I'm Not Missing

by Carrie Fountain

  The closer I got, the more I felt the fear trying to enter my body. But I wouldn’t allow it. I couldn’t. Once I got onto campus, I simply stopped thinking. I let the breeze push me past the engineering complex, the administrative buildings, the student union, until I was walking up to the squat, ugly math building. I didn’t stop outside. I knew stopping would mean thinking, and thinking wasn’t an option, so I flung the glass door open, glanced at the directory on the wall, then made my way down one corridor and into the next. The building was cold and musty. It smelled like math. My sneakers squeaked on the linoleum and I made them stop. I watched the office numbers go up: 116, 118, 120. Dr. Allison was 122. His door was wide open. The hall was ultra-silent, abandoned, lousy with fluorescent light. I could hear my pulse thumping in my neck. I stopped just before I got to his door. I wanted to take the last two steps, but my body wouldn’t let me. It demanded I leave the premises immediately. Just run, dingus, I could hear Syd saying. Go!

  But I thought of how she’d called me The Good One.

  It was time now to be The Good One.

  I took the two steps.

  He was sitting behind a gigantic desk, reading something, his mouth turned downward in concentration. His desk was a mess. Crammed bookshelves lined the walls. I stood there for a moment, frozen. He looked up without moving his head when he finally sensed me standing there.

  “Oh.” He was perplexed. “Miranda.” I understood immediately I’d made a mistake. I tried to recall the excuse. I was just on campus.

  But I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, looking behind me into the hall. “Is Nick here?”

  “No,” I said, my voice was shallow, a puddle. “I’m here alone.”

  “Oh,” he said. He blinked.

  I tried again to begin the excuse. I was just on campus. But instead what came out of my mouth was: “Did you know that I’m Syd’s cousin?” I kept my eyes on his.

  He blinked again. He turned his head slightly as if trying to hear me better. He gave a smile of confusion. “I’m sorry. Come again?”

  He was innocent. It was time for the goddamn excuse. Why couldn’t I make it come out of my mouth? My heart was flying and my legs were shaking. But then I noticed his phone sitting beside a stack of folders on his desk. I looked at it for a long time. I looked back at him. And then, as he watched me, dumbfounded, I took my phone out of my pocket. I went to the text thread.

  ARE YOU A LIAR? I looked into his confused face and pressed send.

  It was an immaculate kind of silence that followed. Everything was suddenly clear. I was standing in front of my boyfriend’s father, acting like a lunatic. I cleared my throat and tried once again. I smiled stupidly. Finally it came. “I was just on campus—”

  And that was when it happened.

  His text alert was set to an unfortunately humorous duck’s quack. He pursed his lips and allowed his eyes to look at it. He looked back at me.

  “Would you check that?” I had no idea why, but I maintained total coolness.

  He reluctantly tapped his phone. He read the words I’d sent.

  “Okay—”

  But before he could finish, I’d already typed another message.

  LIAR.

  Send.

  Quack.

  “Okay, listen—”

  LIAR.

  Send.

  Quack.

  He put up a palm meekly, as if to call a truce. But I couldn’t help myself. Fueled by a white-hot rage, I typed it once again. Then I stared him in the face as I pressed send.

  Quack.

  “I can’t discuss this—” he began, all seriousness.

  “Oh, no.” I couldn’t believe how sturdy my voice was. It clearly surprised him as well. “You don’t need to talk. I’ll talk.” He closed his mouth. He entwined his fingers and placed his hands on his desk and stared at them. He looked like a penitent child.

  I stepped forward until I was standing at the edge of his desk. It occurred to me I hadn’t thought of what I’d say. But that wasn’t going to stop me. I took my time. “There is probably only one person in the world I love as much as I love Syd Miller.” I swallowed. I was silent. I knew my silence would force him to look up at me. And it worked. He raised his sleepy eyes and squinted at me. “And we both know who that person is.”

