I’ve thought about telling Dad, but it just seems too weird. I could talk to Chad or even Olivia, but I’m not sure they have the perspective I need. I want to hear from someone with life experience, someone with some wisdom.

  “Something did happen between Chloe and me. And maybe that’s what caused all the problems.”

  Thirty-Three

  Chloe’s parents were going out, and we knew we’d have the house to ourselves.

  Scott had some kind of work banquet in Leesburg, about thirty minutes away from Bentley. They went every year on the same weekend, and they never once missed it.

  So we knew they’d be out. We’d been talking about having sex for weeks. The longer we dated, the closer we got. This happened in the back seats of our cars, in spare rooms at parties, on a blanket in the park. We’d explored every inch of each other’s bodies—and had an amazing time doing it—but we’d always stopped just short of having sex.

  Things never progressed very far with Hannah or with any of the other girls I’d dated. So most of the things I did with Chloe were new to me, and they all blew my mind.

  Fooling around with Chloe was different from anything I’d ever experienced.

  Maybe it was because of how beautiful she is. Maybe because of how much we trusted each other.

  Or maybe because of how into each other we are, how much we love each other. Whatever the reason, when we were together, it was unlike anything else.

  Even though I’d heard that the first time having sex can be more than a little awkward, I didn’t believe that conventional wisdom. Chloe and I wouldn’t be like everybody else.

  At first, we weren’t.

  We were in her room. The lighting was perfect, and a couple of candles burned on her dresser. She played a mix we both loved.

  Everything was full-steam ahead until it was time to put on the condom.

  They never show that part in the movies. I’d awkwardly practiced at home a few times, and it seemed pretty easy, but having to do it in the moment, in Chloe’s bed, with the music playing and the candles burning and her waiting there, watching me…

  It was a struggle.

  The first one broke. By the time the next one was on, the moment had passed.

  We scrambled to get it back, and we started to get there. But it also felt a little like work. I was in my head, feeling self-conscious. And Chloe tried to direct me, which made me more self-conscious.

  Then it finally happened. Something gave, and Chloe yelped a little. I asked if I’d hurt her, and she shook her head, but it just didn’t seem like all the other times we’d been together. It just didn’t seem like us.

  We held each other afterward and talked. I’d never been happier to be with Chloe, to know my first time was with her. But I also silently cursed myself for not being in the moment and looked forward to the next time, hoping we would finally get it right. That it would feel as good as it was supposed to.

  But the next time never came.

  It was tough to find a place to be alone. Dad never went out at night or on weekends. Olivia came and went with the unpredictability of an earthquake. Chloe’s mom worked at home, so she was always at their house.

  And trying again—after how unsatisfying the first time had been—in a car or on a blanket in the woods in the dark seemed to be setting us up for failure.

  I told myself not to push, not to be the guy who insisted. I wanted it—I really did—but I didn’t want it more than I wanted Chloe to be happy.

  And then about ten days after we tried the first time, Chloe started acting distant. Distracted. And by the time homecoming rolled around, our sex life—even without the actual sex—had cooled considerably. Which is why I looked forward to the dance, thinking we could try again. Or just be with each other the way we had before.

  But clearly that didn’t happen.

  Not even close.

  When I finish talking, Ron is staring straight ahead. He steeples his fingers and rests them against his chin. “There’s nothing unusual about your experience, Hunter,” he says.

  “Really?”

  “Really. You’re right to say the first time is never quite the fireworks-filled extravaganza we hope it will be. The movies do get that wrong. Over and over.”

  “Maybe I’ll write a book someday that shows the reality,” I say.

  “Maybe people don’t want to see that.” He laughs a little. “And, sadly, because of the society we live in, it is different for a young woman than a young man. Maybe Chloe was contemplating what it all meant. Maybe she was reconsidering. Maybe she was speaking to a friend or her mother about it.”

  “I don’t think she’d talk to her mom that way.”

  “I don’t know her mother.” He gets an impish look in his eye. “But she gave a lovely speech at the vigil.”

  I appreciate his attempt to make a joke.

  “Yeah,” I say. “She practically handed me a cigarette and a blindfold.”

  “You say Chloe hadn’t been acting like herself in the days leading up to her disappearance. I have to admit, I hadn’t noticed anything unusual about her. She seemed like her typical capable and confident self.”

  “Really?”

  “I don’t know her the way you do, of course,” he says. “She’s a student, not a friend.”

  His words sting a little. Does he think of me as just a student? I’ve always thought we were more than that, that he saw me and Chloe as not just typical kids, not simply two of the thousands who will pass through his classes during his career in Bentley.

  “I really want to get an answer to her disappearance soon. I want someone to admit to something. Or come forward with a key piece of information.”

  “And it might be me,” he says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I might be the one to reveal something to you.” He taps on the window again. “Right over there, outside the gymnasium. I saw you and Chloe leaving the dance that night. And I have to say neither of you looked very pleased.”

