Made You Up

“Uh-oh,” Tucker said.

McCoy’s junker of a car trundled down the street. Miles shoved the key above the doorframe, then grabbed us both and yanked us off the porch. He pushed Tucker and me behind the dead shrubs that hugged the side of McCoy’s house, then ducked in after us. Sharp branches dug into my arms and head, and sweat trickled down my neck. McCoy pulled into his driveway, got out of his car, and went inside.

“Is he gone?” Miles whispered, his neck cranked toward me so the shrubs didn’t poke his eyes out.

“Yeah,” I said.

As quietly as possible, we climbed out of the shrubs and dashed for Miles’s truck and Tucker’s SUV.

Charlie wasn’t behind me. I jerked to a halt, pulling Miles with me.

“What? What is it?” he asked.

“Charlie! Where’d Charlie go?” I looked around, back to McCoy’s house. “She came out with us, didn’t she? You saw her come out?”

“Alex—” Miles pulled me forward.

“Miles, if she’s still in that house—we have to go back!”

He kept pulling. I dug my heels in. Stupid, stupid Charlie, had to follow us. I couldn’t believe her. I knew she was only eight, but I couldn’t believe she could be this stupid.

Miles grabbed my shoulders and dragged me to the cars, swung me around so I was pinned between him and his truck. Tucker stood behind him, his face twisted with that awful pity.

“Alex.”

Miles’s voice was low but forceful. His bright blue eyes pierced me.

“Charlie’s not real.”

Why did you leave?

Chapter Forty-nine

The world tipped sideways. “W-what?” I stuttered.

“Charlie’s not real. There’s no one there. There never was.” Miles pulled me around to the other side of his truck. The words buzzed in my ears, and everything stopped. The wind stopped rustling the trees; even the bug on Miles’s windshield froze in its tracks.

“No.” I tore my arm from Miles’s grasp. Shock radiated out through my limbs. “No. You’re lying. She was there— she was right there!” I’d seen her leave the house with us; I was sure. “Don’t lie to me, Miles. Don’t you fucking lie.”

“He’s not lying.” Tucker came around on my other side, his hands up.

“She’s real, Tucker. She’s . . . she’s got to be . . .” I looked toward McCoy’s again, expecting Charlie to pop out from the other side of the house, playing a game. I’d yell at her for scaring me, and I wouldn’t let her out of my sight again until we got home.

But she didn’t appear.

“Go home, Beaumont,” Miles said to Tucker. “I’ll take care of her.”

“Alex,” Tucker said again, moving closer to me. I stepped away, wiping my eyes. I couldn’t cry. Charlie wasn’t here. She was at home. But the more I wiped my eyes, the more tears spilled out.

Home. I had to go home.

I climbed into the passenger seat of Miles’s truck, buckled myself in. Home.

“It’ll be okay.” Tucker leaned through the window, holding my hand and speaking softly.

What was “okay”?

Miles’s door slammed. The truck roared to life. Tucker slipped away with the rest of the scenery.

Miles kept talking to me, but I couldn’t hear what he said.

She was just there. She had always been there.

The front door slammed against the hallway wall when I threw it open.

My parents were at the kitchen table. Eating dinner. Like nothing was wrong. Their heads shot up when I appeared in the doorway. I suddenly realized I couldn’t breathe.

“Charlie,” I choked out.

My mother stood first. She still had her napkin clutched in one hand, and she came at me with it like I was a baby who’d spit up. I backed away from her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Alex, honey . . .”

“How can she not be real?”

A whimper came from behind me. Charlie stood in the hallway, her chess set held in both trembling hands. It was the chess set she’d had to get new black pawns for, because I’d flushed all the old ones down the toilet. One of the pawns was wedged between her teeth. When she whimpered again, it fell out of her mouth.

“What’s going on, Alex?” Charlie asked, her voice shaking as much as her hands. “What are you talking about?”

“Charlie . . .” A knot formed in my throat. My vision blurred again. “But . . . but I remember you bringing her home from the hospital. Feeding her and taking care of her and watching her grow up and . . . and she always had Christmas presents under the tree, and you always set a place for her at the table . . . and she has to be . . .”

“She was real,” my mother said. Her voice had gone tight, strained in a way I’d never heard it before. “But she died. Four years ago.”

Dad stood up as well. I didn’t like that everyone was standing.

“Charlie died before she turned five. As—” Dad’s voice broke. “Asphyxiation,” he said. “I should never have let her play with my chess set—”

I backed away, shielding Charlie from view. She whimpered again. The chessboard tumbled from her hands, and now all the other pieces joined the black pawn on the floor.

“I’m calling Leann.” My mother went for the phone. “We shouldn’t have waited so long. This has gone too far. There’s got to be a stronger medication she can prescribe.”

“She doesn’t need stronger medication.” A hand wrapped around my arm. Miles stood where Charlie had just been, glaring at my mother. Anger radiated off him, deep and cold. “She needs parents who give a shit about telling her what’s real and what’s not.”

My parents stared at him, both of them rooted to the spot and completely silent.

“Miles,” I whispered.

“How could you not tell her?” He got louder by the second. “Charlie’s been dead for years, and you think it’s okay to pretend she’s not? Did you think Alex wouldn’t find out? Was she too crazy for that?”

“No, it’s nothing like—” my mother began.

“Like what? What could justify that?” Miles’s fingers dug into my arm. “It better be pretty damn good, because that’s fucked up. That’s really fucked up. You’re the ones she’s supposed to be able to trust—you’re supposed to be the ones she can go to when she can’t tell. But instead she has to take a bunch of pictures because if she tells you anything, you threaten to send her to an asylum!”