12
CARLY
My nerves are jumping under my skin, and all I’ve done so far is sit down on one of the sticky vinyl booth seats at Millie’s. I’m wearing jeans, as I just came from Bridger Ranch. I left a little early so I can get this over with during one of the restaurant’s lulls and be home for dinner, my mother none the wiser. She’d want to come with me, to literally hold my hand, but this is something I have to do on my own.
I recall how my bare thighs used to stick to these seats.
I was wearing shorts that last day…
No!
I steel myself and glance at the plastic-coated menu, complete with vintage photographs of the selections.
It hasn’t changed in five years. The vanilla malt is still a sickly yellow color, and the kid’s menu still includes the famous wiener man—a hot dog sliced lengthwise halfway and then boiled so the two halves look like legs, topped off with mustard eyeballs and a ketchup smile. I used to gobble it up as a kid. Now it looks kind of disgusting.
I stare out the smudged window at the town before me. Luna is dusting in the window of her antique shop, and Branson’s barber pole is spinning already. Small town life. Everything opens early but the town shuts down by six. Except for Millie’s and the Mexican restaurant, Las Casas. They stay open for the dinner crowd.
A waitress wearing a standard pink uniform cracks her gum beside my booth. “What’ll it be, sweetie?” Then she gets an eyeful. “Oh! Hello there, Carly.”
My cheeks warm, but I’m determined not to feel embarrassed. This is just a diner. A run-of-the-mill diner in a run-of-the-mill small town. Sure, it took me more than two days to follow through on the determination I had with Dr. Lake to get here. But I’m here now.
“Hi, Emma,” I say. “Is Millie here?”
“She’s off today.” Emma gives me that eye-softening look full of pity. “How have you been?”
“Just fine, thanks.” I don’t mean to be short with her, but I’m here for a reason. To check this visit off my damned list. “I’ll have the grilled cheese with bacon, please. And black coffee.”
“Coming right up.” Emma whisks away, tears the sheet off her pad, and hangs it on the round thing where the cook will grab it.
She means well.
They all mean well.
But I’m so over it. I think it was my parents who were so dead set against me getting a job that gave me the first hard push. Then Chance punching Austin for making out with poor Carly. Then it was Austin himself—not in a bad way, but a good one—that has me ready to move on completely. To leave the shackles truly in the past.
My nerves have settled a little. This isn’t the booth I sat in that day. I tried. I really did when I came in the door. But I couldn’t, and Dr. Lake didn’t make it a requirement.
Emma drops off a cup of steaming coffee, and I take a cautious sip. It tastes like brown water, but Millie’s coffee always has. I don’t pull out my phone, only look out the window as I focus on my breathing, on seeing the town through the window. A few minutes later, Emma returns with my sandwich and a side of hash browns I didn’t ask for. Except they’re not hash browns. They’re tater tots with seasoned salt. But Millie has always called them hash browns.
And why am I ruminating on hash browns? Who the hell cares? I’m not going to eat them anyway. I’m not even slightly hungry, but eating isn’t what this visit is about.
I place the paper napkin across my lap and take another sip of the flavorless coffee.
And though I try not to…I remember.
Five years ago, during spring break of my first year of veterinary school, I was eating here at the diner with my friend Ashley and I excused myself to go to the bathroom. The one off the back hallway.
I never returned. Until now.
For a long time, I couldn’t remember what happened. All I knew was that I woke up in some kind of maze running for my life. That lasted a few days, and then another memory jump…and I was on the island. I can feel the heat on my face. The humidity. Breathe in the tang of the sea air.
Again, running for my life. But you can only run so long before you get caught.
Through some guided hypnosis with Dr. Lake, I recalled getting jumped in the bathroom stall, and then the prick of a needle in my neck. I never saw the face of my attacker, and no one seemed to witness the assault or see me get taken out the back way of the diner.
From Bayfield, Montana. The place where nothing happens to anyone. Except me.
So much is still a mystery—who took me and how I got to the island—but at least Derek Wolfe is dead and his kids shut down his vicious trafficking enterprise. Most of the men who went there are either in prison or have disappeared—having fled the country. It’s over.