“Lumen Hearst has gone missing once or twice …” she hazards, but I can see that her mama bear instincts are flaring. She’s a bit more bear than mother in my opinion, but whatever. Also, the letter, Dakota. The letter. My face heats up and Parrish notices. His gaze sharpens, but not in a bad way, and then he … hooks a smile at me?
Wow.
Wasn’t expecting that.
“She disappeared in Colorado for three fucking days during freshman year.” Parrish lifts up a hand as Tess gives him a look that clearly says watch your language, bro. Maybe without the ‘bro’ part though. She isn’t that interesting. “Then, on our sophomore class trip to Disneyland, she left the park and somehow ended up in San Francisco. If there was a party last night, and Lumen was at it, then she probably took off with some new friends to the Bahamas. She’ll turn up.”
“Either way, I’d like for both of you to call and text her,” Tess says, glancing over at Delphine. She gets right back to cleaning, as if she wasn’t listening in on the entire conversation. “And please let me know as soon as you hear from her. Her father’s out of his mind with worry.”
Tess disappears down the hall without mentioning the letter, without so much as giving away with a single furtive glance that she left it here last night. No mention of getting my door back either.
“She’ll probably call you in the morning, bitching about a hangover,” Parrish tells me, but I’m worried anyway. I grab my Tess-phone from the dresser and type out a quick message before giving her a call. No answer. Parrish watches, arms crossed, as he moves over to lean in my doorway. Like Tess, he doesn’t mention the drawing he left for me either. “Do you think we could talk later?” he asks me, flicking his gaze up to Delphine.
Nausea overtakes me in a wave because I know what this is about. And I’m scared. Terrified, maybe, is a better word.
“Yeah, for sure. I should probably talk to Tess first though. I finally got around to reading that birthday letter she gave me and … it’s heavy.” Parrish watches me while I talk, his slight smile turning back into that neutral pout he enjoys so much. He has the mouth to pull it off, I’ll admit. He nods as I glance his way.
Our eyes meet, and I swear, the air between us starts to ripple with heat.
Before I decide to say fuck it and go after Parrish first, I force myself to open the topmost dresser drawer, snatch some clothes, and disappear into the bathroom. Once I’ve showered, brushed and dried my hair, and gotten dressed, I finally emerge.
Both Delphine and Parrish are gone, so I decide that now’s the time.
I’m going to talk to Tess.
I’ll tell her I read the letter. Maybe we can actually have a conversation where she doesn’t threaten me the way she did at Laverne’s house? I’d like that. A lot, actually.
Since she spends a good sixty hours a week in her office, I decide to look for her there first.
“Tess?” I ask, knocking on her office door and pausing as it swings open of its own accord. The room is empty, sunlight slanting across her desk and over the typewriter with a nearly full page hanging out of it. I hesitate briefly, intending to turn around and go downstairs to look for her.
Instead, I find my eyes drawn to that page of blocky text, to the words that I used to admire so damn much. With every one of Tess’ books, my admiration grew. The way she weaves such beautiful words together, the humanity in her emotions, you’d never expect such a cold and distant person to be responsible. I’d even been looking ahead at her book tour schedule to see if I couldn’t make it to NYC or something to meet her.
Hah.
Now? I’d do almost anything to unmeet her.
Then I think of the letter, of the way it made me feel to have her pretty words directed at me. I could just glance at the page to see what she’s working on?
There’s something about it that calls to me, some lingering spark of admiration. If I read those beautiful words, maybe I can find a way to connect with her? Maybe something about her writing will reveal itself to me and I’ll understand her better, the same way I did with the letter?
It’s a stupid idea and really, shame on me for invading my bio mom’s privacy.
It’s inevitable, what happens next.
Each step I take into that room is like a knife, inching closer and closer to my heart. You never know when it’s going to happen, do you? That agonizing pain of betrayal, an emotional wound that rips open inside of you like a chasm. Beside the typewriter, there’s a stack of paper with a cover page: Returned Under the Guise of Night.
