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  I heard a scream—it sounded far off. And it didn’t stop. There was just a lot of screaming and then things turned blurry. I was suddenly confused as to why I was no longer looking in the refrigerator. Instead, I was on the floor, staring at the yellowing linoleum. I couldn’t seem to get enough air in my lungs, and they burned, along with my throat. That’s when I figured it out.

  I was the one screaming. Those loud screams were coming from me as I sat crumpled on the floor. Billy was on me in an instant, pulling me up and setting me on a chair. The screams had stopped, but the air still wasn’t filling my lungs. His face was blurry and the room was growing dark, like someone was slowly pulling a blanket over my eyes.

  “Kendall.” I could hear him, but he sounded like he was in another room.

  I heard a loud crack, and then felt a stinging sensation on my cheek. That’s when things started to clear up for me. His face started to come into focus and his voice began to get closer. “Kendall, are you with me? What just happened?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  I looked around the room, trying to figure out where I was and what I was doing there.

  “You just started screaming and then you freaked out. What’s going on?”

  I started to think about it, what I was doing before I ended up in the chair. I was getting dinner ready—no, dinner was done. I was getting drinks. That’s when I remembered. “There’s no milk,” I said barely above a whisper.

  “Really? All of that because we’re out of milk?”

  “The milk was all gone. I didn’t have any for the macaroni and cheese.”

  He looked around and noticed the plates of chicken and vegetables. “What macaroni and cheese? What are you talking about?”

  I was looking in his direction, but looking through him. All I could focus on was the wall behind his shoulder. “I couldn’t go get more and I didn’t know if he’d ever come back. I didn’t have any milk.”

  Billy’s large, callused hands grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. “What’s going on, Kendall? You’re not making any sense.”

  That’s when I was finally brought back to reality. It was like everything up until then was a dream. It felt like I was out of my body, watching it all play out and I couldn’t do anything to stop the fear running through my veins.

  “I went to get you milk for dinner, but it was gone. And all of a sudden, I had these thoughts of you dead on the bathroom floor. I don’t know where it came from.”

  “Did you run out of milk while my dad was gone?”

  I nodded. “What’s wrong with me?” I wanted to cry.

  “I think you might have post-traumatic stress.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I promise to never run out of milk again.”

  I woke up the next morning, remembering Billy’s words. He made a promise and kept it. We never ran out of milk after that. Somewhere along the way, the milk didn’t bother me anymore. The smell of rotten food in the trash no longer made me remember what the house smelled like on those days. An empty coffee pot no longer made me panic and the feeling of waking up alone in the house became normal. Billy rescued me. He saved me. He made me okay.

  It was my turn to start doing that for myself.

  “So, I found something.”

  I don’t know what I was thinking of or where my head was at, but Link’s voice broke the spell I was under. I looked to him. He was sitting in his chair at his computer, staring at the screen.

  “What did you find?”

  “Your dad was arrested twice for possession of illegal substances.”

  I was off the bed in seconds, rushing to his side.

  There in front of me, on the computer screen, was his mug shot. I didn’t look a thing like him. His hair was dark brown and hung down to his shoulders. He had bluish colored eyes, but it was hard to tell the exact shade since they were so bloodshot. The description of him said he was five eight–just two inches taller than me–and from the weight listed, I’m sure he was underweight.

  “Was my mom ever arrested?” I asked.

  “No. Just your dad.”

  That didn’t make any sense. The woman on the street said my mom was trouble. If she had been that bad, you’d think she’d have a record, too, but she didn’t.

  “This is just getting more and more confusing for me, Link. It’s like every time I go to find an answer to one question, I end up with three more questions. Was my mom into this stuff or did she just get that reputation because of my dad? Did my dad make her do these things? And to add to the doubt I have about them, now I have doubts about Billy, too. And I hate having doubts about him.”

  “What kind of doubts do you have about Billy?” he asked with genuine sincerity.

  “At Dr. Montage’s office yesterday, she made me talk about the days I was alone before Billy came to get me. I remembered how he cleaned all of my things from John’s house before calling the cops. Why would he do that? If he didn’t know about me being kidnapped, why would he do that?”

  “Why don’t you call and ask him?”

  “I told him I wouldn’t call anymore.”

  Link only silently nodded and looked back to his computer.

  “I just don’t know if I want to keep doing all of this. Maybe I should just stop with it all and wait until December. Just wait it out until I can leave. This is only confusing me more and stressing me out.”

  He turned back to look at me and I could see the sympathy written all over his face. “I found a woman that went to school with your parents. She was in a few pictures in the yearbook with your mom. She works at a clothing store just outside of town. Maybe she can give you some answers.”

  “I don’t know if I still want them.”

  “I think you feel that way because you haven’t really gotten any. Maybe just talk to her and see how it goes. If it doesn’t help then we’ll quit and just hang out for the next five and a half months. But I think it’s worth at least trying.”

