by TE Carter
“So then why would you think he was involved now?” Thompson asks.
“Right before she left. It was Halloween weekend. There was a party at Caleb’s house. Everyone went. But she wasn’t invited.”
“Why?”
“Nobody knew her,” Gina Lynn says again. “You had to see that when you looked, okay? When you were trying to find her, you couldn’t. Because nobody knew anything. She wasn’t online. She didn’t talk to anyone. No one knew anything about her. She wasn’t someone we cared about.” She pauses. “I don’t mean it like that, all right? We weren’t glad she was gone. It’s just that when she disappeared, it wasn’t even a thing. Her desk was empty, but that was basically it. She was a desk.”
It’s callous, but she’s right. I was furniture and she didn’t care, because why should she? I’m not angry at her. It’s not her fault she didn’t know me. I could have tried harder, could have pushed myself to be something better, but I was happy to be furniture, too.
“That’s harsh,” Malik says.
Gina Lynn nods. “It is. But you tried to find her. You looked for her every day for like a month or whatever, and you didn’t find her. Why?”
“There was no sign of her,” Thompson says. “And we had reason to believe she chose to leave.”
“Exactly. There was no sign of her missing. No indication something bad had happened. But be honest. There was no sign she ever even existed, was there?”
After deleting my Facebook account, I didn’t go online much. My search history was boring. Schoolwork. E-mails. After Caleb broke up with me, there was the one e-mail to Kate but she hadn’t replied again, and my phone was empty, too. Nobody texted me before him and nobody texted me after. Even my diary was filtered and embellished. Trying to be more interesting than me. Giving the police reason not to suspect anyone else.
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be harsh. I really do want to help,” Gina Lynn concedes.
“Go on,” Gomes tells her. “Where was Caleb that weekend?”
“You asked me about that night after she went missing. That whole weekend. I told you I was with him. My mom said he was at our house all weekend, and he was. Sort of. But he went out that Saturday. For most of the day. My mom was on a date or whatever. Caleb took off that afternoon. He came back after midnight. Later, he asked me to say he was there the whole time, and I couldn’t believe he had anything to do with Ellie. Not after what happened on Halloween.”
“What happened on Halloween?” Thompson asks.
“Nobody told you? Ellie was there. She wasn’t invited, but she came anyway. She went to Caleb’s house, to the party. She was wasted and she was all over him. It was embarrassing. They’d broken up at the end of the summer, but she wasn’t over it. She begged him to take her back and he…” She pauses and the officers wait. They’ve stopped writing, letting the tape recorder get it all. They’re hanging on to what she’s saying. The small details and how they tear everything apart for them.
“After they broke up, there was one time. Early. She stopped him in the hall. Asked him to talk to her. He was really mean. I thought it was funny, okay? I laughed at her. He was my boyfriend and she was in the way and I didn’t care if she was hurt. She didn’t come to school for a while after that. She was in my French class, and I noticed she was missing. And then she tried to talk to him right before the party. It ended up the same and she missed school again, and it was just sort of what happened with them. So, when she showed up that night, it was annoying.”
“What happened?” Thompson asks.
“He humiliated her. He told her he was sorry and that he wanted to be with her. He kissed her in front of everyone, but then, he just laughed at her. He made me record it. We had these videos and we thought it was funny. I deleted it, though, because she ran outside crying. I’m not that much of a bitch.”
“What you’ve got is that he pretended he liked her and then said he didn’t?” Gomes asks.
“Not exactly. He got up from the couch. We were sitting together and she was in the doorway. He kissed her and she held on to him, but then he moved away from her. He dragged her into the room and he asked what she wanted him to do. He told us she tasted like dog food. That she had to eat dog food because she was poor and her dad was an illegal.”
“You guys sound like a really great group of people,” Thompson says. Malik and Gomes look at her, Gomes scowling, but she shrugs. “What? Should I be impressed? I’d like to know what this has to do with Ellie going missing. I’d really like to find her and if this helps, great. But otherwise, we’re just remembering the things people did to that poor girl. Who does something like that to another person?”
Gina Lynn starts to cry. “It was all so pointless. She left, and Caleb went after her, but when he came back a while later, he ridiculed her all night in front of everyone. She didn’t go to school for, like, a week after that. It was the kind of thing she did. She’d skip days, sometimes weeks, at a time. So, when she disappeared, well … it wasn’t really new or anything.”
The cops look at one another and Gina Lynn sips her water.
“Your boyfriend disappeared for most of the day when a girl went missing, asked you to lie for him, and you chose to do so? Because he’d already made fun of her and because she missed a lot of school?” Gomes is having a hard time understanding.
“He spent the night at my house Friday. That was normal. Then, that Saturday, sometime around three or whatever, he went home to change and shower and do whatever he did. This was what we did basically every weekend. It was only weird because he was later that Saturday. I’d already gone to sleep, but he had a key and he woke me up when he came back. It was after midnight, because I usually don’t fall asleep until around then.”
“Did you ask where he’d been?” Thompson asks.
“I did. Not right away, but yeah, later. The next day, I guess.”
