“What?”
“For fuck’s sake, Adam. You’re as bad as Indie. I said don’t interrupt me. It’s a long story and we have it all recorded so you can hear all the details, but someone got to her. Someone has been triggering her all these years. We think she might have been with him since she disappeared.”
“That’s not true.” I have to interrupt. Because I read her journal and they didn’t. I hold it up. “I found this in her truck. It was parked near my shop. I read the whole fucking thing and she never once mentions being with someone else. It’s just all about us.”
Donovan shoots me a look. “Well, where was she?”
“It doesn’t really say that, either. But it’s all her memories, Donovan. Everything about us, and Nathan—”
“Jesus. Fucking Christ.” Adam turns away and grabs his head. Then he spins back. “How many other fuckin’ people have read that?”
“I don’t know. But that’s not the point. The point is… she’s still ours. Even if whoever has been triggering her is still inside her head, she wants to be with us. Listen to me.” I open up the journal to the page I dog-eared and read it out loud. “‘If I had to choose between them, I would die. There is just no way I could only choose one. I need them all. I don’t even care if that’s selfish. I want them all.’ She was talking about us and Nathan.”
Donovan huffs. “Well, that doesn’t fucking help!”
“Specifically us, Donovan. She understands she can’t have Nathan.”
“Well, I really hope so. Because he’s…” Adam pauses to lower his voice. “He’s fucking dead.”
“Right.” I sigh.
Donovan snatches the journal out of my hand and turns to the beginning. Then he points to something at the top of the page and holds it up. “Did you see this? What does this mean?”
I squint my eyes at his pointing finger and find the marks on the page.
It says… 3/3.
Adam looks at me. “Three out of three, McKay. Three fuckin’ journals. Did you find any more?”
“No.” I shake my head and close my eyes. “No. Just this one.”
“None of this matters, you guys. What matters is that she’s ready for the truth. The truth is the only thing that matters. What happens between us, you, her, whatever—that’s secondary. We need to spell this shit out for her right the hell now. We need to explain that someone has been triggering her and then I need to take her back to LA and put her under the care of—”
“Fuck you!” Adam yells it. “Fuck you, Donovan! You are not—”
“—a friend of mine who specializes in—”
“—taking her back to LA with you! She belongs here!”
“—mind-unfucking!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I’m still fairly calm, but only because I don’t think Indie would go with him. “Mind-unfucking? Really, Donovan?”
“It’s a thing in LA. Trust me. There’s so many fucked-up people in LA this is something they do.”
“Well, I feel better now. How about you, McKay?”
I point at Adam. “You disappeared. No one’s seen you in four years either. I’m not sure you get a say in this.”
“So you think she should go to LA?”
“I’m not saying that either. I’m saying if anyone knows what’s best for Indie, it’s me.”
“You!” Donovan is incredulous. “You’re the one who’s been telling her everything’s fine all these years. You’re the one who’s been playing house with her.”
“You’re the one who spent a night with her two years ago and didn’t bother to tell us about it.”
“What?” Oh, Adam is more than incredulous.
“Maybe if you had called us, we could’ve fixed this two years ago! But no. You wanted to fuck her first. And by the time you were done, she was gone.”
“What the fuck is happening right now?”
“He fucked her, Adam. That’s what’s happening. He fucked her downstairs in the kitchen earlier too.”
“You fucked her last night, McKay!”
“She’s mine.”
“She’s not yours.” Adam is angry. “Everyone just shut the fuck up! I’m making this decision. She is mine! And I want her right here in Old Home. All of this can be fixed if—”
“Dead people cannot be fixed, Adam!” Donovan is waving his arms in the air. “She needs professional help. We tried, OK? We tried and we failed. Why can’t you two just face that fact? We fucking failed!”
And I have to be honest here. All that talk and all those thoughts about how she is ours? Yeah. No. It’s never going to work. Because suddenly we all have very different opinions about what’s best for her.
Adam takes a deep breath and when he talks again, his words are low and soft. “We didn’t fail. We just didn’t have all the information, that’s all. I agree we should tell her the truth. Slowly. Carefully. And then…” Adam looks at me. “And then we let her choose. And if what it says in that book is true, that she loves us all the same, then… fine. We deal with it then. But if she wants to stay here with me, then that’s her decision. If she wants to be with you, McKay, that’s her decision.”
“And if she wants to go to LA with me?”
Adam looks at Donovan. “Fine. If that’s her choice, I’ll deal with it.”
We’re all silent after that.
But then we hear a noise. Someone is talking down the hallway. Donovan opens his bedroom door all the way and we listen.
But it makes no sense.
Because that voice… that voice is Donovan’s.
And it’s coming from Indie’s bedroom.
“Fuck,” Donovan says. And then he’s rushing down the hallway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - INDIE
PRESENT DAY
I feel like a little girl again.
They make me feel like a little girl again.
And maybe yesterday I would’ve put up more of a fight about being sent to my room, but today… I don’t know. Everything is fuzzy. And I feel like it’s been fuzzy for so long, I can’t remember not feeling this way.
But that’s not true. In the early days everything was so clear.
Nathan was my best friend. McKay was my teacher. Adam was my protector. And Donovan was my sanity.
It was so easy back then. So simple.
And now it’s all so complicated.
All the ways they each completed me are now so mixed together, I can’t think straight anymore.
I walk over to my window and look out. It’s dark, so I can’t see anything. But I still know—like I just feel—that something is missing out there.
What is it?
Why won’t they tell me?
I walk back over to my bed and sit down, stare at the bathtub, then smile because that tub just… God. It just holds all my favorite memories of McKay. How he’d make a bubble bath for me at night and wash my hair and comb it out. How good that felt. And how easy it was to be with McKay.