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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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Emma flings herself across my bed and a groan muffles against the comforter. "Do you see what I have to live with? My parents are out of their fucking minds."
I'm not sure how to comfort her. I drop into the desk chair across from her, and press my back into the cushion. "They sounded worried to me. And, I mean—they're not wrong. If the situation was reversed, I'm sure my parents would act the same way."
Emma rolls to her side, and props her head up with her hand. Her dark hair falls like an inky black curtain, obscuring the tattoo on her wrist. "I guess. But seriously. They don't have to act so weird all the time. Like, what the hell am I supposed to do? Live under their thumbs for the rest of my life?" She rolls her eyes, and blows out an exaggerated huff of air. "They still won't give me my phone and I told Smith I'd get in touch with him. But how can I do that when the wardens are always breathing down my neck?"
My shoulders tense at the mention of Smith's name. I hate myself for what I'm about to do. For the deceitful game I'm going to play behind his back. But I have to. If I don't ask, it will eat away at me until there's nothing left but a giant black hole in the center of my chest. "So, you haven't talked to him yet?"
It's a low blow. Pretending like I'm asking out of concern for their relationship, when all I'm really doing is thinking about mine. Would Smith tell me if they spoke? Would he be honest? He said he would, and I have no reason not to trust him.
But still.
"My parents won't let me talk to anyone." Emma sits up, crosses her legs at the ankle, her shiny black combat boots hanging off the side of my bed. They must be new, I've never seen them before. "I'm about to lose my shit. I wish they'd leave me alone."
My insides curl at the tone of her voice. Like she doesn't even care about the hell her parents went through. All those months spent looking for her. The pray chains and candlelight vigils. The fliers posted in every carry out and gas station within a five-hundred mile radius. How can she be so detached from their pain?
"You always wished they were around more, and now that they are, you can't stand it," I tell her, trying to understand. "I know you've been through a lot, but I've never heard you talk this way before. It's—I don't know—harsh, don't you think?"
Her brows arch. "Maybe I've just never been this honest with you before? Maybe I didn't think you could handle it?"
There's a restless energy about her. The way she fidgets on the bed. The constant twitching of her mouth, her eyes. The way they dart around like they're constantly on the lookout. But for what, I'm not sure.
"They're suffocating me." Emma leans forward and folds her legs in. Nibbles the nail of her pinkie nail. It's bitten to the quick, just like the rest of them. Emma from before would have never done that. She's always been more of a tomboy, preferring to keep her nails short and colorless, but at the very least they were manicured. Nice round tips, not jagged and uneven like they are now. It must be a nervous tic or a new coping mechanism.