  “And what am I supposed to say to her? Just walk up to her and ask, ‘so I know you knew my mother in school, can you tell me if she was a fucked-up person or not?’ She probably won’t even waste her time talking to us.”

  “Let’s just go over there and find out. If she asks us to leave, then we leave.”

  “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”

  She was folding clothes and adding them to the display in front of her. Link told me her name was Shannon, and that she had been friends with my mother. He somehow found all of this out just by going through the school’s yearbook. I wasn’t sure how much about her I wanted to know.

  I watched her and waited. For some reason, I couldn’t find the courage to talk to this woman. Maybe I was scared of what she had to say. There were clearly things about my parents I didn’t know. Things Jeri and Jack didn’t want to tell me. And I’m sure if they knew I was out trying to dig up buried dirt, they’d try to stop me.

  Part of me wanted to know. I felt I needed to know in order to move on. But some small voice in my head told me I didn’t need that information. I never knew my parents anyway. What would the knowledge of them being fucked-up really do for me? Nothing.

  As I looked at the clothes around me, I wondered what it would be like to go shopping. I wouldn’t know because John had always bought clothes for me, and it wasn’t from a place like this. Maybe at one point they were, but not when he got them. They were already worn by time they were mine. And I’m not exactly sure all of them were girls’ clothes. I know I had at least a few boys’ shirts in my drawers growing up. But I didn’t care, at least they were clothes. I couldn’t really blame him. He was a guy, what did he know about dressing a girl?

  Once I came to live with Jeri, I didn’t have anything from home. I’m assuming Jeri just went out and grabbed any clothes she could find. They were very girly, and not my taste at all. I still had a lot of dresses and skirts that still had tags on them because I refused to wear them. I guess wearing sh
orts and t-shirts all my life became my norm. I did however like the tank tops she picked out, even though they were all pinks and purples. I preferred greens and blues, but I didn’t say anything to her. I was just grateful to have clothes, and even more grateful they were brand new. I never told her that, though. I was too ungrateful when I first came to town to really see the effort she had put into my arrival.

  Link pushed me, breaking me from my thoughts. He pushed me again, in the direction of the woman we had gone to see. I hadn’t wanted to go, but he convinced me I wouldn’t be able to fully move on without knowing the truth. He appeased me by telling me he’d be there for me no matter what I learned about them, and he’d support any decision I made from it.

  So, I walked over to her, pretending to look at the shirts she was placing by size on the display table. She didn’t look up. Her head stayed lowered as she concentrated on her job at hand. I almost chickened out, until I looked over and saw the look in Link’s eyes. Like he was pleading with me. Like this information was more for him than for me.

  “Excuse me,” I interrupted her careful folding.

  Her hands stopped folding, and that’s when I noticed she was staring right at me.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered to herself.

  I didn’t know what to say anymore. I was tongue-tied and my mind completely went blank. It was like she knew exactly who I was without me having to say anything. I guess I could have expected it—there was no such thing as a secret in a small town like this, apparently.

  “You look just like her,” she said again, more to herself than me.

  “I was wondering… if maybe you could tell me about her?”

  I felt nervous asking and it made my voice sound like I was on the verge of crying, even though I knew I wasn’t. I felt my hands shake and my stomach turn. I just wanted this to be over with so I could feel normal again. So I could go on living my life like I had been.

  Shannon had looked around before she turned her attention back to me. Her eyes had softened and she, too, looked like she may start crying. It added to the anxiety I was feeling. She finally put her work down and nodded to the front door, suggesting I follow her outside.

  As I walked behind her through the rows of clothes, I noticed Link stayed back. Part of him wanted to go with me, to find this information out when I did. But I knew what he was doing. He was giving me the privacy I needed. And I respected him for it.

  “What would you like to know?” she asked as we sat on a bench by the entrance. The late June heat was almost suffocating. I was in a tank top and shorts, but still felt the beads of sweat form around my hairline and between my breasts.

  “Anything. I don’t know anything about her.”

  “She was my best friend in high school. Things started to fall apart our senior year, but I still loved her like a sister. It was very hard for me to watch her fall apart like she did. And it was even harder for me after high school. She didn’t want anything to do with me or our friendship after that.”

  “What happened to her to make her like that?”

  “Your father,” she spewed. It was obvious she didn’t like him just by the way she said it.

  “My grandmother and uncle are very careful about what they say. Almost like they’re protecting her, not me. I need to know about them. About what happened to me. But it’s like they don’t want me finding out. Why?”

  “They always protected her. And I had to stop seeing your uncle when he made that choice to protect her instead of you. I couldn’t bear to see what it was doing to everyone. I didn’t want to be around it anymore. And for that, I have felt a sense of guilt all of these years.”

  “Just start from the beginning, please. You’re just making me more confused.”

  Shannon looked to the sky and took in a deep breath. “Your mother and I were best friends. We did everything together. Including, trying pot for the first time. She loved it and I hated it. Then, our senior year, your dad transferred to our school. He was bad news, but nothing would get through to Corinne. She had a mind of her own and nobody could tell her any different.”

