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“What thefuckis going on?” he exclaims, looking at me like he’s finally made sense of my strange texts. But Jason’s smart, and he pieces the puzzle together faster than I did. To Lily, he says, “Have you been here the whole time?Hiding?Did you know there’s a whole missing persons case for you? You must have, Warren would’ve told you.Fuck, this is so messed up.”
“I know I owe a lot of explanations to a lot of people,”
Lily says, wringing her hands together.
Warren hovers by the door, watching the scene in front of him, but I feel his eyes drift to me occasionally.
He wants to talk to me, and part of me wants to talk to him before I leave, so I stand as Jason closes the distance between us.
“Yes, you do,” Jason says to Lily. “Does Tyler know?
No, he can’t. He can’t keep a secret for shit.”
He caresses my hip as we pass each other and looks directly into my eyes, making sure I’m okay. I nod at him, and we continue on our paths, me to Warren and him to Lily.
“Did—uh—did she call her parents?” Warren asks when I reach him, gesturing to Lily, who’s talking on the couch with Jason.
“Yeah. I’m sure she’ll tell you about it. She didn’t tell them she’s here.”
The relief on Warren’s face makes him seem younger.
Were there any warning signs that Warren was stressed about all this? He was always joking around, still throwing parties, and wasn’t really acting any different. But then again, I only really got to know him after Lily disappeared.
“That’s good. My parents are pissed . . . they’re cutting their trip short. If I had known all I had to do to get them to spend some time with me was tell them I’m an accomplice in a missing persons case . . .”
He’s joking, but it’s a sad half-truth.
“A lot of people are going to be pissed, not just them,”
I tell him honestly.
He bites his lip. “Do you think you’ll ever forgive me?”
Will I? That’s hard to say. I don’t want to hold a grudge, and I cherished my friendship with Warren. He was goofy and fun, and we teased each other. But he’s betrayed my trust, and that’s not easy to get over.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” I admit. “This was pretty messed up. I know that I’ll never trust you again, that’s for sure. Maybe one day we can go back to normal, but for right now I need to process, and I’m sure that’ll be true for all your friends.”
He nods sadly, but he seemed to expect that answer.
“Yeah, I get it.” His phone rings, and he fishes it out of his back pocket. “I’ve got to take this; it’s my parents again.”
He leaves to answer, and Jason joins me by the door.
“Holy shit,” he says. “This is all just . . . wow. How did you find out?”
“I’ll tell you on the way home. Are you ready to leave?
I’m drained, and my head still hurts.”
Jason frowns and pushes my hair aside to reveal my forehead. I wonder if there’s a bump from where I hit the floor. “What happened?”
Lily appears and hands me a bag of the defrosting corn, the outside slick from condensation but still cool to the touch, so I put it on my sore forehead. It immediately makes me feel better.
“I’ll tell you when we leave. I don’t want you to beat up Warren.”
Any humor drains from Jason’s face, leaving him looking intimidating. “Did he touch you? I’ll fucking kill him.” He tries to storm past me to get to Warren, but I grab his hand, intertwining his fingers with mine. I’ve missed him, and maybe part of me should worry that I’ll become too dependent on him, but mostly he just makes me feel like I’m home, like everything will be okay.
“Let’s go, Jason. I’ll tell you everything in the car.”
