42
It’s been one year, and the house has the nerve not to change one bit. One full year of missing days. Stark and unforgiving, endless mileposts. But this is. This will be. The longest night.
I took extra care in the car to paint on my face exactly the way it should be. The way I have every day for a year. The day since Ryan disappeared. No note. No funeral. No closure.
I paint strength for my mother, humming along with the radio in the front seat. I still sit in the back, the passenger seat a placeholder, like Ryan is suddenly going to appear at the side of the road and hitch back into our lives.
Wouldn’t that be just like him?
I paint a layer of quiet suffering for my friends, and determined resilience over that, a dab of mad genius under my eyes, a twist of mischief on my lips, so they know it’s me underneath. I dust a shimmer of wonder over it all. I’m still here. I’m still me. I haven’t faded under all of it. Nothing is going to break me.
They have nothing to worry about.
Not me.
We pull up in the driveway and the house rises above us like a demon waiting to swallow up our remains. The remainsof my family. My father is already gone. His body is still here. But what use is a body? He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t hear. He just wanders through the rooms, looking. Looking at pictures. Examining artifacts. Staring at us. At my mother, accusing her for letting us run wild with Kennedy and Chase. He never liked them. He held their families in contempt. Entitled rich folks.
Maybe it had nothing to do with the fact that Chase’s family had more than we did. But I doubt it.
Maybe he didn’t think Kennedy would turn me into a lesbian.
But my dad isn’t a good person.
None of us, any of us, are good people.
We don’t deserve a happy ending.
Ryan isn’t going to come back.
Chase isn’t going to fall in love with me.
Chelsea isn’t going to get over her nightmare.
Kennedy isn’t going to have her fairy tale.
None are pardoned; all are punished.
I step out of the car and lug my suitcases behind me. Usually Ryan does this part for me. I don’t pack light. I never have. I strain my face into a smile as Kennedy rushes down the stairs and gathers me into an embrace. Chelsea watches from the porch, leaning against the railing, her hands hanging loosely at her sides. I haven’t seen her for almost a month. Not since the incident.
The other incident. When Chelsea hit a point break.
I’m getting sick of incidents.
“Howareyou?” Kennedy holds me at arm’s length and examines me, like it’s been months since we last saw eachother, instead of a few days. This is how people treat me now. Is it sick that part of me enjoys the attention? I don’t think so. I think it’s warranted. I think it’s the least they can do. After all, I’ve lost my twin. A twin is more than a brother. It’s a part of you. I’m half missing. It’s difficult to reconcile.
I allow Kennedy to struggle under the weight of my suitcases as I turn and wave my mother off, trying not to look too dismissive or impatient for her to go. If my father has faded into a ghost in the past year, my mother has become the opposite. Too tangible, an unsculpted lump of clay. Always parked in the same spot in front of the TV in the living room, equidistant between the landline in the kitchen and the front door in case the phone rings with good news or the police show up with bad news. How it must feel to be suspended in that awful state of flux.
I don’t know exactly where Ryan is or what happened to him, but I do know one thing.
My friends know more than they’re telling me.
I turn as Chase pulls up in his SUV and my throat tightens. He grins and waves as he bounds toward us and throws Kennedy over his shoulder. Which one of them was the last to see Ryan that night? It’s so hard to tell. Their stories are so vague. Night swimming off the boat. After Kennedy shot me down when I had suggested we do the exact same thing. All of them exhausted from searching for him. But Mila returned to shore bone-dry. And she doesn’t swim. Neither does Chelsea, for that matter, andshewas wet. None of it adds up.
But Chase. He looks down at me with that look he’s been giving me since last summer. The mix of sadness, regret, andsomething I can’t put my finger on. Something that edges beyond the way everyone else looks at me now. Something that makes it okay for me to slip into the empty locker room with him, shut his mouth with mine to prevent a confession from falling out.
He slips a casual arm around my shoulder now, and I lean into him and smile, giving nothing away. I was angry when he left. The days melting into weeks blurred by police reports, interviews, silent moments waiting, my father turning to stone, my mother flickering like a candle, Chelsea quarantined supposedly with mono, Kennedy studying nonstop. I needed Chase. I’ve always needed Chase. This was his chance to finally be there for me. And he failed.
Until suddenly it was September. And he was mine, in secret, all mine. No one knows. No one can. It’s a delicate balance, a tightrope walk. Guilt and suspicion and desire and loathing.