to life, mischievous as ever. For a moment, it was as if nothing had changed between us. No years of separation or police procedures or court hearings. No worried nights or failed Facebook searches.

  I had so much to tell her. So much I wanted to hear.

  “I’d love to hear why you’re grounded,” Becca said.

  “I almost got kicked out of honor society.”

  Becca stopped midway up the drive. “You? A misfit in the honor society?” A twinge
of pride crossed her face. “We really do need to catch up.”

  Five years, and now I had answers. Those five years gave us time to grow into who we were. And now we were here together, with all of life waiting to be filled in.

  Stephanie Scott writes young adult books about characters who put their passions first. After college, she worked in a foster care and adoption unit where all her best and saddest stories come from. She lives outside of Chicago with her tech-of-all-trades husband, but you can more easily find her on Twitter and Instagram at @StephScottYA. Her debut Alterations is a 2017 finalist for the Romance Writers of America Best First Book RITA® award.

  “I took a job out of college in a foster care and adoption unit, following in my mother’s footsteps. It is by far my most memorable job and where my best and saddest stories come from. The kids I shuffled to and from visitations and doctor’s appointments were remarkable in their resilience. I believe human services is a calling in addition to being a profession. My greatest respect goes to those working with children and families in need.”

  Moving the Body

  by Natasha Sinel

  Mom and I buried him in the woods by the reservoir.

  Everything happened so fast. We had no idea whether we’d picked a good spot or dug deep enough. Maybe one hard rain would be enough to uncover it. I didn’t know. I’d never buried a body before. Neither had Mom. And there wasn’t anyone we could ask.

  Afterward, I collapsed on the family room couch. Mom stood behind me and threaded her fingers through my hair, scratching my scalp like when I was little. A seventeen-year-old guy wasn’t supposed to need his mom’s affection, and on any other day, I would’ve pulled away and rolled my eyes, but not today.

  Her fingers stilled and her hand rested heavily on my head. She stayed like that for so long I wondered whether she’d fallen asleep, but then she sighed.

  “Mom,” I said, for the thousandth time. I wanted to ask what comes next, but I couldn’t.