Chapter Eight
Elizabeth
The next morning, I told Mom and Aidan that I was sick.
“She’s not!” Aidan said. He frowned and pointed his finger at me, suddenly looking much younger than his thirteen years. “She’s faking!”
Mom sighed. “Honey, Elizabeth is going through a lot right now, and we have to be supportive,” she said. I could tell she didn’t believe me, though.
“I’m just so tired,” I said. I faked a yawn, covering my open mouth with both hands. “I didn’t sleep at all last night.”
“Yeah,” Aidan said. His eyes flashed mischievously. “You were up all night, talking to Steven!”
“Aidan!” Mom and I hissed at the time same.
Mom turned to me. “Who’s Steven?”
“Andrea’s brother,” I said wearily. “And no, brat. For your information, I was up all night worrying about my best friend.”
Mom reached out and put her hand to my forehead. “Okay,” she said softly. “You can stay home, Elizabeth. I know things are difficult for you right now.” She gave me a sympathetic smile. “Just promise you’ll go to school tomorrow.”
I nodded, crossing my fingers behind my back. I didn’t know what I’d do if David and I didn’t find Monica. I had no idea where we were even going to start looking.
“Okay, honey,” Mom said. She pulled me close and kissed my forehead. “I’m going to drop Aidan off on the way into work. I should be home at the normal time tonight. Your father’s working late – again,” she added under her breath, “but I hope we can all have dinner together.”
I nodded and tried to look as sick as I could while I waited for Mom and Aidan to leave. They took a surprisingly long time, and I went upstairs to lie in bed until the front door slammed shut.
As soon as Mom was gone, I raced out the door and started jogging along the main road until I reached the grounds of our school. A beat-up, blue Oldsmobile was parked, rumbling like mufflers had never been invented. I almost groaned when I saw David behind the wheel. His black hair had grown even longer, and his dark sunglasses obscured the whole upper half of his face. When he saw me, he leaned on the horn.
I cringed. “I saw you,” I said through gritted teeth as I climbed into the passenger seat of his decrepit car. “You didn’t have to honk.”
David smirked. “You look a bit distracted,” he said.
“No shit,” I muttered. “My best friend is missing. She could be dead.”
David shook his head. “Don’t say that.” He shoved the car into gear, and we pulled away from the school grounds with a jerk. I heard the ringing of the school bell as David drove off.
“So,” David said, “show me around. Where’s Monica?”
I buckled myself into the seat and looked out the window. “I don’t know,” I said hotly. “That’s why we’re looking.”
“I don’t know my way around here,” David snapped. He cut sharply to the left, and my head slammed against the window. “Tell me where she hangs out.”
I was already regretting my decision of calling David and having him come visit and help me look.
“There’s a lake outside of town. Monica and I used to go there a lot,” I said. ‘Before she met you,’ I amended silently in my head.
“Cool.” David shifted the car into a higher gear and pressed down on the gas. We shot down the main road of town, through the center and stores until I couldn’t see anything but grass and trees. The air had turned colder in the few days since Monica had vanished; I hated to admit it, but that didn’t exactly feel like a good omen.
The air between David and me was frosty, too. I shivered and wrapped my arms tightly around my body. David steered the car off the main road, and I directed him down the short dirt path to the lake.
When we climbed out of the car, I shivered again. Jaffrey Lake was beautiful, but in the fall, it looked deserted, like the setting of a horror movie. ‘Stop it. You’re being morbid,’ I told myself. But now that I’d started thinking horrible thoughts, they just kept coming.
“We should walk around, see if she’s hiding around here,” David said. He jerked his head to the side before loping off at a fast pace. I sighed and then broke into a trot to keep up.
“Slow down,” I called.
“We gotta search the whole town before the end of the day,” David said. “I gotta get back to Vermont tonight.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “And what if we don’t find her? What then?”
David shrugged. “I dunno.”
I glared. “Some help you are,” I muttered. “I feel like everyone around here has gone crazy.”
David frowned. “Why?”
“Like her parents don’t even care that she’s gone,” I said hotly. “My mom called the police, but she thinks Monica was, like, I dunno…kidnapped or something. And she’s always trying to tell me that things are gonna be fine.”
David shrugged again. He turned on his heel and kept walking at a brisk pace. “They might be fine,” he said. “You don’t exactly know that for sure.”
“David, come on.” I stopped dead in my tracks and crossed my arms over my chest. “That’s fucked up.”
David sighed. “I know,” he mumbled. He balled his hands into fists and shoved them in his pockets. Although his sunglasses were still obscuring his vision, I could tell by the deep commas in his cheeks that he was depressed.
