Vanishing Girls

“That’s gross, Parker.”

“I mean it. I never . . . it just happened. It was all wrong. It was always wrong. I just didn’t know how to make it stop.” He couldn’t sit still. He jammed his hat back on. He twisted around to face me and then, as though he couldn’t stand to, immediately turned away. “I don’t love her. I mean, I do love her. But not like that.”

For a moment, there was quiet. I couldn’t see Parker’s face—just his profile, the light sliding off the curve of his cheek. Rain drummed against the windshield like the sound of hundreds of tiny feet, stampeding away toward something better.

“Why are you telling me this?” I said finally.

Parker turned back to me. His face was twisted in a look of pain, as if an invisible force had come down on his chest, knocking the wind out of him. “I’m sorry, Nick. Please forgive me.” His voice was raw. “It should have been you.”

Time seemed to glitch. I was certain I’d misunderstood. “What?”

“I mean, it is you. That’s what I’m trying to say.” His hand found mine, or my hand found his. His touch was warm and dry and familiar. “Do you—do you understand now?”

I don’t remember whether he kissed me, or I kissed him. Does it matter? All that really counts is that it happened. All that matters is that I wanted it. I had never, in my whole life, wanted anything so badly. Parker was mine again: Parker, the boy I’d always loved. The rain kept falling, but now it sounded gentler, rhythmic, like the pulsation of an invisible heart. Steam patterned the windshield, turning the outside world to blur.

I could have stayed like that forever.

And then Parker jerked back, just as a loud thump sounded behind me.

Dara. Her hand splayed on the passenger-side window, her eyes hollowed out by shadow, her hair plastered to her cheeks—and that strange smile on her face. Gloating. Triumphant. As if all along, she’d known what she would find.

For a second, Dara left her hand there—almost as if she expected me to place my hand there as well, almost like a game.

Mirror me, Nick. Do what I do.

I may have moved. I may have called out to her. She withdrew her hand, leaving a ghost imprint of her fingers on the glass. Then this, too, was gone—and so was she.

She had slipped onto the bus before I could catch up to her, the doors hissing shut when I was still a half block away, shouting. Maybe she heard me, maybe she didn’t. Her face was white, her shirt dark with rain; standing under the fluorescent lights, she looked like a photo negative, color in all the wrong places. Then the bus slid away beyond the trees, as if the night had opened its jaw to swallow it.

It took me twenty minutes to catch up to the bus on Route 101 in my car, and another twenty before I saw her get off, walking head down on the shoulder, arms crossed against the rain, past blinking-light businesses advertising Bud Light or triple-X videos.

Where was she going? To Beamer’s to see Andre? Down to Orphan’s Beach and the lighthouse? Or did she just want to get far away, get lost in the rocky beaches of East Norwalk, where the land ran into the angry sea?

I tailed her for another half mile, flashing my headlights, blowing my horn, before she agreed to get in.

“Drive,” she said.

“Dara, listen. What you saw—”

“I said, drive.” But when I started to angle the wheel around, to turn back toward home, she reached out and jerked the wheel in the other direction. I slammed on the brakes. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t even blink. She didn’t seem angry or upset. She just sat there, dripping water onto the upholstery, staring straight ahead. “That way,” she said, and pointed south—in the direction of nowhere-land.

But I did what she told me. I just wanted the chance to explain. The road was bad; the tires skidded a little when I accelerated, and I slowed down again. My mouth was dry. I couldn’t think of a single excuse to give.

“I’m sorry,” I said finally. “It wasn’t . . . I mean, it’s not what it looked like.”

She said nothing. The wipers were doing overtime, and still I could barely see the road, hardly see the headlights cutting the rain into splinters.

“We didn’t mean to. We were just talking. We were talking about you, actually. I don’t even like him.” A lie—one of the biggest lies I’d ever told her.

“This isn’t about Parker,” she said, practically the first words she’d spoken since she got in the car.

“What do you mean?” I wanted to look at her but was afraid to take my eyes off the road. I didn’t even know where we were going—I recognized, vaguely, the 7-Eleven where we’d stopped the summer before to get beer on the way to Orphan’s Beach.

“This is about you and me.” Dara’s voice was low and cold. “You can’t let me have anything of my own, can you? You always have to be better than me. You always have to win.”

“What?” I was so stunned I couldn’t even argue.

“Don’t play innocent. I get it. That’s another part of your big act. Perfect Nick and her fuckup sister.” She was speaking so fast, I could hardly understand her; it occurred to me she might be on something. “So fine. You want Parker? You can have him. I don’t need him. I don’t need you, either. Pull over.”

It took me a second to process her request; by the time I did, she had already started to open the door, even though the car was still moving.

And with a sudden, desperate clarity I knew I couldn’t let her out: if I did, I’d lose her.