Nearly Gone (10 page)

Reece knocked on the door of a rattrap row house. I drew my hoodie tighter around me. The sounds of this neighborhood weren’t too different from my own; thumping subwoofers of an old beater with its windows down, neighbors yelling and glass breaking next door, dogs barking. Familiar sounds aren’t always comforting.

Reece banged again, harder this time. Someone rustled behind the peephole.
“Gena, it’s Reece. I brought a friend.” The slide chain and dead bolts were already in motion.
Gena stood in the doorway and gave Reece a head-to-toe scan, her face blank. Then she stepped aside to let us in. The narrow room was sparsely furnished with a worn-out sofa and two overturned milk crates for end tables. A small TV in the corner cast moving shadows against the scuffed walls, and pizza boxes littered the kitchen.
Gena leaned back against the locked door, watching me. I guessed she was at least eighteen, maybe older, with cinnamon skin and chocolate-almond eyes. Crimped sections of her hair fell below her shoulders, chunked with multi-toned highlights. She was flashy. Too much makeup. Too much 
perfume. Too few clothes. Before a word passed between us, I knew I wouldn’t like her. She inclined her head in my direction. “Nobody,” Reece muttered, dismissing me with a wave of his hand. “Just someone from school.”

My cheeks burned. Screw him. I extended a bloody hand to Gena. “I’m the nobody that just saved his ass. Nice to meet you.”
Gena looked at my hand and raised an eyebrow at Reece.
“Gena Delgado. Leigh Boswell,” he announced through gritted teeth. “Leigh is a friend from West River.”
I waited, awkward, while a meaningful glance passed between them. A silent conversation I wasn’t privy to.
She turned and swayed into the kitchen with a fluid motion that drew my attention and Reece’s, and I hated her even more for her rear view. Her trendy clothes were the barely there kind, breasts pressed into sexy curves that peeked suggestively out of her halter top, jeans hugging low around her hips, revealing curvy pelvic bones and a gold hoop in her midriff.
“You look like hell,” she said. “Who put you in a meat grinder?”
“One of Lonny Johnson’s lackeys.” Reece followed her, dabbing blood from his cheek.
“You’re lucky he kicked your ass pretty good then.” Steam billowed around her as hot water spurted from the tap. “It’ll save Nicholson the trouble. He’s gonna freak out when he sees you.”
I tensed. How did Gena know Nicholson? Unless she was a narc, like Reece. I kept my face impassive. As far as they were concerned, the name held no significance for me.
“Who’s Nicholson?”
“He’s a cop,” she said smugly, bending to rummage through a cabinet. “Reece isn’t supposed to be fighting.”
“Nicholson isn’t going to know.”
“Oh yeah? Says who?”
“Says the guy who just made dog food out of my face. Maybe you know him?” Reece spoke up over the rustle of pots and pans. “Some asshole named Petrenko.”
The clanking pans fell silent.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Gena shut the cabinet and stood with her back to us. “What happened?”
“Lonny got spooked.”
She set the bowl in the sink and turned. “How?”
“No idea. Everything was going down fine. Then I asked him for some K and he just . . . I don’t know . . . freaked out. Accused me of being a narc.” Another meaningful pause. A brief lock of their eyes. Reece nodded. “I think we’re cool, though.”
“What changed his mind?”
“Not sure, exactly.” His meaningful glance was directed at me this time.
Gena carried a bowl of hot water, some clean towels, and a first aid kit to the living room. She pulled a milk crate to the couch and pushed Reece into the sofa, then scooted between his legs. I looked the other way while she helped him out of his jacket and sponged down the worst of his wounds. He winced and cursed, and she swatted him playfully on the shoulder. My stomach clenched each time she touched him or leaned in to examine the cuts on his face.
Reece told her I was
nothing
and it stung more than it should. I told myself I didn’t want to know if she was actually
someone
to him.
He looked at me out of his good eye and touched my leg. I jumped.
“You okay?” he whispered. I nodded, inching away from him. I was edgy and drained. I didn’t want to feel anymore. He withdrew his hand, wiping both on his jeans, hiding the blood and dirt that wouldn’t wipe away inside clenched fists.
Gena evaluated her handiwork. “Keep the butterfly clean and dry. I don’t think you’ll need stitches. You’ve got a few bruised ribs, so don’t do anything crazy for the next few days.” She tossed him a clean shirt. “You left this in my car last weekend. I washed it for you.” She grinned, another silent message passing between them. I needed some air.
“I’ll wait for you outside.” I was already halfway to the door. I didn’t want to be there when he kissed her good night.
His hand beat mine to the doorknob. “That’s not necessary,” he said sharply. “Good night, Gena,” he grumbled. “And thanks a lot.”

