Page 38 of Made for You

Phone back in hand, I return to the family room, where the TV is still on. “Neighbors are assembling for the second time to walk the woods around the site of the crash...” There’s a hotline, scrolling across the bottom.

I feel a stab of guilt. I should have been the one, the second Josh didn’t answer my texts, scouring those woods. Assembling neighbors, even if I feared it might be fruitless. What took me so long to get moving? What the fuck is wrong with me? Could this have turned out differently if I’d just acted faster, if I’d—

“No,” I find myself saying. To myself. To Camila. I don’t even know. “I... That’s such a nice offer, but I have some stuff to do.”

Too late to join the search parties. Too late for a lot of things. But not too late to figure this out, to find Josh and claw my way out of this nightmare.

Andy. I have to see Andy. I know he hasn’t gone back to LA yet. He’s normally in Indiana once a quarter to teach an advanced AI course at Indiana University, but the robotics conference he’s cochairing is keeping him an extra week. He’s busy, he’s always busy, but he’ll make time for me.

Yes. I’ll pack up Annaleigh, drive to Bloomington, look Andy in the eye, and demand the truth. Was he really meeting Josh at Stella’s? Or did Andy confront him Saturday night? Josh’s texts to me about Andy weren’t exactly nice. I just want that little fucker out of our lives. Is it possible that, if they did meet, things got ugly between them? Would Josh have taken a swing? Did Andy swing back?

“Stuff?” says Cam with a huff. “C’mon, Julia. I know you’re as strong as they come, but there are times when we can all use the support of our friends.”

“I know. You’re right.” There’s honking out front. Another news van? Captain barks. Annaleigh begins to cry loudly from upstairs. My breasts tingle in response. I brace my arm over my chest because I’m not staining another shirt. “Look—I have to go. Don’t come. But I’ll text you.”

“You better,” snaps Camila before hanging up.

I’ll have to care about her feelings later; right now, I’ve got to get out of here. Not just to escape from Bob, the reporters, this town that hates me, but to go back to the beginning. To Andy. And figure out once and for all if I can still trust my best friend.

My creator.

I kick the living room rug. It unrolls, spewing dust as it falls back into place, like it’s coughing out whatever secret it holds before falling silent again. I’d like to ask the mother holding the child what she saw, but she has no mouth. She has no eyes either. Only arms to hold as she blindly watches our living room, unable to tell her story.

THEN

“I can’t believe I’m already getting a second one-on-one,” says Camila as we all head down to the huge living room, where we’ll wait as a group for Josh to pick her up for their day together.

Since that night last week when Cam helped explain my coding to Josh and the girls, she hasn’t paid much attention to me. But I’m okay with that, because I still haven’t decided which Cam is the real one. The bitch or the ally.

“Some of us are still waiting for our first date,” says Gillian, the lawyer from New York, rail-thin, with a sharp jawline and a sense of humor to match.

“I know!” Cam sings. “I almost feel guilty! I never would have guessed he’d pick me again, so soon!”

She seems oblivious to the eye rolls as we tumble into the living room in a mist of perfume and hair spray, but I can’t help thinking she knows exactly what she’s doing. Just like her supportive comments after my attack...pure theater. A means to an end. Or am I just being super cynical?

“It’s like, I felt the connection,” Camila continues, “but this feels like confirmation that Josh and I are on the same page, you know?”

Zoe nudges me and makes a puking face.

It’s eight in the morning, and everyone has been up for hours. Alarms started going off at four thirty, and it’s been a flurry of showers, makeup, hair dryers, and curling irons ever since. One girl, after finding a zit on her chin, actually burst into tears.

Even though today belongs to Camila, we have about two minutes to also be seen by Josh. Accordingly, all the girls are in their most eye-catching outfits: cute sundresses, swimsuits, tube tops, crop tops. Except me.

As I plunk down on the couch between Zoe and a petite, sparkly girl everyone calls Skincare Sarah, I pull the hood of my sweatshirt up and hug my knees to my body.

“No offense, Julia, but you look like shit,” whispers Zoe.

I shrug. Josh is here for Camila. His eyes may land on me for a hot second, or not, but either way, it’s going to feel like getting stabbed. Why dress up to get stabbed? I’d prefer to wear clothes I can retreat into after the inevitable. In fact, as soon as this is over, I’m going back to bed.

“Like, are you okay?” says Zoe with genuine concern. She may have started as Sad Drunk Girl on night one, but she had a one-on-one with Josh last week and it’s transformed her. Now she’s everyone’s wise big sister.

“This process just sucks,” I whisper back.

Zoe slings an arm around me and I let my head fall onto her shoulder.

“Why didn’t anyone warn me that falling in love was so miserable?” I groan quietly.

Zoe jolts with surprise. “Did you just use the L word?”

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