The Swap - Robyn Harding Page 0,86

to this island full of freaks and losers!”

I drove home in a fog. I was losing her. Them. Forever. It couldn’t be real. Maybe I was in shock because the next thing I knew, I was parked in my driveway. My dad and my brothers were chopping kindling. My mom was pushing Eckhart on a rickety swing. I slowly got out of the truck with my backpack.

“Low!” Wayne ran over to me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “You came home.”

His words were a punch in the gut. I didn’t want this to be my home.

My mom approached, “Are you okay?”

I didn’t want to tell her; she wouldn’t understand. But the words fell from my lips. “Someone called Child Protection Services about Maggie. Freya thinks it was me.”

“I’m sorry,” my mom said, reaching out to stroke my arm. “But it’s for the best.”

“How is it for the best?” I snapped.

“What matters is that the baby is safe and well cared for.”

“She is safe. I was caring for her.”

My dad had joined us by then, the hatchet still in his hand. “I didn’t like what I saw when I brought you the dal. You were in over your head.”

“You called CPS?” I shrieked. “I was fine! I was happy! How could you do this to me?”

My mom sounded stern. “We did this for you, Swallow. A teenaged girl is not equipped to look after an infant on her own for days on end. It’s too much.”

“We were looking out for the child,” my dad added. “She’s what really matters in this situation.”

“I’m what matters. Me!” I shrieked. “You’ve never cared about me! You’ve never put me first!”

“Stop being so melodramatic,” my dad said, but I was already storming toward my truck.

“Come back here and talk about this,” my mom called after me. But I slammed the vehicle door and backed out of the driveway, narrowly missing the goat.

65

My first instinct was to drive back to the Light-Beausoleil household and profess my innocence. But in a way, it was still my fault that CPS had been called to check on Maggie. I had complained about being hungry and alone; I had asked my parents for help. If I’d just eaten those fucking chia seeds, everything would be fine right now.

I drove around for almost an hour, despondency seeping into the marrow of my bones. There seemed no way forward for me, and no way back. Freya was leaving. She blamed me for all her problems. I couldn’t follow her to LA, but I couldn’t imagine staying here without her. And I was not going back to my family, who had betrayed me.

My aimless route took me to the interior of the island, and I found myself approaching Hyak Canyon. A drastic, devastating plan began to take shape in my mind. I pulled into the canyon’s empty parking lot and up to the guard rail. My truck idling, I envisioned crashing through the barrier and hurtling over the edge. It was a deep gully and more than one careless or drunk driver had plunged to their death. If I did it now, before Freya left for LA, she’d hear about my tragic demise and regret her treatment of me. She’d weep at my memorial service, might even make a speech. After the cremation, she’d take some of my ashes to LA with her and throw them off the Santa Monica pier. Better yet, she’d wear them in a locket around her neck. Forever.

They say suicide is a coward’s way out, but I beg to differ. Maybe it depends on the method. Plummeting to the bottom of the canyon, while tragically poetic, was also terrifying. What if I didn’t die instantly? What if I lay at the bottom of the canyon, badly injured, for days? Thirsty and bleeding and alone? Who would find me? And how? I’d told no one where I was going. My parents would think I’d gone back to Freya’s. Freya thought I’d gone home. No one would search for me. No one cared.

I needed courage to go through with this . . . liquid courage.

Thompson Ingleby lived nearby. I had never been to his house, but he’d described the location, its proximity to the canyon. And he’d mentioned the distinctive train car that sat in their front yard, heavily graffitied by his older brother and his friends. Pulling back onto the road, I drove north for less than five minutes before their homestead came into view. Among the broken-down