Emmy & Oliver - Robin Benway Page 0,62

smiling at the memory, and I smiled, too, wondering where the day he finally came home ranked on that list. I almost didn’t want to know.

He also mentioned different things, like the fact that he was lucky that his adult teeth grew in straight because his dad would never have let him go to an orthodontist, and that he never was allowed to have sugar or candy because they never went to a dentist. It didn’t make sense at first, but then it hit me. “Dental records,” I said, and Oliver tapped his nose as if to say, Bingo.

“I mean, I don’t know if anything would have happened,” Oliver clarified. “But I didn’t care. I was just excited that I didn’t have to go to the dentist. And of course, it was one of the first places my mom took me.”

“Did you have any cavities?”

He grinned at me, and yeah, he was lucky his teeth grew in so nice and straight. “Not a one,” he said.

In return, I told him about what it was like growing up here, me and Caro and Drew becoming our little triangle of friends. I told him about the police, the yearly updates on the news, how the interest had been so big for a month or so and then tapered away. “That’s when things really got bad,” I told him one night, when we were driving around in the car. “I think when everyone was focused on the kidnapping, it was more helpful to your mom. But when interest waned . . .” I shrugged. “It’s hard when everyone else moves on, but you can’t.”

“Did she ever have to . . . ?” Oliver trailed off, but I knew what he was asking. No one could ever ask that question directly.

“Identify a body?” I asked, and he nodded. “Not directly. She sent dental records a few times, but they never matched. I think it got to the point where she just wanted to know even if it was bad news, but then the police would call and ask her to send them and she would just . . .” I shook my head. “It was bad.”

I told him about how protective my parents were, not even letting me get my license until I was seventeen. “That was huge,” I admitted. “Like, monumental. I thought they would just keep saying no, but they finally said yes.”

We were sprawled in the grass at a park near Drew’s house for that conversation, listening to crickets and general nighttime noises. It’s always easier to talk in the dark when you can’t see the other person’s face, when you don’t worry about how they’re reacting to what you say. You can just . . . talk.

Oliver found my hand across the damp grass, then gathered it up in both of his and placed it on his stomach. It felt solid and warm. “You should tell them about surfing,” he said. “I think they’d actually be proud of you.”

“No way!” I snatched my hand back and rolled to sit up. “Are you crazy? They’d freak out for a million different reasons. No. Just no.”

“Maybe not, though. Maureen would probably talk to them—”

“You told your mom?”

“No! Emmy!” Oliver sat up, too. We were supposed to be studying at Caro’s house for a group project that didn’t exist. “I didn’t tell anyone, okay? Relax!”

But my heart was pounding. “If they find out, then I can’t surf anymore, and they probably won’t let me move out and go to school, either.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry, okay?” He reached for my hand again. “I was just saying that sooner or later, they’re going to find out.”

“Later,” I said. “Absolutely later. Like, when I’m a retiree who lives in Boca Raton. Then they can find out.”

My parents figured out something else in the meantime, though. “Emmy?” my mom called up the stairs one evening. “Can you come down here for a minute?”

Never good.

My mom and dad were both sitting on the couch. I knew this meeting venue all too well: if my mom is trying to act like it’s no big deal, she sits on the couch. If it’s a serious “you are in so much trouble” scenario, then they sit at the dining room table. So far, so good.

“Emmy,” my mom began once I sat down, “we can’t help but notice that you and Oliver are spending quite a lot of time together.”

“Yes?” I said, because I wasn’t sure if it was a