Missing Dead Girls by Sara Walters

Author:Sara Walters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

I didn’t go back to the pool after what happened.

The cops showed up at my house the day after and asked a hundred questions about it.

Were you watching the pool when it happened?

Were you the only guard on duty?

Did you see or hear Lottie trip or fall?

Did you hear screaming or struggling?

Did anyone else appear to hold Lottie underwater or push her in the pool?

That night after they left, I dreamed I was treading water in a rough ocean. A sharp undercurrent nearly pulled me below the surface, and I was fighting to stay afloat, to keep breathing. Dull, short fingernails dug into my arms. And as I struggled to peel back the fingers gripping my wrists, I saw Lottie’s face, staring up at me wide eyed from just under the surface.

I woke up screaming.

My mom took my keys and keycard back to the club. My boss sent me a single text: hope to see you next summer, stay well. But I knew she didn’t want me to come back. How could I, anyway? And why would I want to? I never answered her text. I stopped answering everyone from the club. I was exhausted of hearing about it not being my fault. As people repeatedly told me not to blame myself and that it was an accident, I wondered how true that even was. Nothing felt accidental anymore. It all felt like pieces of an elaborate plan devised to destroy me.

July began quietly, a thick heat pulling over Willow Creek like a blanket, the days starting to last and last. Most mornings, my mom came into my bedroom to sit on the side of my bed and kiss my forehead, to check and make sure I was still breathing. She didn’t push me to get out of the house or busy myself. I think part of her was happy to have me at home. She knew where I was at all times, even if I was in bed, the same few songs playing on a loop.

A few days into July, she came in to say good morning and laid down with me. She pulled me into her arms, and I let her hold me, let her cradle me like she did during the last time I was this broken. It made me imagine her at eighteen, with a tinier version of me zipped up inside her hoodie, fast asleep.

“Is Madison coming by today?”

She asked the question into my hair. Madison had been coming by every day since the accident. Sometimes she brought coffee, sometimes she stayed a while, sometimes she let me be alone with my grief if that was what I needed. She and my mom had at least met by then, and sometimes I would hear the two of them exchanging small talk in the living room. I knew my mom was still cautious. But as the days dripped by, she stopped questioning Madison so much and instead started to accept her as an ongoing player on the stage I’d set for myself here in Willow Creek.

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