Illusions (The Missing #1) (12 page)

Day 4

The Present

While I weep – while I weep

M
y limbs felt stiff and my back hurt. I tried to move, but I felt as though I were encased in cement. I focused on moving just one finger but nothing happened.

I was paralyzed.

I grit my teeth to stop myself from screaming.

“I’m not sure how long she’ll stay like this . . .”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

What was that noise?

I had lost my phone somewhere
that night.
The sound was faint, like the wisp of almost silence carried in on the breeze.

But there was no breeze.

Just still, putrid air.

My chest felt tight and I couldn’t breathe.

I just need to move!

Then my eyes popped open and I sat up, gasping and wheezing. I felt as though I had barely survived drowning. My mouth open and closed as I sucked in much needed oxygen. There was a brief instant where I thought I was somewhere else.

I
hoped
I was somewhere else.

But as my eyes adjusted to the dim light in my barren prison, the crushing truth settled around me once more.

Nothing had changed.

I was still trapped.

No way out.

No escape.

But then I remembered the thump I had heard. Was it yesterday? Last night? Only hours before?

Time meant nothing. It was indistinct. Held no meaning.

Sometimes I tried to focus on the shifting light through the dirty window to give me some idea of whether it was night or day. The desire never lasted long. The more I fixated on the light, the time of day, the more depressed and despondent I became. Which gave way to anger. Which then fed into my hysteria.

Then I’d count again.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

I scrambled up to my feet, wiping grit from my eyes. I had finally run out of water, so I tried not to think about how dry my throat felt. About how my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and rubbed against the inside of my cheeks like sandpaper. I tried to lick my lips that had begun to crack and bleed but found it did nothing to alleviate the discomfort.

I hurried to the far wall beside the door. I had heard the thump from the other side. I had been sure of it. It had been too real to be in my head.

Right?

“I heard you. I know I did,” I murmured. It hurt to talk. Dry, broken whispers barely heard.

I pressed my ear against the wood slats and waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

When my ear began to throb and my legs began to burn from standing in one position for too long, I turned around and pressed my other ear to the wall.

Silence.

Nothing.

I tried not to sob. I tried not to scream.

But I was teetering. Floundering. Ready to go over.

So just this once I gave in. I yelled. Even as my parched throat burned.

“I know you’re there!” I shrieked at the top of my lungs.

I jerked away, turning myself so that I faced the room, and slammed my back into the hard wall. The bite of pain made me wince, but it also made me feel
alive
.

I scraped my back up and down over the splintered wood. It ripped at the scabbed cuts and barely healed wounds that covered my skin.

It hurt. I felt the blood. But I wouldn’t stop.

I thought about Mother praying. I thought about the agony of the cane and Reverend Miller’s empty appeals for salvation.

“Save the abomination!”

Mother standing in the corner of the room never looking at me, her head bowed low.

“I don’t love you. I never have!”

Images weaved in and out. Hazy recollections. Were they real? Had they even happened? Or was I half delirious from exhaustion and thirst?

I was driving Mother’s car to the church. She wouldn’t let me roll down the window or listen to music. She hated the noise so I was forced to suffer her judgmental silence.

She barked orders. “You’re going too fast!” “Slow down around this turn!”

We were alone in the car. Just the two of us. Only ever the two of us. She wouldn’t let anyone else be present for these “special” meetings with the minister. She reserved that horror for me alone.

If I concentrated hard enough, perhaps I could convince myself we were going somewhere fun. Together.

I imagined driving to the coast. I had always wanted to go to the beach. But my family hadn’t been the sort to go on vacations.

Maybe we’d walk in the sand eating ice cream. Mother would ask me about school, and I’d tell her about the book I was reading. We’d laugh as the ocean tickled our toes, and she’d put her arm around me. I’d hug her back.

I almost smiled at the thought.

I wished so hard that was our life.

Then I could be thankful for her attention and not dreading it.

I blinked rapidly and shook my head, pressing the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. My head hurt. Something was wrong.

I was never allowed to drive Mother’s car.

That wasn’t right . . .

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

“Hello?” I shouted.

Silence.

Nothing.

Empty, endless quiet.

I rolled the thin band of silver around my thumb. Over and over again. It helped center me. It made me smile even as I despaired.

“Hello?” I yelled again into the void.

The senseless, never-ending blackness.

“I’m losing my mind. And now I’m talking to myself. Great,” I muttered. I slammed my open palm against the wood. “Just say something! If you’re there, please let me know!” I dropped my forehead to the wall. “Just let me know I’m not alone in here.”

I stood there long after the light from the window faded and the hot, oppressive air cooled marginally.

I wouldn’t move.

I waited. For the noise. For that small indication that someone else was there.

“Please!”

“What are those for?” I asked Mother when I got off the bus. She was putting together craft kits. Little baggies filled with sequins and ribbon and sparkly things.

I stood beside the couch and wished I could have one. They looked pretty, and I’d bet they were fun.

I probably shouldn’t ask her about them, but my curiosity got the better of me. I heard a car crunching over gravel outside and saw Dad’s car pulling up in front of the house. I liked it when Dad was home.

