Page 22 of Ask for Andrea

The shoe was right in front of her.

She sniffed and wiped at her eyes again, gazing at the scraggly trees, her eyes landing on the mostly hidden fork in the road that led to my body.

She took a few steps forward and I urged her on. “Yes. Keep going, okay? Please.”

She put her car keys in her pocket and walked far enough to see that the sorry excuse for a road did indeed continue in that direction, rutted and mostly overgrown.

The raven’s dark form circled overhead, and she made a sort of muttering cackle.

The girl stopped and watched, then looked back at her car. Somewhere over the hill, in the brush, a twig snapped.

She frowned and wrinkled her nose. “Nah,” she muttered, then turned on her heel, heading back toward her car.

I reached out for her retreating shoulder. My hand rested lightly on top of her kelly-green tank top. “No, don’t go. Please. Nobody else will stop.”

She kept going.

When she reached the driver’s side of the car, she pulled her keys out of her pocket and looked behind her, as if someone were following her.

Technically, she was correct.

I backed up a few steps, wondering if it was my fault. Had I scared her?

The despair came back, and I felt myself sinking under it as she turned the key in the door.

I closed my eyes.

But the door didn’t slam shut. And the car didn’t pull away.

When I opened my eyes, she was still standing by the open driver’s side door, looking right at me.

I really thought she could see me for a second by the confused look that slowly spread across her face.

She took a few steps toward me then crouched in the dirt.

That was when I realized she had seen the shoe—and the little altar the raven had built.

The girl with the messy bun frowned as she studied the bleached coral shoe with the dark stain. She didn’t touch it.

After a few minutes, she shook her head again and returned to the car.

This time, she rummaged in her backpack and pulled out a cell phone. She took two photos. One up close, and one a little way back that showed the sign for Big Eddy Campground in the distance.

I told myself that it didn’t mean anything. That the photos couldn’t possibly mean anyone would ever find me. For all I knew, she was planning to post the images to her Instagram account with the hashtags #pickupyourtrash and #protectourplanet.

But as the engine turned over and she drove away I still whispered, “Thank you,” before I could no longer hear the sound of her engine.

14. BRECIA

Boulder, Colorado

2 years before

He pulled into the parking lot at 6:50. Enough time to request a “private” corner booth from the hostess at Twiggs before Nicole—all smiles and nervous energy, but playing it cool—arrived, scanning around the upscale bar for the person she hoped was waiting for her.

Her bright red hair was longer than it was in her photos on MatchStrike. It cascaded down her back in beachy waves that looked effortless but, I knew from firsthand experience, had probably taken a long time to get just right. She was wearing a seafoam green sundress and a cropped jacket with a little fringe along the bottom. She’d managed the perfect subtle cat-eye. She was beautiful.

A smile played across her lips when he spotted her and waved from the booth, then hurried over to meet her. The smile widened as he placed his hand on the small of her back to walk her back to the booth. He smiled too. He knew exactly what he was doing.

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