The Truth of Letting Go Read online

  I start giggling, even though it’s so not the right time for that. Ezra grins, his thumb sliding down my cheek. “That was…” he says.

  “Fun?” I say.

  His grin widens. “I was going to say ‘about time’.”

  Heat flushes into my cheeks and I press my forehead against his chest, hoping he can’t sense my embarrassment. I love the feel of his arms wrapped around me, the smell of his shirt, like soap and citrus detergent. “I guess we can safely say we have a thing,” I murmur into his shirt.

  When the song ends, a commercial plays and it kind of kills the vibe. But if I’d thought Ezra was cute before, I’m seeing him in an entirely new light after that kiss. He’s sexy and still mysterious, his eyes filled with thoughts I can’t even begin to decipher.

  “Want to watch a movie while we wait on Cece?” he says.

  “Not really.”

  He reaches behind me and turns off the radio. “I don’t either, but it might take our mind off things.”

  “I guess a movie would be a better idea than what I was planning,” I say.

  “And what were you planning?”

  “To sit here and watch out the window for Cece to get back?”

  He laughs. “I’m definitely playing a movie.”

  He goes to the bedroom area and turns on a small wall mounted television over the bed where Cece sleeps. The theme song for the Simpsons plays throughout the TV’s small speaker. When I look back there, Ezra’s sitting on the bed, his back against the wall, his feet hanging off the end of the mattress. Memories of that kiss still linger on my lips, and I can’t help myself. I walk back there and sit next to him. His arm extends and wraps around me as I cuddle up against his chest, my eyes closing from exhaustion and stress. Homer Simpson’s voice fills the tiny room with some well-timed joke, and Ezra chuckles. I listen to the steady sound of his breathing, his heartbeat going a lot slower than mine. I know it’s ridiculous to go blindly through life expecting everything to be okay. Ezra is insane for thinking that way, but maybe I’m a little insane for freaking out so much. All I know is that Cece doesn’t want to be found right now, but she promised to come back. All I can do is trust her.

  When I wake up the room is glowing a bright blue. The DVD has finished, and the menu screen has been stuck for who knows how long. I glance up at Ezra, who’s passed out next to me. He’s managed to slump down from his sitting position, and I’m nearly on top of him, his arm still wrapped around me. I watch him sleep, listen to his steady breathing.

  Carefully, I find my phone on the mattress where I’d left it after sitting down with Ezra. It’s three in the morning. I have no new messages. Cece is not here.

  Another zap of panic hits my heart and I untangle myself from Ezra, slowly and meticulously. He’ll only tell me to calm down again if he sees me freaking out.

  Once I’m free, I tip toe through the RV and let myself out the door, being extremely quiet. I call Cece but her phone is off.

  My heartbeat quickens and I take off toward the bayou, reciting panicked prayers in my head. We lost Thomas on a bridge over a bayou. I can’t lose Cece the same way.

  The parking lot is empty except for an old Ford truck parked near the docks. I give it a wide berth, but it has moss growing on the side of it and looks like it’s been abandoned for a while. The water is still, the moonlight the only source of light. I gaze up and glance at the stars, wondering where the hell my cousin could be. She’d promised to come back. It’s not like her to break a promise. Or maybe it is. I haven’t known her in so long.

  Cicadas buzz in the air and my feet crunch over a layer of fallen pine needles as I walk the edge of the bayou, past the Pine Tree Lodge’s patio and out into the empty area beyond. There’s a thick forest to the left, the bayou to the right. But there’s a well-worn pathway along the water that seems to lead to a neighborhood about a mile or so ahead. I scan the area for any sign of my cousin. The opposite direction leads back to the highway. Cece said she would be back soon, so she couldn’t have gone that way. There was nothing but horse and cow pastures for miles along the highway. My gut tells me to keep moving forward, so I do.

  At the edge of the forest, the bayou widens, giving way to a sandbar and a little park area that backs up to a neighborhood. Some of the houses have water front views, but you can’t get to them without crossing a black iron fence that separates the park from their back yards. There’s half a dozen park benches, some BBQ pits and a playground.