“We have to stay strong,” I said. “But we can’t just think everything is going to turn out fine because that’s easier.”
“I just…I can’t believe it,” David said. “Monica hates spontaneity. She hates going away from home. She made me drive her back from Vermont one time at three in the morning because my bed was too narrow.”
I laughed out loud. The story was so like Monica that my heart hurt. “I know,” I said softly. “She’s very particular.”
David and I resumed walking. I kept looking in the woods, watching for a flash of her blonde hair, but the only things I saw were trees and dead limbs on the ground.
“So,” I said quietly. “How was the party?”
“What?” David pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head and squinted at me.
“The party on Friday,” I said. I rolled my eyes. “You know, the reason why you didn’t feel like coming here.”
David flushed. “Nothing,” he mumbled. “It was fine.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.” David glared at me. “Forget it.”
I scowled.
“I didn’t cheat on her, if that’s what you’re thinking,” David said. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“I didn’t think that,” I said quickly. “You just got so defensive!”
David sighed moodily. He raked a hand through his black hair. In the fall sunshine, his skin was so pale that it looked almost translucent.
We hiked around the lake three times. The second time, I thought I saw something floating in the water. But when I got closer to look, I realized it was just a piece of trash.
“She’s not here,” I said softly.
“Did you really think she would be?”
“No,” I said, too quietly for David to hear. “But I wanted her to be.”
David and I spent the rest of the day driving around Jaffrey. Around the time school let out, I had him drive me to my house so I could leave a note for my mom. I told her that I was feeling better, and that I’d gone out with Andrea. I knew she wouldn’t bother calling Mrs. D’Amico. Like the rest of Jaffrey, my mom thought Andrea and Steven’s parents were totally crazy.
By the time the sun was sinking low in the sky, I was starting to lose hope. David and I had been almost everywhere that Monica had loved. Between her favorite rock and magic store, to the diner where we’d gone almost every day after school the previous year, I was feeling hopeless and lost.
I sniffled as I climbed back in the passenger seat.
“Can you think of anywhere else?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said softly, “I can’t.”
David nodded. “I should be getting back to Vermont,” he said quietly. “I told my parents I’d be home later.”
I nodded.
“You okay?”
I nodded again, but I couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in my eyes. As much as I was worried about Monica, I couldn’t help feeling lonely. There was a giant hole in my chest where my best friend had once been, and I knew that it wouldn’t ever go away.
“What happens if we don’t find her?” I said listlessly, staring out the car window. Rain had begun to fall, and I watched the drops lash the window until my eyes burned.
“She’ll turn up.”
“You don’t know that.” Shifting in the seat, I turned to face David. “You don’t know anything. She could never come home. She could be gone. Forever.”
David sighed. “Look, Elizabeth, what do you want me to say? That I’m feeling fucking fantastic about my girlfriend missing? That I feel just great?”
“No…” I bit my lip. “I don’t know.” Tears came to my eyes, and I hunched over my lap, dreading the sobs. But when I started crying, it was like a dam broke. Emotion swirled loose in my brain, and for a moment, I cried so hard that all I could focus on was how much my sinuses hurt.
David reached over and awkwardly patted my back. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “Try not to worry so much, Elizabeth.”
“I miss her so much,” I sobbed. “I just wish she’d come home.”
“Me, too.” David’s voice was thick with emotion. When I looked at him, I saw that he was sobbing, too. I hesitated a second before unfastening my seat belt and wrapping my arms around his neck. David leaned into me, and I closed my eyes and rested my head on his shoulder until his black shirt was soaked through with tears.
It felt strange to be sharing such an intimate moment with someone I hadn’t exactly had warm feelings for. I cried on David’s shoulder until my throat was raw and aching, until I felt like I had no more tears left in my body. He sobbed wildly against me, shaking and shivering until the skin of his face was burning hot. All I could think about was Monica. I wondered if she was cold, or scared, or hurt. I wondered if some sicko had picked her up in a van, if somehow, she’d been mistaken for a little girl. I knew that Monica had always thought of herself as a real tough girl, but in reality, she was fragile. Jamie and Brian – nontraditional though they were – had kept her shielded from the rest of the world. A villain to Monica was a Republican or a capitalist.
After what felt like hours, David pulled away. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, leaving a trail of iridescent, sticky slime.
“Sorry,” David mumbled. “I don’t know why that happened.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
The intimacy between us was deflating rapidly as David started the car and drove me home.
