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At first glance, I notice the differences between the trailers. None are what I would call luxurious, but some seem almost seem cheerful, surrounded by neat little gardens and kiddie pools, while others are crawling with cigarette butts and trash. Not everyone here is the same.
I slow to a crawl, frowning. Where’s her place? I don’t remember the exact address. I ought to have checked before leaving the house.
Some kid with greasy hair and a missing tooth whistles when he approaches my car.
Shit, I should have come here in the Audi. I really haven’t been thinking straight. I guess I wanted to impress Morgan. Then again, why would my car impress her now when it didn’t in June?
I must really be sleep deprived.
I lower my window. “Hey, you know where the Browns live?” I ask the short, lanky teenager.
His pale eyes widen. “Sure. Just across from us.”
Jackpot.
I’m about to ask for further directions when the boy continues. “Well, at least they used to live there. Mr. Dwight says he’s not gonna rent to the Browns ever again after they all disappeared in the dead of night. We went to grab what we could before he took all their stuff to sell or throw away.”
I’m too tired to understand him. “What do you mean, they all disappeared?”
Then my brain catches up, and my mouth thins.
“Where the fuck is Morgan?”
ChapterFourteen
The café where I work was busy through the summer break, but the last week of August is brutal.
We're close to three different campuses, and the start of the semester has brought thousands of students back into the neighborhood. It doesn’t help that Adiva, one of my fellow waitresses, caught a cold and called in sick. I worked two shifts back-to-back every day for the last three days.
I’m dead on my feet by the time I get back home. I need food, a shower, and a nap, but I immediately home in on Pauline’s empty sofa and flop down on it with a groan. Everything hurts: my lower back, my arms, and my feet more than the rest. I feel like an eighty-year-old.
“Morgan?” a small voice calls from the kitchenette.
“Yeah, it’s me.” I grimace, trying to remember if it’s my turn to clean something. I don't think I can bear it after today.
Lovely as they are, I don’t often interact with my roommates, except first thing in the morning when we all rush out of the house within half an hour. Like me, they tend to spend the majority of their time out of doors, unless they’re here to eat or sleep. And a good thing too; our apartment is comfortable, but objectively too small for all five of us.
I tend to get up first, so I’m out of their way before the battle for the use of our one bathroom starts. At least my insomnia is good for something.
I haven’t seen the petite, gorgeous, green-haired woman popping her head into the living room for at least three days.
“Oh good! I thought I might miss you before heading out. I was just about to leave a note. Some guy popped by to see you today.”
Some guy?
I’ve never brought a man back into the apartment, not even Trent, though he has driven me back here a couple of times. And Harper wouldn’t call Trent “some guy.” Trent and I met through her. Harper and I were walking home together after my shift weeks ago, and he stopped to chat with her. They’re in the same year at Caltech.
Still, I check. “Trent?”
She shakes her bright locks. “Nah, some hottie with dark hair, big shoulders, and a drop-your-panties aura, you know.” She winks. "I won't mention him to Trent."
I snort, recognizing the description. “You mean Damian.”
A hockey player with a surfer look, usually smoking a joint behind the building, Damian is exactly the type of guy I would have stayed away from in my old high school. Junior year, he started seeing Erica. Their relationship was shallow and casual, but he hung out with us from time to time, and I was surprised to realize he wasn’t that bad. He sings pop and rock off-key at the top of his lungs in his car, like a huge dork, and can quote an impressive array of bad sci-fi movies by heart.
A couple of days after leaving Thorn Falls, I let Erica know I wouldn’t be in town when she came back after her travels, summarizing my crazy situation. My account entirely omitted any mention of Camden, or blackmail, or homemade porn, or cocks, cutting straight to the basics. All I told her was that after my mother's arrest, Willow was in New York, and I, in LA.
Erica pushed until I admitted to one of the events of that night: I lost it at the club and decided I needed a change of scenery after. She must have asked Damian to check up on me because a few hours later, he offered his help to pick up some of the belongings I’d left in the trailer.