“Ten cuidado, mi hermano.”

I didn’t speak Spanish, but she winked and smiled wryly. He gave her an admonishing look as he bent down to peck her cheek, then he pulled the door shut behind us.

• • •
“Drop me off here.” The bike rumbled through Sunny View, stopping a block from my trailer. Mona’s shift was eight to four. She wouldn’t be home for at least an hour, but I didn’t need the neighbors ratting me out. Reece killed the engine and waited for me to get free of the helmet. My hair was wild with snarls and I smoothed it down with filthy hands, cringing as I imagined what I must look like to him. He was staring at me.

“What were you doing in that park tonight?”
I thrust the helmet at him. “Aside from rescuing you?” He caught it against his sore ribs and clenched his teeth. Then

fisted it like he wanted to throw it. “That’s not what I meant.” “I could ask you the same question.”
He lowered his voice. “You know exactly what I was doing.” “Yeah. I saw the whole thing. And it scared the hell out of

me!”
“I just need to know . . . were you there to meet Lonny?”
He looked hard into my eyes, waiting for my answer as
though a life hung in the balance. Why did I feel like that life
was mine?
“I was looking for you.” I blushed, grateful for the darkness. “I saw your bike. Thought you might be here . . . you
know . . . picking someone up . . .”
“Picking someone up?” It sounded ridiculous hearing him
say it out loud. Seeing the stupefied expression on his face.
“And you thought it would be okay to follow me?” I winced. “I don’t know what I thought. I guess I thought
you might need . . . help . . . or something.”
“That was stupid,” he muttered.
“You’re right. It was stupid. It was stupid to care if you’re
getting yourself killed. Stupid to think you might need my
help.”
He hung his head, stared at the helmet clenched to his chest,
as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t. I had that crumbling feeling again and for a minute I wished it was me he was
holding.
“Whatever.” I ran home, sprinted up the stoop. The baseball bat was propped against my front door.

We all fall down. The tower will point the way.
It’s 68 ft. higher than three times a side of its square base. If the sum of these two is 1,380, at day’s end you’ll know where to find me.

I was on the chartered bus on the way to our class trip to Kings Dominion. I leaned against the bathroom sink for balance while the narrow walls rocked and rolled. The enclosed space smelled like a sewer, and the fumes weren’t helping my motion sickness. I copied the numbers and tested a few equations on my palm.

Height = (3x + 68)
(3x + 68) + x = (4x + 68)
(4x + 68) = 1380
x = 328
Height of tower = 1052 ft.

Something didn’t add up. These numbers were as meaningless as the one on Marcia’s arm. I was tired—exhausted after the late night with Reece and three hours of fitful sleep—but there was no possible way I’d screwed up the calculation this badly. I checked the equations. Cross-checked them against the numbers in the ad.

The math was infallible, but the solution was impossible. A tower more than one thousand feet high didn’t exist in the state of Virginia, or anywhere in Washington, DC, for that matter. The closest tower over a thousand feet was in fucking France.

I crumpled the page. Let it go, I’d told myself. The answer to this whole thing was so simple. Just leave the newspaper in the bathroom and walk away.

I smoothed it flat. Ran the numbers again.

Someone banged and jiggled the door handle. I tore out the crinkled ad and shoved it in my back pocket, folding away the rest of the
Missed Connections
for later.

