Healing? I’ve been a firm believer there’s no coming back—no healing—from what happened.
Now I only want the hope she’s offered to be real. And it’s in this small admission to myself that I know I trust Jake. It feels like nothing and everything at once.
“It’s free time now.” She checks her watch. “It’s as good a time as any to get started. Maybe even make a phone call to a loved one? There’s a landline in your room.”
I nod at the hint.
Jake disappears and closes the door softly, leaving me alone with only the folded blanket and my thoughts for company.
The phone. When was the last time I picked one up? I’ve been so angry with the person who sent me here. And now?
Her voice is the only one I want to hear.
I take the blanket and wrap it around my shoulders. Upstairs, I find my door, my name now written on a hanging chalkboard sign. The familiar handwriting matches the quote in the journal I found on my first day.
I touch the loops and flourishes, tracing the letters that make up me.
“You are not nothing. And neither am I.”
Hope’s statements sink in as I enter my room. I’ve never been able to shake them. In a way, it was Hope’s words that brought me back. That kept me going when I should have been gone.
I leave the door cracked, close my eyes, and ground my breaths. My memories find me when I’m alone. Sleep is my usual defense. Now Jake’s nudges spark and awaken.
I find the phone on my nightstand. I don’t have the number memorized, so I dial information. When the operator answers I say, “Ocean Gardens Assisted Living.”
She tells me to hold. The seconds stretch to a full minute before she patches me through. When a man answers, “Ocean Gardens, how may I direct your call?” I ask to be connected to room 104.
The line goes silent.
My heart races.
The man comes back on the line. “I’m sorry, there’s no answer. Would you like to leave a message?”
I hang up without responding. The past dances before my vision, taunting, teasing. A prelude to the nightmares that will inevitably follow when sleep takes over.
Instead of giving in, I walk to the window and fling the curtains wide, letting all the light in. Then I remove the sea glass bottle from my bag and set it on my desk as a reminder.
I imagined plenty that night.
But finding this bottle? That was real.
I sit and switch on the desk lamp. The leather journal challenges me to open it. To ruin its perfect white pages with my not-so-perfect story.
“It’s you and me.” I stretch and flex my fingers, choosing a simple black pen from the cup at the corner of the desk. Pen because I can’t erase it. Pen because if I’m going to do this, I’m going to make it real. I open the cover and find the quote Hope wrote on my first day. It’s been joined by a second, this one perhaps even more prominent than the first.
“Life damages us, every one . . .”
—Veronica Roth
“Hope, how do you know me so well?” I ignore the second part of the quote. I’m not ready to go there yet.
Life does damage us. But I’ve at least decided to give this damaged life a chance. Fairy tale or not, I flip to a fresh page and put down the first words that come to mind.
“Once upon a time,"
And so my story . . . her story . . . begins.
Twenty-Seven
Merrick
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Grim glanced out the rearview mirror. He kept the car idling, in case they needed to make a quick getaway.
Merrick slunk low in the passenger seat as he had become accustomed to doing the last several months. “No,” was all he said. In fact, this was so far from being a good idea he almost told Grim to make a run for it right then.
Almost.
The metered beach parking lot was busy. He didn’t dare tell Nikki to meet them at Grim’s house—aka the castle, aka the secret hideout. It had taken a fair amount of groveling to get her here. Now he wondered if she was coming at all.
Was this what Merrick had resorted to? Hiding from the law? If his mom hadn’t left, they wouldn’t be in this situation.
No, he wouldn’t blame her. This was his father’s doing.
“Is that her?” Grim lowered his sunglasses and jerked his chin toward a red convertible with its top and windows up.
Typical Nikki. She wanted the show car but would never risk ruining her perfect hair. It was part of her charm, of course, and a small piece of Merrick knew he’d missed her, though not in the way she probably missed him.
“Yeah,” Merrick said, straightening. “That’s her.” He checked himself in the sideview mirror to make sure his fedora and Ray-Bans were in place, then he turned up the collar of his jacket.
Grim snorted and shook his head.
“Too much?” Merrick asked.
“All of this is too much, 007. But it’s my day off and this is quality entertainment.”
Merrick turned his collar back down and headed toward Nikki’s car.
When he reached the pristine paint job with custom rims, he knocked on her passenger-side window. The door unlocked with a click and Merrick jumped in. “Did you bring them?”
Nikki lowered her sunglasses and gripped the steering wheel with her perfectly manicured fingers. “I don’t hear from you in months and that’s the first thing you say to me?”
She was right. He was a real piece of work. “I’m sorry. Hi.”
“Hi?” She gripped the wheel tighter. She turned and gave him the face that had gotten him into trouble in the past.
“Nik . . .” He wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t want to keep leading her on. He couldn’t be that guy anymore.
“Oh please, Merrick. I am so over it. And no, I didn’t bring them. Your dad has your house under constant watch. What was I supposed to say? That I needed your old photo albums because I wanted to bring them to his son who had kidnapped his daughter?”
Ouch. Right again.
“I did, however, manage to talk to him.”
Merrick swallowed. Whatever came next would let him know if he could trust her or if it was all over. He’d taken a risk and this was the moment of truth. “Okay.”
“You doubt my skills?”
“No.”
“Whatever. You think because I wear heels and drive this car that I’m an idiot. News flash, Merrick, I was accepted to Berkeley.”
“Yeah?” He was a jerk. Merrick didn’t even know she’d applied. “That’s great.”
“Thanks.”
“What are you studying?”
“I’m going to get my gen eds out of the way, but eventually I plan to go into the medical field. I want to help people.”
Wow. He didn’t know her at all. He’d judged her by her last name and the way she dressed. He wanted to apologize for all of it but found himself saying, “I’m happy for you,” because “Sorry” sounded too easy.
A sense of regret and failure washed over him. He would be nineteen next year and he hadn’t applied to a single university. The college brochures collected dust in his desk drawers at home. Every time he’d tried to look at them, an overwhelming pressure set in. A twinge of jealousy hit him. Nikki had it all figured out.