“Because you were sleeping?” Gomes asks.
“Well, no. I mean, I was, but when he showed up … no. I wasn’t sleeping. Look, he was my boyfriend. He still is. I don’t know if he’s involved. But it’s just … what if he is and I lied?”
“Did you and Caleb Breward have sex that night?” Gomes asks. “The night your classmate went missing?”
Gina Lynn nods. “Is that important?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to make sense of all this.”
“I’m not the one who did this,” she says. “I don’t want to be the bad guy here. I should’ve told you, but it was all normal, okay? He usually took off for a while, you know? And she was … He’d been pretty clear a few weeks earlier that he thought she was pathetic. Why would he—? Why would he even be with her that weekend?”
Thompson has a hard time not raising her voice. “Let’s say that your boyfriend, who had a prior relationship with a missing girl, did have something to do with it. He was gone for several hours right in the middle of the time frame when she disappeared. Knowing this, you not only agreed to lie for him, to give him an alibi, but you also lied directly to us when we asked you about it. We came to the school. We talked to everybody. Multiple times. Nobody had seen him that weekend, but then you and your mom insisted he was in your house for three days. That there was no way he was involved.”
“I know. But I’m telling you now,” Gina Lynn says.
“After six months. You’ve known this. You’ve had this information. You’ve seen us looking. You met with each of us in the days that followed, but only now, you’ve decided to tell us that the last six months were wasted? That you lied to us? Why would you do it?” Thompson asks.
“I’m sorry. I really thought … Look. I don’t know how he could do this. He couldn’t. I couldn’t believe that. I can’t. But now, I don’t know. There are those other girls. And he’s been so weird lately.”
“Weird how?” Malik asks.
“Like, when I heard about these other girls, I said something, right? I mentioned it, and I said it was weird that his name keep
s coming up when something bad happens to girls in this town. And he … He lost it. I’ve never seen him like that.”
“What do you mean he lost it?”
“Caleb has always been sweet. Not that smart. But he was pliable. I’m not a very easygoing girlfriend.” She laughs, but stops when they all stare at her. “Sorry. I just don’t let him get away with much. I’m pretty jealous, and I didn’t think there was any way he’d have this whole thing with her behind my back. Or these other girls. But when I said it that time, he was angry. He called me a stupid bitch.”
“He’s never hit you or anything like that?” Thompson asks.
“Hell no. I’d kill him.” She flinches. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I said that.”
“It’s okay. We know what you meant. Is that why you think he might have been involved? Because he seemed angry?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. Not really, I guess. It was only that one time. After I said that. Since then, he’s been joking about it. He thinks it’s ridiculous. But I feel like something’s wrong. I didn’t believe it then. And I don’t even believe these other girls. But I’ve been thinking about it so much. What if I’m wrong? He asked me to lie about that weekend, you know? That’s not normal, right? He always left, but he never needed me to lie. I guess I figured it was just coincidence, but I don’t know. Now, I just can’t stop worrying about it. Wondering if I’m wrong. What if I could have saved her? What if she died? What if it was because of me? Maybe he knows where she went and she was sick or something and she never came back, and if I’d just told you…”
Gomes puts his pen down and looks at Gina Lynn like a father would. “It’s done now. All we can do is try to fix it from here. Can I ask you some more questions, though? Maybe you’ll be able to help us fill in some missing pieces?”
“Please,” she says. “I want to help.”
She doesn’t know about the house, about anything Caleb’s done. She doesn’t know about us, about how we started or how we ended. She doesn’t know about after. About Halloween and the things he promised me after we left the party. And Gina Lynn definitely doesn’t know about that last night. About where he was and what he was doing. About what I did. Nobody knows. I wanted it to stay that way, but I guess even when you die, you aren’t safe from your own secrets.
chapter thirty-four
At first, I was relieved. In the few days that followed Caleb’s ending our relationship, it felt like things were back in place. I knew I didn’t belong. I’d spent the months we were together with that always in my mind. Always reminding myself that this was pretend. I never forgot he’d used that word on our first day together, and I knew it would happen eventually. Seeing him kissing Gina Lynn in the halls, seeing them together, being alone, it all made sense. And at first, it felt like it should have been that way all along.
But that ease didn’t last, and I started having a harder time sleeping.
Caleb didn’t know me. I understand it more now, but he did want me. Even with all the other things that happened. And there was something about that desire. Something about how we talked less and less each week during the summer. How we spent more of our time together with his hands on me, exploring me. I liked going home after, liked how I could still feel it. I liked feeling attractive. He didn’t see that my body was imperfect, that my hair was too dark, that I didn’t look right. He couldn’t stop touching me, and it was the closest thing I knew to love.
But then, I was alone, and suddenly nobody wanted me.
So I went to school, watched him walk through the halls, the two of them showcasing how they meshed so simply, and I went home to my dog. Eventually, I skipped school and just stayed in bed.
There were several times I needed to see him. I’d text him, but he didn’t respond. So I’d text him again. I felt the room, my house, closing in on me. I needed something. I needed to know he missed me, that he felt the same loss.
