We Are Us

Chapter 9 Sackett, Co

Spring, Senior Year, High School

I left something for you in our place. It explains everything.

I will be out of touch for a while. I’m sorry.

I love you.

I love us.

I feel Gavin’s texts come in, one after the other, while I’m taking a test. My phone is in my pocket, and although I feel the buzzing against my thigh, checking it during a test would mean an automatic F.

I read them as I navigate the crowded halls on the way to my next class, barely paying attention to where I’m going or who I’m bumping into.

I left something for you in our place. It explains everything.

Gavin should be in school, like me. It’s a Thursday morning. We were together, in the woods, in our cave, our place, yesterday afternoon. Why would he skip school today to leave something for me when I just saw him yesterday?

I will be out of touch for a while. I’m sorry.

We have plans to see each other this weekend. Where is Gavin going? How long will he be gone?

I try calling during lunch, over and over, but he doesn’t pick up. I send texts.

Hey, what’s going on? Your messages don’t make sense.

I’m at lunch right now. Call me.

Lunch is over and I’m in class for the next few hours. Call me, I’ll pick up.

Come on, Gav. This is not cool.

Where are you?

Gunmetal gray clouds roll in during Spanish class, enveloping the sun in a thick layer of gauze. Within minutes the brightness that shined through the windows has been extinguished, befitting my mood. The only incoming text I receive is from the mother of the girls I babysit telling me that I don’t need to work today.

This isn’t fu

Where are you?

By the time my AP History class is over, the clouds hang even lower and their color has deepened to a bleak charcoal. Mist swirls around my feet when I walk to the bus, its headlights barely penetrating the thick drifts of vapor.

I’m heading home now. Whatever you’ve left for me better be good.

And by good, I meant—it had better explain what the hell is going on.

Sadie drops heavily into the seat beside me, her backpack knocking my phone out of my hands. “Sadie, Jeez! Watch it!”

Her head jerks back. “Wow. Someone’s got their panties in a twist. What’s with you?”

I glare at her as I bend down to grab my phone from the sticky bus floor. Once it’s in my hand, I gesture at all the empty seats. Our bus is only half full in the mornings and even less in the afternoons. “There are plenty of places to sit—you don’t always have to be right next to me. We’re sisters, not Siamese twins.”

Hurt pinches her features as she stands up and flings herself into the seat across from me. “Thanks, sis. Love you, too.”

Guilt cuts through me for taking my frustration with Gavin out on Sadie. She doesn’t deserve it. A deep sigh rattles from my lungs as I slide next to her. “I’m sorry—”

A flash of light breaks through the layer of dirt and condensation covering the bus’s windows, illuminating my sister’s face for a brief second before a boom vibrates through the seat. I curse, peering anxiously through the fogged windows.

The corners of Sadie’s lips turn down as she hugs her bag to her chest. “No ru

Logically, I know she’s speaking from a place of hurt. I yelled at her for no reason, and couldn’t even finish my apology without being distracted by the incoming storm and what it means for my plans to head straight for the cave to find out what is behind Gavin’s cryptic texts.

But I’m not feeling very logical right now. “Forget it,” I say, shaking my head in disgust and checking my phone again.

I don’t have any new texts, but I do have an email I’d missed. It’s from the drug store in town with the one-hour photo booth in the back, a notice that the pictures I’d ordered are ready for pickup.

I dismiss it as a mix-up. I didn’t order any pictures.

By the time Eddie, our driver, starts the engine and pulls slowly out of the bus loop in front of school, rain is coming down in heavy sheets, through an inky darkness that feels like night.

It doesn’t let up as we wind through the uneven terrain that is northern Co

It takes twice as long to get home as it normally does, though I don’t blame Eddie for going well below the speed limit.

There are five cars waiting at our bus stop. My mom’s isn’t one of them. Sadie and I run down the street with our backpacks over our heads, but it doesn’t matter. By the time we walk in the door, we are soaked to the skin.

“Hey, girls,” my mom calls from the kitchen.

“Hi, mom,” we chorus, taking off our shoes and jackets and slicking back our wet hair.

“I just got home, too. It’s really coming down out there,” she says, eyeing us after we leave our things by the door and join her in the kitchen. She takes a sip of wine from her coffee mug and opens a drawer, throwing a dish towel at me.

“Thanks,” I wipe my face with it.

“Oh, honey. No. Use that to wipe up the puddle by the door, I noticed some water leaking in.”

I have to fight the familiar tug of resentment that pulls at me on days like these. Why can’t my mother be normal? Or even just slightly more considerate? I’m sure it never even crossed her mind to wait at the bus stop for us instead of coming straight home after work. Even if she noticed the other cars parked there, she probably had no idea that they were parents waiting for their kids.

But I don’t let myself get too far. I know I’m lucky to have her at all. If she ever disappeared on us again, walking home in the rain would be the least of my problems.

I mop up the water on the floor and then carry my backpack to my room, changing out of my wet clothes and pulling my hair into a messy bun.

Through the window over my bed, I watch the rain come down, bolts of lightning piercing the sky in jagged white streaks, illuminating the band of trees swaying and shivering against an angry wind. Please, let the storm end. Send the sun back out.

When my phone vibrates in my hand, I nearly jump out of my skin.

Gavin. Thank G—

But it’s not Gavin. It’s a weather alert, warning of flash flooding in our area. Great.

I’m home. I can’t get to our place until the storm is over. Call me.

This isn’t fu

I’m not kidding.

Where the hell are you?

Are you ok? I’m scared. Please call me.

I love you.

I love us.

Twenty minutes passes, forty, an hour. I read all of Gavin’s texts again. And then all of mine.

Where the hell is he?

I open up my backpack, attempt to concentrate on homework. After reading the same sentence five times, I pick up my phone again and call the number of the photo shop. “Hi, I received an email from you earlier today.”

“Sure. How can I help you?”

“Well, I didn’t order any photos.”

“Oh. Can you give me your order number?”

I rattle off the number referenced in the email and he puts me on hold. The synchronized music drones on for several minutes before cutting off abruptly. “It says here this order was paid for by a Gavin Cross. Do you—”