The Truth of Letting Go Page 16

  “That’s a really great idea,” Cece says. “Thomas is smart. He’ll find a way to fix things with your dad.”

  “Maybe,” Ezra says, glancing over at me.

  “Maybe he will,” I agree.

  Of all the things we’ve done on this trip, getting into a stranger’s car just because he uses an app might be the stupidest. Zander is like a hundred years old and he’s dressed like he’s a hipster college student. Only he’s so not. His beard is more salt than pepper, and he smells like clove cigarettes, a smell I’d never had the unfortunate luck to experience until now. Ezra sits up front with him and Cece and I get in the back seat, which is equal parts dog hair and car seat. Besides a quick hello, Zander doesn’t say anything. The radio plays some electronic synth stuff at a low enough volume that I can ignore it.

  Parts of me are watching Zander drive, wondering if he’s a serial murderer. Even if he’s not, that’s not very comforting. I mean, every serial murderer starts out somewhere, right? There’s always a time when serial murderers were just regular people—until they snapped and killed everyone in their Uber car.

  I can’t wait to get home. This trip is making me delusional.

  Not to mention the pang in my stomach that’s starting to feel less like anxiety and more like regret. What are we supposed to do once we get to this apartment complex? Find the red Jeep and demand to know why the owner isn’t Thomas? Hope and pray that the real owner doesn’t report us for some grade A level stalking?

  I look over at Cece and try to come up with things to say when this all goes wrong. The Uber car’s GPS says we’re fifteen minutes away. That’s not enough time to prepare for the ending of Cece’s epic adventure. I’m not even sure there’s anything I could say or do to help her when she finds out the truth. I just hope there’s still enough time to get a bus ride home tonight. Everything else I can figure out as it happens.

  “I can’t deal with this much excitement,” Cece says after a while. “I feel like my entire body is about to break apart into little pieces that are all jumping up and down. I’m like the freaking broomstick in Fantasia.”

  “Why’s that?” Our driver asks, his reflection catching ours in the rear-view mirror.

  “I’m going to see my brother,” she explains. Little dimples form on her cheeks as she exhales excitedly. “He’s going to freak. I’m going to freak. I can’t stand the anticipation.”

  “How long’s it been since you saw him last?” Zander asks.

  “Four years and six months.”

  Our driver’s eyebrows lift up in sync with his handlebar mustache. “Wow. I haven’t talked to my brother in a few months, but if you ask me, that’s not long enough. My brother’s a dick, though.”

  Cece snorts. “Mine is the best. He doesn’t know we’re coming, but he’ll be excited.”

  The GPS voice tells us to take a right and Zander lowers the volume a little.

  “What kept you apart for so long?” he asks.

  From the front seat, Ezra tenses, his jaw tightening as he looks back at us. Cece, however, doesn’t hesitate.

  “He was dead.”

  Zander quirks an eyebrow.

  “Well, everyone thought he was dead. But I never believed it, and now nearly five years later I finally tracked him down.”

  “You sure it’s him and not someone with his same name?

  “No,” Cece says, surprising me. She’s been so confident so far. She shrugs. “But I’m following my instincts here.”

  “If it’s not him, we’ll regroup and try again,” Ezra says, giving her a smile.

  Zander chuckles, shaking his head. “Damn, that’s a story I’ve never heard while doing this job. Hey, how old would your brother be now?”

  “Twenty,” Cece says.

  Zander frowns. “So he was, what, sixteen when he left? Did he sneak off with a friend or his deadbeat dad or something?”

  “Our parents are dead,” Cece says. “Officially dead,” she adds after an awkward moment of silence.

  “And I’m his only friend,” Ezra adds. “There was some evidence that he died, but we think he might be alive.”

  “Dude, no kid could survive that long on his own.” Stopping at a red light, Zander turns around to face us. “You’re chasing a ghost, kids.”

  “We’re chasing someone who left just enough clues for us to find him.” I feel my face heating up, but Cece is unfazed. “He’ll be happy to see us.”

