“What is your problem?!” Blake yelled, throwing the phone onto the table, where it landed next to my and Mariah’s phones. “Here, God, look at it! I don’t care!” And then he turned to me. “Control your friend!”
“Control your dick!” I shouted back. I don’t know who was more surprised by that, Mariah or Blake or me, but I didn’t care anymore. This whole situation was ridiculous, and I wished I had stayed at the movies, where I could have at least had some popcorn with my drama.
Blake glared at me and then stormed outside, leaving Mariah a crying mess in the living room. “I thought he loved me,” she said. “We were gonna go to Cabo for winter break!”
The idea of Blake being able to cross the border was dubious at best, but I didn’t say anything because Mariah was already hysterical enough. I looked around, waiting to see if anyone else was gonna try to take care of her, but apparently final judging on Project Runway was way more riveting than the real-life craziness happening in their living room. “Oh, geez,” I said under my breath, then put my arm around Mariah’s shaking shoulders and leaned against the table with her. She crumpled into me, still crying, and I saw Blake flashing in her brain, along with images of her dad.
I did not even want to know what the connection was there.
“Look,” I said to Mariah, rubbing her shoulder the way April would always rub mine whenever I was upset. “Think of it this way, why would you want to date someone who lies to you?”
“But he said he loved me!”
I tried not to roll my eyes. “Blake probably says a lot of things,” I told her.
“He probably says them to that ho,” Mariah sniffled.
“Exactly,” I started to say, but just then I heard an engine start outside, a low guttural sound that I recognized.
So did Mariah.
“Is Blake leaving?” she screeched, hopping off the table and rushing to the front door, where Blake’s taillights were rapidly disappearing out of the parking lot. “That asshole!” she screamed.
I watched just over her shoulder. Not that I was the president of Blake’s fan club or anything, but I didn’t want to be left without a ride home from the party. And I couldn’t obviously call my mom or my sisters, since no one knew I was here. And if we called Henry, then he would probably call May.
A tiny panicked spiral started to spin in my stomach.
Mariah, however, was too upset to think about anything other than Blake. “Fine!” she snapped, slamming the door so hard that it shook the windows. “Fine, you bastard!”
I reached for my phone on the table and flipped it open, ready to call a cab and get us out of this nuthouse. But when I looked at the screen, all I saw were mysterious texts, texts addressed to Blake.
Blake had taken my phone instead of his.
Holy shitballs.
“Is that Blake’s phone?” Mariah suddenly demanded. She had sort of a triumphant look on her face, like a villain in a Disney movie, the kind that used to give me nightmares when I was a little kid. She snatched it out of my hands and snapped it open, scrolling through Blake’s phone like she had done it a million times before. And judging from her thoughts, she had. “Mariah, c’mon, let’s just call a cab,” I said. I had seven dollars and a pack of delicious gummy worms on me, and I wasn’t sure if that would get us very far. But we could worry about that later. The guy in the corner was already trying to figure out if either Mariah or I was going to sleep with him, and my panic spiral got a bit more intense.
The music was still blasting, but I didn’t need to hear to know that Mariah had found her proof. It was written all over her face.
“He’s meeting up with her,” she finally said, sounding kind of angry and kind of broken. “They’re meeting at the park on Mulholland and Old Topanga. Who the hell meets at the park? What is it, a playdate?”
“Who is it?” I asked her, trying to peek at the phone.
“Some Avery chick,” Mariah said. “Do you know her? Is she ugly?”
I just shook my head in a vague sort of way. “She doesn’t exactly look great in khakis,” I said. “C’mon, let’s just get a cab. We can go back to my place or your place, hang out, watch a movie.”
“What, and play board games like you did with your old friends? This isn’t kindergarten, June!” Mariah glared, ripping herself away from me and cradling the phone in her hand. “Hey, Nick!”
A guy on the couch looked up. “What?”
