Brandy Colbert - Pointe

It would sound insincere from anyone else, but I know Sara-Kate means every single word.

“Yeah,” I say as my stomach jumps, raw and angry. I pinch my side. “Me too, Sara-Kate.”

I look away as quickly as I can, feign interest in the menu I’ve pored over a thousand times, as if I’m going to do anything besides push lentil soup around the cup with a spoon.

I look away from Sara-Kate, but her honest brown eyes haunt me for the rest of the evening.

IT’S HARD NOT TO THINK OF DONOVAN’S FAMILY AS

Before and After.

Before, Mrs. Pratt managed the gift shop of a busy museum in the city and she was almost as married to that job as she was to Mr. Pratt. But she still made it to every baseball game, every parent-teacher conference. Each time Donovan’s father was too busy, his mother was around to pick up the slack.

I remember when the local news interviewed her, shortly after the abduction. She was pleading, staring into the camera with so much hurt and hope that it was hard to look at her. “Whatever you can do to help my son—to help Donovan . . . I would be eternally grateful.”

After, Mrs. Pratt was the kind of person who called psychics to her home and only went out to buy more gin.

Mr. Pratt’s Before isn’t very different from his After, except he’s no longer married to Mrs. Pratt. He still works all the time because he’s a successful real estate broker for lakefront properties. But now he lives in the city and has full custody of Julia. As soon as I saw the moving van in the driveway that day, I knew it meant he was leaving her—that Mrs. Pratt’s things weren’t packed into any of the boxes being carried down the driveway.

I know Donovan’s Before, too. It was filled with a mother who would do anything for him and a little sister who adored him and plenty of time for comics and baseball and friends. It was filled with the kind of trust that lets you lose track of time and ride bikes home after dark without worrying someone will snatch you up from the side of the road.

Donovan hasn’t left the house since he’s been back. It’s been almost two months. How do they expect him to start talking if he never sees anyone?

I watch. Each time I’m heading out or coming home, I watch their curtains for movement, and if it’s dark outside, I look for shapes behind them. Sometimes I take the long way around our street so I can look at the house from a different angle.

A couple of people come to Donovan’s house regularly; one is the man who delivers their groceries, but he’s only allowed to bring them to the front porch. If you look closely and at just the right minute, you can see the terry cloth sleeve of Mrs. Pratt’s bathrobe reaching through the doorway as she picks up the bags of food.

The other person shows up twice a week. A woman. Tall and big-boned with gorgeous red hair that cascades down the back of her sensible suits and trench coats. Mom said it’s probably his therapist. I didn’t know therapists made house calls but I guess most people would make an exception in this case.

But that’s it. No one else in and certainly no one out.

I have to talk to Donovan before the trial. If I can see him, talk to him face-to-face, I’ll know what I have to do up on the stand. I’ll know for sure whether Donovan was a runaway or a victim. I’ll know if he and Chris betrayed me together or if Chris Fenner deceived us both.

But every time I think about the witness stand and telling my story to a courtroom of strangers, my skin goes clammy and my mind goes blank. I don’t know where I would start, how I would tell them that I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I first kissed the person I thought was named Trent.

I don’t know how I would tell them that I never suspected anything between him and Donovan back then—and not for the four years they were gone, either.

WHEN I’M AROUND HOSEA, I TRY TO PRETEND I’M A BLOCK OF ICE.

In the school corridors, at the dance studio.

Cool, impenetrable, incapable of interaction.

But as soon as he gets me alone—I melt.

I haven’t been in the smoking spot behind the athletic field for five minutes before he’s heading out the same way I came, taking long, even strides with his black boots leading the way. I’m sitting across from the bleachers, my back against the fence; my breath catches in my throat as I see him.

I’m supposed to be in study hall so it almost doesn’t seem like I got away with anything. Gellar didn’t even look up when I grabbed the bathroom pass off the edge of his desk. He won’t notice if I don’t return.

I haven’t lit my first cigarette. The veggie sandwich from lunch is sitting in my stomach like an anvil. Even after I discarded the bread (too soggy), the tomato (too mealy), and the cheese (too waxy). I ate mayo-covered sprouts and cucumber slices and even that felt like too much.

It’s like my stomach has already decided what to do before my brain can make a choice. I think the worst part is that it’s inconsistent, which means I can’t plan. One day a small, plain garden salad might be fine but the next day that very same salad could wreck me.

But in this moment, I can’t tell if it’s the food or Hosea walking toward me that makes my stomach roil like someone’s tossing rocks around inside.

I don’t know where to look as he approaches. The ice block stays intact only when there are other people near us. My insides are warming, and the closer he gets, the more my fingers tremble around my unlit cigarette. Hardly impenetrable.

He leans against the fence and says, “How’s it going?” from above me, and I wish my heart didn’t beat a little faster.

I don’t say anything because I don’t know what to say, and a couple of seconds later, there’s the crinkle of plastic and the click of a lighter and he’s sitting next to me with a clove between his lips. He offers the pack, but I shake my head, hold up the cigarette in my hand. One of the two I bummed from Sara-Kate this morning. I light the end with the cheap plastic lighter I’ve been clutching.

He looks down at a small, smooth rock sitting between us, his dark brown eyebrows creased in thought. His angular face is clean-shaven as usual. “I know you hate me right now, but you have to let me say a few things.”

His voice is quiet and I knew one of us would have to speak eventually, but he startles me all the same. I don’t dare look at him again but I don’t get up and walk away, either, so I guess that’s enough for him to go on.

“First of all, I want to be with you. I do.” He pauses, then continues in the same low, even voice. “But you could be going away soon.”

I force myself to look down at the soft caramel leather of my boots as I say, “Who told you that?”

I see him shrug out of the corner of my eye. “Phil.”

Matter-of-fact, like I should have known. And I should have. But he asked me to keep his secret from Phil; why is it okay that they get to talk about me?

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He blinks up at the colorless winter sky, the clouds that cover Ashland Hills like the world’s most depressing blanket. Then he flicks ash from his clove on the other side of him, away from me. “Phil made it sound like a pretty big deal.”

“I guess I didn’t think you were interested.” And I’m not sure summer programs will even be an option for me. I’m not halfway done with my cigarette, but I blow out one last puff, stub it out, and toss it into the Coffee & Jam paper cup a few feet away. It’s a fresh ashtray. Half full of someone’s coffee from this morning and a couple of butts from people who sat here before us.