a magician. How to follow the truth instead of the lie.
I reached for the journal, and Dad yielded his grip. I flipped to an early drawing, examined it, and looked up into my father’s expectant face.
“What if we—”
I was interrupted by a knock on the door. Dad put his hand on my shoulder.
“I’ll get it.”
There was another knock—and then a voice, muffled and vaguely familiar, called out from the other side.
“Ellie? Are you in there?”
I gripped the bedspread. It had to be Beard Boy. He’d discovered that I’d ripped him off and had somehow tracked me here.
“Who’s there?” Dad said.
“I’m a friend of Ellie’s. Is she there?”
I frowned. It couldn’t be Beard Boy; I had told him my name was Purcilla. And besides, this voice was younger. Higher-pitched.
My jaw went slack. No way.
Dad turned to me, eyebrows drawn together. I nodded. Cautiously, he opened the door.
A teenager stood on the peeling threshold: a slender boy at least six feet tall with red hair; round, handsome features; and amber-brown eyes. He wore skinny jeans and a rust-colored hoodie with the Atari logo screen-printed across the chest.
I had never seen him before in my life.
Slowly, I got to my feet. “Ripley?”
CHAPTER 17
“IT’S YOU, RIGHT?” THE WORDS tumbled stupidly out of my mouth.
“Yeah,” he said, with an awkward under-the-breath laugh. “It’s me.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I just . . .” Ripley swallowed nervously, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a cork in a wave.
Dad eyed me and cleared his throat.
“Sorry. Dad, this is Ripley. Ripley, Dad.”
Dad’s face lit up with recognition. And, I thought, a little relief.
“Of course. I’ve heard so much about you.” He put out his hand. Ripley seized it and pumped a little too hard.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Dante.”
Dad took a step back. “Why don’t you come in?”
I took one glance around our disgusting motel room and quickly intervened.
“Actually, is it all right if I step out for a few minutes? Ripley and I need to talk.” I grabbed my hoodie.
Dad frowned, tugged the end of his mustache. “All right. But take your phone. And this time, answer it.”
Ripley and I moved down the walkway. His gait was long and loping and didn’t seem to match the voice I’d heard on the phone for the last two years. He felt alien to me, as if the role of my best friend had suddenly been recast with a new actor.
We turned the corner and came into a deserted smokers’ grotto. I turned and looked at Ripley.
“How did you get here?”
“Carjacked a soccer mom,” he said. “I’m an interstate fugitive.”
I laughed, but the laugh broke in the middle and I had to choke back tears. God, I was a mess. I needed to get control of myself or I was going to scare him away, too.
But instead of withdrawing, Ripley stepped forward and put his arms around me. They were stronger than I had imagined. He smelled like new-car-scent air freshener and spearmint gum—not bad smells, but again, not what I expected.
I broke off the hug. “I can’t believe you came.”
“I needed to get away.” He looked down at his feet, traced a line in the small pile of cigarette ashes on the concrete. “After we got off the phone last night, I went back for Jude, and we walked to Heather’s.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s a tough little fucker; he’ll be fine. Heather’s going to watch him till I get back. Anyway, she let me borrow her car, and I got on the road.”
“You drove straight here?”
“I mean, I stopped at the DQ in Blythe for a pee and a Blizzard.”
I laughed, and it felt like a hot water balloon had burst in my chest. “It’s really great to see you, Ripley. I mean, I guess, it’s really great to meet you.”
“The pleasure is all mine, milady.” He did a sort of awkward Elizabethan bow, and I laughed. It was 100 percent Ripley, and I was relieved that some part of him matched my expectations.
There was an awkward pause. Ripley stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “You don’t look like your avatar,” he said.
Neither of us used our real photos online. Ripley’s avi was a pixelated emoji with Xed-out eyes, and mine was Death from the Sandman comics.
I flipped my hair. “Cuter than you thought, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said, clearly uncomfortable. “I mean, no, but . . .”
A laugh escaped me. Of course he didn’t find me cute. I was a red-eyed, insomniac mess.
He cocked his head. “Are you fucking laughing