The Girl in the Headlines

by Hannah Jayne

  “Way to stay undercover. Put this in your bag.”

  “That’s stealing! I don’t steal!”

  Nate’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “You do now.”

  Seventeen

  I could see Nate behind the counter at the Midnight Inn lobby from where I stood in front of room 6. My hand shook as I sunk the key into the lock and pushed open the door. I wasn’t sure what I would find. Tim Esup? Another murder scene? My stomach ached. Josh?

  I pushed open the door and scanned the room. It was exactly how I had left it, except the maid had been there. There were uneven lines vacuumed into the industrial carpet, the towels seemed fresh, and my bed was made, a tiny red foil-wrapped chocolate heart on my pillow.

  I picked it up and turned it over in my hands. It was an off brand that my mom bought, the kind of chocolate with crispy rice stuffed in it. I had never seen it outside our house or my mom’s purse, and I whipped around, then ran to the bathroom, hoping that my mom was there, hiding, ready to clear my name and take me home and let us live our lives.

  But the room was empty, the bathroom window cracked open. The sound of trucks whooshing by on the highway outside was a constant ebb and flow, a constant reminder. Life was going on out there. Life was going on, and mine was over.

  This wasn’t my life. I had to get it back. I had to get Josh back.

  I flicked on the TV, wanting the comfort of noise, the familiarity of stupid commercials. But the voice coming from the television was something else familiar.

  I blinked.

  Cal was on the screen in his letterman’s jacket with his hair combed out of his eyes, which were wide, bluer than blue, and hard set on the camera. His hands were in his pockets, giving him that innocent, boy from an old ’50s movie vibe, and he was lying through his perfect, blue-white teeth.

  “We dated for a while,” he was saying. “But she was…unsteady?”

  “I was unsteady because you pushed me!”

  “She always seemed to be mad and not, like, always honest. We talked a lot about her parents—I guess her guardians, I mean—and how she wanted to get away from them. She was going to take a year off before college. That’s what she said, but she really wanted to take off and actually move away, you know? Not come back. She was saving up for that.”

  A tear rolled over my cheek. I had said that. I had wanted that. Because Cal and I were on the beach while our bonfire burned out, and I was mad that my parents made my curfew so early when no one else seemed to have one. I wanted to be on my own, maybe run away to Paris or something, and I said I hated my parents and that I just wanted to get away. And Cal nodded and smiled and agreed that his were annoying and that we should run away together—get a van and bus around the country or pool our money and go to France. Stupid stuff we said because we were mad and trying to impress each other.

  “She even had a bag packed and ready in her car. I mean, I guess you guys already found that.”

  “That’s not true. The bag wasn’t for running off with him. It was just left over.” I didn’t know who I was trying to convince. I perched on the edge of the bed, defeated, wholly battered. Everything about me—everything about me being a regular, stupid teenager—had been skewed, turned into something ugly. So much so that I was starting to wonder if I was truly innocent.

  My parents and I fought—not often, not viciously. Just the usual “you can’t do that, can’t go there, pick that up” kind of thing, but there were moments where I really couldn’t stand them. Could I have reached some sort of boiling point? Could I have snapped? The image of Mom in that hospital bed, her lips puckered and cracked, and Dad, Dad just gone, flashed in my mind, and the pain in my heart was visceral. I doubled over. I didn’t do this.

  “Thank you,” a disembodied voice said to Cal. I glared as Cal grinned, shot a peace sign, and said, “I’m Cal575 on TikTok. Stick with me.”

  The camera went static on his smiling face for a beat too long, and I could see the smoldering hate in his eyes just behind that cornflower blue. If I had just “stuck with” him through that prom night, back to the hotel room while he mauled me, would things be different? It didn’t matter now. None of that mattered now. Cal wanted to be famous, and if he used me to do it, so what?

  I was nothing more to him than a girl who said no.

  No.

  I charged into the bathroom and tore open the box of Manic Panic Take on Teal. I used the weird bleach thing first, and my hair was the ugliest orange ever but soon took the teal until it was bright and deliberate. It didn’t look great, but it was a definite step up from the hack job I had done with Nate’s scissors. I wanted to smile. I wanted to send a selfie to Lynelle, one with a weird smile and rolled-up eyes and a “so this happened” tag.

  “Lynelle!”

  I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of her before. She would help me. Of course she would! We had been best friends since we were six; she was probably worried sick about me! I went to my cell phone and frowned. Dead. I upturned my bag and pawed around for a charger.

  “Hello, front desk.”

  “Nate, it’s me. Do you have an iPhone charger?”

  “Come on down.”

  I beelined down the breezeway, doing my now-normal routine of zipping between cement pillars while trying to look nonchalant. I stepped into the lobby, ignored the tinkling bells overhead, and held up my phone. “Do you have a cord for this?”

  Nate looked up from his computer like he was surprised to see me. A smile broke over his face. “I like it.”

  “Huh? The hair. Oh.”

  “You look great.”

  I wanted to thank him. I wanted to feel good about a cute guy complimenting me, but I wasn’t me. I was this other person, this phantom moving through the San Jose streets, noticed enough only to be ignored.