  Thirty-Four

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  The air in the car starts to feel close and confining despite the cool temperatures outside. I crack the window a little.

  “You really don’t recall?” Ron asks, cocking his head.

  “Apparently not.”

  “Well, I’m afraid for how it makes you look. To the police.”

  “I’m afraid, too. What if something happened that I don’t remember? What if I did something? What if my brain is hurt, and I’m never normal?”

  “Yes,” he says, rubbing his chin again.

  The outside air from the cracked window brings no relief. It’s like I’ve slipped underwater. “What did you see?”

  Ron seems to be choosing his words carefully. He opens his mouth and then closes it before finally speaking. “You approached me during the dance. You’ll recall I had the supreme honor of being one of the chaperones. You know I hate doing that job—having to monitor the restrooms and make sure no has snuck in a bottle or a flask or a joint. Who cares? You’re kids. But, sadly, it’s part of my duties. Anyway, I was on patrol that night, when you approached me in the hallway and told me you needed to talk to me.”

  “Was I upset? Scared?”

  “Angry I would say. Very angry. Not like I’ve ever seen you before. I explained that I had to make one additional circuit of the dance, and then we could meet in the parking lot to talk if you wanted. You agreed. In fact, you said that would be perfect. So I executed my rounds and then made my way outside, expecting to find you. Instead…”

  “What?”

  “Well, the fact is you weren’t there. I waited for you, only too happy to have a reprieve from chaperoning. It was a lovely evening, lots of stars. I enjoyed the break immensely.”

  “But what did you see?”

  “Eventually I heard two voices raised in what sounded like anger. It was you and Chloe. You were arguing with each other loudly. Or so it appeared. I took a step toward you both—you were a good hundred feet away and hadn’t yet seen me—but then you moved to a nearby vehicle and got in together. Not a minute later, the car tore out of the parking lot, and I went back to my chaperoning duties. It couldn’t have been long after you left that you had your accident. But I knew none of that then. None of us did. I only heard about the accident the next morning, and as I told you, I went to the hospital, but wasn’t allowed to see you.”

  I close my eyes and try—very hard—to bring back memories of that night. But there’s nothing but blackness. A complete blind spot—no memory of talking to Ron, being mad at Chloe, or arguing with her.

  I certainly don’t remember getting in the car and speeding off.

  But two very different people—first Hannah and now Ron—have told me I was angry that night. Ron confirms Hannah’s story. Shit.

  That has to mean Hannah is telling the truth.

  I try and try to remember but see nothing except starburst patterns swirling against my closed eyelids.

  “Nothing comes back?” he asks.

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Sadly, I have to be getting inside,” Ron says. “Duty calls. And you shouldn’t worry so much about your memories. You’ll make many more in this life.”

  My eyes open. The sky is turning gray and starting to spit rain against the windshield. “Yeah, I guess you have class to teach,” I say. “Thanks for coming out.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” he says. “We can talk again. Anytime. Just keep working with the doctors. And, well, trust that the police will figure out all this sordidness.”

  “Did they talk to you?” I ask.

  “They did. They talked to everyone in the school. Everyone who had any contact with you or with Chloe. And now they’re starting all over again about Daniel.”

  “So you told them what you just told me?” I ask.

  “I did indeed. I had to. But I also told them you possess a sterling character. I told them I have never seen any hint of a problem from you. In short, I told them the truth.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “Hey? When you were outside and saw Chloe and me, did you also happen to see Mike Basher? Do you know him?”

  “Basher? The world’s worst quarterback? Why do you ask?”

  “He and Chloe used to date. Remember, he wrote that freaky poem about Chloe early in the year?”

  “Oh, yes, that’s right. I do recall that incident. A dreadful poem. So trite. Describing a beautiful girl as a queen on her throne? Blech. It’s poems like those that make me feel my entire life has been a waste. Like I’m not teaching anybody anything.” Ron’s head shakes back and forth.

  “Did you see him? Basher?”

  “Basher? No, I didn’t.”

  Ron holds out his hand, and we shake. We’ve never done that before. It seems so formal, so adult.

  “Keep up with your schoolwork as much as you can, Hunter,” he says. “I know I have a college letter to write for you. Make sure you remind me of that.”

  “I will.” Then I think of something else. “Do you know why Chloe isn’t having you write her a letter? She was, but then she changed her mind. I thought maybe she was embarrassed by the Basher stuff. She thought I pushed her into mentioning that creepy poem to you.”

  “Did she?” He looks thoughtful. “I didn’t know I wasn’t writing her a letter. That’s news to me.”

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  “Well, perhaps she forgot. And maybe she wanted someone from the sciences to write for her. That’s what she’s going to major in, after all. I would have written a glowing letter, but it’s her choice.”

  When he opens the door, a stronger gust of air blows in. Ron walks right across the spot where he said he saw Chloe and I argue the night she disappeared. Moments before everything changed.

