The Girl in the Headlines by Hannah Jayne

Author:Hannah Jayne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2021-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Eight

I turned around, putting my bag onto my bed.

I should get stuff. Stuff? What does one need when packing up a life? My eyes went to my overfilled bulletin board with the pictures of me and Lynelle and our friends and even one of Cal, but it felt like I was looking at someone else’s memories. None of those people knew me. All those people assumed I had come to campus to fight Lynelle, as an angry fugitive who wanted to steal her phone. I blinked and tried to breathe, then started throwing handfuls of underwear and socks, T-shirts and jeans into my bag. I grabbed the framed picture of my family and packed that too, murmuring “shut up, shut up, shut up” to the niggling voice in the back of my mind that told me that was some other family with some other girl.

I also grabbed the fat envelope I kept stuffed in my top drawer. It was thick with bills—birthday money, pizza money, extra dollars for “walking-around money” as my dad called it. Two extra inhalers from the bathroom medicine cabinet, a tube of ChapStick.

I heard a pebble on the window and remembered Nate was down there: this life, that life. Before I went downstairs, I glanced through Josh’s open door to his rumpled bed, the tangle of clothes and games and soccer balls on his floor. On a whim, I rushed in, stuck my hand between his mattress and bed frame, and pulled out my dad’s iPad that Josh had commandeered. It was now mostly clogged with games, and he lost it seventeen times a day (it was always right here), but I thought it could be helpful.

I went down the stairs with tunnel vision. Suddenly, I didn’t want to see anything. I knew the family portraits over my shoulder by heart: me at six waving with finger-paint-covered hands while wearing a construction paper crown; a formal wedding shot of Mom and Dad; a casual shot of Mom, Josh, and I laughing on the beach; Josh in soccer gear, ball perched on his hip. They were portraits that marked years of a life that I was no longer allowed to live.

My tread started to slow the closer I got to the first-floor landing. My throat started to close, and the stench of industrial-strength cleanser stung my eyes. I froze when I saw the yellow police tape haphazardly rounding the living room.

It happened here.

A sick curiosity bubbled up inside, and I wanted to look, but everything else—heart, soul, brain—told me to keep walking, told me what I would see would only burn itself into my brain rather than give me any kind of peace of mind.

I stepped into the garage, going for the side door. It was the only door that the police hadn’t bothered to tape off—not that breaking police tape was where I drew the line—and I let Nate in. He bobbed his head but said nothing, and we walked in silence.

The smell was stronger when we stepped into the kitchen, and I gritted my teeth against it.

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