“Well, if we hear anything we’ll follow it, but we don’t have much to go off of right now,” I lied. The truth was, we had more than a couple of threads to pull on, but Ciara didn’t need to know that for now. “I’m going to go and talk to my parents. Give them a much needed apology, then I’ll be headed to Nathan’s.”
“I understand,” Ciara said. “I’m going to miss my roommate.”
“I’m gonna miss you too, but I promise to check in often, and who knows, maybe this time next year, we’ll be sitting around a table with Deon, laughing about all of this nonsense.”
A small smile came to Ciara’s face. “I certainly hope so.”
I took my time finishing breakfast and talking with Ciara, then I packed up the clothes I had, gave her a huge hug, loaded into my car, and started it up to leave.
Ciara leaned into the driver’s side window and petted a hand over my hair. “You’ll be careful, won’t you, sweetheart? Sometimes I think you forget that you’re still just a kid.”
“I will, I promise,” I said.
She pulled back, and I gave her one final wave before backing out of the driveway and officially leaving North Postings for a while.
It’d been a while since I’d last driven down to South Postings. My family lived there, ever since my father got promoted, and all of my friends lived there as well, apart from Sicily, who lived in Postings Proper not far from the high school. The time between when Deon first went missing and the beginning of winter break, I just sort of went through the motions, but I officially started to lose it during the break. I’d stay out all night with Sicily, sometimes not coming home, and eventually my parents started to lose their patience with me. All they had to do was see my new, dramatic look and learn that I wasn’t going to any classes when school resumed after winter break to tell me that if I didn’t shape up, I was gone.
They kicked me out a week after that.
Fortunately, Ciara took me in, and at least from the standpoint that she was suffering in the same way I was, I was far more respectful of her home than my own parents’, which was far from fair. That was where I planned to start my apology. They wouldn’t get the full, honest story, because I wanted them to have deniable culpability if shit hit the fan, but I’d tell them enough to explain.
I’d have to deal with Gus too, but I was dreading that more than my parents.
Even though I had a key to the house, I knocked when I got to the front door. My heart was pounding faster than I expected it to be. They were just my parents, that was it, but that didn’t make me any less nervous.
The door opened and my mother was standing on the other side. Her face flashed a variety of emotions all in the span of about six seconds—shock, relief, anger, love, frustration—all emotions she was entitled to. “Cherri,” she finally got out.
“Hi mom,” I said, and the more normal tone of my voice must have instilled some confidence that I was better than the last time we spoke, because she smiled a little. “Um… I’m here to apologize, and explain. Can I come in?”
Instead of a verbal response, my mom reached out and curled her arms around me. She dragged me into a hug, squeezing me tightly, and I hugged her back with the same veracity. I’d always been very close with my parents, and being without them those past six months had been awful.
It felt nice to be back.
“Come in,” she said. She released me and led the way in. “Should I call Gus or just your father?”
“Just Dad for now,” I said. “Gus is going to be a whole different battle.”
She looked back over her shoulder at me. “Yes, he will.”
We walked into the kitchen, and I sat down on one of the stools at the island. My mom continued through the other exit back towards the hallway leading down to my father’s office. It was a little strange being back in the kitchen, with its marbled granite countertops and dark brown cabinetry. For some reason I was looking for differences, as if things would have changed drastically.
It was only me that had changed.
“Cherri.” I looked up and my dad was rounding the corner into the kitchen. He led with his arms out wide, and the tears that I didn’t realize I was holding back broke free.
“Daddy.” I leapt down off the stool and met my dad’s embrace, burying my face in his chest, and letting my emotions spill out. “I missed you.”
“Aw, baby,” he said in his comforting, dad-voice timber. “I missed you.” He let me go and used his thumbs to flick away my tears. “I’m happy you’re home.”
“Come, sit,” I said. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.” My parents did just that, each sitting themselves down at the island, and I walked around to the other side so I could face them both. Standing allowed me to fidget as I pushed myself to begin my apology. “I, um… I owe you guys an apology. You’re wonderful parents and you didn’t deserve the way I behaved these past handful of months.”
“I just don’t understand,” my mom said. “You’re a good young woman. I think what upset your father and I the most is that we didn’t raise you that way.”
“You didn’t,” I said. “A friend of mine… died.”
“Who?” my father said. “Not Avery?”
“No, none of my friends from these past few years. A friend of mine from South Postings.”
“Deon?” my mom asked.
I nodded. Imagining his smile and my heart breaking. “Yeah.”
“We saw him on T.V.,” my dad said. “I was unaware you were spending time with him again.”
Deon’s name and face had been in the news right around the time he went missing. Connor attempted to frame him for Miss Abrams’ death, but not much else about Deon had been released. As far as they knew, Deon was a kid I stopped hanging out with four years ago, and then they didn’t hear anything else about him.
“It’s complicated, and a lot of it I’m not in a place to discuss, but we’d been speaking again. We were going to be together before… it happened.”
“What happened to him?” my mom asked.
That was the only part of the story I’d planned that I hadn’t quite figured out. Anything too permanent would result in their later disbelief if Deon did come home again, but anything too vague would make them think I was lying again.
I went for the only thing I could say honestly. “I don’t know.”
My mom and dad exchanged an uncertain look. “How do you not know? If you can’t confirm how he died, how do you know that he died?”
“His mother told me,” I lied. “Naturally, she didn’t want to discuss the details. We’d only just recently reconnected so…”
My mom stood up and walked around the kitchen island and pulled me back into a hug. “Sweetie, I’m so sorry. Losing someone is never easy.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She leaned away a little, but kept her arms fastened around me. “Where have you been staying? It’s time for you to come home.”
“Just… another friend, but…” I looked over at my dad who was watching me with sympathy, and then looked back up at my mom. “I’m not moving home.”