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When 17-year-old Arbor Hayes' best friend turns up alive after a mysterious six-month disappearance, she must piece together the fragments of her story to make sense of what happened. But as clues e...
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I slide into the driver's seat and start the ignition, but I have to force myself to drive. There's too much noise in my head.
A few months ago, after the police found Emma's truck and the gruesome evidence left inside, life as I knew it took on a whole new meaning. Or rather, the fragility of life did, and how easily it can be stolen.
The potential for death became all too real. A sensation I could touch, an idea I could taste. Every time I hopped in my car or the tornado siren screeched its imminent weather warning, it was a direct threat to my personal well-being. Like walking a tightrope and not knowing if I'd make it across alive or plummet to my death below, one foot unsteadily stepping over the other.
What happened? the cops asked after Emma went missing. Did she ever talk about running away? How was her life at home? Was she unhappy?
Emma didn't keep secrets from me, nor I from her. That's what I told them. Because that's what I wanted to believe.
Only it wasn't true.
If there were things I'd hidden from her—like being in love with her boyfriend—then there must have been things she kept from me. I know there were. For instance, last winter, when I walked in on Emma and Jordan Pacey in the locker room after indoor drills. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I heard the tone of their conversation. Hushed words laced with venom, hisses of wild indignation. An obvious argument not meant for anyone to overhear.
I hadn't intended to listen but found myself peeking around the corner anyway, too intrigued to turn away. And my heart stopped. The expression on Emma's face wasn't one I'd seen before. Slanted brows and rosebud lips pulled into an ugly sneer. Anger oozing from every pore in her body.
Emma didn't have enemies. She'd always been the one who drew others to her without even trying. Yet there she was; hostile, foreign. An Emma I didn't know. When a group of girls paraded into the locker room oblivious to the showdown taking place, I fell in step alongside them to escape being caught.
But later, my curiosity got the best of me, and I broke down and asked what they were arguing about. Emma brushed it off, saying it was nothing more than a disagreement about a pass, one I'd seen Jordan execute perfectly during practice. An outright lie, but I wasn't about to call her bluff. She could keep her secret, and I'd keep mine.
It bothered me for a couple days though, the fact she didn't fess up. But eventually the memory slipped away amid college admission tests and prom committee meetings, and then was swallowed entirely by her disappearance. The incident had been pushed so far back inside my brain, hidden by newer, more lustrous memories that I hadn't thought about it again.
Until now.
My phone vibrates in my pocket before syncing with the CR-V, and suddenly, Smith's voice fills the interior. "Are you on your way home yet?"
