RULES FOR DISAPPEARING
BY WITNESS PROTECTION PRISONER #18A7R04M:
There’s a time to cut and run. There’s a time to stay and fight. The most important time is to know when to make this decision.
THE nightmare was horrible last night. It’s worse because now I know it’s real. Now the colors are more vivid. The noises are louder, the dark is darker, the fear is stronger.
In our tiny bathroom, I stare at my reflection. I look like death. My eyes are puffy and red, and my nose is stopped up. I sound as terrible as I look. It’s been almost a week since I’ve left the house. I haven’t gone to school. I haven’t gone to Pearl’s. I haven’t gotten dressed.
I wet a washrag and hold the cold cloth to my eyes. I barely sleep anymore, instead I try to remember every detail of that night at Brandon’s house. Some parts are still blurry. Every time I feel like I’m getting close, my thoughts scatter. I can’t shake the feeling I’m missing something.
Teeny won’t go to school either. She doesn’t know what’s wrong, but she’s scared if she leaves me at home like this, I won’t be here when she gets back. And she’s sunk back into that same horrible quiet shell, just like when we first got here.
I’ve single-handedly ruined this family.
I’m starting to think I didn’t tell Sanchez I knew where the ledgers were just to save my ass. So I have a new plan: find the ledgers. And that plan rests solely on my stupid friggin’ memory. The ledgers are the key, but where are they? Every time I think about it I get this pattern in my head. Different shapes—all fitted together. I have that feeling like it’s on the tip of my tongue but I can’t pull it up. I’m determined to find them, and when I do, Dad and I will have to figure out what to do with them. We just have to make sure we have some guarantee that this is over.
I break it to Teeny that we’re going back to school this morning. I must really look bad, because she doesn’t complain.
She gets onto her bus just as mine pulls up behind it. I step inside, and Teeny’s right: it totally sucks riding the stinky bus to school. I take a seat in the back and resist crying again. A few freshmen look at me, and I want to growl at them.
The bus stops in front of school, expelling us along with a cloud of smoke. I’m second-guessing my decision to come back to school, but I can’t feel sorry for myself any longer. The pity party is over.
It doesn’t take long for Catherine to spot me. She, like Pearl, has been calling the house every day, but I’ve brushed them off, telling them my entire family got the flu. She grabs my hand and pulls me to the nearest bathroom.
“Oh, hell no.” She digs through her bag. “I don’t know what happened to you, but you’re not walking into school looking like Mrs. Frump’s ugly half sister.” She gets out a brush, a clip, and a bottle of hair gel and lines them up on the counter next to the sink. She then unloads a fully stocked makeup bag. “Especially if you and Ethan are over.”
“How’d you know?” I shouldn’t be in here with her—no one is safe around me—but it feels so nice to have a normal moment.
“Ethan told Will. Will told me.”
“What did Ethan say?” I don’t know why I’m doing this to myself. The sooner I get over him, the better off everyone will be.
Catherine manages to kick my short hair up in the back and pulls the front part to one side in the clip. “Will wants to rent a limo for the Mardi Gras Ball. He asked Ethan last week if y’all wanted to go with us. Ethan said it wasn’t working out between y’all. And then you disappeared.”
Even now, he’s still protecting me.
Catherine keeps working on me, and I get the full face treatment with the makeup, finishing up with a little gloss. She eyes my clothes and shakes her head in disgust. “It’s like you’re trying to wear the ugliest shit out there.”
She pulls the hoodie over my head and has to fix my hair again. “Here, shove this in that big-ass bag of yours.”
She digs in her bag and pulls out a soft, black, V-neck sweater. “Put this on.”
She also grabs a red-and-black scarf and puts it around my neck, forming it into a low hanging loose knot.
She stands back to survey her work. “Much better. So what happened with Ethan?”
“It’s all my fault. I freaked. Everything was kinda moving fast, ya know?”
Catherine looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “No. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Do you like him?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not that simple.” God, if it were only that simple.
