The Year After You by Nina de Pass

Author:Nina de Pass [de Pass, Nina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2020-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

27

I wake to the sound of hail hitting glass, and with an idea.

A gray light has begun to sneak through the gaps in the curtains, sending a thin beam across the bottom of my foldout bed and onto Hector, who is midsleep. Soon after we had dinner last night, both of us crashed, exhausted after a day of traveling. Just before Hector fell asleep, he muttered the plan for today: to call all the hospitals and see whether they’ll tell us if she’s there. My idea is much better than that.

I decide to give Hector longer in bed—longer to be unaware. Today is a day that could hold a number of outcomes—most of which I’d like to avoid.

For someone who told me they didn’t need a lot of it, the sleep he’s in now is silent and absolute. He doesn’t stir as I extract myself from the sheets and riffle through my duffel for my toiletry bag. Even with his mouth slightly open and his cheeks creased with pillow marks, he looks as attractive as ever.

I take my clothes to the bathroom to get dressed and catch my reflection in the mirror above the sink. For the first time since the crash, I mind how I look—actually mind enough to do something about it. I search around in my bag and find a crusty concealer stick. I wipe away the majority of the muck on the top and start dabbing it under my eyes. I don’t have much else in the way of makeup—nothing compared to the whole bag of it G and I used to share in the U.S.—but I do finally find a pot of peach lip balm.

As I go to the kitchen to make tea, a memory swims to the surface of my mind. I’m in the bathroom at school before class, waiting dutifully as I did every morning for G to put on some makeup.

“Peachy Dreams?” she says, staring at the little pot with an incredulous look on her face. “Honestly, they make up the stupidest names for these things.”

I pull out a different, dark shade of red. “Would you prefer Ravishing Raspberry?”

“That’s not an actual one?”

“Or Curious Clementine?” I say, pulling out another.

She starts to giggle. “God, next it will be Brilliant Banana….”

My father, outfitted in garish sportswear, walks into the kitchen, shaking me into the present. His ensemble, royal blue leggings and a crisp, lightweight jacket that rustles when he moves, looks like he walked into a store and let the assistant have the time of their life.

“You’re up early,” he says through a yawn.

I divert my gaze away from the Lycra and focus on stirring the tea bags around two mugs. “What time is it?”

“Almost eight,” he says.

“Hardly early.”

“Well, you are a teenager.”

I roll my eyes. It feels so predictable. I can just imagine him poring over a Teenagers for Dummies guide before we arrived.

“I’m going for a run,” he says. “While I’m gone, why don’t you have a think about

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