  The light turns green and Zander turns left, still following the GPS which says we’re now only four minutes away. More nervous feelings burst to life in my stomach. This is about to happen. We’re almost there. No turning back now.

  Cece’s anxiously tapping her foot on the floorboard, her hands twisting together as we near the apartment complex. The parking lot looks identical to those photos online. Ezra and Cece are glued to the windows, just like I am, all looking for that red Jeep.

  Zander pulls into the complex parking lot and puts the car in park.

  “I’ll get our bags,” Ezra says, getting out of the car. Zander pops the trunk for him, and I go to get out too.

  “Well good luck, I guess,” Zander says. Turning to Cece, he says, “You ever think a kid who ran away and faked his own death probably doesn’t want to be found?”

  “I’m paying for a ride, not your terrible advice,” Cece says, smiling so sweetly the words don’t seem like they’ve come from her mouth. “And the ride is over now.”

  When Cece and I were thirteen and firmly settled into my mom’s new family routine of therapy and feelings talks, we hatched a plan together. We were going to get jobs at the age of sixteen (or sooner should the child labor laws ever change in our favor) and save every penny we earned. The day I turned eighteen, since I’m younger than her, would be the day we moved out and got our own place. We’d be free of my mom’s stupid rules, free of therapy, and free to be ourselves.

  When Thomas overheard us talking about our plan one morning while we were getting dressed for our bi-monthly therapy session, he popped into my bedroom and stared at us.

  “You know there’s more to moving out than just rent, right?” he’d said.

  “Obviously. We’re not stupid,” Cece said while she wrapped a strand of her red hair around my curling iron.

  But I guess I was stupid, because I wasn’t sure what he meant. Of course there would be food and stuff, but was I missing anything? “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Thomas listed off things on his fingers. “There’s rent, electricity, cell phone, cable TV if you want it, internet. Some places make you pay for water or trash services, but some apartments include that in the rent price. Then you have a car and car insurance and gas, and like health insurance and stuff. Not to mention food, renter’s insurance, emergency money…it’s a lot to remember. I mean, Uncle Kenneth pays for me to be on their car insurance, but that won’t last forever. And if I ever get my own car, I’d probably have to pay for it myself.”

  “How are you so smart?” Cece asked, looking at him in my vanity mirror. “Are you planning to move out before we do? Because that’s so not fair.”

  He shrugged. “I could move in with you guys. We’d split the rent and bills three ways so it’d be cheaper on everyone.”

  Cece and I both scoffed at the idea. “Not happening,” I said. “When we’re eighteen, we’ll have boyfriends and we won’t want you in the way.”

  “But I’d be twenty-one by then and could buy you guys beer,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

  Cece rolled her eyes. “We are classy women, Thomas. We don’t drink.”

  “Sure,” he said, laughing. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  We had no way of knowing back then, but he would go missing two weeks later. I wish I had been nicer to him. I wish I’d told him he could come live with us in our apartment. Maybe we could have met together in the mornings to hash out or plan for moving out on our own. Maybe I’d have been more likely to wake him up on time that morning so he wou
ldn’t miss the bus.

  Maybe our plan would still be on, and we’d be looking at apartments together, as a trio. As a family.

  “Guess we should walk the perimeter,” Cece says, pulling me back to the real world. “This is a big freaking place, but that Jeep is somewhere.”

  The sun shines brightly in the sky, heating up the asphalt enough to make me want to call back the Uber driver and pay him to drive us around the parking lot with his AC on full blast. I fan myself with my hand, but Cece doesn’t seem to mind the heat. Beside me, Ezra wipes sweat from his brow. It’s at least a hundred degrees out here and we’re looking for a dead guy with a red Jeep.

  The Piney Woods apartments are made up of ten buildings that each have twelve units. There’s a courtyard in the middle of the grounds, with two pools and a big building called the Resident’s Lounge. Since we’re standing near the office, we go left, toward building one.

