The Disappearance of Emily H. by Summy Barrie

Author:Summy, Barrie [Summy, Barrie]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Delacorte BFYR
Published: 2015-05-12T07:00:00+00:00

My mom and I spend the rest of the evening like two cats, prowling around silently, careful not to cross paths. When she’s watching TV in the living room, I hit up the kitchen for food. When I’m in the shower, she grabs something to eat.

She goes to work Tuesday. I call the absence line, fake my mom’s voice, then skip school and watch TV all day in my pajamas. Late in the afternoon, I finally drag myself to the shower and try to scrub off the tattoo. I doubt Torie, Sydney, and Willow want me in the henna tattoo gang anymore. Well, maybe Willow does. She’s so nice, she probably doesn’t even kill flies or mosquitoes or cockroaches.

Later that night, when I’m already in bed but not asleep, Mom pushes open the door to my room and tiptoes to the middle. She stands in a moonbeam, surrounded by pearly light.

“Raine, you don’t want to be like me.” Her voice is sad. “Running away every time life gets tricky.”

I sit up, my legs dangling over the edge of the frame.

“It’s too bad your grandmother died. Your life would’ve been a lot better, a lot more stable, I guess.” She stands there quietly, her arms hanging limply at her sides. “Look, I didn’t realize until this weekend what I was doing. What kind of role model I’ve been.” She closes her eyes briefly. “It’s not okay to take off every time life gets rough.”

“What are you saying?”

She straightens her shoulders. “We’re doing it the right way this time. We’re staying in Yielding. We’ll handle whatever it was that happened at school.”

“And when something goes wrong with your next boyfriend?” I ask. “What are we doing then?”

“We’ll stay.” She blows out a breath. “For the first time in my life, I won’t run.”

After she leaves, I lie on my side, watching the dust particles in the moonbeam. They float, sometimes colliding with each other, sometimes gliding past, sometimes switching directions and joining up with other particles. Whichever path they choose, the particles keep on floating. They’re like people, and the moonbeam is Yielding. One of these particles is me. One is Jennifer. One is Shirlee. One is Hugh. There used to be one named Emily.

In the morning, I make another call to the absence line. Obviously I can’t skip school forever with bogus illnesses. But I’m not ready to go back yet.

I head over to Grinders. Bert’s sitting at a table with a few of his cronies, watching bowling on TV. He leans on a cane to get upright and limps to the counter.

“Same order?” he says. He doesn’t ask why I’m not in school. Maybe he doesn’t realize it’s a school day. Or maybe he thinks I’m homeschooled. Or maybe he knows that sometimes it’s safer to ditch.

“Yeah.” I wait for him to make the hot chocolate and carry it over to the same booth Shirlee and I sat in before. I pull my laptop from its bag and power it on.

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