As I got ready to go inside, I unbuckled my seat belt and turned toward him.
“Thanks for coming down,” I said softly. “Even if we didn’t do all that much.”
David nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Look, I can come back on the weekend. My parents won’t care. I could stay with Jamie and Brian.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
There was an awkward tension – a pause that made me shiver. Finally, not knowing what else to do, I lifted my fingers in a childish wave and climbed out of the car. David didn’t even stay to watch me go inside; he peeled out of the driveway, spraying gravel everywhere.
My mom was standing at the stove. “I was worried about you,” she chastised. “I don’t want you out alone. Not with all this going on.”
“I wasn’t alone. I was with…Andrea. Remember?”
Mom nodded. “Look, honey, I know you think you should be doing more. But there really isn’t anything to be done. The police are on Monica’s case, and they’re looking for her as hard as they can.”
I bit my lip. Mom was looking at me, staring at my bloodshot eyes.
“I just feel like no one even cares,” I said, flopping down in exasperation. “There hasn’t been a search party. Her parents probably haven’t even called the cops themselves!”
Mom sighed. “I know, sweetie.” She cleared her throat. “Sometimes we just have to let people do what they want. It’s not your responsibility to make the Boers be better parents.”
I clenched my jaw. “I’m going upstairs,” I muttered. “I’ll be down later.”
Once I was safely behind the locked door of my room, I grabbed my phone from the charger and called Steven. Normally, I would have been anxious at the thought of calling the D’Amicos. But right now, I was too worried about Monica.
“Hey, Elizabeth?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I skipped school today. To look for her, with David.”
“And?”
I sighed.
“Have you eaten yet?”
“No,” I said softly. “Why?”
“I’m picking you up in twenty,” Steven said. “We’re going to the diner.”
When Steven and I hung up, I changed into a pair of black jeans and a sweater. Racing downstairs, I checked my hair in the hallway mirror before walking into the kitchen.
“You’re looking better,” Mom said. She cocked her head to the side. “Everything okay?”
I nodded, trying not to blush. “Yes,” I said. “Um, Steven wants to take me out to dinner. Is that okay?”
Mom raised her eyebrows. “Is this a date, Elizabeth?”
“I don’t think so.” I twisted my hands together behind my back. “I mean, I don’t know. I think he just wants to talk about Monica.”
Mom nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said. “Just be home before ten, okay?”
I nodded. Just as I was grabbing a jacket from the hall closet, I heard the rumbling of an engine outside.
“Steven’s here,” I called. “Gotta go! See you later, Mom.”
Before she could reply, I darted outside and ran over to Steven’s car. He gave me a lopsided grin when he saw me, and my stomach lurched to the side in a mix of excitement and anxiety.
“You didn’t have to run out,” Steven said. “I was about to knock on the door.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s fine,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Steven drove in silence. When we got to the diner, another pang of sadness hit me.
“It feels so weird to be here without Monica,” I said as Steven held the door for me. “We used to come every day freshman year.”
Steven nodded. “Yeah, I saw you.”
I raised my eyebrow, and Steven blushed.
“I mean, I wasn’t spying or anything,” he said quickly. “Andrea told me, I guess.”
I nodded. “Yeah, it was when they were still friends.”
There was an awkward silence as we picked up the grease-spattered menus and began to browse. Although the diner was never particularly busy, it always had the same dingy look – floors streaked with dirt, tables covered with crumbs. It hadn’t ever bothered me, but now that I was here with Steven, everything looked even worse than it had before. ‘Is this a date?’ I wondered as I flipped through the menu. ‘And if it is, why didn’t we go someplace else?’
After we ordered, Steven looked into my eyes. “So, how was today?”
I shrugged. “We didn’t find anything,” I said listlessly. “And being with David was weird.” Instantly, I felt guilty for saying that.
Steven chuckled. “Yeah. He’s an odd dude.”
“I just wish we would have…I dunno. Seen something. Anything,” I stressed. “Like, anything to give me another idea where to look.”
Steven shrugged. “Probably better left to the cops.”
I frowned. “I guess.”
“We had this shitty assembly today,” Steven said. He snickered. “They brought in these bodybuilder guys who ripped phone books apart with their hands. Then they told us it was because they’d dedicated their lives to Jesus. Andrea flipped. It was fucking nuts.”
“Monica would have hated that,” I said. “Hey, I never thought of this before, but maybe I should call some of her other family. She has that cousin, right? The one that lives in Massachusetts?”
“It was such a weird day.” Steven raked a hand through his blond hair.
