Kent reaches in his back pocket and pulls out a handful of safety pins. “Don’t ask,” he says when I raise my eyebrows. I hold up my hands and don’t push the issue. I’m grateful he’s taking charge without asking questions.
He squats down, bends the safety pin backward, and uses it to jimmy the lock. He’s keeping his ear pressed to the door like he’s listening for a click. Finally my curiosity gets the better of me.
“Do you have an after-school job robbing banks or something?”
He grimaces, tries the door, slips the safety pin back in his pocket, and selects a credit card from his wallet. “Hardly.” He wedges the credit card in the crevice between the frame and the door and wiggles. “My mom used to keep the junk food locked behind our pantry door.”
He straightens up and twists the handle. The door opens an inch, and my heart flies up into my throat. Part of me is hoping that Juliet’s face will appear, furious, or that the door will be slammed closed again from inside. That’s what I would do if someone tried to open the bathroom door when I was inside. That is, if I was still awake—alive —to close it.
But the door just sits there, open that little inch. Kent and I just look at each other at first. I think we’re both scared to open it any farther.
Then Kent nudges the door with his toe, calling “Juliet?” as the door swings open—again, time stretches; it seems to take forever—and in that second, or half second, I somehow have the time to conjure up every horrible possibility, to imagine her body crumpled on the ground.
And then the door finishes swinging, and the bathroom is there: perfectly clean, perfectly normal, and perfectly empty. The lights are on, and there’s a damp hand towel draped over the sink. The only thing slightly out of the ordinary is the window. It’s wide open, and rain has been battering in onto the tiles below.
“She went out the window,” Kent says at the same time I’m thinking it. I can’t quite place his tone. It’s half sad, half admiring.
“Shit.” Of course. After a humiliation like that, she would have looked for the easiest escape possible, the one that would attract the least attention. The window looks out onto a sloping side lawn and, of course, the woods. She must have made a dash for it, planning to loop around back toward the driveway.
I hurtle out of the bathroom. Kent calls, “Wait!” but I’m already down the hall and out the door, pushing onto the porch.
I grab my flashlight and the sweatshirt from behind a planter where I’d left them and head out across the lawn. The rain isn’t so bad just at the moment, more of a freezing mist falling in solid layers from above, but it’s the kind of cold that goes right through you. I keep my flashlight trained on the ground as I sweep around to the side of the house. I’m not exactly a master tracker, but I’ve read enough old mysteries to know that you should always look for footprints. Unfortunately, the mud is so gross and damp that everything looks churned up. Still, at the base of the bathroom I find a deep indent, where she must have landed, and a series of scuffly-looking marks going, as I suspected, straight to the woods.
I wrap my sweatshirt more tightly around me and plunge in after her. I can’t see anything but a few feet of light extending in a bouncing circle in front of me. I’ve never been scared of the dark exactly, but the endless scrapings and groanings of the trees and the constant patter of rain through the branches make it sound like the woods are alive and babbling away, like one of those crazy people you see in New York City who are always pushing grocery carts filled with empty bags.
There’s no point in trying to follow Juliet’s footprints. They’re totally invisible in the soggy paste of decaying leaves, mud, and rotting bark. Instead I strike out in what I hope is the general direction of the road, hoping to catch her on her walk home. I’m pretty sure this is what she intends to do. If you’re so desperate to ditch a party —and the people in it—that you climb out a window, it’s hardly likely that you’ll stroll back minutes later and ask people to move their Hondas.
The rain starts coming down harder, rattling through the icy branches, the sound of bone on bone. My chest aches from the cold, and even though I’m moving as fast as I can, my fingers feel numb and I’m having trouble holding on to the flashlight. I can’t wait to get to my car and turn the heat on full blast. Then I’ll drive the streets looking for her. If worse comes to worse I’ll intercept her at her house. If only I make it out of these freaking woods.
I push myself forward even faster, half jogging now, trying to stay warm. Every few moments I call out “Juliet!” but I don’t expect to get an answer. The patter of the rain is getting heavier and more constant, big fat drops of it splashing on the back of my neck and making me gasp.
“Juliet! Juliet!”
The patter turns into a rush. Daggers of icy water slice into me. I keep up the jog, the flashlight like lead in my hand. I can’t feel my toes anymore; I don’t even know if I’m going in the right direction. I could be running around in circles, for all I know.
“Juliet!”
I start to get scared. I turn a full circle, sweeping my flashlight through the darkness: nothing but dense trees pressing in on either side of me. It didn’t take me this long to walk through the woods on the way to Kent’s, I’m sure of it. My fingers feel like they’re twice the size they should be, and as I’m spinning, the flashlight flies out of my hand. There’s a crash and the sound of splintering. The light sputters and dies, and I’m left totally in darkness.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” Cursing out loud makes me feel better.
I take a few hesitant steps in the direction of the flashlight, keeping my arms out in front of me so I don’t collide with anything. After a few shuffling steps I drop to my knees, instantly destroying my house pants as wetness seeps through the fabric. I rake my hands in the sludge in front of me, trying hard not to think too much about what I’m touching. Rain is driving into my eyes. My fleece is clinging to my skin, and it smells like wet dog. I’m shivering uncontrollably. This is what happens when you try to help people. You get screwed. I feel a lump building in my throat.
In order to keep from a total meltdown, I think about what Lindsay would say if she were stuck with me in the middle of the night in the middle of woods that extend who knows how many miles in the middle of a monsoon, if she saw me tearing at the ground like a deranged mole, completely covered in mud.
“Samantha Kingston,” she would say, smiling, “I always knew deep down you were a very dirty girl.”
The thought only cheers me up for a second. Lindsay’s not here with me. Lindsay’s probably making out with Patrick in a toasty warm and very dry room right now, or passing a joint back and forth and wondering out loud to Ally why I’ve been acting so freak-tastic. I’m completely lost, completely miserable, and completely alone. The ache in my throat intensifies until I feel like there’s an animal trying to claw its way out of my throat.
And I’m suddenly angry at Juliet—so angry I could punch her. I don’t see how she can be so selfish. No matter what—no matter how bad things are—she has a
That’s when I hear the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard in the entirety of my seventeen years of life (plus five days of life-after-death).
I hear honking.
The sound is far away, and it fades almost as soon as it begins—a low wail through the night as someone speeding by leans on the horn. I’m closer to the road than I thought.
I scramble to my feet and go as quickly as I can toward the source of the sound, keeping my arms outstretched like a mummy, slapping away branches and the slick touch of the evergreens. My heart is pounding with excitement, and I strain for a noise—any other noise—to guide me. After a minute or so I hear another honk, this one closer. I could sob with relief. Another minute and I hear the thudding bass of a stereo system, tuning in and then out again as a car speeds away. Another minute and I can see, faintly through the trees, the glimmer of the light from the streetlamps. I’ve found the road.
As the lights get closer and the trees thin, I can see a little better, and I start booking it. I’m so busy fantasizing about piles and piles of blankets—I’ll take every single one I can find in the house—and hot chocolate and warm slippers and
She’s huddled seven or eight feet from the road, her arms wrapped around her knees. Water has turned her white top totally transparent, and I can see her bra—striped—and all the bones of her spine. I’m so surprised to come across her like that, I forget, momentarily, that she’s the whole reason I’m out here in the first place.
“What are you doing?” I say, loudly over the rain.
