Going Dark, page 13
Who else would know his phone number? He didn’t have any other friends. He hadn’t posted his number anywhere on his socials, he’d been so good about keeping everything contained, never shared more than he was supposed to online. He kept everything in a neat little package, giving the world exactly what it needed for him to be just like everyone else without giving too much away in turn. He was a private person, keeping himself safe, keeping to the sidelines, keeping his head low.
That habit of hers, calling him by his full name all the time, like it was one word. He’d thought it was cute, that it made her unique. Now he hated her.
None of this made any sense. He wanted to throw his phone through the wall, to scream, to pull his hair out. He’d been under the cops’ thumb this whole time and she was really alive. No one believed him, and the truth was right there, in his hand. He could run to Detective Hindmarsh now, show her some proof, and maybe she’d take him seriously. Most likely, she’d think he’d truly lost his mind.
Amelia was alive, and she was talking to him.
Was it all one big game? Had she really been the one who’d posted that anonymous comment? Are you looking for someone? Found you? Had she set this whole thing up?
He’d never done anything to her. He’d never hurt her. He loved her with every atom of his being, and this was how she repaid him? She was torturing him, like it was fun. He could barely type out the next message. Why are you doing this?
The reply came shortly after, with a blushing smiling emoji.
One more clue. What else do you say when you’ve found something, Archimedes?
Josh’s thoughts raced above the roar of blood rushing in his head. He closed his eyes and focused on his history knowledge.
Archimedes. The ancient Greek scholar. The first to understand the concept of displacement.
Then it hit him.
Oh.
Oh.
Eureka.
His confusion turned into something else as he got very still. His shoulders dropped and a simmering rage settled on his face as he uttered two words.
“You bitch.”
PART 4
GIRL, GONE
Five Years Earlier . . .
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MIGNON
Confidential and Personal Diaries of Mignon Lee
Date 3-7
I know my family hates me. They don’t try to hide it. I can see it in their eyes whenever they look at me. I’m a disappointment. Trouble. Work that they need to take care of.
I don’t blame them. Really. I get it. I’ve been me my whole life. I know what it’s like to live with myself.
They can’t take me anywhere without me having some sort of meltdown. I can’t help that my brain sometimes feels like a nuclear reactor and I’m going to explode.
That’s why I’m running away. I’m writing this for my family, just so they know I’m okay. For my sister at least. She won’t have to worry.
I’ve already packed my bag. Headphones. Extra clothes. It’s raining right now, but I can’t find my raincoat. (I’m going to use a garbage bag and punch holes in the sides for my head and arms.) Twenty dollars, that’ll be enough to get me at least to Sacramento. I’ve already memorized the bus schedule. I should be going.
If my parents accidentally throw this out, and this note winds up somewhere in the trash, carried away by the wind on its way to the dump, then let me introduce myself. I’m Mignon. I’m fourteen years old. And I don’t want to be found.
Date 3-8
Well, they found me.
I only made it halfway down Elk River Road before the car pulled over on the shoulder and the police officer got out, asking my name. I hadn’t thought about giving him a fake one, so I panicked.
I tried to run into the woods, but he was faster. He grabbed me by my backpack and hauled me back to the car where I sat, still dripping wet from the rain, while he called it in on the radio up front. Apparently, my parents had been looking for me. I’m surprised I made it this far.
I almost didn’t recognize him at first, but it was Officer Kennedy, the same one who’d picked me up last year. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve tried to run away. (I could probably go back through this diary and see, but I’m tired. My medicine is kicking in—it’s making me sleepy.)
Officer Kennedy asked me what I was doing out here, in the middle of the night, in the pouring rain, and I told him to let me go, but he ignored me. He just turned on the engine and drove me home, all the way back to Eureka. I’d walked almost four miles by the time he found me. My sneakers were already soaked through, so I guess maybe I could plan better next time for unexpected rain, maybe bring some boots, especially if I’m going to have to cut through one of the national parks. I can’t get very far with lakes in my shoes.
