Page 57 of The Missing Half

Jenna is quiet. Then: “Shit.”

“I know.”

“What do you need?”

I wish, so badly it hurts, that the answer was “nothing.” I wish I hadn’t needed Kasey to take care of me so much when she was alive, wish I hadn’t needed Jenna to coerce me into looking into her disappearance, wish I didn’t need Brad breathing down my neck just so I could get a minute of work done. But I am the neediest person I know.

“Could you pick me up tomorrow morning? I need a ride back to my place.” I tell her the name of the county jail, which is almost an hour drive from Mishawaka. To get my car back, I’ll have to hire a tow.

“Sure.” It comes out as a sigh.

“And…This is so shitty, but if you have cash, could you bring that too? For my bail. I don’t know how much it’ll be, but last time it was a thousand, so probably something close to that? I have my credit card, but they only accept cash and money orders. I’ll pay you back, obviously.”

I can’t afford that kind of money right now, but I have a feeling that when I tell Brad what happened, he’ll be pretty generous. The thought makes me hate myself.

“Yeah,” Jenna says. “I’ll go get some cash this afternoon.”

I close my eyes, which are starting to sting with unwelcome tears. I want to turn the clock back to a time when my life wasn’t so fucked up, whenIwasn’t so fucked up. But as I mentally rewind past today and the moment I decided to drive without my license, past the missed court appointment, past five months ago when I drank too much and then hit a tree, I realize that in order to get back to a time when I didn’t feel so completely broken, I’d have to erase the past seven years. All the mess and meaninglessness are so deeply woven into my life, it’s impossible to separate me from the wreckage. I suppose that makes us one and the same.

“Thank you,” I manage to say.

“Nic? You okay?”

The sound of my name out of Jenna’s mouth splits me open even more, but I don’t want to talk about myself. I can’t handle any morepain or humiliation. I focus instead on the two good things I have left: Jenna and the progress we’ve made on our sisters’ cases.

I clear my throat, cupping my hand over the receiver. “Jenna, what happened last week? Why didn’t you come talk to Brad with me?” There’s a movement out of the corner of my eye. I look up to see the officer who escorted me to the phone making a wrap-it-up signal with his hand. I bow my head and pretend I didn’t see.

“Come on, Nic,” Jenna says. “I told you. I’m taking some time to be with my mom.”

“I know. I know. But I feel like you’re not telling me every—” I’m interrupted by the officer clearing his throat loudly. “I think something else is going on, and I think the reason you’re not telling me is because you want to protect me from it, but you don’t have to do that.”

“Nic,” she says. “I—”

But the officer starts talking so loudly I can’t hear the rest. “Miss Monroe, this isn’t a lunchroom gossip session. It’s time for you to hang up the phone.”

—

I’m so embarrassed about being picked up from jail that when I climb into Jenna’s truck the next morning, I have to force myself to meet her eye.

“How are you?” she says.

“Not great.”

It’s a vast understatement. I have felt so much shame and self-loathing over the past twelve hours, it has sunk into my skin, into my bone. I’ve condemned myself to a life of more fees I can’t afford, more begging for rides and racing to catch the bus, more lawyers who treat me like a delinquent child, more averting my gaze when people ask what’s been going on lately. On top of all that, my eyes burn and my stomach roils from lack of sleep. Just when I’d started to feel I had some direction, some purpose, I’m reminded of what a fuckup I really am.

“I brought you coffee,” Jenna says, nodding toward two to-go cups nestled in the holders between our knees. “And a breakfastsandwich. I was just gonna go with a bag of candy, but I thought you could use a real meal for once.”

I give her a weak smile and grab the coffee. I’m not sure I can stomach any food at the moment. “Thank you.”

We’re silent as Jenna pulls out of the parking lot and onto the road. I take long sips of my coffee. With each inch we put between us and the police station, I feel a tiny bit more normal. “Do you wanna talk about it?” Jenna says.

“If by ‘it’ you mean my confrontation with Brad, then yes.”

This was the only thing that got me through the night—the thought that if I could just get Jenna back on the investigation, we might be able to work out the implications of everything Brad and Sandy told me. Which makes me even more frustrated with Jenna’s insistence that she only missed yesterday because of her mom. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that is the full truth, but my gut tells me something else is going on. And yet, as much as I want to push this angle, I heard the exasperation in Jenna’s voice when I brought it up over the phone. I need to take a different approach now. I need to get her invested again.

“Okay,” she says. “What about it?”

“For starters, we were both right and wrong about Brad. Hewasthe one on the playground at Lauren’s church the other week. He was trying to keep her quiet about the affair. But I don’t think he had anything to do with our sisters’ disappearances.”

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