  One single light pole illuminates the area, casting yellow incandescent light over the see-saws and swing sets. A rope fence about knee-high separates the park from the sandbar, and warning signs line the area.

  Cece is not at the park.

  But she is on the sandbar.

  I squint to see her in the darkness. She’s watching the water, her knees pulled up to her chest. “Cece?” I call out.

  She doesn’t look back; doesn’t even acknowledge me at all.

  Suddenly it’s like we’re ten years old and she’s sitting on our back porch, watching nothing for hours at a time. I jog over to her and lower myself into the sand next to her.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi, Lilah.”

  “Why are you out here?”

  “Just felt like it.”

  “You okay?”

  She looks over at me, her eyes expressionless. “I’m fine.”

  I’m so relieved I feel like shouting a victory yell into the universe. Cece is okay, and that means I can breathe again. Only when I inhale, it turns into a yawn.

  “Here,” she says, removing her scarf and folding it. She places it on the sand. “Get some sleep.”

  The idea is absurd, but I’ve been walking for half an hour and I’m so exhausted I can barely keep my eyes open. I lay down, resting my head on her scarf. It smells just like her, vanilla and something specifically Cece. She runs her fingers through my hair and my eyes flutter closed.

  “Wait,” I say, jolting up. “We can’t sleep here.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out,” Cece says, her voice soft and ethereal. “No one has been out here all night.”

  I roll over on my back and look up at the stars. “You’re not going to sleep?”

  “I’m not tired.”

  “Promise me you’ll be here when I wake up.”

  “Promise.”

  My eyes are heavy. “Cece?” I say a few moments later. She doesn’t look over but I know she’s listening. “I miss being friends with you.”

  She’s quiet for so long I almost fall back asleep. Then I hear her talking softly, her words flowing toward the water. “I miss that too.”

  “Lilah.”

  Cece’s soothing voice pulls me from a dream. I open my eyes to a cerulean sky devoid of clouds. My neck aches from sleeping on the ground. Stretching, I sit up and brush the sand off my back. Beneath me, Cece’s scarf is smooshed into the ground in the shape of my head. I look around, dazed from sleep.

  “It’s six in the morning,” Cece says. She’s sitting cross-legged in the sand next to me. Small dark circles rim her eyes, but her lips are quirked up in a smile. “My phone is about to die, and we should probably get back before Ezra wakes up and freaks out.”

  I nod and take in a deep breath of fresh morning air. It’s a little humid out here, but the air smells like pine and wildflowers. Standing, we brush the sand off our butts, but it doesn’t do much good. We’re filthy.

  Cece and I walk back along the bayou to where we left Ezra in the RV. I hope he’s still asleep. I don’t want him as worried about us as I was about Cece last night. I take out my phone, but the battery is dead.

  Cece is quiet as we walk, and I’m still trying to make my brain wake up so I don’t exactly have anything to say. Bits of our conversation from last night float into my mind and I look over at my cousin, who is ragged and sleep-deprived, but still Cece. Still here with me like she promised.

  In a few hours we’ll be home and things can easily slip back to how they were. I�
�ll hang out with Kit and we’ll plan our senior year schedules so that we have classes together. Cece will do whatever it is she does on her side of the house. I don’t even know what she does most days. Since high school started, I haven’t paid attention at all.

  Even in our family therapy sessions, I’m not completely there. I spend the hour daydreaming about hot guys on TV shows or mentally planning what I should wear to school the next day. When it’s my turn to talk I say that things are fine.

  How many adventures have I missed out on by shoving Cece to the back of my life?

  The restaurant is closed and the parking lot only has the Winnebago and that old moldy Ford truck. I look over at Cece as we make our way back to Ezra. “When we get home, we should hang out more.”

  “Duh,” she says, going out of her way to step on a pinecone. “I’m going to need your help to find more clues about Thomas.”

  “I mean after that,” I say. “When the Thomas thing is solved, I want us to be friends like we used to be.”

  She stops in front of the Winnebago. “We used to be kids,” she says, giving me this solemn look as she pulls open the door.