Mariah held out her hand. “Keys,” she said. “You’re out of beer.”
Nick’s thoughts were so smoked that I could barely see them, but when he just handed over his car keys, I knew it didn’t matter. No matter what anyone else thought, I knew the truth: This was a very, very bad idea.
“Mariah!” I hissed behind her. “This is crazy! You don’t even have a license! And you’re only fifteen! You can’t buy beer!”
“I have a permit!” she said. “And whatever, we’re just going to the park! And it’s not like Nick even gives a shit about where we’re going.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “So are you coming or not?”
I hesitated in the doorway, stalling for time. The party had spilled out into the parking lot by this point, people smoking and drinking and crowding all around the tiny doorway. Someone’s car was playing rap music, which clashed with the music coming from inside the house. No one seemed to think it was strange that Mariah was leaving in someone else’s car. Maybe this was just an average Monday for them, I had no idea.
One thought was strong above all others. It was mine.
I wish my sisters were here.
“Well?” Mariah demanded, her hand on the door to Nick’s car, a beat-up Corolla. “If you’re coming with me, do it now!”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“The park!” she said. “Duh, where else? We’re gonna confront them! If he thinks he can just lie to me …”
Her brain was working, that was for sure. She wasn’t trashed, wasn’t high, and she did at least have a permit.
“Fine,” I said. “But then you’re taking me home.”
“Whatever,” she said. “Just get in the car.”
“The back window’s down,” I said as I climbed into the front seat. “That’s not really safe, anyone could just—”
“Just get in,” Mariah interrupted me.
She was just starting the engine when another car came careening into the parking lot. “Mariah!” someone yelled as a car door slammed, and I turned around and saw Henry starting to run after us. “Hey, Mariah, wait!”
“Don’t you wanna wait?” I said, my hand already on the door handle.
“For Henry?” Mariah scoffed as she shifted the car into “drive” and started to accelerate. “Please.”
I looked over my shoulder again. Henry was close enough that I could see how upset he looked. If the car hadn’t already been moving, I probably would’ve gotten out and asked him to take me home. Maybe he could be bribed into not telling May with seven dollars and some gummy worms.
Mariah hit the gas harder and the car sped forward, cold wind breezing in through the car’s busted-out window. “Look out, Blake,” she sneered. “Shit’s about to go down.” I winced and reached for my seatbelt, finally remembering my sisters’ warnings for the first time in my life.
But when I looked down, I saw that it was already fastened safely around me.
chapter 22
“There’s been an accident.” april
The vision hit me so hard that I almost doubled over in the front seat of Julian’s car. June following Mariah out of an apartment. Red and blue lights, sirens, June’s face scared in the front seat of a car. It came again and again, relentless.
“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” The words didn’t even sound like mine, but I kept saying them.
I saw Julian turn towards me, looking like he was ready to start picking up the pieces. “April?” he said, his voice a little unsure. “What—?”
I could see the street signs in my head,
Mulholland and Old Topanga. The dark corners, the dim streetlights. Red lights, bright white lights almost blinding me …
“It’s my sister,” I told Julian, and I barely recognized my own voice. “We have to go. Right now. It’s June, it’s …” Other cars, lights, Avery—
Avery?
“It’s everyone!” I told Julian tearfully, not knowing how else to explain it. “We have to go!”
“April, you’re shaking!”
“Come on!” I cried, trying to grab and turn his keys, which had been sitting idle in the ignition. The vision was slamming into my brain again and again, and I put my hands to my temples and covered my eyes, trying to find space to think.
“April, what—?” Julian reached out to take my hand, but I skittered away and started putting my seatbelt on. “C’mon!” I told him. “Drive, drive, let’s go!”
“Okay, fine, where are we—hey!” He grabbed me by the shoulder first and made me look at him. He was scared of me, I could tell. “April, talk to me, what—?”
