Those details seemed important, as if they had value. But now that she had talked to Julia’s parents, she wondered how much she actually didn’t know about her friend. Maybe all of those dreams and likes and dislikes were just surface level and didn’t give any insight into who Julia actually was.
Emma had no idea she’d gone to a different school before coming to the University of Alexandria. Julia had never told her about any sort of unpleasantness or problems that she might have had in her past. She always talked about her parents as if they were wonderfully supportive and encouraging. She talked about her childhood and teenage years in glowing terms.
Julia was smart and talented. She always knew what she wanted and was determined to go after it. She wasn’t conceited and didn’t brag, but she also didn’t hold herself back when it came to talking about the things she wanted and what she had done to get to them.
And yet, she never talked about her study-abroad program. She never talked about what she’d planned to do with her life before she’d started thinking about cooking. It was as if there were two versions of this girl, and Emma only knew one of them. But now she was trying to find the other one.
She had already gone to talk to as many of the professors as she could think of and had followed the same path from class to class that Julia would have. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing or what she hoped to find. But there was something in the back of her mind telling her to do it. To keep looking. At some point, she would find something.
She just wished she knew what that something would be. She’d gone back to talk to Julia’s roommate, but Lynn had already left for the semester. The campus was emptying out. Everybody who might have information about Julia was draining away. The few people she was able to reach weren’t able to tell her much. It seemed no one really knew Julia Meyer.
Many could recognize her when they saw a picture. Even more knew her name when they heard it. But what they said about her made it sound as if Emma was asking about a host of different people.
Julia came from money and was nothing more than a spoiled rich girl.
She was poor growing up, and only got to come to school because of a scholarship, but was really smart.
She didn’t work.
She had a work-study position.
She was a nanny.
She was an escort, but only the kind who went on dates and was seen as arm candy. Not the kind that has sex for money.
She was promiscuous and known to be sleeping around with a lot of students and maybe even some of the University staff.
She was a virgin who wouldn’t even go on a date with anybody who asked her, because she was too freaked out by any sort of relationship.
And then there it was…
She went to a different school for a little while but had to leave because she got involved with a teaching assistant who broke up with her very publicly.
The relationship never even existed at all.
Who was this girl?
Was it possible she could have just walked away?
Or was it just so easy to hide where she was, when no one knew who she was?
Now
“Lunch with Emma,” I murmur. I let out a soft laugh that doesn’t come from anything being funny, but an emotion too hard to define, much less express. “She mentions you in here.”
“She does?” Sam asks. “What does it say?”
“She’s happy I had you,” I tell him. “‘She’s trying hard to seem as if she’s okay, but I know she’s not. I’m glad she has her boyfriend.’“
It’s hard to read those words now. And I’m sure it’s hard for Sam to hear them. Both of us know how that path ends. Even though we found ourselves here again, reading Julia’s datebook gives me a glimpse back in time. It puts me back into the mind of that nineteen-year-old still reeling from my father’s disappearance and my entire world getting flipped upside down.
At the time, I did everything I thought I could. I did exactly that I believed needed to be done. That meant, at first, I clung to Sam as hard as I possibly could. It was what I wanted to do more than anything. I just wanted to curl up into him and make the rest of the world disappear. Sam could make it better. He could protect me. He could keep me strong until everything went back to the way it was supposed to be.
But that’s not what I did. I held on close for a while, but it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. I had to break away from him or I would be hiding in his arms for the rest of my life. And it wasn’t that I didn’t want that. It was that I wanted it too much.
I would have gotten through. But I wouldn’t be me.
“What does it say about the day she disappeared?” Sam asks.
“I’m still back a bit from that,” I say. “There are some things in here I’m not quite understanding.”
“What do you mean?” he asks. “Like what?”
“It keeps saying visit. Like, ‘visit, three p.m.’ It doesn’t say where she’s visiting or who she’s visiting. Just “visit.” And then every time it says that, in parentheses it says “Mom, volunteering at the hospital.” Like with a colon in there,” I say.
“Her mother volunteered at the hospital?” Sam asks.
“I don’t think so,” I say. “And her parents didn’t live in
