Page 142 of Creeping Beautiful

I go back in, pacing the hallway, then look up the stairs. Take them three at a time. Practically run down the hallway to her room. Throw open the door and flick on the light.

Empty.

I whirl around, open McKay’s door.

Empty.

I go to Adam’s door and find it already open. But dark inside.

When I flick on the light she’s there.

In his bed. Sleeping with her face pressed into his pillow and under his covers like this is where she belongs.

I lean against the wall and close my eyes, trying to get my heart to slow down. I try not to imagine all the ways this could’ve turned out differently. Then force myself to stop and just be thankful that this time, this one time, everything is OK.

I turn the light off, walk across the hall to my bedroom, and position a chair so I can see into Adam’s room.

Then I grab the bag I brought with me from California and I pull out the ancient tape player.

I grab tapes at random. Does it really matter which one I listen to?

At first, I think it does. But after I’m done listening to the seventh one, I realize something.

They all say the same thing.

They are all Indie, in her own words and her own voice, begging me for just one thing.

The truth.

Every single time she asks me to tell her some truth.

And every single time—while I do not lie—I hide that truth from her.

I sit there in the dark and ask myself the same question over and over again.

How?

How the fuck do I live with myself?

I can’t do it anymore. I know she’s fragile. I know I was the one saying we should not tell her too much all these years.

But I can’t do it anymore.

So I grab one tape.

Just one.

It’s the only one that matters. I put it inside the little machine. And then I take it down to her room and place it on her pillow.

Then I close the door and go back to my room.

And I wait.

A little while later I hear the familiar sound of truck tires on the driveway outside.

McKay is back.

A long breath comes out of me and I feel like I’ve been holding it in since he left. And when the front door opens and closes, I get up, walk to the top of the stairs, and look down so I can force him to hear me. He has to hear me.