Back in the seat next to Jeremy, I sniffed my sleeve, hoping I didn’t smell like a hot bus bathroom.
“You feeling okay?” he asked.
“Just a little queasy.” It wasn’t a lie.
“What’s all over your hand?” Jeremy scrunched up his face and reached for me. I pulled away.
“It’s just a test problem I’m working on.”
“I wasn’t talking about the numbers.”
He was talking about the other ink—the newsprint smudges all over my fingers.
“Were you reading the personals in there?” His voice rose in disbelief.
“No,” I said defensively.
“Seriously? You were looking for him in a bus bathroom?” He looked disgusted. “That’s completely unhealthy.”
“If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll wash my hands when we get there,” I said, trying for levity.
Jeremy shook his head. “It’s been five years, Leigh. Are you ever going to just let it go?”
“I can’t. What if he comes back?”
“He’s not coming back, and you’re wasting your life waiting for him. The guy’s not worth it.” He sounded like Mona. If I closed my eyes and touched him, he’d probably taste just like her. I scooted closer to the window and crossed my arms over my hands.
“Just because your dad’s an asshole, doesn’t mean everyone else’s is too.”
“No,
yours
is a deadbeat. He
left
you.”
“I’m sure he had his reasons.”
“Yeah, like two hundred forty-seven thousand of them,” he muttered.
My head snapped up. “What did you say?”
Jeremy turned away. “Forget I said anything.”
The number was too specific, his tone had been too certain. I reached for his arm, certain there was more he wasn’t saying. When I touched him, his alarm was a hot spark against the tip of my tongue and he tried to pull away. His emotions were all over the place, fleeting scents I couldn’t quite catch. He was hiding something.
“What aren’t you telling me, Jeremy?”
The sadness in his eyes wasn’t his. It was for me. I felt him make a decision. Tasted it, a crisp bite of resignation.
“You know how you asked me to set up those search engine alerts? I created an alert for each of the names on those driver’s licenses you told me about. Every few weeks, an alert will pop up, but they’ve always been pretty random. Until the last three months, when I started to see some patterns.” Jeremy pulled his arm from mine to reach in his backpack. He set his iPad in his lap and swiped the screen a few times, pulling up a page of search alert results. He scrolled through them, pointing out names that matched the ones on my father’s fake IDs. “But that’s not all. Check out the posts the names were found in.”
I read the headlines. Each of the men had been announced a winner in a high-stakes professional poker tournament. One in Vegas. One in New Jersey. And one in Los Angeles. Winnings totaling two hundred forty-seven thousand dollars. “This can’t be right,” I said, even though something in my gut told me it was. “My father’s a professional gambler?”
“I’m sorry, I never meant to tell you,” Jeremy said quietly, reaching for my hand.
I tucked it under my arm before he could take it, needing time alone in my own heart to process what I’d learned. I pressed my forehead to the glass as the peaks of the roller coasters came into view and the bus became charged with a thrill-ride buzz.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked.
I wanted to be. He’d kept things from me. Important things. But I’d be a hypocrite to be angry with him. Of course Jeremy resented my father. Jeremy’d stolen from his dad to cover our rent. He bought me breakfast and drove me to school. And in five years, I’d never missed a class trip— because Jeremy always paid for my ticket, never asking anything in return.
He was still looking at the empty place where my hands had been. The expression on his face made my chest ache a little. I pulled on my hood and folded back the armrest so I could curl up against his shoulder. He rested his cheek on my head.
“Thanks for today,” I said quietly.
His sad smile said my gratitude was almost but not quite enough.

Teddy’s laughter was contagious. He’d nagged me about this “date” on the carousel all semester, and it had loomed like an obligation for the past three months. Just one more expectation to fulfill.

But it ended up being strangely freeing. Everything—the creepy ads, the scholarship, Jeremy’s moods, what I’d learned about my dad, Reece’s fight . . . even Marcia—all just slipped away as I gripped Teddy’s hand, content to be with someone who didn’t expect anything more from me than this moment.

I almost didn’t notice Jeremy’s reflection in the mirrored hub. Almost didn’t see Reece leaning against the metal rails. The weight of their combined stares seemed to drag the ride to a stop.

