After he was so short with me, so secretive (“We don’t have to do everything together”), I marched back down the stairs and out the door and got on my bike, trying to fight back the tears. First Chris had disappeared, and now Donovan was being weird. Too private.
Everyone was pulling away from me—but nobody was telling me what I’d done wrong.
Later, when I was in the principal’s office, there was nothing I wanted to do more than pull away myself. I was seated across the desk from Principal Burns and next to Donovan’s mother. The office was freezing and I was starving. I hadn’t eaten lunch. I’d sat in the cafeteria with Phil and stared at my cheeseburger and fries until they were cold, sitting on my tray in a soggy, abandoned pile. Not eating felt good. It made me feel strong. In control.
“Theo, can you tell us one last time what he said to you?”
Principal Burns had a kind face. I knew I wasn’t supposed to think so, but the lines around his mouth and eyes were comforting, like a grandpa. And he made sure to tell me right away that I wasn’t in trouble, but when I saw Donovan’s mother, saw the worry behind her eyes, I knew something was very, very wrong.
I took a deep breath before I began telling them what I’d already said at least five times. “He said he had to take care of something. But that he would show up later and we’d ride home together.”
There were only two more periods left, though, and I think all of us were pretty certain Donovan wasn’t going to show up to finish the school day. I’d expected him before lunch and clearly that hadn’t happened. He wasn’t answering his phone; it went straight to voicemail. And no one else had heard from him—not Phil or Donovan’s parents or any of his friends from the baseball team.
“What would he have to take care of?”
Mrs. Pratt wasn’t looking at me as she said this, but her eyes were wild as they moved around the rest of the room. She was barely sitting in her seat—perched on the very edge—and she kept twisting her hands in her lap.
“That doesn’t sound like him, keeping secrets.” Her eyes landed on me then, and I wanted to look away but I couldn’t. “Why would he keep secrets from you, Theo? You’re his best friend.”
Principal Burns moved a glass paperweight from one side of his desk to the other, cleared his throat. “Theo, is there anywhere you can think that he might have gone? Somewhere outside of town? Someone’s house? Maybe there was a place he went to get away from everyone?”
“Well.” I gazed down at my lap, at the hole that was starting to tear in the knee of my jeans. “We used to go to the convenience store sometimes. After school . . . the one on Cloverdale.”
Mrs. Pratt’s head whipped toward Principal Burns, but he must have been well versed in dealing with hysterical parents. He was already calling out to his secretary to get the store on the phone. A couple of minutes later, he was talking to the owner. Larry.
Yes, Larry had seen Donovan; he’d been in the store about thirty minutes after I saw him, and he was alone. But no, he didn’t know where he was off to after he left the store on his bike. He’d bought snacks while he was there—beef jerky and potato chips and soda and licorice. And a comic book, but Larry couldn’t remember which one.
Why was he at the convenience store when Chris no longer worked there? Sure, we’d stopped in a few times, when we were bored or dying of thirst or hunger. That was the way we’d met Chris, after all. But why stop for snacks, like he was going somewhere and would need food later?
Mrs. Pratt was inconsolable. My mother showed up to take both of us home a little while later. Honestly, I would have preferred to stay at school, even for those last couple of hours, because it meant I didn’t have to confront the dread that was slowly spreading from the Pratt house to ours to the rest of the town.
When Donovan still hadn’t shown up by eleven that evening, my parents sent me to bed. As if I could sleep, not knowing where he was. If he was coming home, why hadn’t he told me where he was going?
They kissed both my cheeks, held me an extra-long time in their arms before I went upstairs that night. I turned off my light and got into bed, but on top of the covers with all my clothes on. I uncurled my phone from my palm and pushed the button for Donovan’s number. I held my breath, waiting for him to pick up, to tell me he’d lost track of time and he was coming home soon.
I got nothing. Not even one ring, just straight to his voicemail, where the tone he used around grown-ups told me he couldn’t come to the phone right now, to please leave a message and he’d call me back.
I didn’t leave a message because I’d already left so many. One more wouldn’t make a difference.
I called Chris, though. Just one last time, to see if his silence had been a mistake, if he missed me, too, and wanted to see me.
But all I got was the same message I’d been getting for the last two weeks:
I’m sorry, but the number you’ve reached is no longer in service. If you believe you’ve reached this recording in error, please hang up and dial the number again.
I didn’t fall asleep until two in the morning. I slept with my phone on the pillow next to me, but it never rang. Not during the night, or the next day, either.
My phone never rang again with calls from Chris or Donovan and I never stopped wondering what I’d done to deserve it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
WINTER FORMAL.
Decidedly less cheesy than homecoming and more relaxed than prom, yet it’s done little to earn my respect over the years.
But Ashland Hills High School takes its dances very seriously, and the specially appointed student council committee starts planning immediately after homecoming, more than two months in advance. This year, it’s the Friday before the trial. I have three days until it starts, and I think that’s as good a reason as any to skip it, but Sara-Kate and Phil aren’t having it. Like last year, we go together. Dateless, but not alone.
This year I thought they might go together, as actual dates. I don’t think anything has happened beyond the rampant teasing I’ve witnessed at lunch, at Casablanca’s, and virtually anytime the three of us are together. But it’s there. It’s in the way Phil always jumps to hold the door open for her or give her the best seat at the movies, in the gaze that never stops appreciating her hourglass figure. And it’s in Sara-Kate’s extra-sweet smiles and the constant patience she reserves for his excessive complaints about the injustices of the world.
So I let my mother take me shopping for a dress and I get ready with Sara-Kate, let her doll me up with the miracles hidden in her makeup case. I feel beautiful when she’s all done, when I’m slowly turning in front of her full-length mirror, admiring my long, plum-colored dress with the low back.
“Is Hosea going tonight?” she asks, sitting on the edge of her bed as she looks at me looking at myself.
“Yeah.” I catch her eye in the mirror as I slide my hands over the smooth fabric. “I mean, I think so. He said Ellie wanted to go, so . . .”
“So you’re still talking to him. Of course.” She gives a quick nod, and I know I shouldn’t be offended by that nod, by the way she says “of course,” but I am. And that’s exactly why I haven’t told Sara-Kate that I slept with him. She doesn’t understand, and I don’t know how to make her see that he’s worth it.
“Are you mad at me for . . . liking him?”
We’re still looking at each other in the mirror. She clasps her hands in her lap, glances briefly toward the window. The night is black and cold behind her white lace curtains. We’re all going to freeze tonight because nobody likes to wear their coats over pretty dresses and fancy suits. I hold my breath as I wait for her to respond.