Page 58 of A Summer to Save Us

H is dark eyes are red, his skin pale and stiff like plaster so that his wrinkles look like cracks. He is wearing his checked Boss sweater, the one he wore the morning after Mom disappeared.

“Kansas!” he chokes out as he approaches.

I don’t move but allow him to wrap his giant arms around me and hug me—briefly and quickly, as if required by a secret father-daughter protocol, which he consulted to know what to do in cases like mine.

He has never truly hugged me for long, except that one time in our laundry room, and he doesn’t do it today, either.

How did he even know where I was? How did he get here? I blink several times, confused.

“Kid, are you okay?” he ask, frowning as he looks me up and down.

I’m sure I look like a mangy dog, wet and worn out, and the bruise from Jack’s punch is still visible on my face, even though it’s fading.

But despite all that, Dad doesn’t look angry.

Why isn’t he yelling at me? Maybe it’s his stunned, deeply confused expression, but my heart is suddenly full of words.

Dad! I want to tell him so many things! I saw Mom! And I fell in love! I was so happy! Dad, listen to me! Just this once, please!

However, it’s so hard when you stutter, barely getting a word out.

I try to choke out “ Dad,” at least once, to show him that I can do it now and that something good came out of my running away when I spot James and Arizona at the back of the lobby.

As usual, James is wearing his dark stoner clothes, and Arizona looks even crazier.

She’s leaning casually against the wall, wearing knee-high boots that should come with a license to kill, a skin-tight leopard skirt, and a tank top under which her black lace bra flashes through the mesh fabric.

When our eyes meet, she blows a gigantic bubble of gum, which bursts with a loud bang.

She doesn’t say anything, just looks at me. I can no longer interpret the expression in her eyes. I’ve completely forgotten how to read her. Is that jealousy? Does she know about me and Asher Blackwell?

I open my mouth to say hi. I want to say something—anything—but my throat feels constricted.

How did you know where I was? I type into my phone and hold it out to Dad. “James.” He nods his chin in my brother’s direction. “James knew.”

“I’m sorry, Kans.” My brother runs his hand through his wild black curls, almost embarrassed.

“We have so much to talk about,” Dad says, but I’m not paying attention to him.

How? I type. Did you track me? I remember the time I forgot to turn on airplane mode. My phone was online for at least two hours.

He reads my words. “We had Paul Hudson monitor your phone.”

I peer questioningly from him to Dad and notice how much they resemble each other—more so than I remembered.

Dad looks at me reproachfully. “Paul Hudson is an old friend of mine who used to work in the police force. He’s retired now. You didn’t seriously think we wouldn’t have someone looking for you! I just didn’t want everyone to know about it.”

Because of the rumors. Of course.

I was only with one boy, Dad. And I didn’t even sleep with him.

He reads it and nods briefly, which doesn’t indicate if he believes me.

“Paul owed Dad a favor. He was on to you,” James says now.

What?

“Once, he was able to pinpoint your whereabouts within five hundred feet, but when he got there, you—both of you—were gone. After that, your phone was offline for over a week.”

Dad clears his throat. “I met up with Paul in Heise. We’ve been searching for you everywhere.”

That was the week on the blue-green river. My heart flutters at the memory. But it also flutters because Dad drove to Idaho to look for me, as if I was important to him. Apparently, he didn’t take everything Chester said at face value.

“I was close to calling the police at the time, but then you got in touch again. It’s a long, long story, Kans...” Dad says weakly now.

Why are you here? I ask Dad. My phone was offline for most of the time in Las Vegas. And the short time I had it on in the forum, until now, wouldn’t have been enough time to get here.

“Ask James.”

Suddenly, I have a bad taste in my mouth. How did you know? I stretch out my arm with the phone in his direction.

“Can’t that wait?” he asks after reading my words. “We have completely different things to sort out, Kans. Tanner Davenport...” He pauses.

“Tanner Davenport is a sick young man,” my dad says, finishing the sentence.

I don’t want to hear that! I angrily hold my phone right in front of James’ eyes so that he can’t miss the word How . I’m so sick of everyone always ignoring me.

“Okay. Please put your arm down! I get it.” James sighs, and I drop my arm, noticing that he’s not swearing anymore. Slowly, he pulls his phone out of his pocket, taps the screen several times, and holds it under my nose.

