Don't Try to Find Me: A Novel (31 page)

No pressure.

“Can I bring you anything? A heating pad? More food? Bernard?” Bernard the Bear is sitting on her dresser, his onyx eyes seeming to rest on us.

She shakes her head.

“I feel like there’s so much to say, and I’m drawing a blank. Do you feel that way?” I ask hesitantly.

“Sort of.” But there’s something wary in her reply. Something she doesn’t want me to know?

Of course there are things she doesn’t want me to know. She ran away from home. She was living with a felon. She didn’t call us. She never wrote. She told the police she wasn’t ready to come home.

But she did watch my video.

“What was it like to watch that video?” I say. I know what it’s like to have this conversation—it’s like jumping into the deep end of the pool when you’ve never had a lesson and you’re not sure you put on your life vest correctly.

“It was like watching a different person.” Her eyes move down to the bedspread, which she smooths with her hand.

“Did you like that person better?”

She shrugs.

I’m trying to think of another question when she says, “What was it like to make the video?”

“Have you ever heard of a runner’s high?” She indicates no. “I’ve never been a runner but apparently, toward the end of a marathon, people can get really euphoric. It’s like they’ve just let go of everything. And that’s how I felt doing that video. Like I was high.” I feel embarrassed, realizing she knows that I’ve actually been high on my pills.

But she’s smiling a little. “So talking to me was like getting high?”

“I felt like I didn’t have anything left to lose. It was like, I’d tried so hard for so long to appear a certain way and it obviously didn’t work. The plan failed. Because you were out there somewhere, and the only way I could even try to reach you was through this camera. And all these other people were going to see it and judge me, and I was just thinking, Fuck it all.”

She plucks at the bedspread and her voice thickens with unshed tears. “I said fuck it, and I took off, and it ended up being so bad.”

I feel like crying, too. Brandon hurt her. I knew it.

She looks up at me. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to trust anyone. I don’t know how I can trust me.”

“That’s the whole trick,” I tell her.

Her lips tighten. “Did you get that from Dr. Michael?”

“No.”

“That’s what he used to say about therapy. That he was teaching me tricks.” Her eyes are so vulnerable. Have they ever been so vulnerable before? “I don’t know what to think about him. Was he manipulating me the whole time? Trying to make me think bad things about Dad? Stealing you away from us?”

“I don’t know what he was trying to do.”

“I think I loved him.” She goes back to plucking at the bedspread. “Did you?”

“I wasn’t in love with him.”

“But he loves you.”

“That’s what he calls it, yes.”

We lapse into silence. It kills me, but I wait for Marley to break it. “Mom, he told me what a narcissist is. The same definition you used in the video. That’s what he called Dad. And he said narcissists can’t change, so you might as well quit loving them.”

I find I can’t quite speak.

“I blamed you for a lot of things, and they might not have been you at all. I thought you and Dr. Michael chose each other over me.”

“That’s why you left?”

“Part of it.”

“I think”—and it’s time to finally say it out loud—“he was trying to choose both of us. I think he wanted to be my husband, and he wanted to be your father. There was no room for your dad.”

“He told me something else,” she says. “That it’s okay not to love your parents. That sometimes it’s better that way. He was talking about Dad, but . . .”

I feel a surge of anger. When Dr. Michael talked about leaving the door open, it turned out to be our front door. He thought he was only hurting Paul, I imagine, saying those things. He didn’t see that we were a family, and that has value. He didn’t consider what he was destroying.

Tried to destroy, I tell myself. He hasn’t succeeded.

“I’m not sure about anything,” she whispers.

I don’t ask permission to get in bed with her; I take a chance and do it. I stroke her hair and she doesn’t lean into me but she doesn’t protest either. I want to give advice or tell her it’ll be all right.

Instead, I wait.

“You can ask me things,” she says. “I might not always answer, though.”

“Okay.” It’s so huge, this invitation. I don’t want to blow it. “Did Brandon—” I stop myself. I don’t know if I’m equipped to handle the answer. But then I tell myself I need to keep going, to say it as brutally as it might have happened because being honest is the only way forward. “Did he rape you?”

An interminable minute goes by. “It’s like I said. I’m not sure about a lot of things.”

“How did you meet him?”

She doesn’t look like she wants to answer, but then she does. “On Facebook.”

“He contacted you?” A grown man contacting a fourteen-year-old. I feel nauseated as she nods.

“I’m so messed up. I can tell because even though I gave the police Brandon’s name, I was kind of sorry that they caught him. I kind of hoped he’d go on Disappeared.com and start a new life. Because he’s not all bad. He’s had a lot of bad things happen to him. I turned out to be one of them. But then I remember things—they’re not memories, exactly, because it’s like I’m back there—and I want him locked up forever.”

I want that, too. “He’s much older than you. He convinced you to run away from home and to live with him. None of this can be your fault.”

She looks me in the eye. “I’m not just some victim. We did it together. We both wanted to be someone else.”

“Disappeared.com, was that something you were going to do together?”

She nods miserably. I never thought someone could seem so tormented at fourteen. Surely never thought my own daughter would.

I move my lips to her temple and say, “You don’t need to understand everything right now. We’ll figure it out together. And when we do, whoever needs to pay, we’ll make him—or them—pay. Okay?”

I’m not sure it’s what a good mother would say. I don’t know what comes next, or what will happen tomorrow, or whether I can believe in her, or if she can believe in me. If I can believe in me. My daughter and I both have some serious credibility issues, and that might be the least of our problems. Still . . .

“You survived,” I say. “You’re stronger than—”

“Than I think,” she finishes. “Dr. Michael told you about that, huh?”

“I was going to say you’re stronger than I thought. I underestimated you.”

