Lisa Unger - Darkness My Old Friend

“No. Uh-huh,” said Madison, all blond curls and pink cheeks, wide brown eyes. “I didn’t see her when we lined up, either.”

Madison might have said something else, but Bethany didn’t hear. She was already making her way back up the drive. She was on autopilot as she walked back into the house and grabbed her bag, her cell phone. In the driver’s seat, she called her daughter but only got her voice mail. She pulled out of the driveway in the now-familiar trance of anger undercut by worry and headed for the school.

The first time Bethany headed out like this, looking for her daughter, had been in New York City. It was eight o’clock on a winter night. Bethany had asked Richard to leave by then, and she and Willow had been living alone for almost a month. It had all started with that goddamn Britney Spears concert. The lies, the mess that followed-it all began there.

Today, as she drove into the nearly empty school parking lot, she tried not to panic. There were still lights on in the school. She pulled her car over in front of the double-door entrance and got out, phone clutched in her hand. Hollows High was every East Coast public school-a low, long, concrete, flat-roofed structure. And when she pushed inside, a thousand sense memories competed for her attention. She’d hated high school as much as Willow did, had been every bit as much the fish out of water.

Willow lies because she doesn’t feel like who she is inside is enough for her peers . Dr. Cooper had told her this in their last discussion about Willow. Bethany understood; she’d felt the same way as a kid. But she’d channeled that energy into writing.

But I love her so much. She’s always been enough for me. She knows that .

It’s always our instinct to feel like we’ve failed when our kids are suffering. But it’s not always our fault. She has had experiences that you haven’t had any control over. And she chose her own way to deal with them .

Wasn’t that just postmodern psychobabble, though? Parents were responsible for their kids, plain and simple. When they were struggling, chances are it had something to do with you. True, it wasn’t her fault that Willow’s father had died. But she’d chosen badly with Richard. And their marriage hadn’t been a happy one. The truth was that Bethany hadn’t been really happy for one reason or another for most of Willow’s life. That had an impact; it must.

She was thinking this as she walked past the rows of green lockers over the freckled vinyl floors to the office. The lights were on, but the desks sat empty; computer screens were dark.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hello?” answered a male voice from down the hall. A moment later Henry Ivy came walking out. Bethany felt herself blush. He looked so… earnest. She hated for him to know how quickly Willow had broken her promises. But it couldn’t be helped.

“Willow didn’t come home on the late bus.”

She didn’t want to sound like she was freaking out, but she really was. Her stomach was a mess; she was close to tears.

She remembered how she felt when she’d called Evelyn Coates-was it more than a year ago now?-looking for Willow, who was supposed to be watching movies at the Coateses’ Tribeca loft and spending the night.

“Beth,” Evelyn had said. She still could recall the immediate pitch of worry she heard in the other woman’s tone. “Willow’s not here. Zoë’s sitting on the couch in front of me watching television.”

In that moment she felt a flash of fear and sadness, but also, dare she admit it, hatred for Evelyn and her perfect marriage, her perfect life, her perfect child who was exactly where she was supposed to be.

She’d hopped a cab, and less than half an hour later she was standing in the foyer of the multimillion-dollar loft listening to Zoë confess that Willow had a boyfriend, someone older that she’d met at the Britney Spears concert. Zoë hadn’t wanted to lie, but she didn’t want her friend to get in trouble, either. So she’d told Willow she’d cover for her.

“But Willow never went to the concert,” Bethany had stammered, unthinking. “I don’t understand.”

“Yes she did. Didn’t she?”

“No,” Bethany said, still not realizing what she was doing. “Her father got hung up at work and couldn’t take her.”

More than anything she remembered that look on Evelyn’s face-that drawn look of sympathy and concern, really just a mask covering malicious glee, superiority, and gratitude that she wasn’t Bethany Graves right now.

“Where was she supposed to be tonight, Zoë? Is she with him right now?”

Zoë shrugged. “I don’t know. If she lied about the concert, then she lied about the boy, too. So I don’t know where she is.”

Bethany realized then that she’d been the one to blow Willow’s cover, to unearth whatever lies she’d been telling her friends. As soon as she left, Zoë would be texting, Facebooking, and e-mailing all their shared friends to expose Willow’s deceit.

“Where did she say she was going?”

“Just out with him. She didn’t say where.”

“And then she was going to come here?”

Zoë looked down at the floor and shook her head.

“What? She was going to spend the night with some boy and come home in the morning?” Bethany didn’t like the shrill tone in her own voice, but panic was getting the better of her. Where did her thirteen-year-old daughter plan to spend the night if not at home and not at her friend’s loft? And how could Bethany be so ignorant of the fact that Willow was a stone-cold liar?

Another shrug from Zoë. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Graves.”

Bethany felt the ground beneath her feet fall away.

Kind of how she felt now standing before Henry Ivy, who had so sweetly tried to help Willow, to cut her a break. “She told me she wanted to stay late to study,” Bethany said. “I called the librarian, who confirmed she was there.”

“Well, let’s go check with Mrs. Teaford,” said Mr. Ivy. Just the sound of his voice was soothing. “The library is open until five. Maybe Willow’s there, lost track of time.”

“Maybe,” said Bethany. She felt a surge of hope, which quickly passed as they entered the library. The study tables at the front of the room were empty. The lights over the stacks were dark. Mrs. Teaford looked up from her computer screen; her coat was on, and her bags were sitting beside her. She was ready to go home for the night.

“Oh, Willow was here. I’m not sure when she left. Jolie Marsh was with her. Usually they’re trouble together, have to be separated. But they were being quiet, had their textbooks open. I didn’t notice them get up.”

“Don’t they need a pass to leave the library?” asked Bethany.

“Not after hours.” Mrs. Teaford gave Bethany a politely pitying smile. It was a look Bethany had seen before from school officials, reserved for parents who clearly didn’t have control over their children, a mask of empathy that barely concealed disdain.

Out in the hallway, Bethany tried Willow again from her cell phone. Again just voice mail. This bothered her more than anything, because Willow knew she was skating on thin ice with that phone. Bethany had given it back after the incident in the woods, even after threatening to take it away, mainly because she didn’t want not to be able to reach Willow. But the rule was if Bethany ever couldn’t reach her on that phone, the phone would be confiscated indefinitely. Why wasn’t she answering? Why hadn’t she called? Bethany knew there were dead zones in The Hollows, that cell service was often spotty. But it was almost five. Willow must know that Bethany was sick with worry; by now she would have called with some lame excuse.