Becca Fitzpatrick: Silence

“Oh, not to worry. The only thing I’m in danger of is making a fool of myself. Know of any other people I might smack into today and not recognize? Fortunately, I remember the way to school. And would you look at that,” I said, tugging open the car door and dropping inside. “The Volkswagen is a five-speed. Good thing I learned how to drive five-speed pre-amnesia.”

“I know now isn’t the best time, but we’ve been invited to dinner tonight.”

I met her eyes coldly. “Have we.”

“Hank would like to take us to Coopersmith’s. To celebrate your return.”

“How thoughtful of him,” I said, ramming the key into the ignition and revving the engine. By the noisy sputtering, I assumed the car hadn’t budged since the day I’d vanished.

“He’s trying,” she called above the whine of the engine. “He’s trying really hard to make this work.”

I had a snide retort on the tip of my tongue, but decided to go for more impact. I’d worry about the repercussions later. “What about you? Are you trying to make it work? Because I’ll be up front. If he stays, I go. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to figure out how to live my life again.”

AT THE HIGH SCHOOL, I FOUND A PARKING SPACE at the back of the student lot and hiked across the lawn to a side entrance. I was running late, thanks to the fight with my mom. After peeling away from the farmhouse, I’d had to pull to the side of the road for fifteen minutes just to calm down. Dating Hank Millar. Was she sadistic? Out to ruin my life? Both?

One glance at my mom’s pilfered BlackBerry proved I’d missed all but the tail end of first period. The dismissal bell would ring in ten minutes.

Intending to leave a message, I dialed Vee’s cell.

“ Hellooo . That you, angel?” she promptly answered in her best temptress’s voice. She was trying to be funny, but I nearly tripped.

Angel.

The mere sound of the word caused heat to lick up my skin. Once again, the color black raced furiously around me like a hot ribbon, but this time there was more. A physical touch so real I stopped in my tracks. I felt an enticing brush along my cheekbone, as if an invisible hand caressed me, followed by a soft, utterly seductive pressure against my lips….

You’re mine, Angel. And I’m yours. Nothing can change it.

“This is crazy,” I muttered out loud. Seeing the color black was one thing, but making out with it was taking it to a whole ’nother level. I had to stop haunting myself this way. If I kept it up any longer, I was genuinely going to doubt my sanity.

“Come again?” Vee said.

“Uh, parking,” I covered up quickly. “All the good spots are taken.”

“Guess who has PE first hour? This is so unfair. I start the day off perspiring like an elephant in heat. Don’t the people who make up our schedules understand body odor? Don’t they understand frizzy hair?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Scott Parnell?” I asked evenly. We’d start there and work our way forward.

Vee’s silence hung sharp between us, only confirming my suspicions: She hadn’t given me the whole story. Intentionally.

“Oh, yeah, Scott,” she faltered at last. “About that.”

“The night I disappeared, he dropped an old Volkswagen off at my house. That detail slipped your mind last night, did it? Or maybe you didn’t think it qualified as interesting or suspicious ? You’re the last person I would have expected to give me a watered-down version of what led to my kidnapping, Vee.”

I heard her chewing her lip. “I might have omitted a few things.”

“Like the fact that I was shot?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” she said in a rush. “What you went through was traumatic. More than traumatic. A million times worse. What kind of friend am I if I just heap it on higher?”

“And?”

“Okay, okay. I heard Scott gave you the car. Probably to apologize for being a chauvinistic pig.”

“Explain.”

“Remember in middle school how our moms always taught us that if a boy teases you, it means he likes you? Well, when it came to relationships, Scott never outgrew seventh grade.”

“He liked me.” I sounded doubtful. I didn’t think she’d lie to me again, not when I’d just confronted her, but clearly my mom had gotten to her first and brainwashed her into thinking I was too fragile for the truth. This sounded like a beat-around-the-bush answer if I’d ever heard one.

“Enough to buy you a car, yeah.”

“Did I have any contact with Scott the week before I was kidnapped?”

“The night before you disappeared, you snooped around in his bedroom. But you didn’t find anything more interesting than a wilted marijuana plant.”

Finally we were getting somewhere. “What was I looking for?”

“I never asked. You told me Scott was a whack job. That was all the evidence I needed to help you bust in.”

I didn’t doubt it. Vee never needed a reason to do something stupid. Sad thing was, most of the time I didn’t either.

“That’s all I know,” Vee insisted. “I swear it, up and down.”

“Don’t hold out on me again.”

“Does this mean you forgive me?”

I was irritated, but much to my dismay, I could see Vee’s point in wanting to protect me. It’s what best friends do, I reasoned. Under other circumstances, I might even have admired her for it. And in her shoes, I probably would have been tempted to do the same. “We’re square.”

Inside the main office, I expected to have to talk myself out of a tardy slip, so I was surprised when the secretary saw me approaching and, after completing a double take, said, “Oh! Nora. How are you?”

Ignoring the buttery sympathy in her tone, I said, “I’m here to pick up my class schedule.”

“Oh. Oh, my. So soon? Nobody expects you to jump right back into things, you know, hon. Some of the staff and I were just talking this morning about how we thought you should take a couple of weeks to—” She struggled for an acceptable word, since there was no right word for what I had ahead of me. Recover? Adapt? Hardly. “Acclimate.” She was practically flashing a neon sign that read, What a pity! Poor girl! I’d better use my kid gloves with this one.

I propped an elbow on the counter and leaned close. “I’m ready to be back. And that’s what matters, right?” Because I was already in a bad mood, I tacked on, “I’m so glad this school has taught me not to value any other opinion but my own.”

She opened her mouth, closed it. Then she went to work paging through several manila folders on her desk. “Let me see, I know I’ve got you in here somewhere…. Ah! Here we are.” She pulled a sheet of paper from one of the folders and passed it over to me. “Everything look okay?”

I scanned my schedule. AP U.S. history, honors English, health, journalism, anatomy and physiology, orchestra, and trig. Clearly I’d had a death wish for my future self when I’d registered for classes last year.

“Looks good,” I said, throwing my backpack over my shoulder and pushing through the office door.

The hall outside was dim, the overhead fluorescent lights casting a dull gleam on the waxed floors. In my head, I told myself this was my school. I belonged here. And even though it was jarring every time I reminded myself I was now a junior, despite the fact that I couldn’t remember finishing sophomore year, eventually the strangeness would wear off. It had to.

The bell rang. In an instant doors everywhere opened and the hall flooded with the student body. I fell into step with the current of students fighting their way to the restrooms, locker bays, and soda machines. I kept my chin tilted slightly up and leveled my gaze straight ahead. But I felt the eyes of my classmates when they looked my way. Everyone took a surprised second look. They had to know I was back by now — my story was the highlight of local news. But I supposed seeing me in the flesh cemented the fact. Their questions danced front and center in their curious stares. Where was she? Who kidnapped her? What kinds of icky, unspeakable things happened to her?