I looked up at him. “It’s my sister,” I said, and I could hear everything in my voice that I hadn’t said before. “She’s with Mariah! It’s not … it’s not okay! She’s supposed to be at the movies!”
“But how do you know this?”
I unbuckled my seatbelt and started to get out of the car. The park was probably a half-mile away. I could run there, but Julian yanked me back before I could open the door. “Okay, okay, just tell me where we’re going,” he said, starting the ignition.
“The park on Old Topanga by school,” I said as the vision came again. It didn’t hurt, not the tiniest headache or pain, but my body felt like it was being ripped apart. “I didn’t see it,” I whimpered.
“What didn’t you see?” Julian demanded. He was driving with one hand and had his other hand back on my shoulder. I couldn’t even feel his touch.
“I—I’m supposed to watch her,” I said against my hands. “I didn’t see her coming here. I didn’t know she was … I was … I was with you.”
“Don’t tell me this is all because we almost kissed.”
I could tell Julian was trying to make me laugh, relax, do something other than scare the crap out of him, but I just stayed rigid in my seat, feeling the seatbelt cut into my skin. It was too tight. Everything felt too tight. “I didn’t see her because I almost kissed you,” I whispered. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“April, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Turn right,” I replied as my heart moved into my throat. But I knew we wouldn’t get there in time. The sirens, the lights, the noise, they were in my head and they weren’t leaving now. They weren’t going anywhere until it was over. “Oh my God,” I said again. “I missed her.”
“You didn’t,” Julian said, and he let go of my shoulder as he steered and grabbed my hand instead, pulling it away from my face. “We’ll get there; we’ll find her.”
“No, we won’t,” I said. “We won’t.” I fumbled for my phone, flipping it open and seeing three missed calls from May. She hadn’t left a message. But just seeing the number three made my stomach lurch, and I had to fight to not throw up. I tried to call both her and June back, but their phones just rang and rang, the most frustrating sound in the world.
Julian and I rode in silence for the next minute. His jaw was tight as he clutched the steering wheel, and I put my head in my free hand and tried to see past everything, tried to get something new, something that would tell me that June was all right. We sat at a red light for so long that I thought it was part of my vision at first, but when Julian made an impatient sound and drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, I realized that I was still in real life.
And there was no more time to wait.
Before Julian could do anything, I threw off my seatbelt and bolted out of the car, leaving the passenger door open as I ran up the dark street, past our high school, past the dry cleaner’s on the corner. “April, wait!” I heard Julian yell, but he was pinned by oncoming traffic.
I still had my phone in my hand, and I dialled 911 as I ran.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“Old Topanga and Mulholland,” I said, my breath coming so hard that I could barely understand myself. “There’s been an accident.”
I ran harder, the cold eucalyptus air filling my lungs and shoving me forward, crickets somewhere chanting a rhythm to match my furious pace. Go go go, I chanted in my head, trying to see straight ahead even as the visions covered my eyes. Get there, get there, get there. June, June, June.
I was so winded by the time I arrived that my ribcage felt like a broken accordion. The park was nearly pitch-black, and I stopped right at the entrance, gasping for breath and trying to figure out what was happening. There was nothing, no sound other than crickets and pond frogs and the very distant sounds of traffic.
“Where is it?” I cried out loud. “What’s happening?” Was this all there was? Had I gotten it wrong? Maybe June had left here and was going to the party, and my brain had flipped the vision. I didn’t realize I was crying until I tasted the salt on my lips, and I whirled in a frantic circle, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
That’s when I saw Blake and Avery.
They were standing by the fence, not even a hundred feet away from me. They were kissing a little, Avery’s little voice murmuring above everything else. Her hair was the color of the night. In the distance, I could hear sirens heading our way, the ones I had summoned.
“No!” I yelled at Blake and Avery. “No, you can’t!”