Teddy swung my hand back and forth as he escorted me down the platform. Jeremy stepped forward to meet us.
“I can take it from here, champ.” He looked at our joined hands and gave Teddy a wan smile.
Part of me wanted to drag Teddy back on the carousel for another round, but the look on Jeremy’s face told me he wasn’t in the mood to wait.
“Thanks for the date, Teddy.” My face hurt from laughing and I squeezed his hand one last time. He darted in and kissed my cheek, blushing hot against it.
“I had a very nice time with you, Leigh.” Teddy spoke with formal precision, as though he’d practiced each word. He let go of my hand, taking his joyfulness with him as he skipped off. His voice rose high over the crowd where his friends waited. “I had a date! With a girl! I had a date!”
I smoothed down my sticky grin, but it popped back in place. I watched him disappear into the crowds, part of me already missing him.
Jeremy glowered and I put my hands in my pockets, returning my attention to his impatient face.
“What’s eating you?”
“I don’t get it,” he said sourly. “You’ll hold hands with someone like Teddy . . . let him kiss you. . . .”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The carousel’s organ started again. Jeremy scowled, refusing to say more. Which was probably smart. I didn’t like his implication that there was anything wrong with Teddy. Or the assumption he had any right to decide who I should be kissing.
“Am I interrupting something?” Reece peeled off his sunglasses and assumed a relaxed pose by my side. Jeremy’s face was a flipbook of emotion. He took in Reece’s battered eye and swollen lip, his expression morphing from anger to confusion, then fear.
“No,” I said, my eyes still drilling a hole through Jeremy. “You’re not interrupting anything.”
“Then he won’t mind if I borrow you for a while.” Reece turned up his palm in invitation.
I looked down at Reece’s hand and a thrill raced through me, but I couldn’t do it. I left it hanging in the air.
“What are you doing here?” Jeremy asked him, emboldened by my hesitation. “I thought you were suspended.”
Reece shrugged. “It’s a public park. I bought a ticket.”
“Yeah, so did I! For Nearly!”
I stepped back, jaw hanging open as if Jeremy had slapped me. He’d crossed a line. I was no rent-a-girl.
Without a word, I slipped my sleeve over my fingers and reached for Reece’s hand.
• • •
Reece guided me through the sweet fried funnel cake smells, past roller coasters and bumper cars, until we were climbing to a shady wooden platform. I stopped midway, holding up the line for the log flumes.
“What are we doing here?”
“What’s it look like we’re doing?” He squinted at me through his puffy purple eye, and the butterfly bandage crimped the skin.
“I’m sorry.” I gestured to his broken face. “Does it hurt?”
“I’m fine. Believe me, I’ve been through worse.” He tried to smile, but the split in his lip was tight and swollen, threatening to crack. “But if you want to make me feel better. . .” He arched an eyebrow toward the ride. People barked behind us to keep the line moving.
“Okay! Just quit bleeding already!”
Reece laughed, and I followed him up the ramp to the boarding platform. He took the backseat of a narrow boat, and I dropped a cautious foot into the front, but the attendant stopped me. “Oh, no, sweetheart. Two to a seat.” She ushered the next couple into the front and nudged me. There was only one seat left, and it was in Reece’s lap.
“What are you waiting for?” he teased.
My stomach did that flip thing. The attendant nudged me again and I fumbled my way into the boat. Reece grabbed the back of my sweatshirt and pulled me down between his legs.
My face was on fire as the boat rocked away from the platform and sluiced down the flume. I leaned forward, gripping the metal rails. After a few easy turns, the boat lurched onto the first incline and the gears ground us upward with a slow steady
click, click, click
. Gravity pulled me back against his chest. It was hard and soft at the same time, and even as I clenched my stomach muscles, I felt myself sink into him as the boat climbed higher. My head rested in the hollow of his shoulder, his neck too close to my temple. I concentrated on the water, reminded myself of the steep drop at the end of the ride, but all I could feel was the rise and fall of his breathing, how steady it was compared to mine.
“Are you scared?” He breathed in my ear, but I felt it everywhere.
I was petrified. “Maybe.”
The flume creaked, suspended for a heartbeat before it fell, and my stomach dropped. I screamed and pressed into him.
We sloshed, giggling and dripping wet through a few mellow turns and eased back to the platform. My knees wobbled when I stood up.
Reece shook out his hair as we descended the wooden ramp, spraying me with droplets that rolled down my glasses. When I looked up, Reece was looking at me again, the way he had in the booth at the diner.
His smile fell away and he stepped in close, closer. Too close until I couldn’t breathe. He lifted a hand to my face.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
“I didn’t mean to  .  .  .” He pressed his lips shut, then tried again. “I wasn’t going to . . . your face is . . . wet. . . .” He spoke softly and looked at me through one deeply sad eye.
I didn’t move. Didn’t turn away. Didn’t stop him when his hand came up slowly this time. Would it be so bad to let him touch me, right now, when I knew he was thinking about me? To know what he really wanted? To know if any of this was real?