“Yes. It is.” She holds up her hand when she sees I’m about to protest. “I don’t mean to get all up in your business. If you don’t want to be with Ethan, fine. But I’m not going to let you walk into this school looking like some bag lady.”
I turn and look in the mirror. Unbelievable. And what’s even crazier is I feel better. The makeover was like a slap in the face. No more poor, pitiful me moaning and groaning about how sucky my life is. I want a regular life. I want my family safe. I want to be with Ethan. I want to stop running. I even want to stay in this crazy-ass town. And Catherine is right: Mrs. Frump’s ugly half sister is not going to be able to accomplish that.
But the old me will.
We both look at the door when it opens. It’s the girl with pink stripey hair, and I get a funny feeling. Like déjà vu or something, but I usually only catch her when she’s leaving. I never see her when she first gets here.
The girl throws all her stuff down on the floor and starts picking at the wall. I glance at Catherine in the mirror. Catherine mouths the word loser and shakes her head. The girl goes about her business, unconcerned that the two of us are watching her. She wiggles a brick out of the wall. It’s slow going, and I can’t tear my eyes off of her. The brick wall blurs and the pattern makes me dizzy. My mouth gets dry.
Once the brick is loose, she balances it in one hand while shoving a plastic bag into the hole. She turns back and looks at us for the first time.
“If my stash disappears, bet your ass I’ll come after you,” she says.
Catherine turns around with her hand on her hip. “If I really wanted your stash, I’d have taken it years ago. Everyone knows that’s where you hide it.”
I lean against the wall near the sink and feel my knees get weak. I stare at the girl as she shoves the brick back into place. But that’s not all I’m seeing. Price’s image is superimposed on top of hers. I can see him…shoving something into the stone wall behind his desk.
The bell rings and the girl flees the bathroom.
“What a freak.” Catherine stuffs her things back into her bag. She turns to me and her expression changes. “Are you okay?”
I’m close to sliding to the ground, but I manage to hold myself upright. I don’t want to fall apart in front of her.
“Yeah, fine. Not feeling a hundred percent yet,” I manage to squeak out.
Catherine’s face scrunches up. “You look pale. Are you sure you’re all right?”
I nod. “I’ll see you in class.”
Catherine leaves the bathroom only after looking back at me a few times first. The second the door shuts, I hit the floor.
Oh. My. God. I know where the ledgers are.
I squeeze my eyes closed and focus on that night. I start at Brandon’s house, combining all the pieces I’ve recalled over the last week. After I search upstairs, I step inside Mr. Price’s office. He’s facing the back wall, shoving some thin books inside a small hole, then picks up a stone from his desk and stuffs it into the wall.
Just as the stone slides into place, I hear footsteps and jump behind the couch.
I open my eyes and stare at the bathroom wall where the girl stuffed her drugs.
The ledgers are probably still in the wall in Mr. Price’s office.
I sprint out of the bathroom and quickly get to homeroom before the second bell rings. I need time to think, to plan. I slide into a desk in the back, and Ben moves to sit near me.
“I hear you broke poor Landry’s heart.” And then he bursts out laughing.
I hold up a hand. I’m so done with this. “Quit being an asshole. Whatever it is you’ve got against Ethan, drop it. Or don’t. I don’t really give a shit. Just leave me out of it. And leave me out of your little games with Emma. It’s getting old.”
Ben’s eyes get big. He’s trying to stutter something out, but nothing makes it past his lips. I glance behind him to the minions watching. “Did you get all that?”
They look shocked, too.
Good.
I turn back to Ben. “About the project. We can get together either tomorrow night or Thursday at Pearl’s. You pick. I’ll have the packet.” I couldn’t care less about this, but I’ve got a plan brewing and I’m hoping in the end we can stay here. At some point, I’ll have to salvage what’s left of senior year. And hopefully there’s something between Ethan and me that can be salvaged, too.
Ben shakes his head and goes back to the seat he was originally sitting in.
I’m on fire. I can’t tell Dad I know where they are. He’d never let me go with him. And then, what if the ledgers aren’t in there anymore? No, Dad needs to stay with Mom and Teeny. I got us into this, so I’ll get us out.