  Thirty-Five

  Before I exit the parking lot, the phone rings.

  It’s Dad.

  I don’t want to answer, but…

  “Where are you?” he asks. “I came home, and you weren’t here.”

  “I’m out.”

  “Out where?”

  “I went to talk to Mr. Hartman.”

  “You went to school?”

  “Not exactly. We talked in the parking lot. Now I’m going for a drive.”

  “Hunter, are you okay? Maybe you should come home. We can…talk…or whatever.”

  “I’m okay,” I say. “As okay as I can be. I’ll be home soon, but I don’t want to drive and talk.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  I pull out of the school lot, heading east. I don’t mean to take anything out on Dad. He cares. And now I know I fought with Chloe the night she disappeared, and I argued with Daniel the night he died.

  Doubt creeps in like it never has before.

  The houses around school quickly give way to a stretch of cornfields. They’ve already been harvested, the stalks cut down to the ground like dead soldiers. It starts to rain harder, and I turn on the wipers, which smear the windshield even more.

  My destination is a place that’s been calling ever since I came home from the hospital.

  We’re coming up on two weeks since the accident, two weeks since Chloe disappeared. I’ve tried not to let my mind go there, tried not to imagine where she might be or what might be happening to her. But I’ve seen enough TV shows to know if a missing person isn’t found within the first forty-eight hours, it becomes more of a long shot that the person will be found alive.

  Is Chloe locked up somewhere?

  Is she suffering?

  Is she dead?

  I push away the thoughts with as much mental force as I can summon. I remember the girl in Utah who was gone for almost a year before they found her. Alive. There are other cases like that, too. In America and in Europe. All over the world.

  But the young women in those cases—and it’s almost always young women—suffered horribly while they were gone.

  I can’t think of that happening to Chloe.

  Dad should forget about me—he needs to worry about Olivia and Gabby. We should never let them out of our sight. The world is not a safe place.

  The cornfields turn into trees so thick I can’t see through them. I make a right onto County Road 250 that runs from Bentley to the next little town of Flatwater. There’s nothing there, maybe five hundred people, and nothing but trees and corn in between.

  It’s not unusual for Chloe and me to come out this way. We used to take long drives out in the middle of nowhere all the time, just exploring. Being out here on homecoming night supports the idea that we might have been fighting. When we went on those drives, we always talked and talked about whatever was happening in our lives. If we had something serious to discuss, we might have done it on County Road 250 heading toward Flatwater.

  I slow, reduce my speed to 35 miles per hour in a zone where everyone is allowed to go 45. If I slow down and take my time, will the memories start to come back? Will being here shake something loose?

  But as I try to force my mind back to that night, nothing comes.

  The present explodes with the vibrant colors of fall. Orange and red leaves litter the road and are piling up along the berm. Three deer at the tree line hear me approaching and jump back into the brush. I crest a small rise and come down the other side into a dip in the road. That’s when I see first the skid marks and then the tree.

  And something else.

  A car. Parked along the side of the road.

  A car I don’t recognize.

  Thirty-Six

  It’s a dark sedan—new, so maybe a cop came to collect evidence. Could be a reporter working on yet another story. Could be one of those technicians reconstructing the accident in order to figure out what happened.

  The person is entitled to have their time at the memorial.

  But it really looks like the car is empty. No one’s in sight, either inside or outside.

  So where are they? Back in the woods?

  And why?

  I work up saliva in my dry mouth and push the door open. My shoes hit the damp blacktop.

  I feel warm, despite the cool rain falling. Except for the chirps of a few birds, it’s dead quiet. No other cars come by.

  I move forward.

  Just like they did at Chloe’s locker, people have come out and left notes and candles and stuffed animals. It’s a nice thought, at first. But they probably never come back to see what those things look like after they’ve been out in the elements for almost two weeks. Rain, wind, and passing cars have conspired to beat the shit out of this stuff. The ink on the notes has run. The stuffed animals are wet and droopy, looking abandoned and forlorn. Maybe there should be a rule about roadside memorials—they can stay for a day or two or until the weather turns bad. Then everybody has to come and collect their stuff.

  My shoes crunch over the gravel. Tiny pieces of broken headlights and plastic, ones the cops left behind, litter the ground. There’s also other trash thrown away by inconsiderate drivers: plastic soda bottles, cigarette butts, a red sock. People throw out just about anything and never worry about the consequences.

  The tree is huge and old and has a big gash in it. Hard to believe a car could hit this massive thing with any kind of force and still have survivors inside.

  I stop a few feet from the tree. The rain continues to drizzle, pinging against my face and head. The wind blows a little, stirring up the fallen leaves, ruffling the notes and making a tiny stuffed bear shimmy on the ground.

  I stand there on the edge of the road, close my eyes, and put my mind to work. I remember getting ready. I remember Dad helping me with my tie. I remember going to eat at Hannah’s house by the lake. It was a fancy meal—some kind of Italian chicken—prepared by their housekeeper.