Emmy & Oliver - Robin Benway Page 0,10

well, you might describe me that way. The more something needs to be hidden, the sneakier I become. My babysitting cash lives in the back of the closet, in the pocket of a winter coat that I have worn exactly once. My old surfing magazines that I got at the used-book store are stashed in my third desk-drawer down, covered up by piles of printer paper and used-up ballpoint pens.

The shoe box is my oldest hiding spot and it holds just two things, things that no one knows about, not even Drew or Caro, not even my parents.

The first is a copy of my application to UC San Diego.

I had been thinking about applying for a while, ever since junior year when someone mentioned that they had one of the best surfing teams in the nation. San Diego was only about ninety minutes south from where we lived, so it wasn’t like I would be leaving my parents for the other side of the country. It was just far away enough, where I could have some space.

The same space, in fact, that I was giving to Oliver.

I pulled out the application once more, feeling the paper’s crispness in my hands. I had printed it out at the public library just so it would feel real, a reminder that I had actually applied to college. It felt more real that way, more possible. Caro and I had talked about going to community college together, then transferring to a university after two years, but I wanted out now. I didn’t want to wait anymore.

The second secret was at the bottom of the shoe box, a piece of paper folded and refolded so many times that it was starting to tear a little at the creases. Unlike the application, the paper was as soft as bedsheets, and I ran my thumb over the edge before carefully opening it up.

DO YOU LIKE EMMY, YES NO??? it said. Caro’s handwriting was precise and exact, just like it is now, and the word yes was circled. It was the only thing I had left of Oliver after the kidnapping, the only thing that was truly mine, and I had kept it that way for ten years. I used to look at it for hours at a time, holding it in my pocket and pulling it out when I was alone in my room. I had thought that if I kept it close, it would bring Oliver back home, and now was the first time in ten years that I held it while knowing where Oliver was in the world.

The idea took my breath away.

After I put the shoe box back up on the shelf and went to get ready for bed, I realized that I could see into Oliver’s room. The blinds had been blown askew by the wind, leaving a part of the window bare, and I could see him sitting in his desk chair, his profile illuminated by a light coming from across the room. He was holding his lip between his fingers, toying with it absently, and I suddenly remembered him doing that in second grade whenever he was nervous, usually while we were dividing up for kickball teams. (He hadn’t been the best athlete.)

His hair was dark and longer than it had been when we were kids, and he looked sort of like some of the surfers that Drew and his brother, Kane, hung out with on weekends, strands of hair tucked behind his ear. His face was the same, just bigger, and his gaze was intense.

Creeping across the floor (and feeling like a stalker), I managed to turn off the light switch before tiptoeing back over to the window. My room was totally dark so there was no way Oliver could see me, but I hunched down below the windowsill, anyway. I felt like a hippopotamus in one of those nature documentaries, when they’re submerged in water and you can only see their eyes.

Oliver was watching a movie. That’s what had his attention. It was projected from his laptop onto a white sheet that he had taped up over his bookshelf, the same bookshelf that Maureen had dusted for ten years. It was something older, maybe from the sixties, with dramatic music that floated out even through his closed window. Whatever it was, Oliver was entranced. I probably could have been standing inside his room and he wouldn’t have noticed me, but I stayed hidden, anyway.

Suddenly, the space that had always