They looked up in confusion, their faces suddenly illuminated by white light, and when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw the car coming towards us, its headlights burning into my eyes. I could see the red lights, too, the brake lights of other cars as they got out of the car’s way, all the lights as perfect as I had seen them in my visions, and I suddenly understood.
I was the accident. Not June. It was me.
I stood and watched as the lights came closer, too paralyzed to move.
I guess even when you can see everything, some things will always be a surprise.
chapter 23
“Suddenly I was invisible and running.” may
If June and I didn’t die during this whole escapade, then I was going to kill her.
A lot.
I didn’t even know why I got in the backseat of the car. All I knew is that Henry pulled up to the apartment, and I saw June getting into the car. Suddenly I was invisible and running, sliding into Mariah’s car through the open window before Henry even noticed I was gone. He was probably worried now, wondering where I had gone. Great, another problem to add to the list. (And also, I was super-bummed that I was invisible while slipping into the car because I’m sure that was some epic Dukes of Hazzard-style shit right there.)
At least I had gotten June’s seatbelt around her, clicking it into place while Mariah wailed about something. June looked as nervous as a squirrel, big eyes and twitchy, and I knew that it was bad.
“He swore he wasn’t cheating!” Mariah sobbed as she drove. “He promised me!”
“If Blake’s gonna lie to you, then he’s not worth it,” June said, trying to calm her down. “You don’t need him.”
All this was over Blake? Oh my God, you have to be joking.
But Mariah was too upset to even listen, and she took a deep, shaky breath and continued to cry. “He p-promised, though!”
Was Mariah slurring now? Had she been drinking? Could this possibly get any worse?
June looked stricken. “Mariah,” she gasped, “you’re not pregnant, are you?”
So yes, it could possibly get worse.
“No!” Mariah shouted, and both June and I fell back against our seats in relief. “Are you crazy? No, I’m not pregnant! I just … he said he wouldn’t leave! I can’t—I just can’t. Why do guys keep leaving?”
The girl was doing the full-on ugly cry, and despite my cold, cold heart and the fact that she was
possibly driving me and my little sister straight to our deaths, I couldn’t help but feel a bit lightheaded, hearing her panic, hearing her voice these feelings that were so close to what I had gone through, too.
In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I was sure that this wasn’t about Blake at all.
June was starting to realize the same thing, I could tell. She always looks like she’s watching a movie when she’s reading people’s thoughts, and now as she gazed at Mariah, her profile just looked sad. “There’s no Cabo house, is there?” June said quietly.
Mariah sniffled and made a gross snotty sound, but didn’t reply.
The car picked up speed, sailing through a yellow light, and I prayed that there was a cop around who would pull us over and stop the whole crazy train.
“Hey,” June said. “You know, Mariah, it’s okay. You still have your mom, right? And Henry, he’s still around. He showed up at the party tonight; that’s gotta mean he cares about you.”
“Screw them.”
“Oooookay,” June said slowly. “Maybe that doesn’t count. But a lot of people like you, Mariah. They do, they really really do, and I just know this, okay?” When Mariah shot her a disbelieving look, June added, “I just do, and please don’t ask me why or how.”
The words didn’t work, and Mariah zoomed the car up towards Mulholland, still crying. She had so been drinking, I could tell. I hung on to the back of the seat, feeling the wind from the open window that I had leapt through tangle my invisible hair, and I started to laugh from sheer nerves. Only I could hear it, though. It sounded sort of crazed and sort of hysterical, and that’s when I knew that I was scared, too.
“Okay,” June said, and now she was babbling. If I laugh when I get nervous, June goes into motormouth mode. “Here’s the thing. You know my sister May? The skinnier one who always looks angry?”
Mariah didn’t answer.
“Well, when our parents first announced they were divorcing, she took it really hard. She got totally trashed on tequila, our parents were all worried, and then my dad moved to Houston and broke a promise to her, and it really hurt her a lot. And sometimes she gets mean because it’s easier for her to keep people out than let them in. Does that make sense?”