“Everything looks good, very good. You’re feeling good? Good.” Paulie’s nerves are obviously shot. It’s like her brain is set to repeat. The admin offices flooded during the storm. Even though the water has receded, the carpets are still soaked and will probably need to be pulled up. “I know you’re old enough now to sign your own release. I see you never provided us the name of the person coming to pick you up today, but never mind. . . . It’s been such a whirlwind. . . .” She manages a faint smile. “No pun intended.”
It’s Sunday morning, and while I should be relaxing in detox courtesy of Wade’s delivery, instead I’m sitting in the cafeteria across from Paulie and a big stack of release papers. The sun is out for the first time since Friday afternoon, and the lawn is tangled with tree branches and garbage blown in from who knows where. Outside, men in identical green T-shirts and thick rubber gloves move across the puddled lawn, sorting through all of it.
I seize onto the idea of a mistake. Maybe I can buy an extra day or two. “Nobody can come,” I say, and it’s not hard to sound disappointed. Wade really couldn’t come. Apparently a branch went straight through his windshield. “The storm,” I clarify when Paulie looks surprised.
For once, the storm was just as bad as the news predicted. Tornadoes did, in fact, touch down in parts of the county. Half the towns from Middlebury to Whiting are without electricity. Otter Creek flooded and carried away cars and garden sheds and even an eighteenth-century windmill—just swallowed it whole, burped out a few two-by-fours, and thanks again, see you next time.
According to the news—ever since the generators kicked in on Saturday morning, we’ve had the news going in the media room—Twin Lakes got hit hard. I saw footage of the old movie theater missing half its roof and Two Beans & Cream, its windows shattered, its antique coffee grinder half-submerged in water. Telephone lines sparked in the street and water moved sluggishly between parked cars.
When I tried my mom’s house phone, I got nothing but a cranked-up beeping in my ear. When I called my sister’s cell phone, she practically hung up on me.
“Shit’s insane,” she said, and I could hear Mom in the background, her voice high-pitched and worried, telling her to mind her language. “Look, I can’t talk. The basement’s flooded. Mom’s freaking out. Stay dry, okay?” And that was that.
Of course, it’s also true I never asked either my mom or my sister to pick me up at Four Corners, for the simple reason that I never told them I was leaving. I was never planning to leave.
“Oh.” Paulie shoves her glasses up her nose with a thumb, frowning. “But what about the young woman out in the lobby?”
I stare at her. “What?”
“She signed in half an hour ago.” Paulie shuffles through her set of papers. “Here she is. Audrey Augello. She said she was here to see you. I just assumed she meant to check you out.”
For a second my brain blinks out. My first thought is that it must be a joke. One of the other girls got the idea to prank me after seeing the news. But almost immediately, I know that can’t be it—the news never mentioned Lovelorn by name or any of its characters. So: someone else, someone who knows, must have tracked me down, hoping to freak me out.
That was a thing we used to do, the three of us. It was a game of ours to pretend to be one of the original girls. Summer, the beautiful one, always the leader, the one who got to say yes or no or stop or go, was Ava; Mia, sweet little Mia with her big eyes, who bit her nails when she was nervous and moved like a ballet dancer, even when we were playing soccer in gym, was Audrey; and I was Ashleigh, the loud one, sarcastic and funny and just a little mean.
We used to use our second names when we wrote notes to each other in school. Mia even had a set of stationery made up online that said Audrey Augello at the top in pink, and whenever it was her turn to write a part of the story, she would do it by hand on her special paper. And Summer had a secret email account, [email protected] We were supposed to use it for messages about Lovelorn. But then Mr. Ball, Summer’s foster father, found out she’d been spotted riding around with Jake Ginsky and his older brother and insisted on having all her passwords and checking her email and Instagram and Snapchat and everything. (Summer was convinced he’d even trained their old cat, Bandit, to spy on her and start yowling when she tried to sneak out.) So we ended up using the secret account, which Mr. Ball never knew about, for everything we wanted to say and didn’t want anyone else to know about: Summer’s crush on Jake Ginsky and whether Owen Waldmann would grow up to be a serial killer and the fact that Anna Minor had already given a blow job to not one but two guys, both of them eighth graders. Crushes and secrets and confessions. Inside jokes and YouTube videos and songs we had to listen to together, singing until our lungs gave out and our voices dried up in our throats.
