They got a restraining order.
The back door swings open, and I hide the gin bottle guiltily. It’s not like we don’t drink sometimes, especially up here. But it’s early, and without permission, and I grabbed a lot.
Chelsea wanders up to me and pulls a blood orange–flavored soda from the refrigerator. “Kennedy didn’t mean anything by it.” She pops the top of the can and gives me a reproachful look. Like I’m the unreasonable one here.
“It sounded like she meant something very specific.” I pick a sprig of mint off a potted plant and stick it in my mouth. Hopefully that will mask the smell a little.
“She didn’t. And no one thinks anything bad about your mom, either.”
I nod, but I feel the rage beginning to spread throughoutmy body again. Chelsea has no idea. She has no clue what it was like to have Ryan go missing, to know all of my friends were with him when he disappeared and have them insist to my face that they knew nothing. To know thatI could have been thereif I hadn’t been so stubborn that night. I could have been there. I can’t get over that. I never will. She’ll never know what it was like to have my family collapse around the black hole my brother’s absence gave birth to, to see my father fade like a ghost, to have my mother in hysterics and not be able to offer her closure, and then to havehertreated like there was something wrong with her. Quite the inconvenience, that tasteless woman. Get her out of our sight.
“I should have stopped by.” Chelsea takes a sip of her drink, and the tattered hospital band slides out from her wispy linen shirt. This is what Chelsea has become. This is how I know she knows something. The note. The bracelet. All of the little clues.
What do they imply?
Guilt.
“You had your own shit to deal with,” I say, trying on a sympathetic smile.
She nods. “It was a rough year for all of us.”
But Chelsea didn’t die or disappear. She’s right here, in the flesh, heart pumping buckets of blood through her veins, just two feet from the knife drawer. I blink the thought away.
“I’ll be right out.”
She gives me an awkward, clinging hug, then wanders back out the door, and I exhale shakily.
It’s odd, being back together like this.
Horrible and odd and revolting.
They shouldn’t be here. It’s a sacred site. To ignore that is a special kind of violence.
They should know better.
I have waited, checked my phone a thousand times, watched the door with my mother, knowing that hope is a coward’s drug. Because Iknowthere is a better way. Someone knows where Ryan is. Someone is lying to my face. Four someones. And they’ve had a whole year to come clean. It may just be time for a little nudge.
I head back outside and smile brightly. “You’re absolutely right, Kennedy. I think we should try to communicate with Ryan’s spirit.”