Meet Me Here by Bryan Bliss

Author:Bryan Bliss
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mallory wants to retrace her steps—to check the cafeteria, the darkened wings of the sleeping hospital—but I limp toward the parking lot. He isn’t getting a late-night snack or haunting the hallways. He’s gone.

“Maybe we should wait near the emergency room,” Mallory says. “Or maybe he’s by the truck?”

I keep stumbling forward. He’s not at the truck. He’s off . . . where? Running through the shadows of our small town. But for what reason? That’s the big question, of course. Why he needs to disappear. Why he can’t just turn himself back on, flip whatever switch got rearranged inside his head.

When we get to the truck and he’s not there, my point proved, I put my head on the hood and try to think. The pain in my leg makes it difficult to form clear thoughts, especially when Mallory’s phone goes off again. I stand up, and my vision swims momentarily. I’m not sure if it’s my leg or everything else.

“If you’re not going to talk to him, just turn off the phone already,” I say.

She silences the phone as it rings, giving me a hateful look. “This isn’t my fault.”

“Thanks for clearing that up,” I say, tweaking my leg as I move to the driver’s side of the door. I grimace, and the annoyance drifts from her face.

“Give me the keys,” she says, rubbing her hand over her face. “We’ll go find him.”

“I don’t need you to drive.”

I try to take a step, and another bolt of pain shoots up my leg. She blocks the door and says, “Listen, I get that you’re worried. And if you want me to help you, I will. But the first thing you need to do is stop being an asshole, and then we can start searching for him.”

I’m going to scream. To punch the truck until my knuckles bleed. I have to move, to do something before all the pain and anxiety and anger that are inside me mix together and become a bomb. I halfheartedly take another step toward the door, and when Mallory sees me cringe, she leads me to the passenger side and doesn’t move until my seat belt is buckled.

After she gets in and starts the truck, she takes a deep breath and says: “Do you think he went home?”

I don’t answer her at first, because I honestly hadn’t thought about that. If we go back now and he’s not there, then I have to answer not only for being out all night, but for losing Jake, too. At this point I have no idea what to say to my parents about either question without being completely honest.

“I don’t think he would go home,” I finally say, trying to believe it.

“So . . . where then?”

I look out into the empty parking lot. Before, when Jake was in high school—when he wasn’t so bent—the possibilities would’ve been endless: parties, friends, football, and baseball games. It’s just as endless now, of course, but there’s no framework to lean on.

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