“Oh, right. Yeah. Audrey.” My voice sounds different, tinny and strained. I don’t know whether Paulie notices. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“Don’t forget, you’ll need to fill out some paperwork,” Paulie calls after me as I start for the reception area. Of course. Places like Four Corners aren’t built out of brick or concrete but out of forms and authorizations and disclaimers and requests for forms and requests for future requests for forms.
I pass several group rooms, most of them empty, the little chapel, and the movie room. Someone has left the TV on, still tuned to local news. Reception is at the end of the hall, through a set of swinging doors fitted with the circular kinds of windows you see on ships.
She’s sitting on the couch closest to the exit, as if needing to guarantee the possibility of a quick escape. On the news Friday night I was struck by how young Summer looked. But even though I haven’t spoken to Mia in five years, since It happened, and even though she’s grown and I’ve grown and her hair isn’t in its usual ballerina-style bun, she looks exactly the same: big eyes and a fringe of dark lashes; little upturned nose and a chin so sharp and narrow it looks like you could poke yourself on it.
For a long time, we don’t say anything. My heart is going so hard I worry it might just leapfrog out of my throat.
Finally, she speaks. “Hi,” she says, and then shuts her mouth quickly, as if biting back other words.
“What are you doing here?” I say. I’ve imagined seeing Mia again a hundred times. Of course I have. I’ve imagined seeing Summer, too, imagined she might suddenly come back to life and step into the present, wearing one of the crazy outfits only she could pull off, laughing like the whole thing was just a joke. Boo. Gotcha. Did you miss me?
Never did I imagine standing face-to-face with Mia here, at someplace like Four Corners.
I didn’t imagine I’d be afraid, either.
“I needed to talk to you.” She speaks so quietly I have no choice but to take a step forward just to hear her. Her eyes tick to the woman behind the desk. “In private,” she adds.
Maybe Mia’s been in rehab too and has just hopscotched to Step #9. (Step #8: We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all; Step #9: We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.) Maybe she wants to say sorry for selling me out to the cops, for wiping out our whole friendship in one go. I wasn’t even there. . . . I left Summer and Brynn alone. . . . I don’t know what happened. . . . Ask Brynn. . . .
But whatever the hell has led her here, to me, after all this time, I’m not buying. I’m not forgiving, either, even if she begs.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
For a second she looks faintly irritated, like the Mia who used to lecture us when Summer and I were supposed to be doing homework and instead were sprawled out on the couch, legs crisscrossed over each other, sharing a computer, competing over who could find the weirdest YouTube clips.
“How do you think?” she said. “Google.” When she sees I don’t get it, her mouth twists up like she’s just taken a shot of something really gross. “Some blogger did a whole ‘where are they now’ piece for the fifth anniversary.”
“No way,” I say, and she nods. “That’s fucked.” For a fraction of a second, we’re on the same team again. The Monsters of Brickhouse Lane. Bring out your pitchforks and light up the bonfire.
Then she ruins it.
“Look,” she says. She lowers her voice again. “I think I might have found something. . . . I know it sounds crazy, after all this time. . . .”
“What are you talking about?” I say.
She avoids looking at me. “Going back.” Now she’s practically whispering. “We have to go back.”
“Go where?” I say, even though I know. Maybe, deep down, I have been waiting for this. For her.
I notice she’s holding something double-wrapped in a thin grocery bag, like raw chicken she’s afraid will contaminate anything it touches. Even before she fully removes the book, I recognize it: the faded green-and-blue cover, the girls huddled together in front of a tree glowing with a secret, as if a burning ember has been placed somewhere between its roots.
She looks at me then, and says only one word.
“Lovelorn.”