“I’ve been sick,” I remind him.
“I just thought — it kind of feels like you’re breaking up with me.”
“What? No, Jason! Please don’t read too much into what I said on Sunday. I didn’t even really mean it. I was having a weird day.” I don’t tell him the whole truth. Not yet.
“Yeah, but since then, you haven’t returned my calls and …” His eyes pierce mine for a moment. “Zoe, you didn’t even tell me your mom had a heart attack! I found out from someone else that she’d been in the hospital.”
“I’m sorry. Things have just been weird the past few days —”
“So you keep saying.”
“Jason, you don’t understand.” But I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know how to reassure him. My head is throbbing. “I’ve just been so sick. My mom was home again before I really knew what happened. I didn’t even visit her in the hospital. I haven’t talked to her, either, if that makes you feel any better. This was the first time we’ve spoken since it happened.” I gesture to my phone on the table in front of us. Suddenly, him coming here to confront me like this seems unfair. I am so tired, and as easy as it should be to reassure him right now, how can I tell him there’s nothing to worry about when that’s all I’ve been doing for the past three days? “You know I’m sick,” I finish weakly.
He slumps his shoulders. “Okay,” he says.
Can’t he see how tired I am? “Can we talk about this later? I just, I really can’t do this right now.”
He looks surprised. And hurt. “Of course,” he says, standing up. He holds my gaze for a second too long before turning away. When he walks to the front hall, I notice what he’s wearing. He dressed up for me. I picture him standing in front of his closet, choosing an outfit for this awkward conversation, a conversation he probably rehearsed hundreds of times in his head over the past few hours. Bracing himself to find out whether or not I was ending things.
I’m trying to think of something to say to ease his mind, to lessen the hurt in his eyes, but before I can come up with anything, he’s out the door and walking down my front steps.
I need a minute to think. I want to go after him, to call out to him before he gets in his car, but I just stand in the hall, watching him go.
After he is gone, I sink onto the couch, exhausted. Then I close my eyes against the pounding in my head. I have been waiting for something to happen. For everything to fall apart. But this? In the face of all the fears looming in my periphery, Jason’s misunderstanding seems almost insignificant. And, yet, the look he gave me as he walked out the door feels like a knife in my chest. He knows there’s more going on than me being sick. It’s as if he can sense an impending blow, but doesn’t know where to look for the source.
When my phone rings again, I assume it’s Jason, that he wants to ask another question, to convince himself of one last thing.
But it’s not Jason. It’s my brother.
“You’ve been looking for me?” he says, his voice sounding as tired and drained as I feel.
“Where are you?” I say. “I talked to Brenda. You told her?”
“Yeah.” A pause. “She would have found out anyway. She’s pissed. She kicked me out.”
“She told me she didn’t know where you went.” My voice sounds petulant, like I’m a little kid again.
“She didn’t.”
I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” There’s a long sigh on the other end of the phone. “I guess I’ll have to find a new place. I don’t think Dee Dee exactly wants me to move in.”
Why the hell would anyone, let alone Dee Dee, want to help him? “They’re going to find you,” I say.
Silence. Then, “Who’s going to find me? What are you talking about?”
“The police.”
Ricky actually snorts. “The police?”
I don’t know what to say, so I stay silent, pressing my back against the wall. I let my head fall back until it’s hitting the wall, too. I stare at the ceiling, at a small crack that starts in the corner, creeping outward until it splinters in two, like a fork in a stream.
“Zoe?” Ricky’s voice has an edge to it. “What do you mean the police will find me? Did Brenda say something about the police?”
Anger flares through my whole body. “Stop with the fucking games, Ricky! I know what you did! I’ve always known! I saw her get into the car.” I lower my voice. “It’s over.”
There is a long silence. “Zoe,” Ricky finally says, “what the hell are you talking about?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”
“Is this about the girl that went missing on our street? Mom told me they re-opened the case, but what does that have to do with me and Dee Dee?”
“Her name was Amy, Ricky. Amy Nessor. And I saw her get in Darius’s car, remember? I saw you guys drive away with her and I never told anyone. Ever.” I am crying now. Long, shuddering sobs that make my ribs ache.
“Zoe,” Ricky says, “what the fuck is wrong with you? You think I —”
I hurl my phone across the room and watch as it smashes against the doorframe to the kitchen. I can’t listen to another word out of his mouth.
My head is throbbing, my legs are so weak I can barely stand, and my eyes feel swollen and sore. Everything hurts. I drag myself to my room and drop onto my bed where I simply shut down. I don’t let myself think.
I wake to the sound of Champ’s claws pattering against the hardwood floor. My room has grown dark and I blink in
