about the Briggses? Couldn’t hurt to give it all a good looking-into and see where the pieces fell.
He grabbed his cap and mug of coffee and headed out.
KATIE
WILLOW IS ALIVE! I CAN’T QUITE BELIEVE IT. PART OF ME WANTS TO call the police and help her get to safety. But she specifically asked me not to. She said she will end up dead if I call the cops. Is she being held captive? Being beaten or tortured? The thought of this puts a huge damper on my initial enthusiasm. But at least she’s alive. At least there’s hope. I know it because she texted me from her phone. Me, of all people. Her bestie.
I put the light on in my room and lock the bedroom door. I don’t want my lie exposed, the lie that I’m sensitive to light. But it’s true about my memory. When I stand, my head feels like one of those plastic buckets street musicians use to drum on for spare change. It aches and pulses, telling me that I’m not quite ready to learn the truth. And why do I feel so nauseous all the time? Another symptom of this head injury?
The old Katie doesn’t exist anymore. This is the new Katie now. The Katie who cheated on her boyfriend and drank alcohol. Who purchased drugs. The Katie whose memory is supposedly impaired and who constantly lies about her sensitivity to light. Who lies to her mother about what she really knows. Who refuses to go to the police with evidence that her bestie is still alive.
I’ve thought a lot about who could be responsible for what happened to us. I’ve made a running list in my head. The most surprising name on that list is Katie Eaves. Could I have done it? It scares me because I know I became insanely jealous of Willow’s relationship with Dakota. And then Julian. Her shifting moods and random bouts of meanness had made me feel trapped in a psychotic friendship, from which I couldn’t escape. It seems crazy to think that I might have hurt Willow. Then again, I had never thought I’d drink alcohol or take drugs. But I had. Does that also mean I killed Dakota? For cheating on me with Willow after I helped him get those Mollies?
I remember the night that Dakota took me back to his house and we chilled for a while. He lived in a beautiful home, cute and tastefully decorated. I remember thinking, Why can’t I live in a home like this? Smaller than Willow’s, Dakota’s home sat back from the ocean, but for some reason, it seemed comfier and more relaxed than Willow’s.
We listened to music and talked about our lives and our hopes and our dreams. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was definitely one of the hottest guys I’d ever laid eyes on, with his olive skin and jet-black hair. His muscles bulged out of his T-shirt, but not in the bulky sort of way that Drew’s did. His were more defined, as if a surgeon had strategically padded him in all the right places. He told me he worked out every day in order to become a champion wrestler. Supposedly, Chance Academy had one of the best wrestling teams in all of New England, and Dakota had his eyes set on winning the New England Prep Championship.
He said he wanted to go to Brown and wrestle and study literature and write poetry. I thought that was so cool—and incredibly sexy, especially when he read me some of his poems. I thought of my future with Drew, who wanted nothing more out of life than to own his own fishing boat, bury himself in engines and grease, and have a large family to come home to. I imagined a household filled with tiny, screaming Drews, and the inside of our home forever reeking of lobster and herring bait, and it was all I could do not to cry. Because I didn’t want that life. I didn’t want to end up like my mother, married to a charismatic townie who’d lost interest in her years ago.
The snow started to fall. His mother had gone out for the night. After reading his last poem, Dakota added some logs to the fireplace and got a blaze going. From it, he lit a joint. Then he sat down next to me so that our shoulders and thighs touched. I got goose bumps from his proximity to me. It