She imagines the foster mother asking the obvious question: Why didn’t you call? There’s no good answer for that. And unless the woman’s as indifferent as Jesse claims, this is going to be a disaster.
“You okay?” Jesse asks.
This makes it even worse: Jesse thinking she has to manage Ella.
“I’m fine,” Ella says, rounding the corner to Jesse’s street. “So, when we talk to your foster mother, I think I’ll tell her—”
From the passenger seat, Jesse holds up a hand, her face bloodless.
Ella follows her gaze. In front of her house are several police cars.
What the hell? That’s a ridiculous amount of backup for a teen missing less than twenty-four hours.
“Pull over,” Jesse tells her.
“What? No.” Ella hesitates, thinks. “I’ll come with you. I can explain.”
“Please.” Jesse’s tone is desperate, the tough kid morphing into a little girl again.
Ella turns down a side street and eases to the curb. “Look, it’s going to be okay. You won’t be in trouble. I’ll talk to the police and your foster parents.”
But Jesse already has her seat belt off. She flings open the door. “It’ll be better if I go alone.”
“I don’t think that’s—”
“I don’t want you to get in trouble,” Jesse says.
Ella thinks about this. She may indeed face some consequences. She’s a therapist and she’s kept a teen girl out all night without permission. Not to mention the breaking and entering at the rail yard. Running from the police.
No, she won’t leave her. She’s the adult. She needs to act like it.
But in the nanoseconds that it takes to complete the thought, Jesse’s out of the car.
“Thanks for everything,” she says, slamming the door shut.
“Jesse, wait.”
But she’s already running. Down the street and through someone’s backyard. Away from her house.
CHAPTER 31
Ella’s knuckles are white, clenched to the steering wheel, as she drives aimlessly. What to do? She’s already canceled all sessions for the day. She doesn’t have a home. She’s at odds with her mother （again）。 And she doesn’t really have any friends. No one to talk to about what she’s feeling. Dread is consuming her.
What’s causing this sense of imminent doom? Obviously, it’s what Jesse told her. That she’d lied about what happened: she’d had a dispute with one of the victims at the Dairy Creamery.
But it’s more than that. It’s the feeling that Ella’s had ever since Y2K. The foreboding has dulled over the years. From the pills. From the denial. From the faking it with Brad. But the beast is back.
She decides to stop by the apartment—what Jesse called her “low-end” abode—to change her clothes, pack some things. Brad will be at work, so better to go now. At the front door, she slides the key into the slot, relieved when it clicks open. Brad hasn’t changed the lock at least. Not yet, anyway.
After showering and getting dressed, she finds two empty suitcases in the storage closet: one is Brad’s but, oh well. She begins stuffing her clothes in. On the nightstand, she sees that the photograph of them—one of Brad’s favorites—is facedown.
She’s feeling guilty. Not for leaving. That’s the best decision she’s made in a long time, one Brad will thank her for one day. She feels remorse for betraying him. For pretending for so long. He may be boring as shit, as Jesse said, but he’s not a bad person.
In the bathroom, she packs her toiletries. She finds the small makeup bag behind the box of tampons, a place she knew Brad would never venture.
She unzips the bag. Inside are a cluster of orange pill bottles. She pulls one out and walks to the toilet. She’s going to dump them. Flush every pill from this bottle and every other vial and never look back.
Uncapping the bottle, she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She stares at her reflection. This could be one of those moments in life, a turning point, something she’ll want to remember.
Who’s she kidding? She rolls a pill from the bottle, pops it in her mouth, then clicks on the childproof cap. She stuffs the bottle in the makeup bag and carries it and her toothbrush and jams them in the suitcase.
She debates what else to take.
He can have the rest, she decides.
No, there is one more thing. She heads to the bookshelf in the corner of the room. It’s stuffed with those motivational business books Brad loves and some paperbacks. She pulls one of the few hardcovers from the shelf: A Farewell to Arms. A book her father gave her after Blockbuster. She riffles through the pages and stops at the bookmark—a photo booth strip, black-and-white photos taken shortly before her world changed. When she was herself. She can see the difference in her face. Next to her sits a boy. Oh, god, where is he now? In a different life, she’d be on Facebook stalking him. Reconnecting with a first love. She finds the passage her father highlighted in yellow: The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. The world certainly hadn’t made her father stronger at the broken places.