I sit on the floor and cover my face with my hands, shaking my head. The littlethank yousinks, not quickly, but unstoppably.
Chapter 8
When I wake up the next morning, River isn’t there.
Instead, on the bedside table, I find a chocolate bar, a bottle of Starbucks cappuccino from the refrigerated section, and a piece of paper.
Tucks, fixed stars do not orbit. They hover in the sky and glow.
Tucks. The word sends a sweet tingle through my veins. His handwriting is beautiful, as if he writes by hand more often than on the computer. I noticed that yesterday.
He must have found my Big Five.
Is he on the phone again? I hurry to the window and look outside, but he isn’t there. The Porsche isn’t there either, and for a moment, I’m afraid he’s simply disappeared like Mom, but then I spot his sports bag.
I peer thoughtfully across the parking lot and stop at a VW bus with a colorful peace sign. For some reason, several people want him to come back to a place he calls hell—if I understoodcorrectly.Do you have family? Unfortunately. Is his parents’ home his hell? But it doesn’t seem like he still lives there.
And what does he mean byThey’re making a zombie out of me?Drugs? I look at his gym bag with a bad feeling in my stomach. Now, I could snoop undisturbed.
I involuntarily open and close my fingers, feeling the softness of the Handana on my left hand, and a tiny smile spreads across my face.
No, I definitely won’t be searching his things like a private detective. He doesn’t ask about my silence. He just accepts it. So, no matter what’s going on with him, I’ll accept his privacy as well. Maybe that’s just part of the deal.
I’m halfway through the cappuccino and finishing off the chocolate bar when I hear an engine revving, followed by tires screeching on gravel. I jump up just in time to see River pull to a halt outside the motel at the last moment, the heavy beat music in the Porsche cranked up.
A few seconds later, he unlocks the room door, and it smacks the wall as he enters the room carrying two huge shopping bags.
“Ready to shine?” he asks with a wry grin and throws the shopping bags onto the bed. In fact, it appears untouched, as if he had another all-nighter. Maybe he took speed. He also seems to be in a much better mood again.
I smile nervously as he unpacks various things while studying me. My eyes widen. He brought a charging cable for my cell phone. And clothes—definitely for me. I spot a pair of jeans and a dark blouse with batwing sleeves.Thank goodness, it’s long-sleeved!
River tosses me the charging cable, and I immediately plug in my phone, even though I don’t want to know what my dad wrote. But I definitely have to text Spock; I need to know how he’s doing.
I’m wondering why River is carrying a chair into the tiny bathroom when there’s a knock on the door.
“Open it up for Mariah!” River calls to me from the bathroom.
I feel like an overcharged battery. I need my four walls, my protective zone where River is allowed but no one else. Nevertheless, I open the door, and Mariah abruptly pushes me aside as if I were a coat rack standing in her way. Today, she’s wearing a tight leather corset, hot pants, and cowboy boots.
“River?” Her voice is deep and throaty, making her sound older than she looks. I can’t help but wonder if she would have been one of the perpetrators, followers, or indifferent onlookers at Kensington.
“I’m in the bathroom!”
“Do I really have to?” Again, she gives me a disparaging look from behind kohl-rimmed eyes, and a stale taste fills my mouth. That’s how the girls from art class looked at me. They were followers who could be incited. They might have just whispered, but Chester was able to spur them into action. Sometimes, Marybeth’s water glass would tip over onto my work, or someone would accidentally slip with the box cutters or trip me in the narrow aisle.
The followers were actually the worst. They’re simply cowards.
I’m fixating convulsively on an uneven spot on the floor when I hear River say from the bathroom, “A deal is a deal.” He sounds determined.
Mariah sighs exaggeratedly and stretches the small of her back, making her corset creak. “All right. Then sit in the bath, you little scarecrow!” She waves her hand in the air as if I were a dog she’s shooing away.
“Hey, don’t call her that!”
“She looks like one, sorry.”
“Just because she isn’t all dolled up?”
“The only thing missing is the floppy hat or straw in the hair.”