  “Why was he bad news?”

  “Rode a Harley, had long hair, drank in the school parking lot during games, and we all were convinced he did and sold drugs. But your mother didn’t care. She flew to him like a moth to a flame. I watched as he slowly brought her down, and by then, no one could do anything about it.”

  There were so many questions swarming around in my head I didn’t even know where to begin. I wanted to know everything. “Did she do drugs with him?”

  Shannon hesitated for a moment, probably trying to figure out how to answer. “I don’t think she did in the beginning. She smoked pot, but I don’t think she did anything else until later on.”

  “What do you mean by later on? How much later on?”

  “I’m not sure. I started noticing her change half way through the year. She started distancing herself from me and the rest of our friends, spending all of her time with Doug. That’s when I think she started doing more than smoking weed. But I don’t know for sure. She never told me. I asked a few times, but she always denied it.”

  “How did she change?”

  “Her grades started falling and she started getting in trouble in school. She was always so smart. Like it came natural to her. But she just didn’t care anymore. We were only a few months away from graduating, and I guess she felt like she didn’t have to try any longer.”

  I didn’t dwell on that part for long before moving on to my next question. “Were you still friends with her when she got pregnant with me?”

  She looked away just after I saw something flash in her eyes. I couldn’t quite read the emotion, but it almost seemed like pain.

  “Corinne found out she was pregnant just before graduation. I remember the day she came to me like it was yesterday. She already told Doug, and apparently he was okay with it. He told her he would take care of you guys and she had nothing to worry about. I remember asking her why she was so upset if everything was all right. She just cried and said she wasn’t ready to give up her life yet.”

  “Did she talk about aborting me?”

  “Never,” she answered quickly. “I don’t think that thought ever crossed her mind. I believe a lot of it was about her having to stop partying. I know it upset her that Doug never did. She wanted him to stop if she had to, but he never did. They fought a lot about that. We grew close again when she was pregnant, and I thought it would stay that way. But it didn’t.”

  “What happened?”

  “After she had you, maybe two months after, she started growing distant again. I noticed she was out a lot without you. You spent a lot of time with your grandparents and uncle. I dated Jack for a while after high school. Growing close with your mom again made me get closer with him. And there were many times he’d have to cut our dates short to pick you up. And many more times you’d be at his house when I was there.”

  “You think she was doing drugs again?”

  “I don’t know when it started again, but I do know she did. I think it started with drinking, and then everything else followed, just like it did before. I hated to watch her throw her life away like that but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I tried talking to her, your uncle tried, but nothing helped. She eventually stopped talking to the family. She used some woman she met through Doug to watch you, and so I never saw you again after your second birthday. That’s when things started to get really bad. When she stopped talking to the family.

  “Jack took it really hard. He hated to see her like that. She had lost a lot of weight and just stopped taking care of herself. I wanted to call child services, but he told me not to. He said it was a family matter and we didn’t need to involve the state. I didn’t listen to him. I called anyway. But it didn’t do any good. They went and checked out the house, they checked you out, and they said everything was fine. Jack was really pissed off at me for calling. We broke up soon after that. I didn’t
think he did enough to save her, and he thought I was overstepping my boundaries.” Shannon looked so sad when talking about it all. I had no idea this was what I would be listening to when I started asking questions.

  “You never saw her again?”

  “I did once. I don’t think she saw me though. She was too far gone to notice anything around her. Doug was there, too, and he was yelling at her. I don’t know what for, I didn’t get close enough to hear. But she was standing against the door of a car and just looked lost. I’m sure she couldn’t hear anything he was saying. That’s the part I regret the most. After you had been taken, I kept thinking back to that day. I could’ve done something. I should have done something.”

  “I’m sure there was nothing you could have done,” I tried to comfort her. I could tell this walk down memory lane was hard for her. “I turned out okay. I lived with a very nice and loving man that took care of me. He never hurt me, not once.”

  A tear fell from Shannon’s eye and slid down her high cheekbone as she smiled. “I was so worried about you. And I’ve tried not to listen to what people have been saying since you’ve come back, but I have been curious as to if you were okay. Part of me didn’t want to find out because I would never forgive myself if it was bad.”

  “You don’t have to beat yourself up about it anymore. After what you just told me, and after finding out my parents knowingly drove drunk with me in the car, I think it’s safe to say I am better off for being taken.”

  She smiled and ran her hand down my arm in a comforting gesture.

  “And Jack? Really? What did you ever see in him?” I had to laugh at that.

  She smiled again and I saw a new emotion in her eyes, and it wasn’t pain. “I don’t know how he is anymore, it was so long ago, but he was a good man. He loved with his whole heart and it got him in trouble. I know he hated himself after you went missing and Corinne died. He called me one night just after it happened, and he was so completely torn up about it. He loved you like you were his child and not just his niece.”