17 & Gone by Nova Ren Suma Read Free Book Online Page B

we’d
    talk about this later, but for now he’d go
    along with it.
    “And did you ever search the area?” I
    added. “The woods? Did you look for
    her bicycle, did you—”
    “If you’re only curious and that’s all
    this is, I’ll tell you,” the officer said,
    looking only at Jamie’s face, I noted, not
    mine. He revealed a couple details I
    didn’t remember from the Missing
    poster, and I drank them in, holding them
    close for later.
    It was Abby’s grandparents, her legal
    guardians, who said she ran away—
    that’s what they told camp officials and
    the police—and that’s why there was no
    urgency to propel anyone to keep
    searching.
    The
    officer
    pointed
    off
    the
    campground toward the old highway,
    now called Dorsett Road. A witness—
    he didn’t share who—had seen Abby
    take a right on her bicycle down this
    road, and that was the last anyone saw of
    her. He shook his head like there was
    nothing that could be done. She’d done it
    to herself.
    Besides, I could sense him thinking,
    what was she? She was only a 17-year-
    old girl. And 17-year-old girls vanish
    all the time.
    Soon after this the officer closed the
    gate, made sure we got in our separate
    vehicles, and then took off. He drove an
    unmarked car without any lights on top,
    and I wondered if he’d been off-duty
    when he noticed our cars parked here.
    But as soon as his taillights were
    swallowed by the night, Jamie got out of
    his car and strode over to my van.
    “ What was that?” he said, taking a
    seat on the passenger side. My engine
    was idling to get the heat running, and he
    cupped his hands to the vent.
    And here was another opportunity for
    me to tell him. Here—in the quiet night,
    minutes after I wore Abby’s body, or she
    wore mine, when the two of us together
    rolled in a bed of pine needles, in the
    arms of the boy she said she loved. Now
    that Jamie knew she existed, I could
    have told him how connected I felt to
    her, this stranger who wasn’t a stranger
    to me.
    I could have. But all I said was, “I
    saw her Missing poster. I looked up this
    place. I was . . . curious.”
    (I did not tell him I had the Missing
    poster, folded as many times as a piece
    of paper could be folded, in my
    backpack, near his feet. I felt Abby in the
    trees, and I felt Abby in the air. I felt the
    exhale of her breath through the heating
    vents, and I felt the inhale in my head.
    She didn’t want me to show Jamie, and
    what she wanted felt far more important
    than what I wanted.)
    “So you don’t know her,” Jamie said.
    “So you lied.”
    “She didn’t run away,” I said. “She
    didn’t. She—”
    “ How can you possibly know that,
    Lauren?”
    I was staring down into my hands. The
    light from the dashboard lit them up
    enough for me to be able to see the lines
    of my palms, and yet when I gazed at
    them, there were no lines. My palms
    were smooth and unmarked as if I had no
    past, and no future. I had a moment of
    wondering whose hands were on that
    steering wheel, whose body walked out
    of the Lady-of-the-Pines Summer Camp
    for Girls and climbed into my van.
    “I don’t know for sure,” I said. “It’s a
    feeling I have, that’s all.”
    I couldn’t read his face.
    But I’m going to find out , I thought
    but didn’t say. She wouldn’t leave me
    alone if I didn’t.
    He moved toward me then. I felt his
    hand on my chin, and his mouth on my
    mouth, and before I knew it I’d pulled
    away, putting some needed inches
    between us. A hand was out, shoving
    into his chest. That was my hand, making
    it impossible for him to get any closer.
    I watched confusion cross his face,
    then something worse that looked a lot
    like anger. I’d never shoved him away
    from me before; I didn’t even know why
    I had.
    “Who was that who called you?” I
    blurted out randomly. I hadn’t been
    bothered by it then, in Cabin 3 when
    he’d answered the phone, but in this
    moment something told me I should be.
    “When?” he asked.