He replied once. It was early October and I’d tried to talk to him that day at school. He’d told me to leave, but then that night, he finally responded.
Hey, Ellie. What’s up?
That was all he said, but we have this way of working things out in our heads to fit what we want to believe. He used my name, so I took it to mean he was wondering about me.
I miss you. Are you free?
It wasn’t what I wanted to say, but it was true. I missed him and I needed to see him. I thought maybe he would change his mind if he would just talk to me. Would spend time with me. We could go to one of the houses. I’d let him do the same things again. We’d almost had sex that last time we were together. Maybe if we did now, maybe he’d remember. Maybe he’d want me again.
I waited for hours, but he didn’t respond.
I never got another text from Caleb.
What followed, what enveloped October, was darkness. Shame and humiliation. I was angry. I felt like a child—naïve and clueless. I hadn’t expected it to hurt so badly. I hadn’t anticipated that he would have that kind of hold on me.
I’d enjoyed being with him because he made me feel special. Pretty. He looked at me. Most people didn’t. Or if they did, I was somehow wrong. But when Caleb looked at me, when he kissed me and held my face in his hands and whispered words like beautiful, I felt what it might be like to actually be those things. When we were in the back of his car and I needed to head home, he’d tell me how badly he wanted me. He’d tell me what I did to him. I liked thinking it was something about me that did that. That it wasn’t just because I was a girl, but because I was me.
I don’t know what I wanted. But when he was gone and I was alone, it felt like those words were a virus. A dark, snaking disease that had infected me and left me hollow. I needed to be good enough again, needed him to tell me why he’d thought I was beautiful and then he didn’t. I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t think about anything but why. Why I was so ugly. So unlovable. Why I’d been good enough and then, in a day, I wasn’t anymore.
It’s impossible to go to high school and not hear about a Halloween party someone like Caleb is throwing. Nobody invited me, and I want to say it’s because it was for people like them, and I wasn’t one of them, but it was for everyone. Everyone but me. Yes, they were wealthy, but I wasn’t separated from them by money alone. There was something else. It wasn’t popularity, either. Plenty of people were rich and popular and were friendly enough. Whatever it was hung over me. Something I still don’t understand. An aura of forgetability. An aura of average.
If I’d shown up and I hadn’t been me, if the things that happened hadn’t happened, I could have gone to the party, and come home, and nobody would have cared. But when I heard about it, when I realized he was inviting everyone in school to his house, to the place I’d never been invited, to somewhere I was deliberately excluded from, something inside of me broke.
Dad was working that night. He left after lunch, and as soon as I heard his car pull away, I broke the lock off the cabinet in the kitchen where he kept the alcohol. He never drank. In fifteen years, I’d never seen him drink once. I don’t know why we even had a liquor cabinet. The layers of dust on the bottles said that it was older than me. Maybe it had belonged to my mom. Maybe when they’d first gotten married, they’d filled their cabinet with alcohol because that was what adults do and they wanted to revel in crossing that threshold. I don’t know. I only knew it was there because he’d mentioned it once and said that I should stay out of the cabinet.
I grabbed a bottle but didn’t drink it. Not yet. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to walk to the party if I was drunk, so I put it aside until I was ready. Cutting my black skirt short and throwing on a tank top and black hat, I transformed into a sexy witch. I was one of twelve sexy witches at Caleb’s house that night.
It was cold outside. Too cold for Halloween, but I drank as I went and warmed myself with it. I told myself he would remember. That he would see me and realize he’d been wrong. I walked through my neighborhood,
with the echoes of people who used to be. The houses that were gone. The ones Caleb’s family had fixed years ago, before I’d met him. Our neighborhood had been first. And when the rest of the neighborhoods started to fall apart, we were left behind, because we’d been poor to begin with. There was very little worth saving on this side of town.
I walked through the woods, by the lake, through a town that didn’t care anymore. Until I reached where Caleb was. Until I got to what was left of Hollow Oaks.
His house sat at the top of the hill. Lights were on in every room, but by the time I arrived, I’d drank too much and they became one. An orb of light and it was still too distant for me to be part of it. I threw the little that was left of the alcohol, including the bottle, in the gutter at the end of Caleb’s street.
He was sitting in his living room when I walked in, people surrounding him, with Gina Lynn on his lap. His hand was on her thigh, just below her sexy nurse’s outfit. We were a bundle of stereotypes.
“I want to talk to you.” In the entirety of my life, I can remember maybe five times I spoke with confidence.
“Ellie? You’re drunk.” He didn’t move and Gina Lynn laughed, whispering something in his ear. “Yeah, I know. It’s hard to let go when you’ve been lucky enough to taste this.”
“I said I want to talk to you.” I was having a hard time standing, but I had walked the however many miles it took to get here and I needed to know why. I needed to know when I’d stopped being beautiful.
All the things Gina Lynn told the police happened did happen. Caleb kissed me and it was the way he’d kissed me before. He put his hand on my back the way he used to, the way I’d known that he was claiming me.
“Jesus, Ellie,” he whispered in my ear. “She’s never going to let me go with you.”