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All she had with her was a little backpack. “There’s a couple boxes,” Sandy said after thinking about it for a minute. I was relieved she hadn’t argued, but she didn’t look thrilled. She shifted around uncomfortably, wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I left them back at our old apartment. I guess I should probably go get them.”
“Come on, let’s go, then,” I said, hoping that forward momentum might keep her from changing her mind.
Sandy was rolling her bike toward my car when she got a text. I watched her face tense, reading it. “It’s Ha
“Do you know where she is?”
“I’m not sure Ha
“Maybe she finally has. You need to tell Steve where she is, Sandy.”
“I know,” she said, already typing out a response.
Sandy showed me the way to Ridgedale Commons, a depressing two-floor rectangle that looked like a motel you’d drive all night to avoid. I pulled up alongside the curb in front, having a hard time believing we were still in Ridgedale.
“I’ll be right back,” Sandy said, opening the door before the car had fully stopped.
“Are you sure you don’t need help?”
“Nope.” She shook her head as she rushed from the car. “It’s not much.”
I watched her walk, wiry and strong, across the browning side yard toward a staircase on the side. She looked around guiltily before squatting down and reaching beneath the stairs. Her boxes weren’t “at” her old apartment, they were hidden under the building stairs. It was excruciating. I swallowed the lump in my throat. Things had been bad for me when I was her age, but not bad like that.
“Do you think, um, I could take a shower?” Sandy asked once we were at my house. We were standing in the little guest room with its excessively fluffy, overly fashionable blue-and-orange-hued bed.
“Of course, yes.” I was relieved for the time her showering would buy me to collect my thoughts. It had been so easy to want to rescue Sandy. Now that I had, I felt overwhelmed and unprepared. “Let me get you some towels.”
When I returned, Sandy was standing right where I’d left her, arms crossed like she was afraid of being blamed for breaking something. I handed her a stack of overly fluffy towels. Everything we had suddenly seemed outsize and u
“There’s shampoo and everything in the bathroom if you need it.”
“Thanks,” Sandy said, stuck in the center of the room, gripping my towels. “I’ll be quick.”
“Take your time. I’ll call some more of the local hospitals.” I pla
“Yeah, sure,” Sandy said, looking like she was bracing for me to set fire to the bridge I’d so carefully built between us.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I said, leaning against the doorframe. “But did Ha
“No.” She shook her head. “But I think maybe he was a college kid.”
“Why do you say that?”
Sandy shrugged. “Ha
Shit. The Ridgedale University high school exchange program, supervised by Dean of Students Thomas Price.
“The night she had the baby—before she forgot it was her baby—she gave me all the stuff he’d given her, cards and whatever. In case her parents found out, I guess, and searched her room. I didn’t look at any of it, but I still have it.” Sandy motioned to her boxes, stacked along the wall in the guest room. “She never asked for it back. Maybe she forgot the guy when she forgot about it being her baby. I probably should have tried to shake her out of it. But I was afraid. You know how they tell you not to wake somebody who’s sleepwalking?”
“You did the right thing, Sandy,” I said without hesitating. “You did more than anyone could possibly have expected you to do.”
According to Sandy, Aidan had already checked for Je
When I ended the call with the last hospital, my eyes settled on Je
It didn’t take more than a couple pages to realize what would be the worst part of the story laid out in the journal: Je
The bracelet I’d bartered from Harold. I’d forgotten all about it. Still in my coat pocket, I hoped. I was so glad I hadn’t thrown it out, which was all I’d wanted to do after I’d hung up with Steve in an embarrassed huff.
I went out to the coat rack near our living room door to dig in my pocket. Sure enough, the bracelet was still there—and there was that inscription: To J.M. Always, Tex.
“Um, hi.” When I looked up from the bracelet, there was Sandy wrapped in a towel, black hair wet and brushed back smoothly from her face. Standing there like that, she was even more striking than I’d realized. Truly beautiful. Her mother must have been, too. “Could I, um, borrow something to wear? I think I need to wash my clothes. If that’s okay.”