“I guess I underestimated you, too.” Another pause. “I had a journal I wrote in. I think that helped. It kept me from going crazy. And sometimes it was actually kind of fun. I felt like I was good at it.”

“You’ve always been talented. Maybe you could . . .” Write for the newspaper. Write short stories. Study creative writing in college. But I don’t let myself finish the sentence. She can think about all that later and decide for herself.

“Maybe I could,” she says. She’s quiet again.

“I’m going to keep holding you, until you tell me to stop.” I feel like I can hardly breathe, I’m so sure I’ll hear that word. I’m that sure she’ll push me away. But I have to give her the choice: yes or no, stop or go. Otherwise, it doesn’t mean anything.

But what she says is, “Do you still have Kyle’s phone number?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

She wants to reach out to a boy who’s almost her age. It’s so amazingly normal. “I really liked Kyle, too.”

“He protected me. There were some scary people on the bus.” She pauses. “Maybe more sad than scary.”

From here on out, I’ll do a much better job protecting all of us. “We’ll be okay,” I say. Then I feel a little silly, having inadvertently quoted her good-bye note.

But she quotes it right back: “We’ll be better.”

As she rests her head on my shoulder, I know that we already are.

IT’S A CLICHÉ, BUT
it’s true. You get fresh starts and second chances. You can keep trying. Or, in my case, start trying. I’m not sure I ever gave this town, or the people in it, a real go. It’s not like anyone was begging me to eat lunch with them, but I can’t blame them. I was Invisible Girl.

I am definitely not invisible anymore. There were like a ton of reporters outside when we got home yesterday.

But for now, Journal, it’s just you and me.

I’m not going to lie. I thought about getting a new journal, or just writing on my iPad. It didn’t feel right, though. That’d be like trying to forget everything you and I went through. Hard as it all was, I don’t want to let it go. It feels—important, somehow.

So instead, I turned the page. Another cliché that might be true, I don’t know yet.

I kept waking up last night. I had a bunch of dreams about B. Some were nightmares, some weren’t. Is it stupid that I still think, in his way, he really loved me?

I want to ask someone’s opinion. Mom? No, it’s too soon to talk to her about that. She’d be all traumatized. Kyle, maybe. I think I’ll call him later. He’ll probably be shocked to hear from me. The cool thing about Kyle is how much he talks. If I don’t feel like saying much, I can just float down on the river of his words.

Mom wants me to get a new therapist ASAP. Yeah, right. Like I could ever trust a professional again.

Mom and Dad are downstairs. They’re making breakfast together: He’s making the smoothies, she’s doing French toast. It’s been years since they did that. I can hear the murmur of their voices. A couple of times, I even heard her laugh.

Dad said we’re having a “staycation” for the next few days: None of us are leaving the house or turning on our phones or computers or anything. He’s waiting for the reporters to leave and for the online coverage to die down. But I’m not sure I agree. I might want to step outside and make a statement. This could be my chance to be seen.

The blender whirs like a propeller, and when it stops, my dad calls, “All ready, Marley!”

I’ll let you know how it goes.

HOLLY BROWN
lives with her husband and toddler daughter in the San Francisco Bay area, where she’s a practicing marriage and family therapist. Her blog, Bonding Time, is featured on PsychCentral.com.

        
1. We first meet Rachel when she’s discovered that her daughter is missing. What were your initial impressions of her? How did your perspective evolve?

        
2. “She’s a normal teenager, i.e., moody maybe, but not depressed.” These are Rachel’s thoughts upon reading Marley’s good-bye note on the whiteboard. Does this accurately characterize the Marley you come to know over the course of the book? Is she depressed? Is she ordinary, or exceptional? Is Rachel out of touch with who her daughter truly is?

        
3. “Normal teenagers don’t run away. Ergo, she didn’t run away,” Rachel goes on to think. This exposes one of Rachel’s blind spots. If you’re a parent yourself, what do you think your blind spots might be? Are we all prone to some forms of denial?

        
4. What kind of wife is Rachel? What kind of husband is Paul? How do you imagine their marital dynamics shaped Marley and her view of relationships?

        
5. If Rachel had monitored Marley more closely—including her use of social media—would their story have been different? How do you think social media impacts teens and their ability to connect with one another, their parents, and the world around them?

        
6. What do you think Marley was really looking for in her relationship with B.? What does it say about her that she chose to be involved with him? Did B. lure Marley, was she simply looking for a way out, or both?

        
7. When a teenager runs away, do you think that the parents are always on some level responsible?

        
8. What’s the significance of the Teen Angst playlist in the novel? What does it mean to Marley, to Rachel, and for their connection with one another?

        
9. Is there a victim in the novel? More than one? Who gives up their power and control? In what ways, and for what reasons?

       
10. Have you ever kept secrets? What would you do if you knew that a social media campaign had the potential to bring your runaway child home but could also expose those secrets to an unforgiving public?

       
11. A theme in the novel is visibility. In this social-media-saturated world, is it more important to be seen than to be known? To be “liked” (on Facebook) as opposed to truly liked?

       
12. “Opposite-speak is different from lying, because when you use it, you always know. You’re never trying to fool yourself,” Marley writes in her journal, as a way to contrast herself with her mother. “The worst thing you can be is a liar to yourself.” Do you agree?

       
13. Dr. Michael is very important to both Marley and Rachel. Is he a destructive or a constructive force? What do you imagine his intentions to be?

       
14. If you were Paul, would you forgive Rachel? If you were Rachel, would you want to salvage the marriage?

       
15. Were you surprised to discover Rachel’s prescription-drug abuse? Did it cause you to reexamine her behavior throughout the novel?

    
16. Rachel and Marley both ultimately tap into their individual strength, resilience, and authenticity. But it’s at a cost. Is this a novel about empowerment, or something else? What have they learned about themselves, each other, and their relationship? What comes next for them?