  “You look like a mermaid.”

  “Mermaids have long hair.”

  “Then you look like a badass mermaid who has flipped off the mermaid establishment and got a buzz cut.”

  When I approached the counter, he leaned over and rubbed his hands over my short hair. I shivered unexpectedly, a ripple of joy working through me. I looked decent, Lynelle and her family were about to help me clear my name and probably take me into their home, and I would find Josh. Things were definitely starting to look up.

  “My phone is dead,” I said. “I just need to charge it, and I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier, but I’m going to call my best friend Lynelle. I know she’ll help. I’ll probably just go stay with her until all this gets cleared up so you can be rid of me at last.”

  Nate didn’t seem as pleased as I was, but I ignored it. He was a nice guy and all, but we were from two different worlds, and Lynelle was like family.

  Probably the only family you have left, a somber voice in the back of my head niggled. But I wouldn’t let myself give in to it. For the first time since this whole nightmare started, I felt hopeful.

  Nate went around the desk again, rummaged underneath, and dropped an open shoebox on the counter. “First thing—it’s probably a good thing your phone is dead. Police can’t track you.”

  Something fluttered through me. The police were tracking me? I had the prickly sensation that I was being watched, and part of me hoped that I was and this whole thing was a terrible new reality show called, like, The Worst Time of Your Life or something. But part of me knew this was my reality, and my stomach fluttered. Someone could be watching me now. Someone could have been watching us—my family—before all this happened. I chased the thought away with thoughts of Lynelle and her smiling parents, with pizza nights and twelve years of dance classes and recitals together. But still I stepped away from the floor-to-ceiling lobby windows and shrank into my sweatshirt.

  “I just need to turn it on for a second to call Lynelle.”

  Nate shrugged. “Suit yourself. There
should be something in here.” He pushed the box toward me. It was filled with a mishmash of cords, headphones, and chargers. “Welcome to the Midnight Inn’s very posh lost and found.”

  I put my phone on the counter while I pawed through the box. “Were any of these cords left this century?”

  “Sorry, our clientele isn’t known for having the latest and greatest. Nice phone though.”

  It was brand new. It had been an early birthday present from my parents, and I hadn’t thought twice about it. Now I felt a slight twinge of guilt and shame that I immediately tried to brush off. I had been lucky, sure, to be placed with the McNultys, but I never said I was better than Nate, better than any other kid. It was just a phone.

  I tried plug after plug. “Ugh, none of these work. Give me your phone.”

  “No,” Nate said simply.

  “What do you mean, no? You said to think of someone who will help me. Lynelle will help. I can probably even stay at her house, and half my clothes are there anyway.” I felt the smile spread across my face, the calming idea of a bed that I knew and a best friend who would remind me of my life, my real, before-I-woke-up life, and clean clothes and a shower that hadn’t showered a million strangers and maybe even some answers.

  “Lynelle’s mom is an attorney, and her dad does something for legal aid. They can help. I know they’ll help me.”

  “Or they’ll turn you in.”

  “No. No, they wouldn’t do that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded emphatically. “I’m totally sure. They’re like my second family. They would never, for a second, believe any of these news stories. They know me.”

  Nate didn’t say anything, and I felt the overwhelming need to explain myself, to plead my case. “I didn’t do this. Anyone who knew me before knows that. I had a great relationship with my parents. I wasn’t some angry teen.”

  “So you’re eighteen, right?”

  “Just barely, but yeah.”

  “Do you know what happens when you’re eighteen and in the system?”

  I was getting annoyed. “Uh, someone rips your whole life out from under you and dumps you in a lousy motel? Yeah, I got that. Super funsies.”

  “No. You get dumped out of the system.”

  “Okay, great, so what? Can I use the phone or not?”

  “When you’re eighteen, you’re a legal adult. Your foster parents stop getting checks—”

  “My parents weren’t getting checks. I wasn’t even really a foster child anymore.”

  Nate nodded slowly as though I were that dumb. “If you were their foster kid, they were getting money for you.”

  Suddenly, I felt a little dirty, a little used.

  “It’s supposed to be to help with your care. You know, for the extra food and clothes and stuff.”

  “I don’t think… I mean, it’s not like my mom made separate grocery lists for me or kept an extra wallet for my stuff. We were just…family.” I tried to blink away the cool mist that went over my eyes. “Just normal.”

  “Look, I’m not trying to upset you, but that’s how these things work. I mean, look at me. All this and a check, and no one wanted to take me in.” Nate smiled like it didn’t bother him, but how could it not?

  “Are you saying my parents only took me in for the money?”

  “No, I’m saying that—did your parents talk to you about what would happen when you turned eighteen? Did you talk about moving out?”

  “No. No!” There was a tightness in my chest, a clawing behind my eyes. “We talked about college and taking a gap year. They wanted me to take a gap year to work or… They wanted me to work for a year. Do some volunteer stuff or learn about the business world. I didn’t want to. I wanted to travel. But that’s pretty much it. It’s not like they were forcing me or we were fighting…” I let the words trail off. We fought about it a lot. They said I had to be responsible, learn to stand on my own two feet. I thought it was just dumb parent stuff. But were they really trying to push me out?