He didn’t even turn on the radio for us to listen to music as he drove. It was so quiet. And it smelled like armpit in the back seat. There was sand on the cracked vinyl, and it made everything so itchy. Someone must have been picked up from the beach and then my wet clothes picked up the sand, and I couldn’t sit still.
Officer Kennedy kept looking at me through the rearview mirror. I couldn’t really see the rest of his face, but his eyebrows were narrow and he looked at me like I was annoying him or something. By the time he pulled up to my house, the rain had mostly stopped, but he had to let me out from the back. (The door was locked. I’d already tried it.) He watched me as I climbed out of the car.
Mom and Dad weren’t waiting for me on the porch as usual whenever this happens, which meant they were inside. I could see the kitchen light on. Dad’s car was gone from the drive—I figured maybe to look for me—but Mom’s old Jeep was parked in the street. Officer Kennedy kept watching me as I trudged up the driveway, as if he thought I might try to make a break for it again, but my shoes were making squish-squish-squish noises as I walked, and he followed close behind me so I wouldn’t have made it far anyway.
He stood behind me as I opened the front door and went in. I kicked my shoes off and tried to hang my sopping socks on the radiator. They were limp, like wet noodles, and slapped the floor when they slipped off.
I heard Mom moving in the kitchen, but she wasn’t making dinner. I only heard the soft dink the wineglass made as it was set down on the table.
Officer Kennedy watched me from the other side of the door, his hands looped on his belt.
He asked, Can I talk to someone?
I called to Mom and she came shuffling out in her scrubs. Her soft blond hair was falling from a messy bun, and she massaged her face as she walked toward the front door. Officer Kennedy introduced himself and said where he’d found me.
Up past Humboldt Hill.
Mom sighed a thank-you, said I wasn’t going to be trouble again.
We can’t keep doing this, he said. Then he said that he might call child services if Mom or Dad couldn’t keep watch over me. The specific words he used were child endangerment.
Mom apologized, pleading for him not to do that, that we were all working on it and that he didn’t need to call anyone. Officer Kennedy said he hoped not. The police couldn’t keep wasting resources like this forever. Mom apologized again.
I couldn’t look at either of them because I knew both of them were looking at me, so I turned my attention elsewhere. From the shadows on the stairs, my sister was sitting halfway up the steps, her fingernails painted bright green as she gripped the posts of the railing, peering at me through the gaps.
Mom thanked Officer Kennedy, ending the conversation, and watched him leave before she closed the door. She didn’t even look at me. She just turned around and went back to the kitchen, and I knew to follow.
I shivered in the cold. The rain made my clothes stick to me like gum. My trash bag poncho idea hadn’t worked out the way I pictured. I ripped it off myself and it fell in shiny black pieces to the floor. I toed at them with my bare feet and gathered them in a pile while Mom took her spot at the kitchen table, handling her mostly full wineglass with one hand while she held her forehead with the other.
I asked where Dad was and she paused a moment, taking me in with her steady gaze, before she said he was out. Looking for me. Like I’d thought.
She asked me why I was doing this again. She thought we’d been over this, that I couldn’t run away like that. And I didn’t have a good answer. No one really gets me. I doubt they ever will.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I never really meant to leave forever. I always mean to come back. I don’t think it’d be a satisfying answer for someone like her, someone who is happy rooted exactly where she is. Sometimes I get these urges to run, to be somewhere else, and I can’t help it. It’s like I’m possessed, and I need to move or else I’m going to die. Literally die, heart stopped, on the floor. She doesn’t understand. She never inherited whatever mental problems Grandma had, but I did. Lucky me.
Except when Grandma had her problems, the medicine hadn’t been created for it yet. Plus most people didn’t believe a housewife could ever be unhappy. You just didn’t talk about that kind of stuff. It wasn’t good manners.
