Page 55 of All of You

I glance at the clock. Eleven. I need to go to sleep but Dammit, Mom, why do you never use his name?! What kind of bullcrap is that? I toss the notebook on the floor next to the bed and grab my journal.

Mom, I binged you today and now I feel full (but not in a good way). You left me. You left me here in this house that you hatedso much apparently. With nothing but useless clues to my own past.

In my own sordid news, Langdon kissed me. Thoroughly. Unyieldingly. My stomach had been twisted in knots. Fluttering, pulsating. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he kissed me, squeezed him in closer to me. Everything felt weightless there like that. As soon as his lips touched mine you didn’t exist—Mom. Not my pain or hurt, nothing existed except Langdon and me and our skin.

I close my journal and set it on top of Mom’s before lighting a candle. I root around in the tiny box mom left with my things.

Her special box.

I was pissed when I saw it originally, but tonight I feel like it’s a gift. I turn out all the lights, strip off my clothes and light the joint by the flame of the candle, climb into bed with it, then blow the candle out.

Mom liked to smoke like this, naked in the cool sheets, with only the hot red tip to light her fingers in the dark. I caught her once. She’d laughed and laughed at me and how prudish I was. That surely, I couldn’t be her daughter.

Jokes on her.

***

My heart is perky with the new day and the new information. I have a clue. The library must have yearbooks and yearbookshave pictures. A soccer start must be pictured. At school Miles and Lyra flank me in the hallway just after I arrive, each looping an arm through my elbow and steering me into the nearest bathroom. A flutter of panic stirs in my belly.

“Whoa, guys, what’s up?” I ask as they release me.

Lyra and Miles look at each other before nodding. “We spent the weekend digging for you a little. I mean, you know, after the diner Friday, we just…needed to help,” Lyra begins.

For a brief moment I forget that I’d told them about my mom disappearing over dinner. That I told them everything I know—which isn’t much. But I catch up and nod at them.

“I might have a clue too. Found my mom’s old journal this weekend. My dad played soccer. Here.”

Lyra gasps. Miles’s eyebrows hike up to his hairline. “Dang that’s way better than our news,” Miles says.

“Tell me yours,” I say.

“Town rumor is that Anna Nash was with your mom the day she disappeared,” Miles says.

“Who’s Anna Nash?”

They look to each other before looking at me. “Langdon’s mom.”

My nose wrinkles. “Langdon’s last name is Nash?”

Lyra giggles. “How did you not know that?”

I shrug my shoulders. “Why would I? He probably doesn’t know mine either.”

“Um,” Miles snorts, “everyone knows the Brickells.”

I roll my eyes. “Right. God, I hate myself sometimes,” I lament. “Uh, while we’re at it… what are your last names?”

Lyra cackles with laughter. “Spektor.”

“Allen,” Miles says.

“Great. Now we all know each other,” I say.

“So, what’s your dad’s… or potential dad’s name?” Lyra asks.

I frown. “No name mentioned. Just a dude she was dating andlovedaccording to her. All I know is that he was in her class and played soccer.”

Now Miles and Lyra are frowning too. “That’s like a lot of potential dads. A whole team of potential dads,” Miles says.

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