  He heaved a heavy sigh. “What would you like me to do, Miranda?” He sounded impatient and it infuriated me. “I’ve lost my job. What else can I do?”

  “Tell me where she is.”

  “I don’t know that.”

  “Are you lying?”

  “No.”

  There was no way to tell if he was lying or not. I stepped forward. “I’m going to find her,” I said. “Someday. And when I do, if I find out you knew where she was—right now—and didn’t tell me, I will destroy you.” I was as stunned as he was I’d uttered those words. I saw his jaw twitch and I was happy. If I’d caused him even one moment of suffering, this was all worth it. I understood then what my father had said that afternoon when I asked him what he’d do if I disappeared. Everything, he’d said. Anything.

  I knew now I’d do anything for Syd.

  “May I ask what you plan to do with this—information?” Dr. Allison said.

  “Anything I want to do,” I snapped back.

  I took one more look around his office and saw on a high bookshelf behind him a framed photo of Jason and Nick as kids, wearing their Boy Scout uniforms. Nick was probably seven or eight. His curly hair sat wild on top of his head and he held his hands obediently in front of himself. For once, I thought, he’d known what to do with his hands. His smile. It was so pure, so innocent.

  I was going to turn then and leave. I should have. But I was emboldened by the photo. I thought of Nick and my dad sitting on the floor on Christmas night, looking over that stupid knife. “One more thing.” I looked down on him. “I have a little advice for you. If you ever meet my father—if you’re ever even in the same room as my father. Run.”

  I turned and strode out the door and never looked back. The sound of my footsteps down the hall was unbearable. All the way to the big double doors, I braced myself as if I were walking away from a bomb whose fuse I’d just ignited. I pushed through into the bright afternoon sunlight, then turned and looked over my shoulder. I was sure he’d be there, but he wasn’t.

  I jogged the whole way back to my car. It became clear what I’d just done. The righteous indignation I’d conjured up in Dr. Allison’s office—that great euphoria of justice—began to leave me as quickly as it’d come. Minutes ago I was speaking truth to power. I was settling scores. But as I swung open the door to my car, reality crashed down upon me. I’d just chewed out my boyfriend’s father—threatened him, even. And still I was no closer to finding Syd, even if now I could guess at why she’d left. I closed the door and looked out at the arena. The corrals were empty now, entirely so. The horses were gone, put up in their trailers and driven away. I missed the cowboys who’d stood watching their teammate practice, woo-hooing her speed and her grace.

  The car was stifling hot. I was sweating. I tried to slow down my mind. I tried to breathe. I tried to pray. As usual, nothing came. This time, it was more painful than ever. All I wanted was one measly prayer. What had I done to deserve this gigantic nothing? Why had my mother taken this one comfort from me? All I’d ever done was love her. All I’d ever done was worship her as if she were a god. Maybe she was a god! Maybe that was the whole problem. My mother was my god, and when she left, she took everything. She took the whole galaxy with her, the whole universe. She wasn’t taking calls. She wasn’t coming home. She wasn’t even going to send me a stupid birthday card. Even Patience had done that a couple of times over the years.

  I punched the steering wheel with the side of my fist. It hurt, but I did it again. Then again. Each time it hurt more. And each time I did it again. I remembered what my dad had said about things being a test. You come to a point, he’d said.
I was at that point. I knew I’d arrived there. And it filled me sadness to think there might never come a time when I’d pass this test, when I’d acquire whatever skill or talent or magic it would take to forgive my mother for leaving us. To let her go. To forgive Ray and Patience and a world that seemed so dead set against goodness and rightness.

  What would you like me to do, Miranda? I felt like I couldn’t breathe, or like I didn’t want to breathe. I didn’t want the responsibility of breath. The world sucked and Syd was gone and Nick was finding holes in the pockets of his tuxedo, oblivious to the fact that everything in his life was about to explode because his dad had had an affair with his girlfriend’s best friend, a fact my own brain was still fighting against with all its might, trying to bar the mental images that were trying to get in. Was it possible Syd had kissed that man? Had seen him naked? Had let him touch her? I closed my eyes tightly and demanded my brain stop right there. I couldn’t allow it to go any further.