I felt something like happiness. Then it died. Quickly. Rosie got out of the passenger side and walked beside my dad up to the house. My beautiful foster sister had been living with us for six weeks, and I wished she would leave.

I had always been invisible, but now it was worse. Because she saw me. And she hated me for it.

Mother loved her. Doted on her.

Dad tolerated her because Mother wanted him to. He was absently kind in the same manner he was with me. Again reaffirming that I wasn’t special. That even my dad’s love was something I couldn’t claim as my own.

Mother never answered my question, and I never repeated it. When Dad and Rosie came inside, I slipped into the kitchen, trying not to cry when I heard Rosie ask Mother about the craft bags and Mother’s enthusiastic reply about a project she was doing at the pre-school where she had gotten a part time job.

Dad came into the kitchen not long after that and found me drinking a glass of milk by the sink. I didn’t dare take the glass out of the kitchen. Mother would yell at me and then I wouldn’t be allowed any snacks for the rest of the week.

Dad smiled at me, but it didn’t make me feel good like it used to. I had seen him smile at Rosie too. She took everything. Even the small things.

I finished my milk and quickly washed the glass, putting it away just as I found it. You’d never know I was there. I lived in this house as a ghost.

Make no noise. Stay locked away. Don’t let them know I’m here.

Then Mother could pretend that I didn’t exist.

“How was your day?” Dad asked. I knew he was trying. Trying to make up for all the rest. But it wasn’t enough. Not today.

Today I just wanted to hide and do as my mother wanted.

Disappear.

Dad walked over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. His fingers hesitated just before making contact as though forcing himself to demonstrate physical affection. But he touched me and I tried to focus on that.

“I know you have a hard time, Nora. I know I don’t help you as much as I should. Your mother isn’t a horrible person. She’s had a tough time too.” I hated when he excused her. I hated that he was making light of how she treated me.

“What about me?” I asked, having the strength, just this once, to say what was on my mind.

Dad put his arm around my shoulders, and my entire body leaned into him. My skin seemed absorbed his warmth, not knowing when,
if ever
, it would feel the skin of another person offering reassurance again. The act of being comforted almost unraveled me. My heart thumped painfully, my throat squeezed tight, my eyes burned and blurred with tears.

Too much.

Not nearly enough.

“She has her reasons, Nora. Sometimes living up to expectations is hard and what we
should
do isn’t what we
actually
do,” was all he would say. Why did I get the feeling he was talking about himself more than Mother?

I was filled with misgivings. They clawed inside me. Something felt wrong. I wouldn’t know until later how wrong it actually was. But just then I was enjoying the brief moment of connection with the man who, in his own neglectful way, cared about me.

“George, can you come help me with my math homework? Lesley said you were great at it.” Rosie came into the kitchen, and my dad pulled away from me quickly. The horrible girl stood so that she separated me from my father. And he smiled at her and asked her about her day, and once again I wasn’t there . . .

Rosie followed my dad out of the room, looking at me over her shoulder. And she smiled. It was the sort of smile that filled me with apprehension.

Why was I thinking about these horrible events from a past best forgotten? Why did it matter now, in this foul place, that my dad, who I had loved more than anyone, didn’t love me nearly as much as I needed him to?

People failed you. It was the only constant thing in life. You couldn’t rely on others. They let you down every time.

I stopped begging. I gave up pleading with someone who most likely wasn’t even there. The noise had to have been in my imagination. I was inventing things. Creating stuff that wasn’t real.

It wasn’t the first time that had happened.

I couldn’t wait to get to Maren’s house.

I felt so much joy. So much excitement. I knew that tonight was the night.

I remembered the way she touched my face earlier that day. The way her fingers seemed to linger on my cheek. The feel of her lips on my face when she kissed the ugly, ugly scar.

She meant everything to me.

I buzzed with anticipation.

Soon we’d be everything for each other. Then every awful thing that came before wouldn’t matter. Because we were exactly where we belonged.

The skin on top of my foot felt as though it were on fire. I carefully touched the area that had been covered by a bandage that was now long gone. The area was tender, and I knew that the new tattoo, the one I had gotten not so long ago, was infected.

I barely registered the bite of the needle as it pierced my flesh. I had experienced so much worse in my life.

This was nothing.

I watched as the tattoo artist inked the top of my foot with a symbol I knew well.

A symbol that was etched on
her
body.

Now I wanted it on mine.

It would link us. Bind us.

Eternally.

I shook my head, not wanting to think about those particular memories. Not here. Not now.

I scratched at my hot, oozing skin. I scratched and scratched until the skin broke open, marring the precise, continuous circle.

“It’s the infinity symbol. It means forever. Constant. Always.” Maren looked so sad, and I wished I were brave enough to hold her the way that I wanted to. But I kept the distance. I hated the invisible barrier between us.

“I’ve always wanted something that lasts . . .”

I was hungry and tired and thirsty. I was going half out of my mind with fear and
wondering.

I closed my eyes and felt myself drifting away. And in that halfway state between waking and sleep, I heard the song.