Chapters (48)
- TITLE PAGE
- COPYRIGHT
- CONTENTS
- PROLOGUE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“I know this must be so hard for you to process right now on top of everything else,” Meredith said. “We just thought—”
“Stop talking. I don’t want to hear it.” No more. Not from her. Not from them. Not from anyone. They were too close to me. I had to move. I couldn’t process this with them staring at me. I needed to think. I turned on my heels and headed back through the house.
The two of them followed behind me.
“Abbi, stop. Talk to us,” Meredith called out to me.
I hated when she referred to the three of us as a unit. Always had.
“I’m sorry,” Dad said. He’d already apologized. I wished he’d stop apologizing. “Where are you going? What are you doing?” he asked as I opened the front door of the house.
I didn’t know what I was doing. I took off running as soon as my feet hit the pavement.
NINETEEN
NINETEEN
MEREDITH
NOW
“I couldn’t find her anywhere.” Scott’s voice shook. He’d just gotten back home after driving around for almost an hour searching for Abbi. He’d bolted after her as soon as she’d left, but she must have zigzagged through backyards, because he hadn’t found her. “Did you get ahold of Meaghan?”
“Yes, and she hasn’t heard from her.” Abbi had left so fast she’d forgotten her phone. I’d gone through all her contacts and texted all her friends. Nobody had seen her, and she hadn’t gotten in touch with anyone yet from someone else’s phone.
“What’s going on?” Kate interrupted from the top of the stairs.
“Everything’s fine,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing.
“Oh, now you want to be quiet?” Scott snapped. I’d never seen him this angry. Abbi joked he had a temper, but I’d never seen it.
“What happened?” she asked with her hands on her hips. It caught me off guard how closely she resembled Abbi in that moment. Abbi’s forehead had been set in the same stubborn line as hers earlier tonight, and her eyes had narrowed in the identical pattern.
“Abbi took off, and we can’t find her,” Scott said.
Kate’s eyes filled with panic. “Why did she do that?” She rushed down the stairs, joining us in the entryway.
“She was upset,” I said. “You know how teenagers can get.” Scott glared at me, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to add more to her plate. She wasn’t in any kind of state to deal with Abbi.
“Why was she upset? What happened?” Kate asked.
Scott refused to meet her stare. “We told her what happened on the day you went missing.” He paused, working up the courage to say the words. “She knows that you weren’t kidnapped and that you chose to leave.”