“I thought you brought me here to talk about Monica?”
Steven sighed. “I dunno, Elizabeth. I thought you needed a break that was why I suggested it.”
“So, you don’t really care,” I said hotly. I knew I was going down a dangerous path, but I couldn’t help it. Suddenly, I was incredibly angry that no one else was taking this seriously.
“Of course, I care!” Steven looked offended. “I care a lot, you know? These adults – they’re not doing shit!”
I sighed. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just frustrated.”
“I get that,” Steven said. “Everything will be okay. Just try to chill out, okay?”
Steven launched into a story about something that had happened in AP English, and as much as I wanted to listen, my resentment was growing. I couldn’t believe that he didn’t even care about Monica. ‘My best friend is dead, and no one cares but me,’ I thought angrily. ‘Am I going crazy? Did I imagine this whole thing?’
After we ate – a tuna melt for me, and a club sandwich for Steven – Steven paid the bill, and we climbed into his car.
“Hey, I’m going over to John’s,” Steven said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, I need to stop by the house and grab something. I borrowed a movie from him last week,” Steven said. “You don’t mind, do you? I’ll take you home right after.”
I frowned. “Sure,” I said. “No problem.” I turned my face to the window so he wouldn’t catch my disappointment. I’d been hoping that he would ask me to come.
Steven pulled into his driveway. “Hey, come in for a minute,” he said. “You’ll get cold if you stay in the car.”
I nodded before following him inside. The foyer of the D’Amicos house was a rush of activity. Andrea was scurrying around with a hairbrush in one hand and her jacket clutched in the other. Mr. and Mrs. D’Amico were arguing loudly. Steven darted upstairs, throwing me an apologetic glance over his shoulder as he did so.
“Hi, Elizabeth,” Andrea said primly. She smiled. “How are you feeling today? I noticed you weren’t at school.” She held out her bag, and I saw that it was a bible case with handles and a gold-stitched crucifix on one side.
“Um, yeah,” I said. “I was sick.”
Andrea leapt away like I’d just told her that I had the plague. “Don’t come too close,” she said. “I have such a low immune system.”
I nodded. “Right.” Now that Monica was gone, being around Andrea was harder than ever. She looked one second away from bursting into tears. I wondered if she was feeling guilty.
“So, you and Steven were out with friends?”
I shook my head. “Uh, no. We just went to the diner, that’s all.”
“Alone?” Andrea raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “He told me he wanted to cheer me up. You know…because of Monica.”
Andrea frowned. A deep crease appeared in the pale skin of her forehead. “I don’t think Mom wants Steven to have a girlfriend right now. She’s worried he won’t get into a good school.”
“I’m not Steven’s girlfriend,” I said, shaking my head.
Andrea stared at me. “I’m going to church,” she said. “You want to come? My youth group always wants new people. We welcome everyone.”
Something about the way Andrea was staring at me was giving me goosebumps.
“I have homework,” I lied. “Maybe next time.”
Andrea nodded firmly. “It would be good of you to come,” she said. “I noticed you and your family stopped coming to church years ago.”
“My mom is just so busy now,” I said. “We don’t really have time.”
“Everyone should make time for God.”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, praying for Steven to come rescue me. Just as Andrea launched into the virtues of regular church attendance, Steven’s footsteps thundered down the steps. He jumped the last three, landing in the foyer with a loud, boyish thud.
“Hey, I’m ready,” Steven said. He jerked his head toward the door. “You wanna go?”
“Steven, can you give me a ride to church?” Andrea batted her eyelashes at her brother. “Mom’s going to be late again.”
“Uh, sure. Come on.”
I tried not to show my disappointment. Andrea skipped outside ahead of me and darted into the passenger seat of Steven’s car. He and I followed.
“Sorry,” Steven muttered. “Mom would shit if I said no. That’s the whole reason they bought me a car.”
I nodded. “No worries. It’s fine.”
Andrea chattered incessantly about her church group the whole way into town. Steven and I nodded, but I noticed he wasn’t saying much. It was interesting to see how much he’d changed. Until last year, Steven had been almost as religious as his younger sister. But he seemed different now, almost like he’d changed completely.
“Elizabeth’s house is before the church,” Andrea said crossly. “Why aren’t you dropping her off first?”
“Sorry,” Steven said absentmindedly. He pulled into the gravel lot of Jaffrey United Methodist. “I must’ve forgotten.”
Andrea gave me a sour look. She smiled at Steven. Just as she was about to climb out of the car, she ducked her head back in and kissed Steven, full on the lips.