  I don’t press the issue. Cece has no reason to jump back into being friends with me when I’ve ignored her for so long. If I want things to go back to how they used to be, I’ll have to show her that I’m still the same person I used to be. We’re still cousins. And I can handle her personality changes.

  Ezra is passed out on the bed. My heart clinches up when I see him lying there, peacefully asleep, the sun streaming in through the narrow bedroom window. I’d love to crawl back into his arms and get some sleep, too.

  Cece grabs a pillow and throws it at him. “Wake up, Flores!”

  Ezra bolts awake. “What the—,” he says, gasping for breath. Then he looks at Cece and me and frowns. “Why are you two covered in dirt?”

  “Long story,” Cece says even though it’s not really that long. She points to the tiny bathroom. “Does your shower work?”

  Ezra rubs the back of his neck and yawns. “Not without a water hookup. Plus, you don’t want to shower in there anyway. It’s way too small.”

  “This thing is going to get real stinky after driving four hours if we don’t get a shower,” Cece says, curling her nose.

  Ezra stands up and tries to smooth out the wrinkles in his shirt. “I have an idea. Look up a twenty-four-hour gym in the area. We’ll get guest passes and use their showers.”

  “Damn, someone’s on top of their game today,” Cece says as she grabs a few paper towels from the kitchen and sets them on the bench seat before sitting down. “I would have never thought of that.”

  “Try living in your truck for a month,” he says with a snort. “You figure things out.”

  I wonder when he lived in his truck for a month. Was it recently, or was it years ago? There’s no way to ask that right now, so I follow Cece’s lead and use my old T-shirt to cover the passenger seat before I sit down. This thing is old as hell but Ezra keeps it clean, so I will too. He starts up the RV and glances over at me, a smile dancing on his lips. “Good morning,” he says.

  “Damn, you two move fast,” Cece says from behind us. “Look at that swoon.”

  I bite back a smile and look out the passenger window. “Did we pick a gym yet?”

  “There’s a 24 Hour Fitness seven miles away,” Cece says, looking at her phone. She has it plugged into an outlet. “I’ll tell you where to go.”

  Getting guest passes is pretty easy, and the lady behind the desk probably knows we’re only here for a shower. Luckily, she doesn’t care. The gym is massive, two stories worth of working out available to its customers. It’s six-thirty in the morning, but the place is packed.

  Ezra has a few shirts and jeans in the closet of his RV, and even though they smell like stale rainwater from sitting in there so long, he says he can wear them just for a day. Cece and I aren’t so lucky. I only brought one change of clothes with me and now both shirts and pants I have are filthy.

  In the locker room, Cece and I tuck into an alcove away from the older women who are walking around naked like it’s no big deal. I hold up my outfit from the first day of our trip. “I really don’t want to wear this,” I say, curling my lip.

  Cece’s lips slide to the side of her mouth as she holds up her maxi skirt and gazes down at the white shirt she’s worn for two days. “What if we take them in the showers, wash them with shampoo and use the hand dryers to dry them?”

  I shake my head. “That’ll take forever.”

  Cece frowns. “Guess we’ll have to re-wear some rank clothes.”

  “I really wish we were home,” I mutter as I stare at my clothes laid out on the bench in front of us.

  A girl pokes her head around the corner. She’s short and African American, wearing the same 24 Hour Fitness uniform as the woman at the front counter. My pulse quickens, wondering if she’s going to kick us out for not being genuine gym goers. “Are you guys runaways?” she says, keeping her voice low.

  “No.” I shake my head, knowing the sight of us kind of suggests otherwise. “We’re just out of clothes and we’re a long way from home.”

  The worker steps around the corner. “I’ve been a runaway before and it sucks.” She holds up little sample sized tubes of shampoo. “I saw you come in and thought you might want some shampoo. All they have in the shower is soap.”

  “Thank you,” Cece says, taking the bottles and handing one to me. “Does this place have a washing machine?”

  “No, but, if you need something to wear…” she says, giving us a look over from head to toe. “We should have your size.”

