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Addison. My breath catches in my throat and my hand settles at the hollow of my neck in an effort to halt the choking sensation. If I beg my parents for help, will they tell Addison’s parents what we did? And if they do, what new bruises will appear because I’m weak?
My chest hurts as I try to inhale. This situation isn’t fixable. None of it is. I’ll miss any chance to attend college. To win a scholarship. Mom and Dad will be disappointed. They’ll be angry. Addison and Reagan will pay for my sins.
But I don’t know what to do. This problem...this picture...Kyle...this is bigger than me.
“Is it true that once something’s on the internet, it remains on the internet?” I ask. Liam likes computers. He’s the one who prevents our household from plummeting into the dark ages.
“Once it’s out there, it never goes away,” he says.
“But what if you delete it?”
Liam pulls into our drive. “The moment it’s on the net, it’s cached someplace. Doesn’t take anyone with half a brain to find it.”
“Even pictures?”
“It’s worse if it’s a picture. People copy stuff all the time. It’s like ants at a picnic. You can kill one, but fifty of them are right behind.”
He shifts the car into Park, then his face wrinkles as if he realized he was strolling in a thunderstorm without an umbrella. “Why?”
If I speak, I’ll cry, and if I cry, I’ll lose my courage. Mom. I need Mom.
I’m out of the car, leaving my backpack in the seat and the passenger door gaping. I burst into the kitchen and my heart stalls. The floor is littered with luggage and cardboard boxes of Clara’s stuff. What bothers me is that Mom’s suitcase is in the mix.
The swinging door from the living room opens and Mom rushes in like she’s fleeing out-of-control flames. Her arms are filled with various items on the verge of spilling onto the floor.
“Oh, good.” Mom’s expression relaxes as if my arrival meant the end to world hunger. “I was scared Clara and I would be gone before you showed. Liam must have found you. I know sometimes you visit with Addison and Reagan after school. Help me unzip the middle suitcase. The purple one. I wonder if I forgot something. Bre, start listing things I could have forgotten.”
Me? You’ve forgotten about me. “Where are you going?”
“Where are you going?” Liam ambles in and drops my backpack on my feet, permitting it to hit my toes. “Leave something?”
“Liam.” Mom glances at the clock on the microwave. “Unzip that middle suitcase. The purple one, then go tell Clara goodbye. We should have left five minutes ago if we’re going to make this work.”
“Good. This is good.” Liam’s shoulders loosen and then he mock swats the back of my head. “You heard Mom, start listing things, Encyclopedia-freak.”
“Don’t hit your sister and don’t call her that.” Mom reprimands him with all the passion of an answering machine recording as she drops the contents in her hands into the already overstuffed suitcase.
Mom straightens, places three fingers over her lips as she focuses on the mound of stuff, then mumbles a list of items—socks, pants, toothbrush...
I’m frozen to the ground, my entire body becoming solid. “What’s going on?”
Her head jerks up like she forgot I was here, which means she did. “Oh, yes. Bre. You are very much needed to make this work.”
She plucks an elastic band off her wrist and wrestles her short black hair into a ponytail. Mom rarely does this except when she’s flustered. It’s a vanity issue as the gray shows near the base of her neck. “I need you to take care of your younger siblings while I’m gone.”
There’s that word again—gone. Panic sets in as a trembling in my hands. “Will you please tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s Clara,” she says. “You know how upset she was that she didn’t graduate this spring and that your father and I are having her pay her tuition this year. Well, your father talked to the college. The administration worked with us and they agreed to let Clara into the fall courses she thought were closed. I’m driving her into Nashville tonight and we’re going to be staying with Nora.”
We’re? As in Mom and Clara are staying overnight with my oldest sister? “When will you be back?”
Mom’s face pinches like either I won’t like the answer or she won’t. The way my sugar level plummets, I’m thinking it’ll be me.
“Two weeks,” she says.
The world tilts. “Two weeks? I thought Dad was going to be working crazy hours and you were going to be taking time off from your job so you could handle his responsibilities and isn’t he supposed to be traveling for part of it and why are you leaving with Clara?”
Mom waves her hand to ward off my verbal meltdown as if she’s air patting me like a dog. “Calm down. Yes, your dad is busy. Yes, he will be out of town for part of it. Yes, I did take time off from work, but no, I won’t be here. I’ll be spending the two weeks with Clara. Your dad and I discussed it this morning. We have complete faith you can keep this house going. I’m sure Liam and Joshua will help, but, Bre, if anyone can run this house, it’s you. We know you can do this. Out of all of my children, you are the responsible one. My thinker.”
