Rumors (A Lingering Echoes Prequel)

  With trembling hands, I closed the notebook. The gnawed pen dropped from my grasp. Flexing my fingers, I rubbed the cramp in my right hand.

  It was done. The lamp on my desk was probably the only light on in the house, since I had written well into the night. With a heavy yawn, I rubbed my eyes, feeling the burn of dried-up tears.

  My counselor, Ms. Carol, didn’t know what she was talking about. Maddie’s story was written down, but it was very much still in my head, festering in a dark part of my soul. It would never be out of my head.

  Not bothering to change into pajamas, I pulled back the covers and fell onto my bed. With a shuddering breath, I laid my aching head onto my pillow, but I was afraid to close my eyes—too afraid that what I had written would be relived in my nightmares.

  I must have succumbed to sleep eventually because someone knocking on the door startled me awake. I trudged across the room and turned the lock. Mom stood there, cell phone in hand. I was glad she didn’t still look mad from last night.

  “Sorry, but your father called. He wants to talk to you about something.” Her voice sounded terse, but I knew it wasn’t directed at me.

  Groggy, I accepted Mom’s cell phone, taking a moment to flop back onto my bed. With my head against my pillow, I closed my eyes. “Hi, Dad. Why are you calling so early?”

  Our conversation only lasted ten minutes but, by the end of it, I was on my feet, pacing the floor. My fingernails crept to my mouth, bringing back an old habit that I had kicked years ago.

  Blackmail.

  Dad’s “proposal” was plain and simple blackmail. He had received word from the school about my unproductive counseling sessions (and by “received word,” I knew that meant he’d been frequently inquiring, since I didn’t talk to him that often). No doubt, he had also been talking to Mom and my sisters about my well-being, since he referenced how much I was running again. In his words, because I seemed “to be struggling with Maddie’s death,” he insisted that we spend the summer together—but not back in Danville. He wanted me to spend at least a month with him back at Hidden Pines. That wouldn’t sound out of the ordinary, had last summer’s event never occurred. But things had changed, and it was all recorded in that spiral notebook—a collection of pages that now seemed heavier than it looked.

  “Are you insane?” I asked, anxiety building in my chest and creeping up my throat. “I’m never going back there.”

  “Your reaction is exactly why I want you to come with me,” Dad said. “Before you go off to college, I need to know that you are taking care of yourself—that you’re doing ok, despite what happened.”

  I don’t know how many ways I said no, but he refused to budge. Finally, I said, “You can’t make me go. What are you going to do, pull the ‘money card’?”

  There was silence on the other end for too long.

  I gasped. “You are, aren’t you? You’re really going to withhold my college funding this year if I don’t go?”

  Dad tried to sugarcoat his response, like he was being a responsible father and blackmailing out of love. “I’m just trying to do what’s best for you. I need to know that you can handle being on your own,” he said again. “Besides, I’d like you, Leah, and Taylor to spend some more time with Clara and Nick anyway.”

  Nick would be there, too? Dad couldn’t have planned a worse summer if he’d tried.

  My conversation ended with me offering the silent treatment, knowing I had lost. I thought about rebelling and venturing to pay for college on my own—but I also knew that was a stupid move, long-term. A lot of kids would kill to have parents who could afford to send them through college. One month. Maybe I could handle one month. The thought sent me dry heaving over the trashcan beside my desk, thankful, (in between heaves), that last night’s lasagna hadn’t made its way down.

  Rising to my feet, I stared at the full notebook. I opened the cover. Skimming the pages, I noticed how my writing transformed from legible to a frantic scrawl. A tear fell onto Maddie’s name. I watched it leak across the letters. The ink smudged and then began to blur within the droplet of water.

  Drowning them.

  My chest heaved. I ripped out the first page. And then the second. In a frenzy, I tore the notebook apart, flinging paper across the room until the pieces of last summer lay in a jumbled mess.

  It had been against my will when they tore me from the cabin, thrashing and screaming that we couldn’t leave without Maddie—and now, it was against my will that they were bringing me back.