Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr Read Free Book Online Page A

search. I left it on the fridge before I went to bed last night.
    “Your note? Oh, yes.”
    “So can I go?”
    “Absolutely. I think it’s a great idea.” Now he’s sounding more like himself, like an athlete warming up for the day’s race. He scratches his unshaven face. “I guess I should take a shower if I’m going to be on TV.” He gets up, and when he passes me in the doorway, gives me a long look and a short hug. “Get yourself some breakfast. I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
    •  •  •
    Downtown feels strange, unfamiliar, even though in most ways it looks like it always does on a summer morning. The farmers’ market is set up across from the library, like always. Chickadees call to each other from the cottonwoods growing around the square. Even the record heat is almost normal. It’s not like it’s ever cool here in summer.
    But you can sense there’s been a shift in the universe, that from now on no one who lives here will walk down Main Street and feel the same as they did yesterday, before this happened. It’s not just what looks wrong, like crowds of people milling around the library at six am, news vans, a media tent. It’s what feels wrong, what is wrong, and all of a sudden I don’t want to move from where we’re standing, on the curb kitty-cornered from the library, to the other side of the street. I want to be back home, asleep, not awake yet in the new reality.
    “There’s Erin,” Dad says, pointing to the edge of the crowd that’s gathered. She’s with one of the Franklin twins—Kacey—and also Daniel. Vanessa texted me this morning to say she’s coming, too, but I don’t see her yet. “You’ll be okay?” Dad asks.
    “Yeah.”
    “Stay where people can see you.”
    “I know.” For some reason I’m still not moving, lead in my legs and in my heart.
    “I mean it, Sammy, don’t go off alone.”
    “Dad, I know.”
    He takes a few steps, then looks back, waiting for me to get going. “You want me to walk you over there?”
    If I could say exactly what I’m thinking, I’d turn to my dad and say, Please, take me home. I’d tell him about how I don’t feel like me anymore.
    Instead, I act like he’s being overprotective, like I’m fine. “Nothing’s going to happen to me between here and twenty yards from here.” I make myself start across the street, and wave him toward the media tent. “The Shaws are probably waiting for you.”
    “Okay, honey. Call me when you’re done.”
    By the time I get to Erin and Kacey and Daniel, there are tears in my eyes. Daniel opens his arms and I take the hug. His big stomach and familiar, fruity-smelling sweat are comforting. Then Kacey Franklin gives me a quick hug even though we aren’t really friends. She’s one of those people who always seems to be changing the subject when I walk into a room, and said at youth group one time that she only comes to church because her parents make her and she can’t understand how anyone could really believe. I think she thinks we must be so different.
    Erin, wearing hiking shorts, her hair held back by the sunglasses that rest on top of her head, puts her arm around me and squeezes tight. “Hey.”
    I spot Vanessa walking quickly from down the block.
    “I guess this is all of us,” Erin says, waving to Vanessa and checking her watch.
    Vanessa doesn’t say a word, just receives hugs from everyone and holds on to my hand. We all go over to the volunteer registration table where people are crowded, chattering about how awful this is, how unreal. Some people hold cardboard cups of coffee, and donuts, like it’s social hour. There are a lot of people from church here, and a couple of the faculty from Amberton Heights Academy. Gerald Ladew, the organist and choir director, stands on the fringes of the crowd. I catch his eye and give him a sad wave; he looks away, his face pinched like he might cry. So many people are connected to Jody in some way. It’s like a Venn diagram of