LITMIR.BIZ

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Cassie to some crazy boot camp boarding school.” He takes a deep breath. “Anyway, I guess Cassie having done something wrong is at least better than someone having kidnapped her or something.”

      “Kidnapped?” That had not even occurred to me. “What do you mean kidnapped?”

      My phone vibrates loudly on the coffee table before Jasper can explain whether he’s got some actual reason to consider kidnapping, or if he was just throwing that out there. Because now Cassie getting snatched off the street is all I can think about. As I reach for my phone, I feel like it might bite me.

      Please, Wylie, I need your help, the text reads. I messed up big. I need u to come get me. I sent Jasper so he can drive. But the person I really need is you. More soon.

      I take a shaky breath. At least she’s okay enough to text. That’s something. And “messed up big” does not sound like being kidnapped. And even after everything between us, I have to admit there is a tiny part of me that likes that Cassie feels like she needs me specifically.

      “What does it say?” Jasper asks, peering over my shoulder.

      “‘I need your help. I messed up big,’” I say, feeling this sadness sink over me. Like I’m finally realizing that Cassie might never be okay. “Can you drive? I don’t have my license.”

      Of course, there is one additional, teeny-tiny problem with this plan. A problem that I’m trying not to think about. Or really less of a problem, because that sounds like the kind of thing that can be worked around. This is more of a brick wall.

      There is no way I’m going to be able to get myself to leave the house. Haven’t stepped outside in three weeks. It started with not being able to get myself to school, then having a hard time running errands in the car. Then just taking a walk was pretty uncomfortable. Like Dr. Shepard had feared, the home tutor was the top of a very steep hill and I’ve already rolled fast to the bottom. I am a full-on agoraphobic. Only three weeks in the making, but I am here to report that three weeks is plenty long enough for something to feel like the way you always were. At some point during this Project Rescue Cassie discussion, I am going to have to give this problematic little tidbit some thought.

      “Come get her where?” Jasper asks. “What happened?”

      “She messed up, that’s all it said. Like the text you got.”

      “This is so fucked,” he says. “How do we even know that’s really her texting? It could be anybody. Maybe somebody stole her phone.”

      Of course, he’s right. And him being suspicious like that definitely goes down in his not-guilty column. But I’m not ready to let him off the hook completely. Not until I know what’s really going on. I turn back down to my phone.

      “What are you writing?” Jasper asks as my fingers fly over my phone’s touch screen.

      “A question,” I say. “To make sure it’s really Cassie.”

      Are you pulling a Janice? It’s the first inside joke that popped into my head. An oldie, but a goodie. It makes me miss Cassie just thinking about it.

      Jackie Wilson—not Janice Wilson—was a tiny sprite of a girl who came to Newton Regional High School at the beginning of freshman year. She only stayed three short months before her parents moved on again, but Cassie and I had both really liked her. We had specific conversations about Jackie turning our twosome into a threesome. That was, until we realized that Jackie lied about everything. Including stupid pointless things like the color of the socks she had on. It was hard not to feel bad for her. She must have really needed all those lies for something. Anyway, after she left, Cassie and I started using “Jackie” as shorthand for lying: pulling a Jackie. But I’d written the wrong name now—Janice—on purpose. Otherwise, even if it wasn’t Cassie, the person on the other end still would have had a 50 percent chance guessing right—yes or no. If it is really Cassie, she’ll mention me using the wrong name.

      It takes a little longer for the reply this time.

       U mean Jackie? No, not pulling a Jackie. Please, for now head north on 95. Then take Route 3 to 93 north. More details 2 come. Hurry, Wylie. Please, I need you.

      “It’s her.” And saying it makes me feel much, much worse. “Definitely.”

      “Okay,” Jasper says. “So what do we do?”

      I could call Karen, tell her that Cassie has gotten herself into some mess again. I could be the reason Cassie is sent someplace where she’s forced to march for fifty miles in the burning desert to teach her respect or whatever. Or I could be the friend that Cassie has asked me to be: someone she can trust.

      I look up from my phone and straight at Jasper. “We go.”

      

      Supplies. It’s what I think of next. We’ll need supplies. And yes, that is mostly my way of delaying the inevitable: the outside. But also, supplies couldn’t hurt.

      As I head upstairs toward my bedroom, Jasper follows. Uninvited again. Though I didn’t specifically ask him to wait downstairs, because it didn’t occur to me he’d come. But him hovering is the least of my problems. The outside is looming larger and larger with each passing second. With each step, my feet feel heavier on the stairs, my lungs stiffer.

      “What exactly are we doing?” Jasper asks as we continue up the stairs.

      I realize now that he probably followed because I started marching upstairs without an explanation.

      “I need to get some stuff. It might be cold,” I say. “You didn’t have to come.”

      That is true. It might be cold. North on 95 and north on 93. That’s what Cassie said. It’s cold still in Boston even though it’s May. Who knows how much colder it could get. Or how far north we may have to go.

      A change of clothes, warm things—socks, boots, sweaters. And that is partly me being paranoid. But it can’t hurt to be prepared. That’s one thing the Boy Scouts and my mom could agree on.

      Once she finally had some marching orders from Dr. Shepard—help build Wylie’s confidence—my mom was all over it. By then I was in seventh grade and I’d been seeing Dr. Shepard for nearly a year. And my mom was desperate to help, to do something.

      To her, building confidence meant one thing: adventure. My mom had learned all her outdoors skills from my grandfather, the original Wylie, when she was my age. Wylie the First—an actual, real-life explorer always in search of some relic in a far-off land—had to return home for good once my grandmother was hospitalized. After that, he’d take my mom to the woods often, teaching her to build a fire or navigate by the sun, and out there, surrounded by all that wild, they’d both try to forget my grandmother’s untamable mind.

      Those trips with my grandfather had always been fun for my mom. For me? Not so much. They were too terrifying to be considered fun. The second time I ever rock climbed I got stuck halfway up, convinced my mom would have to call the National Guard with a helicopter. But she didn’t. She didn’t rush to rescue me at all like I thought she would. Like I kept begging her to. Instead, she just kept telling me that I could do it. Again and again and again. You can do it. You can do it. Not a shout or a yell or a cheer. Just quiet and steady and sure. Like a promise. You. Can. Do It. Of course you can. And so I closed my eyes and pretended I believed that until eventually—two hours later—I made it to the top of that rock. And for someone bawling, I did feel pretty awesome. I wasn’t cured and I wasn’t exactly having fun, but that trip and others did give me hope. And I needed that more than anything.

      I also loved every minute alone with my mom. Couldn’t get enough of listening to her explain how best to pitch a tent in

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