But when Mom looked at me over the kitchen table, with tired eyes after working a double at the hospital, asking me why again, I didn’t know. I still don’t.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I wasn’t around anymore, if I’d never been born. I think about someday finding people who might understand me. That’s why I leave, so I can find a place to rest my head where it doesn’t feel like I’m trouble.
Mom didn’t say anything else, just covered her eyes with her delicate hand, blocking me out of sight. So I left her alone.
I climbed the stairs, squeezed past Sis, palmed her head for balance, and took a bath. The sand from the police car fell off my skin and gathered at the bottom of the tub. I heard Dad come home. He slammed the front door behind him. I knew he wasn’t mad. When he’s scared, it can come off as mad. The door just happened to be the best thing to let out his feelings on. I used my foot like a squeegee to push the sand down the drain. I couldn’t get rid of it all. It’s kind of like me and my impulses. I can try to push them down, but sometimes a little bit remains and piles up and before I know it, there’s a beach in my bathtub of a brain.
As I unpacked all my things in my room, I heard Mom and Dad talking downstairs. I knew it was about me. I heard my name a few times. I didn’t care. At least they weren’t yelling.
All my clothes were wet, my headphones totally busted, and I’d completely forgotten to put the Nokia in a plastic baggie, so it dripped out water when I tipped it over. No phone, no music, square one.
Everyone knows I’m going to run away again. It’s only a matter of time. I think maybe I won’t for a while though. I took my medicine and things are quieter. I can lie on my bed and stare up at my ceiling, at the glow-in-the-dark stars we put up there, and think about all the places I could go, dreaming about someday . . .
Date 7-30
I learned a new word today. It was in a book called Travels of a Forgotten Voyager. I found it in the attic when we were cleaning it out for the garage sale.
Wanderlust: noun
A longing to wander
Do you think a lot of people have it? Or do you think it affects only a few? It’s kind of nice knowing that other people feel what I’m feeling and put a name to it.
It’s like I’m part of a club.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MIGNON
Date 1-11
Mom and I went to the mall today. I needed new shoes since I’d worn holes in the toes of my old ones. I was happy to go. I wanted to spend some time with her, really. Just hanging out.
Lots of people were at the mall, and she kept me close as she stopped and said hi to some of my classmates’ moms, all of them wearing leggings and carrying water bottles. Later, Mom would tell me apparently it’s a group that gets together and walks for miles in the mall. Mall walkers. I don’t really understand it. They just walk in circles, pumping their arms, and chatting. Around and around in circles they go, where do they stop? Nobody knows. Don’t they feel like hamsters in a cage? Nightmare.
The other moms looked at me while Mom tried to strike up a conversation, but I knew I was a subject of the mall walkers’ gossip. My classmates know all about my outbursts, and how I’m a “distraction” when teachers are trying to teach (thanks, Mrs. T).
Because I look Chinese, like Dad, people always think I should be good at school for some reason. They’ve said so to my face—teachers, counselors, even the vice principal last year. They all think I should be a “model student.” (I’m not the smart one in the family. I already have enough going for me. Can’t have it all! Ha!) They don’t say the quiet part out loud, that they think all Asians are overachievers with perfect grades, but I get the message loud and clear. And when I call them out on it, they say not to take it so personally, that it’s actually a compliment, that they can’t be racist for assuming something good. Fun fact: It’s still racist! And me saying so just makes them angry and it gets me in more trouble.
So I wasn’t really surprised when the mall-walk moms smiled at me, but the smiles only went halfway up their faces, which let their eyes tell the real truth: They want to know why I’m not quiet, demure, or obedient like they expect.
I don’t really remember what they talked about, but Mom waved as they left, then looked at me and rolled her eyes, smiling. She said those ladies were nothing but gossips and we laughed as we went the opposite way. Mom never liked them, and I asked why she bothers being nice and she said because it was the adult thing to do. More adult than mall walking? I asked, and she laughed, and it felt good.
