Let Her Be (Hush collection) by Lisa Unger

Author:Lisa Unger [Unger, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-29T23:00:00+00:00

It isn’t long before we’re in a cab heading to the garage where my parents keep their Land Rover. Then, for a while, we stand in the brightly lit drive, cars coming and going, waiting for ours to be retrieved from the mysterious depths of urban vehicle storage.

“Where are we going exactly?” I say when I’m behind the wheel. Their car is a nice one, late model, with beautiful leather seats and a dash alive with glowing lights, a colorful GPS map. I pull out into the schizophrenic flow of city traffic.

“Well, just up to the town where the ice cream place is,” Emily says.

“The shop will be closed,” I say. “The whole town shuts down at nine.”

Something crosses her face, doubt maybe.

“It’s okay,” she says brightly. “We’re in the flow. We’ll find our way.”

She sounds sure of herself, though to me it just sounds like one of Anisa’s regurgitated posts. Something illustrated and packaged for happy consumption. This idea that if we just ask the universe to fulfill our desires, it will? I’m not sure I buy it.

But maybe that’s why that attitude never seems to work for me. Because in my heart, I don’t believe. I know that no matter how much you love and want, no matter how much you ask and beg, sometimes things just get taken away from you. Like Claire. Like Anisa.

I share this black idea with Emily as we pull onto the highway. It’s still sitting heavy in the air as the city disappears behind us.

“Jesus, Will,” she says after a while. “That’s really depressing. Maybe—lighten up a little?”

We exchange a look in the dim interior of the car, and then we both start to laugh. Hard. Tears streaming, shoulders shaking. It feels good, like really good. It’s the first time I’ve had a belly laugh in a damn long time.

But then the laughter dies and we are in the dark, driving north—to find someone we’ve both loved and lost. Someone who may be in trouble—or not. Who may need a rescue, or who may see what we’re doing as deluded, a terrible violation of the space she’s claimed.

She doesn’t want you, I remind myself.

We ride in silence.

“I always wonder why she came that night,” I say after I don’t know how long. “After everything. Why she even answered my call.”

I say it out loud, even though I don’t mean to. Dr. Black thinks I shouldn’t attach too much meaning to it. It was the right thing, the human thing to do. And Anisa is a kind person. Of course she wouldn’t just ignore my calls and let me die.

“She didn’t,” Emily says. Her voice is soft but clear, and the words ring like a bell in my psyche.

“What do you mean?”

“It was—me,” she says.

We’ve pulled off the interstate and onto the smaller rural highway that leads to town, trees all around. We haven’t seen another car for a while now.

“It was me,” she says again.

“You?”

There’s a kind of tightening in my center.

“She never answered you that night.

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