  “All I’m saying is that for some kids, eighteen—and getting tossed from your place—comes as a surprise. Sometimes it even makes people pretty pissed off.”

  Eighteen

  My heart was pounding. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m pretty pissed off. Are you saying that my parents were going to kick me out, so I killed them?”

  Nate stood, shaking his head. “No, no. I’m just saying…” He crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked away. “I just wanted you to be aware of anything they might say about you.”

  “They who?”

  “The media.”

  I scoffed. “So you’re just trying to protect me? Well, thanks but no thanks. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but you don’t know me, so I wouldn’t expect you to know that I’m innocent and being framed or whatever. You don’t have any idea about my family or about what they—we—had planned. Not every kid is the same, Nate. I was a regular, normal kid with a family. I still am.” My voice quavered at that last part, but I wouldn’t allow myself to cry. “Can I please just borrow your phone, and then I can be out of your hair.”

  “I didn’t mean anything by—”

  I held my hand out, palm up.

  Nate rolled his stool over and picked up the ancient receiver of the telephone that seemed bolted to the counter. He handed it to me.

  I cocked an eyebrow. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  He mashed a few buttons on the keypad. “It’s a phone. Sans cell. I don’t want them tracing my cell number back.”

  “They wouldn’t do that!” I grabbed the receiver he handed me—it was heavy and yet another example of this weird nightmare I was living. Nate held up a cautionary finger.

  “Don’t talk too long. Ask her to meet you somewhere.”

  I nodded, my finger hovering over the keypad. The numbers swirled in front of my eyes.

  “Well?”

  I swallowed hard. “Speed dial.”

  “Huh?”

  The tears started falling. “I don’t know Lynelle’s number. She’s number two on my speed dial. I just…” I mimicked hitting a single button, and misery and shame washed over me. I was a spoiled little rich girl. I never thought anything bad would happen, not even bad enough to lose my cell phone and need to call my best friend any other way.

  I clicked the receiver back into its beige cradle. “I’ll just go to her house. She’s only a couple of blocks from me.”

  “That’s not a good idea. The police are probably going to be watching her house.”

  I sprang across the floor, enraged. “Really, Nancy Drew? You’ve got all the answers, don’t you? I mean, is this really your place, or is it your criminal hideout? Hell, for all I know, you could have done all this.”

  I knew it was ridiculous, but I was crying again, hiccuping and heaving and completely out of ideas and alone. I had to hide. I had to chop off my hair, crawl through the streets, and stay in the shadows because people thought I was a killer.

  The realization hit me, and there was a new rack of sobs and hopelessness and despair.

  No one will help me.

  “I didn’t do anything to you or your parents, Andi. I’m just trying to help you.”

  I narrowed my eyes and sniffed. “Why? Why would you even want to help me? I’m a stranger, and you said yourself, you find me annoying.”

  “I said I find your kind annoying. Track pants, ponytails stuck out the back of hats, brand-new sneakers as though that’s your whole life. Going to the gym and getting coffee. But you’re kinda…different.”

  I sniffled again, knowing that my nose was probably fire-engine red and my cheeks even redder, that I had snot drying on my chin and I smelled like motel soap and cheap Danish.

  “And not just because you’re an alleged felon and I plan on selling my story to ever
y stupid website that’ll pony up some dough.” Nate smiled, and even in this horrible moment and in this craptastic motel lobby and in this nightmarish moment that was my life, I smiled too.

  “Please then, Nate. Tell me what I should do.”

  Nineteen

  I practically fell out of the bus when it stopped, but I didn’t feel sheepish or embarrassed. Instead, every cell in my body was thrumming, and I was hoping the bus driver, who gave me a look like she almost cared that I went headfirst onto the sidewalk, didn’t narrow her eyes and somehow recognize me with my ultrashort “mermaid” hair and Nate’s flannel. But Nate was right, and she barely made eye contact when she saw that I wasn’t bleeding from the skull, the bus door whooshing shut and the thing taking off.

  Nate offered me a hand and I took it, thinking I should make a joke about buses or gallantry or something, but I just dusted off my pants and tried not to throw up. My head was buzzing, and even as we were walking on the sidewalk, I felt like I should jump in the bushes and crawl on hands and knees toward the school.

  “I feel weirdly exposed,” I said, buttoning Nate’s flannel up to my chin and flipping up my hood. “Is this better?”

  “Full hoodie and flannel even though it’s eighty degrees and dark shades. No, you don’t look suspicious at all.”

  We crossed the street and came up behind the school, my heart pounding in my throat. Nate figured this would be the best way to contact Lynelle, and since I was out of ideas and juice on my phone, I agreed.

  I ditched the sunglasses and tied Nate’s hoodie around my waist and tried to look nonchalant and cool, like I belonged there, even though my whole body was screaming, waiting for someone to notice me and throw me in jail or murder me too.

  Honestly, I hoped for the latter.

  “It’s 2:40. Lynelle should be getting out in a couple of minutes.” I pointed. “We all sit over there. So let’s just wait.”

  “No way,” Nate said. “You’ve got to get her before she joins gen pop.”