Things have been better between me and Mom. It’s been almost a year since I ran away last, and I have no intention of doing it again. It’s like we’re friends again.
We got to the discount shoe outlet and Mom bought me boring white sneakers. At least she let me wear them out of the store. I know my parents have some money, but they don’t buy us fancy things. Maybe because they know I’ll just ruin anything they get me. I have a tendency to doodle on things, gives me something to work on, and soon these white shoes will be totally covered in ink. My jeans, my hands and arms, sometimes my legs. I’ll draw on myself until I’m blue—literally. Why buy me expensive jeans if I’m just going to make a mess of them anyway?
I got to break in my new shoes as we walked all the way to the other side of the mall to Claire’s. They always have the best jewelry for kids my age, sparkly earrings and bracelets. Sis and I got our ears pierced here when we were really little. My ears closed up though, because I didn’t wear a lot of earrings. The doctors told Mom and Dad I shouldn’t have sharp and pointy things.
Mom had to pick up a new phone case for Sissy, so I made a lap, like the mall walkers, through the aisles. I didn’t have any money, but that was okay. I just wanted to see some of the shiny things and think about what I would do if I had a million dollars. I’d buy everything!
I came upon a display tower full of necklaces that had names on them. I can never, ever find my name on anything. Do you think I could change my name someday? Maybe I would be able to find my name on a necklace then. I couldn’t even find one with Sissy’s name. Bogus.
But I did find some necklaces that didn’t have any names on them. One was actually two-in-one, a matching pair with compass pendants, exactly my style.
FOR YOU AND YOUR BESTIE! the label said. I already had someone in mind.
But it cost twenty dollars. I didn’t have twenty dollars. I heard Mom talking with a clerk on the other side of the store, under the blaring pop music, and I knew she’d say no if I asked her for money. Knowing me, I’d lose it almost immediately. Dad jokes that when I set things down, it’s like they disappear into a parallel dimension, never to be seen again.
But these necklaces looked like real silver and I wanted them so bad. If I had one, I’d never take it off.
I knew I shouldn’t have done it, I didn’t need it, but I felt itchy all over again, and a part of me said to do it. It wasn’t hurting anyone. I knew Mom would be mad if she found out, but it’s not like I was running away again. I wanted to have something for myself, a secret. Everyone knows everything about me all the time anyway, so I might as well have something just for me that no one else knows about.
Mom called my name, she was ready to go home.
She never even saw me slip the necklaces in my pocket.
Date 7-9
I’ve got mosquito bites all over.
Me and Sis stayed out too long in the tree house again, way after dark, and the bugs went to town on our arms and legs. I’ve been making little Xs on them since coming inside, but they’re already red and itchy, and now they just have X-shaped indents in them from my fingernail. It’s supposed to stop the bite from itching, but I think it just makes me look like a map now, with tons of X-marks-the-spots all over.
After dinner, Sis and I went to play in the yard. It’s one of the few times Mom and Dad let me go anywhere alone, when I’m with her. She wanted to show me how many cartwheels she could do, and I showed her how all the blood rushed to my head when I stood on my hands. I can’t ever do it for very long so I fell over, and we laughed until we were both red in the face.
After it got too dark, we went up into the tree house Dad built for us when we first moved in. Easily, the coolest place ever. We go up there to count falling stars and share secrets. I thought about making it my room someday, moving my bed up there and trying to live on my own. Sis says that’s stupid, but what does she know? She’s only thirteen. I could do it if I really wanted to, I’d just have to try.
We sat up there with the lantern and went through all of the travel books I found in the attic when we were cleaning it out last month. I even found an old map that I nailed to the wall, and we could trace our fingers on the lines, measuring how far it would take to go from one destination to another. Three fingers long to Seattle. Five and a half to Vegas. Too many to Mexico. We’ve spent hours up there, talking about all the places we could go, all the things we could see and do. I can’t wait until I’m old enough to go by myself. I could wake up and choose anyplace to be and then I would be there. Simple.