  She reaches for a key hanging from her lanyard and unlocks an oversized locker. She pulls out two blue T-shirts with the gym’s logo on the front and two black capri workout pants that are just like the ones she’s wearing. They have blue stripes along the bottom hem and the gym’s logo on one leg. “We give these to customers all the time,” she says, holding them out to us.

  “You are really nice,” Cece says, tilting her head. “Most people see dirty weirdos and look the other way.”

  The girl laughs. “Like I said, I’ve been in your position before. Wherever you’re going, get there safely, okay?”

  “Thank you,” I say. She nods and then disappears around the corner.

  After a glorious shower, I stand in front of the long mirror in my new outfit. I’ve towel dried my hair as much as possible, and now I’m using a crappy little hair dryer that’s mounted to the wall to push lukewarm air on top of my head. Cece twists her hair into a side braid then squeezes it with a towel to get out any last drips of water.

  “Ezra’s probably waiting on us,” she says, checking the time on her cell phone. She was able to get it charged a little bit on the drive over here, but mine was so dead I didn’t even bother.

  “Yeah, let’s go,” I say, grabbing my backpack. “I don’t think we can make ourselves look any better than this.”

  Cece rolls her eyes. “You’re on your own with that theory. I look as gorgeous as always.”

  Outside the locker rooms, we find Ezra reading one of the free fitness magazines I’d seen stacked on the front counter. He’s leaning against the wall, his black hair wet and tousled to the side. He’s wearing a black shirt and jeans with rips in the knees.

  Musty closet smell or not, I actually stop walking for a second, that’s how cute he looks.

  “Get it together,” Cece says, elbowing me in the side. To Ezra, she says, “Sorry it took so long.”

  He looks up, closing his magazine. When his eyes settle on mine, he grins. “No worries. Should we get food before we head home?”

  “Yes,” Cece and I say in unison.

  I wave to the girl behind the counter as we walk by in our new outfits she gave us. She grins and waves back. As we make our way to the door, Ezra takes my hand, his fingers sliding into mine.

  “What…the…hell?” Cece says. For a second I think she’s talking about
me holding hands with her brother’s old best friend. But she’s looking straight ahead, between the elderly couple who are walking inside, dressed in neon orange tracksuits.

  She’s looking at the parking lot, at the Winnebago which is parked right where we left it, in the back of the lot.

  Only now it’s surrounded by police cars.

  “What is happening?” I say, backing away from the doors. Three officers walk around the RV. A fourth one talks into his radio while standing in front near the license plate. “You’re not in a no parking zone or anything.”

  Ezra’s hand squeezes mine. “We have to go,” he says, turning toward us with wild eyes. “There’s another entrance by the pool. Let’s leave that way.”

  “What’s going on?” Cece says as Ezra walks us back toward the locker rooms and out to the Olympic sized indoor pool. We have to jog to keep up with him, dodging sweat covered muscle men along the way. The wall of windows around the pool reveals a parking lot and shopping center on the other side of the building.

  “Ezra!” I say when I catch up with him. My voice echoes off the water, and is soon drowned by the splashing of two swimmers racing each other across the pool. He runs both hands through his hair, his head tipped back to look at the baby blue ceiling tiles. I’m not sure he heard me call his name. I put my hand on his chest. “What the hell is going on?”

  “I’ll explain when we’re out of here,” Ezra says. His brows crease in the middle and I half expect to see sweat nervously rolling down his forehead. Ezra looks like he’s seen a ghost. Or—more accurately—a police officer.

  “Please talk to me,” I say. Next to me, Cece nods.

  “In a minute.” Ezra opens the door and motions for us to hurry up. Out in the back parking lot, he walks so fast we have to jog to keep up with him. My backpack slaps against my butt as we move, through parked cars and abandoned shopping carts, toward a grocery store. I try to make sense of what’s happening, why the police would be interested in an RV that’s parked legally and has an updated registration sticker. We weren’t doing anything wrong by taking a shower at gym we had no intention of joining. We have guest passes. Why is Ezra so freaked out?