I read the sentences one by one, confused. I wrote them myself:

Ending it won’t solve your problem!!! Your mom needs you! I’m in Vegas. At the Preston Hotel.

How did he get hold of Mr. Spock’s phone? I stare at the words, petrified, as their meaning finally registers.

I feel dizzy for a few seconds. That’s why he kept asking what was happening at my school.

That’s why he wanted to know where we were.

I shake my head several times. I’ve been writing to my brother the whole time.

I can’t believe it. Everything—Mr. Spock’s story, Mr. X—it was a lie.

His supposedly sick mom, his broken arm, everything was made up so that I would trust him and tell him details about myself. And I was worried and felt guilty!

A wave of hot anger washes over me. Why does everyone think they can do whatever they want with me? I feel like a stone being kicked down the street.

With a silent scream, I clench my fists and drum them against his chest. How! Could! You! For a moment, James stands there and endures my angry outburst. In reality, however, I’m not only angry at him but also at River, my mom, and Arizona.

“Kansas!” my dad warns, but I’m not paying attention to him.

Arizona still doesn’t say anything, and that pisses me off even more.

Her silence, her rejection. Simply because she still believes I kissed that asshole Chester after she told me she liked him.

I would never do something like that. Never.

She should know that. We swore we would never leave each other.

We were always there for each other. We collected beautiful and strange words.

As I hit even harder, James grabs my wrists and holds them firmly. “Okay, that’s enough now, Kans!” He sounds incredibly calm. But it’s not enough. I jerk my hands, trying to free myself, but he doesn’t let go.

At some point, I stop, breathless, and we stare at each other.

“Calm down!” His dark brown eyes are clear and serious.

For the first time in a long time, the old familiarity between us is back.

The pain of losing Mom has always connected us, as well as our confusion about the world.

Our inability to understand it. “What should I have done?” he asks quietly, releasing me.

“You wouldn’t let anyone get close to you!

Every time I attempted to get close to you, you built the walls even higher as if you had to keep a secret. ”

Yes, I did! But it doesn’t give him the right to pretend to be someone else in order to spy on me. I want to shout at him, insult him, but I can’t get a word out. Of course.

“Your brother only meant well.”

I turn to Dad and stare at him. He appears to be exhausted, and my anger suddenly dissipates. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

Bewildered, I shake my head.

“Arizona, go get your sister something from the vending machine.”

Why is he being so nice?

I watch him hand Arizona a few dollar bills, but a noise in the stairwell distracts me.

“There she is!”

My head whips around. Instinctively, as if someone shot me with a stun gun, I hold my breath. Chester and his father are coming straight for me. Clark Davenport is wearing a classy charcoal suit and pinstripe tie, and Chester is in his usual blue and white golf clothes.

The mere sight of him turns my stomach, and at the touch of a button, I feel miserable and powerless.

“Did she tell you where he is, George?” Clark Davenport stops six feet in front of me, and I dig my nails into my palm. He doesn’t look at me, which is a relief, even if it’s belittling.

“She just got here.”

I stare at Dad. He suddenly seems rather small even though he’s almost six feet tall.

I discreetly look at Clark Davenport, and my stomach clenches.

He seems as authoritative and intimidating as a President’s lawyer.

I’ve hated him ever since the incident at the Davenport mansion when he and his wife sided with their son even though they probably knew better.

Even though they knew the truth. Now he runs his hand through his neat beard, which perfectly matches his haircut, and looks from Dad to James and then back to Dad. He’s deliberately ignoring me.

“The sooner we find Tanner, the better. She’d better write down where she last saw him!

” He has the same watery eyes as Chester—no blue, no gray, a mixture of everything—but always as if he had a cold or was on drugs.

As if in a haze, I notice that he asks the man behind the reception desk for a pen and paper and hands both to my dad.

My dad hands me the writing material, even though he knows I have my cell phone.

For a few seconds, I just stand there, not knowing what to do.

“Kans, write down what you know.” Chester is standing next to his father, his hands buried deep in his pockets, looking as if he’s genuinely worried about his brother. The sound of his voice makes me even sicker, and for a moment, I think about how he smelled when he kissed me.

I stare at him and break the pencil in half. I don’t say a word to them.

Clark Davenport audibly sucks in air.