Page 13 of What Boys Learn

“Getting old. It’s terrible how much you forget.”

It’s what everyone said. They never seemed to realize. Forgetting wasn’t so bad. Remembering was worse.

I was halfway back to Pleasant Park when my phone started dinging with texts. I glanced over and saw it was Willa, sending me photos of the actor she’d been talking about. Then the phone rang. Willa again. It was her pattern, to send texts and then to call, to make sure you saw the texts. I laughed but I didn’t take the call. I’d already taken longer than I’d meant to, and the pizza would be waiting. When the phone dinged again, I silenced it and pushed the phone into my purse.

I’d just focused back on the road when my eye caught sight of a girl stepping out of a car that was pulled off on the shoulder. My heart leapt into my throat. It was Izzy—same long black hair, same pale pretty face, and she was slamming the passenger door. I stared, incredulous, watching as a muscular, light-haired teenage boy stepped out from the driver’s side, hurrying to intercept her in front of the car.

He’d just grabbed her by a shirtsleeve when I passed them. I checked my rearview mirror. A car was right on my tail. I tapped the brake but it was all happening too fast, and in seconds the girl was out of my view

Izzy. The cops had made a mistake. That dead girl in Wadsworth must be someone else. The police incompetence was staggering. But that was less important than the elation Izzy’s family would feel as soon as someone told them.Izzy is alive!

I looked for a place to turn around, cursing and counting the seconds. One. Two. Three. I took a hard right, into a side street. Up the first driveway and fast reverse, avoiding a mailbox by inches. I turned back the way I’d come, impatient at the stop sign. My shock turned to euphoria, a smile spreading on my face.

Since hearing the news from Duplass this morning, I hadn’t been able to stomach thinking for long about Izzy’s parents, Sofia and Dominic. I’d talked to Sofia Scarlatti only once at a school fundraiser. Sofia, with the jet-black hair, square jaw, and enormous, knowing eyes.Like Sophia Loren, Rita had whispered, coming to take my place at the silent auction table, and I had agreed, wondering if Izzy, too, would blossom into that kind of bold, one-in-a-million beauty.

In thirty seconds I made a left-hand turn and was on Green Bay again, eyes scanning the road shoulder. And there she was, walking toward me this time, on the southbound side of the road.

Izzy.

Except it wasn’t.

This girl was skinnier. A few inches taller as well. The same hair, yes, but not the same hourglass figure. Not even the same face, I forced myself to admit once I’d passed her a second time.

I found yet another place to turn around. More slowly, now, I retraced my route, swallowing my disappointment, checking my rearview mirror to see that no cars were behind me when I passed the girl and pulled up just behind her, on the narrow shoulder.

Opening the door, I called, “Are you okay?”

She didn’t turn at my voice. I stepped out and shouted again. She was wearing rolled-up jeans and a white midriffbaring shirt, rising high enough that I could see a large, blurry tattoo on her lower back. She wasn’t carrying anything. Not a backpack, not a purse.

I jogged forward to catch up with her. At the sound of my feet on the gravel-strewn shoulder she spun around, eyes wild. Her cheeks looked tearstained. One of her wrists was bright red, like someone had been grabbing her hard. Or maybe she’d just done it to herself, twisting the skin, an anxious tic. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just saw you back there, with your boyfriend, or whoever that was. I wanted to see if you needed help.”

“I don’t need help,” the girl said, eyes full of fire.

“A ride? Can I drop you somewhere?”

“I don’t need a ride.”

I felt a surge of helpless frustration.If you’d just let me help you.

“What about shoes? Do you need those?”

She looked down with surprise, as if she hadn’t registered that she was barefoot. She didn’t seem drunk or drugged, only stunned. I knew that feeling. The numbness that took hold in the face of a man’s unpredictable rage. The jumpiness that followed, until it faded into shivery exhaustion.

“They’re still in his car. Fuck.”

We looked at each other.

I was wearing an old pair of worn-out running shoes that I’d slipped on quickly, just to drive to the pizzeria. Holes where my big toes rubbed the fabric. No socks.

“We look the same size,” I said. “I’m on my way home. There’s a lot of glass and stuff on the shoulder. If you don’t want a ride, at least—”

“Yes.”

I stepped out of the running shoes without bothering to untie them. As she was bending over to take them, I offered her a ride one last time and asked if she needed just enough cash to get home or if she wanted to tell me her name. No, no, and no. She studiously avoided looking at me again as she untied the laces with trembling fingers, then worked her feet into the shoes.

Shedidlook like Izzy, if Izzy were older—and then again, maybe I was imagining it. It bothered me. My fading delusion, clearly the result of my own guilt and need. Wasn’t it obvious?

If you’d just let me help you.