  The thing about walking is that our eyes can see much farther than we’ve walked. Before we’re even at building two, it’s obvious there’s no red Jeep here. In fact, I can see all the way down for several buildings until the parking lot stops and turns around a corner. Many cars are parked here, but none of them are the one we’re looking for. Still, Cece continues on, leading the way down the cracked sidewalk and toward a shady area where the trees have overgrown the stairwells that divide the downstairs from the upstairs. The shade is a much needed relief from the summer sun. We round the corner and check out building six’s parking lot which is also—not surprisingly—lacking red Jeeps.

  Cece picks up the pace, stepping over a stranded Frisbee on the sidewalk. Ezra nudges me with his elbow. “Do you know what we should say when we don’t find it?” he whispers.

  “I was hoping you’d handle that part,” I whisper back. “You’re the smooth talker here.”

  We round the corner of the parking lot and walk past a line of dumpsters that smell exactly like what days of old garbage usually smells like. I cover my nose with my shirt. At the end of the dumpsters, the parked cars begin again, and of course, there’s no Jeep. I don’t even know why I’m letting my hopes get as high as they are.

  “Hey, Cece?” Ezra says, jogging a little to catch up with her. “Have you considered what you’ll do if the guy who owns this car is just some Jeep nerd who loves video games?”

  She stops suddenly, turning on her heel to face us. “Ezra, I am not a child. I know that Santa Claus isn’t real. I know magic doesn’t exist and I know that life is hard and grim and fifty people die each day from malaria.” Somewhere, a door closes and she turns toward the sound, only to look back at us when a woman and her toddler leave an apartment nearby. “If this lead doesn’t take me to Thomas, I’ll deal. I can handle disappointment. I’ve had a lot of it in my life. So stop talking to me with the kid gloves, okay?”

  Before we can say anything, she’s turned back around and walking again. Ezra gives me an uncertain look, then takes my hand while we follow along behind her.

  Soon, my pits are damp, my hairline is dripping with sweat, and we’ve circled the entire apartment complex. We’re back at where we started, and the air feels suffocatingly hot, but I’m guessing that’s just the guilt encircling me like a boa constrictor, cutting off all possibilities that Thomas still might be alive.

  Cece lets out her breath in a huff, concentrating the air to blow wisps of her bangs out of her face. “At least we got some exercise,” she says.

  “What do you want to do?” I ask her. I feel like she needs to be the one to call for an Uber ride back to the bus stop. This needs to be her decision.

  She checks the time on her cell phone. “It’s only a little after two. Most people work until five, right? He’s probably just not home.”

  “So we wait,” Ezra says.

  Cece shakes her head which gives me two seconds of hope that maybe we’ll get out of here without drama. Then she says, “Let’s go talk to the office,” and ruins it.

  The office is a small room with an overbearing cinnamon candle scent in the air. The air conditioning is cold and feels great on my skin as it sends little goosebumps down my arms. There’s only one desk, and it’s empty. A handmade sign tells us that whoever works here is off to lunch until 3 p.m. and that’s all the information Cece needs. She looks around, her eyes narrowed conspiratorially. “You see any security cameras?”

  The room is about the size of my bedroom at home, with a desk, a water cooler and a few chairs lined up against the wall. There’s a shelf of brochures for businesses around town, but no security cameras. The only door is behind us.

  Cece smirks. “Keep watch, okay?”

  “What exactly are you planning—” I start, but she dashes behind the desk and wiggles the computer mouse. The screensaver disappears and goes straight to the desk top.

  “Oh thank you, Universe,” she says, closing her eyes briefly as she gazes up at the ceiling. “Let’s find the resident list.”

  “Dammit, Cece. We can’t do this,” I say, rushing over to her.

  “I’ll keep watch,” Ezra says, using his body to block the door. The top half of the door is made of decorative glass, so we’ll know if anyone’s coming.

  “Are we seriously doing this?” I say, looking from Cece to Ezra.