His hand cupped my face, thumb sliding between my glasses and my cheek, smoothing droplets of water over my skin. Heat radiated under his fingers, like sunlight. Brushed over my sunburned skin like a warm wind. I closed my eyes and inhaled summer, heard laughter over the screams and shouts from the rides.
Reece’s thumb pulled away first. I grabbed on to his wrist, wanting to hold on to the unexpected and beautiful piece of him I’d just tasted. But it was gone. An icy sensation trailed down my spine, hair prickling over the back of my neck. I opened my eyes, confused, and found Reece staring angrily over my shoulder.
His rage slid into my veins. I let go of him and turned to see Oleksa and Lonny sitting on a park bench, watching us. Lonny reclined with one arm swung casually over the seatback. Oleksa perched next to him, elbows propped on his knees. He massaged his bruised knuckles, his eyes locked on Reece’s. A silent conversation passed between the three of them. Were they really so different? Reece and Lonny and Oleksa?
“Wait for me,” Reece growled. “I have to take care of something.” He stalked to the bench, hands ready at his sides.
There I stood, waiting. While the people and the colors and the sky swirled around me until I all I could picture was a tiny black-and-white portrait of Sunny View. Reece was in the middle of it, making me forget what he was, sucking me in, telling me to wait.
I’d let him touch me. Had broken all my own rules.
A bag exchanged hands. Then a wad of dirty green bills.
I ran. I flew into the crowd, parting it with my shoulders until it swallowed me.
“Nearly!” Reece called after me.
But I was gone.
• • •
The sun was low in the sky when I trudged to the park entrance, where we were counted off, waiting to be herded to the buses. Jeremy leaned against the iron filigree, staring into the fountains, cones of uneaten cotton candy in each hand. He didn’t look up. Sometimes, it was better to say nothing at all. He handed me the pink one. I reached for the blue instead.
We stood that way for a while, picking apart the fibers, letting them dissolve on our tongues. It felt late, like we’d been waiting too long and we were all growing restless. I shielded my eyes against the setting sun. It stung my forehead as I scanned the promenade, searching for a clock. My eyes climbed the green metal structure beyond the fountains, a replica of the Eiffel Tower. Its lengthening shadow was the only clue to the late hour.
“What time is it?” I asked Jeremy. Shopkeepers had begun pulling down the chain-link gates. The park was near closing.
“We were supposed to board thirty minutes ago.”
Teachers wearing blue-and-white West River T-shirts carried clipboards and weaved through the crowd. “We’re missing Posie,” they called. “Has anyone seen Posie Washington?”
I hadn’t seen Posie all day. That wasn’t unusual in a park this size, but it was unusual for Posie to be late. I kicked at the pavement, the blisters on my heels screaming. A toddler in a stroller laughed as the teacher repeated Posie’s name. “Has anyone seen Posie Washington?” they called again, louder. The little girl shrieked Posie’s name gleefully and sang behind me.
Pocket full of posie,
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down.
My mind had that slippery feeling. Then it grasped at something solid, finding traction in the rhyme.
We all fall down. The tower will point the way . . . at day’s end you’ll know where to find me.
The
Missed Connections
clue was part of a nursery rhyme.
We all fall down. Pocket full of posie.
Posie was missing.
I checked the equation I’d written on my hand. Height of tower = 1,052 feet high.
It’s 68 ft. higher than three times a side of its square base. If the sum of these two is 1,380, at day’s end you’ll know where to find me.
I squinted at the green replica of the Eiffel Tower, backlit by the setting sun. The real Eiffel Tower was over a thousand feet high. This had to be it.
I shielded my eyes and followed it from base to tip. The observation deck was empty, closed for the night.
The tower will point the way.
No. The tower wasn’t pointing the way. Its shadow was pointing, and growing longer by the minute.
I broke out in a sprint.
“Leigh!” Jeremy yelled. I could hear his hard footfalls right behind me. “What are you doing?”
I wasn’t sure precisely where to find her, but I followed the angle of the tower’s shadow deep into the amusement park, hoping it was far enough. I wove and dodged through the thinning crowd, sweating and swearing. The paths cleared and I pushed myself faster—until I slammed into a wall of people. My knees locked and I fought the forward momentum, freezing in place in front of the bathroom near the thrill ride called The Crypt. Jeremy stopped short behind me.
A crowd formed a tight knot at the entrance to the women’s room, stretching up on their tiptoes and craning their necks to see inside. A voice called out from the bathroom, “Call 9-1-1!” Concerned faces looked at one another, and reached for their phones. Someone ran to find an attendant.
“What’s wrong? What’s happening?” I breathlessly asked the woman in front of me.
Without turning her attention from the bathroom door, she said, “Someone found a body in the ladies’ room.” A sheet of paper taped to the frame of the open door curled in the slight breeze, angling toward me.
OUT OF ORDER
, it said, in bold blue letters.
I’d found Posie Washington.