  I turned on the car and rolled down the windows. The breeze came rushing in. It smelled heavily of cow shit, but it didn’t matter. It was better. It wasn’t good. It was nowhere near good. But it was better.

  My phone dinged. I reached into my pocket and retrieved it.

  It was my dad.

  Thinking about LASAGNA. Would you stop for mozzarella, maybe get an onion?

  After that, three emojis. One of a shooting star. One of a cow. One of a snowman.

  I dropped the phone in my lap and put my hands over my face and sobbed, the sudden rush of tears dripping onto my palms.

  How many times would my father save my life without even knowing it?

  I took a long, slow breath. I stopped crying. I picked up my phone.

  Will mozz it, dude. Sounds super, I wrote back.

  I added an emoji of a fish.

  I added, Love ya.

  And then I drove to the grocery store.

  15

  I couldn’t face Nick. I simply couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell him the truth and I couldn’t keep it a secret. It was an impossible situation. He texted while I was checking out at the grocery store and asked if I wanted to FaceTime French homework. I made a lame excuse. It was excruciating.

  Gettin’ stoked about da prom, he wrote later that night. I didn’t even write back. I kept seeing that photo of him in his Boy Scout uniform, standing next to Jason, that familiar wide smile beaming its innocent light out to the world, his hands clasped in front of him. I couldn’t stand it.

  I avoided meaningful contact with him all the next morning, too. I was always rushing off to some imagined elsewhere I had to be. The newspaper was in shambles. I had to talk to a teacher. By lunch he was suspicious. “Is something wrong?” he asked while we were walking to the cafeteria together.

  “No,” I said.

  “I think I know what it is.”

  “What?” I looked into his face. Was it possible he knew?

  “You don’t want to go to prom.”

  “Oh. No, that’s not it.”

  “We don’t have to go. Really. I pressured you. You don’t want to go. What kind of a jerk makes a girl go to prom when she doesn’t want to go?”

  Prom! It was so insignificant. It was almost funny in its smallness. Charming.

  “No,” I said. “I want to.” I took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m actually getting quite stoked about da prom myself.”

  But after that, it only got harder to be around him. In each class period I convinced myself I had to tell him. And then each time I saw him, I didn’t. I couldn’t. After the last class of the day, I went into the bathroom and washed my hands in hot water, trying to scrub away the guilt. I looked myself in the mirror for a long time. I couldn’t go on like this. I just had to tell him. I coached myself the whole way to Nick’s locker. I told myself I needed to be strong. Solid. I was doing the right thing. Honesty was the right thing.

  But when I arrived, I found him standing in the abandoned hallway, staring at his phone. His locker was wide open. His backpack was slung open on the floor beside him. I knew right away the other shoe had dropped. He already knew. His world had exploded while I was busy Lady Macbething it in the bathroom.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He looked up. He blinked. He shoved his phone in his pocket and wiped his palms on his T-shirt.

  “Nick?” I said.

  “Okay,” he said, disoriented.

  “What’s wrong?” I was the worst actress ever.

  He was pale. “Can we go somewhere? Can we go to the ditch?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. He slammed his locker and picked up his backpack and started walking. I followed. We didn’t speak the whole way. He was furious. Was he furious? I was sure he was going to break up with me. In five more minutes I’d have lost him.

  He stopped when we got to the footbridge and let me go over first, then followed behind. There was no real reason to hide at the ditch after class. You didn’t need to be invisible then. But when he sat down and leaned his back against the dirt, I sat down beside him. Everything was different since the last time we’d been to the ditch. The fields were thick with green chile, lush and fragrant. Nick brought his palms to his face. He exhaled loudly. “Fuck,” I heard him say. I realized it was the first time I’d heard him cuss.

  I put a hand on his shoulder.