  “We’ve made it this far,” Ezra says. “Might as well try everything we can before we head home.”

  “Exactly,” Cece says, leaning forward in someone else’s office chair while she clicks on software icons to find what she’s looking for. Eventually, she does.

  There are one hundred and four residents in this complex. Two are late on their rent so their names show up in red. I stand behind Cece, watching her navigate the screen. Sorting by alphabetical order, she scrolls down to the N’s, but there’s no Thomas Novak registered here. There aren’t any residents with the name Thomas at all.

  “Go to Wheatley,” I say.

  The W’s come up empty as well.

  “It’s fine,” Cece says, swiveling around in her chair. “It’s fine.” She looks at me like she’s trying to convince me not to worry instead of the other way around. “He probably has roommates and his name isn’t on the lease, which makes sense because for some reason he’s either forgotten his name or—”

  She focuses on the candy dish at the end of the desk. “Or he’s just not on the lease. Let’s get out of here,” she says, closing the windows she’d opened on the computer.

  Back outside, the heat rolls over us. “What’s the game plan?” Ezra asks as we walk back into the parking lot.

  Cece squats down and sits on the curb over the shiny red paint that makes this area a fire zone. She rests her chin in her hands. “He’s probably just at work,” she says. “We’re going to wait.”

  I don’t know how much time has passed, but we sit here on this curb in silence for so long that I start daydreaming about what life will be like when we get home. Will Cece and I be friends again? Are Ezra and I a…thing? I glance over at him and he’s already looking at me. His eyes crinkle at the corners and then I look away. That fluttery feeling in my stomach is almost too much to handle right now.

  I pick up an acorn off the concrete and turn it over in my hand. I haven’t eaten in a while but that doesn’t stop the acidic taste of vomit from rising up in my throat. Whatever happens today—however disappointed Cece is when we never find that red Jeep—this will be my fault. Her pain, the experience of losing her brother again, is all my fault.

  I should have been a good cousin that day. I should have barged in his room and forced him to get on the school bus in time. But it’s too late, and Cece is about to find out the truth once and for all. I can’t go back in time and make everything suddenly be okay. I’ll never be able to make this right, no matter how many crazy road trips I agree to in a futile attempt to assuage my guilt. Broken rules and lies to my parents will never make this okay.

  A tear rolls down my cheek and splashes to the ground. I watch it fan out between the gritty concrete un
til it fades, evaporating in the summer heat. If I took therapy seriously, I might have something to talk about now. Only I’d want a private session where Cece can’t hear how badly I’ve let her down.

  “Do you remember when you two had that plan to get an apartment when you graduated?” Ezra says, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled between the three of us.

  Cece snorts. She’s been writing in her notebook, but she looks up now. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Thomas hated it.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  Ezra picks up a fallen leaf and starts tearing it into little pieces. “I don’t know. I guess he was being protective of you guys. I remember he came storming into my room one day. ‘The girls think they should move out when they graduate,’ he’d said all pissed off about it. I was like, so what? But he got all mad, saying you two didn’t know how hard life is on your own.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Thomas,” Cece says.

  “He told us that bills were expensive but I always thought he was jealous that we had a plan to get out from my mom’s rules and he didn’t,” I say. Again, the pain of refusing to let him be our roommate burns me to the core.

  “Thomas was very protective of you two,” Ezra says. “He always told me I better not hit on his sister or his cousin because they were too good for me.” He nudges me with his elbow and I can’t help but grin, even though I still feel like the worst cousin-slash-friend ever.

  “You turned out okay,” Cece says.

  To the right, the sound of tires on gravel makes us turn, like it has dozens of times today, but it’s just a black BMW and not the car we’re looking for.

  Cece cranes her neck, looking behind us. “That office lady never came back,” she says, frowning. “I’m thinking we could leave a note for Thomas with her. Ask her to give it to the guy with the red Jeep?”

  Ezra stands, shaking out his legs and stretching his arms behind his head. “She might think you’re a stalker if you do something like that.”