Callie's Sister

Chapter 15

This wasn’t possible. He was the one who was supposed to be saving me from everything today. How could he do this to me? Today of all days.

I was suddenly overwhelmed. Maybe I shouldn’t have left today. I should’ve stayed home and faced it all directly. Now. Not put it off till the indefinite forever. I was going to have to go home eventually, even if I didn’t want to. My feet scraped the gravel on the side of the road as I started to put one foot in front of the other. My beach house was only about a mile down the road. Wasn’t I going for a run today anyway? Crap. My iPod was still in Cam’s car. At this point, I didn’t even care. I started running. Faster. This was what I loved. It all went away when I was running.

I passed the best ice cream stand in the state. My mouth started watering at the thought of one of their peanut butter and jelly milkshakes, despite still being nauseous from the munchkins, iced coffee, bump on my head and brush with the law. Next was Ricky’s Heavenly Hot Dogs.

 Ricky was outside cleaning the windows of the hot dog stand. I had been eating his hot dogs my whole life. Ricky knew exactly how I liked my dogs – with mustard on half and ketchup on half and he always had one ready for me when he saw us coming up the path. Once, when I was eight, I ran away to the Hot Dog Stand and offered to work for him if he’d hide me from my parents. He went along with it for about an hour and then Callie came and found me and took me home. I never knew if he gave me away or she just knew it’d be the one place I’d think of to run.

Ricky looked up and shouted to me as I passed.

“Hey, Maddie,” he called. “Is that you?”

“Sure is!” I waved and kept running.

I felt a twinge of guilt for blowing him off like that. He had been very good to my family, but I wasn’t up for the questions he was sure to have. I picked up speed. Three houses down the road it stood: our beach house. My home away from home for my whole entire life. I wanted to keep running, but more than that I wanted to be inside that house. I would figure out how I was getting home later. If I knew Cam, he’d drive around for an hour and then come back for me.

I didn’t have to wait an hour for Cam -- his car was in the driveway when I got there. He had his window rolled down and was texting someone. I peeked in the window and waited for him to finish.

“You can be an idiot sometimes,” he said, not even looking up.

“I know.” It was the truth. My anger sometimes got the best of me. Ask Jess. Or Lara. Or my mom. Or my dad. Or Callie. Especially Callie.

“I texted your dad,” he said.

“What did you say?” I’d kill him if he told my dad where we were. My dad would insist I come home and I couldn’t right now. I needed more time.

“I told him we had an all-day yearbook meeting.”

“Neither of us is on yearbook.”

“Does he know that?” Cam asked. Good point. I don’t think my parents noticed much of anything I’d been doing lately. I resented their oblivion, but today it worked to my advantage.

I couldn’t wait to be inside the embrace of this house. This old, rickety, worn beach house. It had been painted yellow years ago, but now it was more dirty blonde. Shingles were falling off and there was a crack in one of the windows. Since my grandparents died no one was particularly attentive to its upkeep. I didn’t care. I loved this house. I ran up the wooden steps and nearly flung myself at the door.

It was locked.

“Did you bring a key?” Cam asked. I was stunned. I thought I was going running. And when I asked Cam to take me here, well, I didn’t think that far. I walked back down the steps and tried a few of the windows. Locked. Went to the back porch and tried the kitchen window. It was always broken so I had a good chance. I pushed it. I wiggled it. I started to frantically shove it.

“You’ll put your hand through the glass,” Cam said, pulling me away. “One bleeding session a day is plenty, thank you.”

I stomped away from the house, furious. There was a small rock in my path and I kicked it. I kicked another. And another. What a stupid, impulsive idiot I was. I totally slammed the next rock. And then I remembered.

“Cam, wait,” I said, running back around the house to the patch of bushes next to the front steps. I reached underneath one of the bushes and retrieved a fist-sized rock.

“What is it?” Cam asked.

“It’s Mom’s fake rock,” I said. “Where she keeps the spare key.” And with that, I opened the secret compartment in the bottom of the rock. It was empty.