I smiled wanly, wishing a hot shower really could fix everything. “Thanks.” I tugged at my grubby shirt. “This thing is pretty foul. I think I preferred the superflattering hospital gown with my butt hanging out for the whole world to see.”
Her brow puckered. “Are you sure you’re okay? I can call someone from the list the hospital gave us. We can probably get you in with someone tomorrow if you want to talk about . . . anything.” I wondered what the “anything” might be.
“I’m fine, Mom. All I want right now is that shower.”
She tilted her head to the side and smiled, and I thought she might be vacillating, trying to decide whether to leave it at that—just light, polite, meaningless conversation. Nothing heavy or real. And then she hesitated. “You can tell me, you know,” she blurted at last, almost as if she hadn’t meant to say it at all. “About what happened that night. About where you’ve been all this time.” She frowned, her face a study in gravity as she came back to the bed where I was sitting cross-legged, my fingers tracing the geometric pattern on the coarse comforter. “I know what your dad thinks, what he claims, but you can tell me what really happened to you.”
I hadn’t taken the time to consider the endless possibilities that existed, or all the speculations that might have been made over the years about my whereabouts. I knew what Tyler said, about the suspicions about my dad, but I wondered how many nights my mother had lain awake trying to guess where I was, torturing herself with her own version of what-ifs.
I could see them now, etched all over her worn face.
Suddenly the truth seemed inadequate, even though it was all I had. “I honestly don’t remember. If I did I would tell you.”
I watched her sag and wondered if she believed me or not. If she thought that, for whatever reason, I was covering up my absence.
So I asked her instead, “What do you think happened?”
Her eyes shot up to mine, her narrow, tweezed brows finding their way to the bridge of her nose. She contemplated me for several long seconds before answering. “You ran away. You and your dad had a fight over colleges—he told me you did—and you ran away.”
I thought about not denying her version, because for all I knew she was right. I couldn’t remember what happened, and her version sounded righter than the theory that I’d been abducted by aliens.
But there was no way I’d have done that. I would never have left my parents, and I surely wouldn’t have left Austin.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said, pulling up my pant leg to reveal the bruise I couldn’t stop thinking about. “Besides, how do you explain the fact that I still have this, five years later?”
She looked at it, but there was a skeptical edge to her expression, as if she didn’t see it the way I had. “A bruise? Kyra.” She said my name the way she’d said my dad’s earlier. Like I was grasping at straws.
“It’s exactly the same as it was. In exactly the same place. You don’t think that’s weird? And what about my phone?” I pulled it out, the one with the no service message flashing on the screen. “Why isn’t it dead? If it’s really been five years, shouldn’t it be dead by now? But look . . .” I held it out to her so she could see what I did. “It still has half its charge.”
She closed her eyes for a long moment as she shook her head wearily. “I’m not saying I have all the answers. Obviously this is all very . . . confusing.” She reached over and patted my knee. It was self-conscious, the gesture, and felt more like something a casual acquaintance might do. Not really the kind of thing a mom does when she hasn’t seen her one-and-only daughter in five long, tormented years.
Steel fingers clutched my chest, making it hard to breathe and making me aware of how unwelcome I felt here, in a place that should have been steeped in memories and warmth and understanding.
“And what about Dad? How come you . . .” I shrugged, slipping my knee from beneath her hand. “Why is everything so different now?”
She sighed, and I knew this was all hard for her too. Hard to explain. Maybe even hard to have me back. “You saw him, Kyra. He’s been like that ever since . . .” She frowned over her own explanation. “Ever since you’ve been gone. He couldn’t get over it—you disappearing. He stopped going to work. At first we all did; we were all so focused on finding you. But eventually, when everything led us to dead ends and there were no real clues to follow and no signs you were ever coming home . . . eventually we had to get back to living again. It was hard, almost impossible, but we had to. Your dad, he couldn’t do it. He started hanging out online all day, trying to find evidence, explanations, anything to figure out where you’d gone, even if they weren’t logical.” She sighed. “When he lost his job, I told myself to give him time, that he just needed time.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she shook her head. “But time just made it—him—worse. He started drinking. Eventually . . .” Her voice wavered. “Eventually, I asked him to leave. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I’m sorry,” she told me, reaching over and trying again, this time squeezing my knee. “Things’ll be okay. We’ll be okay,” she offered pensively. The attempt wasn’t great, but it was better. She got up then, the bed shifting the way it used to when she was finished reading to me after she’d tucked me in at night.
My tongue glided over the chiseled plane of my tooth as I watched her go, back to her other family. When the door was closed, I reached beneath the pillow to where I’d stashed the phone Tyler had given me.
I longed so badly to hear Austin’s voice. Maybe then I’d stop feeling so adrift. So . . . alone.
I opened Tyler’s contacts list and found Austin’s name right below someone named Ashley. I figured now was as good a time as any—it was barely after ten o’clock, early still.
Yet five years too late.
My stomach knotted as I pressed the button and waited.
I didn’t wait long. “Hey, Ty-Ty,” The girl that picked up on the other end was most definitely not Austin, but I knew her voice almost as well as I knew my own.
“Ty?” she tried again.
I was suddenly less certain than ever, and I thought about hanging up and pretending I’d never placed this call in the first place. Maybe even set the phone on fire.
“Tyler . . . ? Are you there?”
I swallowed, trying not to vomit on my own incredulity as I opened my mouth to speak. “Cat? Is that you?”
My words were followed by the longest pause in history. Longer even than the time I dared Cat to call Nathan Higgins, her eighth-grade crush, and she’d accidentally professed her love to his dad in way-too-explicit terms.
As I waited, I thought maybe we’d gotten disconnected, or that she’d had the same thought I had and decided to toss her phone in the trash and direct a flamethrower at it.
And then I heard her. “Oh my god, Kyra, is it really you?” It wasn’t really a question, even though it technically was, and I knew right away that she’d already heard from someone that I was back. “I—I—” she started, but she choked on her own words.
On my end, I couldn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure what I felt. I didn’t know whether I was relieved she’d recognized my voice or curious about why she was answering Austin’s phone . . .
. . . or angry because I wasn’t really confused at all.
It all made perfect sense.
They were together . . . .at CWU. Living the life Austin and I had always dreamed of.
She cleared her throat, and then I heard her again, her voice all watery and wobbly. The way I felt inside. “Kyra, oh my god, I never thought I’d see you again, and then we—I—heard you were back, and I couldn’t . . . I can’t . . . I . . .” She fell apart again, and I could hear her hiccupping as she tried to gather herself so she could start rambling once more.