Emmy & Oliver - Robin Benway Page 0,93
gestured toward the bathroom and I waved him in. I watched as he splashed water on his face, then used my towel to dry it off. I had to look away when he looked in the mirror. It hurt too much, watching him look for answers in his own reflection and not finding anything there.
I got up and walked him downstairs. My hair was probably a disaster and my shirt was still damp, but I didn’t care. It was funny, I never cared about those things with Oliver. I didn’t worry about how I looked. All that mattered was how I felt.
“See you at school?” he said.
“You better,” I replied, then stood on my tiptoes to kiss him goodbye. “I mean it. I’m driving you there and back tomorrow.”
“Noted,” he said, then kissed me one last time before pulling his hoodie up over his head and going out the door. I watched until he had disappeared into the dark, then locked the door, turned off all the lights downstairs, and went back upstairs. Usually, it freaked me out to be home alone in the dark at night, but I was too exhausted to care that night.
Even so, I lay awake for most of the night, blinking at the man in the moon as he stared back at me. I heard both of my parents come home separately, and I also heard both of them open my bedroom door to check on me. I pretended to be asleep then, but part of me wished they could tell I was faking it, that they could figure out the truth without me having to tell them.
But they just closed the door and walked away, their footsteps fading down the hall, and that night when I finally fell asleep, I dreamed I was chasing Oliver down the same hallway, his hooded figure getting smaller and smaller until I couldn’t see him anymore, until he was gone once again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
School was a joke the next day. Between insomnia and nightmares, I was sort of a disaster and managed to forget my math homework, my lunch, and my house keys. “Trifecta,” I muttered to myself once I realized that they were all missing.
When I wasn’t busy forgetting things, I was keeping an eye out for Oliver. I normally didn’t see him until lunchtime, but I caught a glimpse of him ducking into the counselor’s office at the start of lunch, which made me relax a little. Maybe he was telling her about the letter? Maybe they were calling the police right now?
I spent most of lunch in the library, redoing my calculus homework that was due next period. I kept glancing up, waiting to see Oliver standing in front of me, but he never appeared. I dashed through the problems, not even checking to see if they were right, and as soon as I was done, I went to where Oliver, Caro, Drew, and I had all eaten lunch the day before. (Had that really just been the day before? It seemed like a lifetime ago.) “Sorry!” Caro yelled when she saw me, and I froze. “The burrito queen is out of stock today! You’ve exhausted her benevolence!”
Drew just rolled his eyes. “Today is DIY day, apparently,” he said to me. “Hope you brought something. Because otherwise, it’s a giant bag of Funyuns for you. Which, despite the clever name, are never fun.” He looked pleased with himself for realizing this.
“Where’s Oliver?” I asked, and there must have been something in my voice because Caro and Drew seemed to sober up fast.
“Um, I don’t . . .” Caro looked around like he was hiding behind her, ready to pop out and yell, “Surprise!” “I haven’t really seen him, but I don’t see that much, anyway.”
“Yeah, same,” Drew said. “You okay? You look a little . . .” He grimaced, which was apparently the universal facial symbol for “stressed and terrified.”
“Yeah, I. I, um, I have to find him,” I said, backing away from their lunch. The bell suddenly rang, shrill and impatient, and I jumped. “I have to go.”
“Wait, Emmy,” Caro said. “You have class, Em, you can’t—”
But for the first time in my life, I didn’t care if I got caught ditching. Oliver wasn’t on campus. I knew it. I just knew it. I knew it the same way I knew he was gone when he didn’t show up that Tuesday for school ten years ago. Even back then, something hadn’t been right and that