  “My dad lost his job,” he said to the ground.

  “What?”

  “My mom just called. He got fired two weeks ago. He didn’t even tell her until today.” Nick looked at me, hard. “She called. She told me over the phone.” He shook his head.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  He looked out to the field of chile. Then he looked back at me. “He had—a relationship.” He ran both hands through his hair and seemed to force the words out of his mouth. “He had sex with a student. It’s happened before. My mom sends him for all this therapy. She’s a doctor, you know; she thinks she can fix him. But he can’t be fixed. I mean, oh my god. She was his student when they met. It started with her.”

  “She was?”

  “Yes. Of course she was. He’s just…” He looked up to the sky. He started crying. I waited with dread for him to get to the part about Syd. “It happened at Berkeley. Another undergrad. I remember hearing my parents fight about it. We moved. And then it happened in Chicago. Twice. He’s, like, a sex addict. The second time was almost a lawsuit. He was asked to resign. We came here because some friend got him a job. And now it happened here. No charges. But the woman—the girl”—he pursed his lips together and looked at me—“she was really young.”

  I tried to read his face. Was he trying to tell me something? “Who was the girl?” I had to force myself not to look away.

  He swiped away tears. “I don’t know. They do. She reported him. There was an investigation. That’s why he lost his job.”

  “Oh.” I felt bad, but I was relieved. “God, this sucks. I’m so sorry.”

  He took a deep breath and exhaled. “At least it’s almost over for me. At least I’m almost gone.”

  All of a sudden, Nick’s white boy Harvard problem became very real to me. It was, after all, so fucking complicated. Who’d want to follow that legacy? Who wouldn’t want to escape, even if it meant walking into the woods and living with bears?

  “Everyone’s going to know.” He shot me a look. “I don’t want anyone to know. I didn’t even want to tell you.” He put his head down between his legs. I thought he might puke. I remembered what he’d told me that night in the orchard when he was attending to my wound. He told me to keep my eyes on him.

  “Look at me, Nick.” He looked at me. “It’s going be okay.”

  “No, it’s not.” He looked away. “I don’t want this to be happening.”

  “Well, it’s happening.”

  He gave me a wounded look. “Thanks.”

  “No. I didn’t mean that. I just mean: this is your life. Maybe this is a sign. That you need to stand up to your parents.”

  “
Are you really saying this right now?”

  “Well, I am. Yes. When are you going to tell them about UNM? When are you going to tell them about the Jemez? If that’s what you want, why can’t you tell them?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  It felt terrible, like I was kicking Nick when he was already down. But the more he retreated, the more frustrated I became. “I just think you’re stronger than you’re acting right now.”

  “Why are you so concerned? It’s not your life.”

  “Why are you so scared?”

  “I can’t believe you’re saying this right now.” He put his head between his legs again. It was like he was trying to hide.

  “I mean, dude! You have to know about your father’s pervert sex life but you can’t tell him where you want to go to college? That is fucking ludicrous! It’s so stupid!” The long moment of silence that followed only underscored the fact that I’d been shouting. A breeze moved through the fields, wagging the chile peppers on their stems. Nick kept his head down. I felt like an asshole.

  “God, I’m sorry.” I laid a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I need to shut up.”

  “You’re right, though.” He lifted his head. Then he leaned back against the slope of the ditch and closed his eyes.

  “Just tell them. About UNM,” I said. “Not because they need to know, but because—you know. It’s true. Just tell them you’re thinking about it. This is about you, Nick. Not your dad. Just let it be about you for once.”

  “Yeah.” He pressed his palms to his eyes and then looked at me. He smiled meekly. I considered it a triumph.

  But did I deserve a triumph? I’d been so busy life coaching, I’d almost forgotten I was the one with the truth that needed telling.

  When I looked at him, though, all I could see was that Boy Scout in the photo, with his wild hair and a smile beaming a million megawatts of innocent light out to the world. All I could see was Nick’s goodness.