As Dead As It Gets

The car was silent except for the sounds of other cars passing by—whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Jared’s fingers drummed noiselessly on the steering wheel.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

He glanced at me. “If it weren’t, don’t you think I’d tell you?”

“Sure,” I said.

He took his right hand off the wheel and rested it gently on my knee. A few more quiet minutes passed.

“So,” he said suddenly, “these parties.”

“What about them?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure how many more I can take.” He was smiling, but his smile was tight, forced. “You don’t really like them, do you?”

“Them? You mean the kids or the parties?”

He shrugged. “Either?”

“The kids are fine,” I said. “The parties are…okay. Good pizza, right?”

He didn’t laugh.

I sighed.

“You’re just so different from those people.” He glanced at me. “They’re not like you at all.”

No they’re not. They’re all decent people who haven’t messed up their lives.

“It’s so shallow, you know?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think people just like to have fun at parties. How are the kids from your school?”

“Not like that.”

“Kasey’s not shallow. Her boyfriend’s not shallow.” Another name rose to the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it. Carter might not be shallow, but that wasn’t what Jared was looking to hear.

“Two people out of fifty?” he asked.

“Never mind, then,” I said. “We don’t have to go to every party. We don’t have to go to any of them, for all I care.”

He was silent again, and I wondered what I’d said wrong.

“Look,” I said, trying to sound reasonable. “I thought you had a good time, but if you don’t, I—”

“No,” Jared said. “Forget it. You’re right. I’m wrong.”

I sighed and sat back. “I don’t have to be right. I just don’t think they’re that bad.”

He slowed for a yellow light and glanced over at me. “It’s not about the shallowness, okay? It’s about you.”

“What does that mean?”

He shook his head. “I just get the feeling that we’re—that you’re being…watched.”

The hairs pricked up at the back of my neck. I always felt like I was being watched.

“Or—not watched, exactly.”

I gazed out the windshield at the headlights of the cars opposite us. They began to blur into halos. My voice turned brittle. “Then what,” I said, “exactly?”

He sighed. “Judged.”

I turned my face toward the window. I didn’t want Jared to see how hard it was for me to hold back the tears that had sprung to my eyes. “Why do you say that?”

“It bothers me, Alexis. The way they look at you. It’s like you’re some kind of…”

Murderer?

He didn’t finish the sentence. He just went on. “You’re too good to be treated that way. So why do you hang around with them?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess because…I don’t know.”

But I had a pretty good idea, actually.

Because I’m weak.

AFTER JARED DROPPED ME OFF, I said good night to my parents and went straight to bed. In spite of my weariness, I didn’t go right to sleep. I lay under the covers, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about what he’d said.

I felt hotly embarrassed. If Jared, who hardly knew them, had picked up on their judgment, then it must have been completely obvious to everyone but me. When I showed up to a party, did everybody think, Oh, here she is again? Did they all think I was just a freak, trying to wedge myself into their normal social order?

Did Carter think that?

Was I the only person who couldn’t see how little they wanted me around?

My cheeks tingled with shame. My eyes burned with tears. I curled up into a ball and shut my eyes as tightly as I could.

Finally, I fell asleep.

* * *

It was the weirdest dream—almost like being awake.

I was drawn out of bed so delicately that I didn’t even remember getting out from under the covers. I just found myself standing in front of the mirror. The room was dark, and I couldn’t see myself clearly, but I could tell that I wore some kind of fancy dress, like you’d wear to a dance or a tea party. The fabric was light and flimsy. The room was cold, and my bare feet felt like ice.

I tried to stare into the reflection of my own eyes, but I couldn’t focus on them.

I felt restless, as if I had somewhere to go, somewhere to be—but I couldn’t figure out where.

A wave of helpless loneliness washed through me, and then I burst into tears. I was crying for something…for someone. It was the most desolate emotion I’d ever felt—like half of me had been ripped away.

From behind me—from some dark corner of the room—came a soft sound: vzzzzzzzzzzz. The sound grew louder until I took my eyes off the mirror and swung around to look for its source.

That’s when I snapped out of the dream to find that I really was standing in front of the mirror. The dress was gone, but the sense of unendurable solitude still coated me like a terrible second skin.

I crept back under the covers, convinced that no one would ever again really care about me, or believe in me, or want me around.

On the nightstand, my phone chirped. The screen lit up with a text message.

Can’t sleep, Jared wrote. Thinking about you.

I grabbed the phone like it was a life preserver, and dialed Jared’s cell so quickly that my fingers tripped over themselves.

He picked up on the first ring. “Hi.”

I swallowed back tears of relief.

“Is this a booty call? Because…I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m not that kind of guy.” His voice, low and gentle, filled the emptiness in my heart like honey in a bowl.

We talked quietly for a while and finally got to the point where we were both dozing off, so we hung up.

I slept like a baby.

That Tuesday, the landline rang at six forty-five in the morning. A few seconds later, there was a knock at my door, and Mom came in holding the phone.

“Alexis,” she said. “It’s for you.”

“What? Really?” I sat up, stifled a yawn, and took the phone. “Hello?”

“Alexis, this is Laurel Evans.”

I couldn’t place the name.

“Ashleen’s mother.”

“Oh,” I said. “Hi.”

“Sorry if I woke you up. I’m calling everyone who came to her party Saturday. I need to know if you know of anyone she might have wanted to meet or talk to or—”

“I’m sorry?” I motioned for Mom to flip my light on. Kasey had come to the door, too. “I don’t understand.”

“Ashleen is missing,” she said. “We think she may have run away.”

“Run away?” I repeated. “Why?”

“She’s been having some problems with her stepfather.” Mrs. Evans sighed. “I thought maybe someone would know if there was a place she’d go…maybe with a boy?”

“No—I don’t know anything,” I said, feeling dazed. “I’m sorry. I hope you find her soon.”

I stared at the phone for a second until my mother reached down and took it.

“Laurel? It’s Claire again. I don’t even know what to say. I’m sure she’ll be fine. Have you called the police?” Mom shook her head. “Well, that’s shocking. But it has to be a good sign, right? They would know. I’m sure she’ll turn up. You know how teenagers are.…”

Mom glanced up at Kasey and me. I got the feeling she might have said more about how teenagers are if we hadn’t been in the room. “Maybe,” she said into the phone. “That sounds highly likely.…All right, I’ll let you go. And if you need any phone numbers, call here. Kasey and Alexis may have them.”

My sister sank onto the bed next to me.

“We’ll be thinking about you. Keep us posted.” Mom hung up the phone, then looked down at us, hugging herself. “The police won’t investigate yet, because they think she ran away. But she didn’t take her wallet. It’s just like…”

She didn’t have to finish her sentence. It was just like Kendra.