I left the TV on as I loaded my plate into the dishwasher, then turned it off and put on music while I showered and changed into sweats and an old T-shirt that said SAVE THE HEDGEHOG on it (for the record, I don’t know why the hedgehog needs saving; it’s just a comfortable shirt). I was reading a book that Caro had loaned me that she had gotten from her oldest sister, Jessica, and I was about to start reading it when I saw Oliver’s light flick off, then back on.
“Can I come over?” he said as soon as I poked my head out the open window. His voice was different, low and serious and shaky. “I need to come over.”
“No one’s here,” I called back. “I can’t—”
“I need to come over.”
There was an urgency to him that scared me. I wondered if he and Maureen had had a fight, if that was just the latest trend on our street.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “The back door’s open. Come on up.”
He must have run because he made it up to my bedroom in record time. “Wow, that was—” I started to say, but the words died on my lips once I saw him. His hair was disheveled, his eyes frantic, and he was shaking.
“What is it?” I asked, crossing the room to his side as he shut the bedroom door behind him.
“Pull the blinds,” he said to me.
“What?”
“Just do it, Emmy. Please.” He sounded like he was choking and I realized that he had the envelope from Columbia in his hands, which were trembling as much as the rest of him.
“Okay, okay,” I said, then closed them. When I turned around, Oliver was still standing there, still holding the envelope. His face was something I hadn’t seen, scared and lost and hopeful and sick, all at the same time.
“It’s not from Columbia,” he said.
“What?”
“This. It’s not really from Columbia.”
“Who’s it from, then?”
“Emmy. It’s from my dad.”
He shook out the contents onto my bed. A shiny, colorful letter-sized pamphlet spilled out, and Oliver picked it up, flipped it open, and pulled out a handwritten letter. “It’s from my dad,” he said again. “He sent it to me. He knew Columbia was my favorite and he . . . he sent it. It’s from him.”
Was this shock? It was hard to tell now that I was shaking as bad as Oliver.
“What . . . what does it say?” I said, sinking down onto the bed next to the papers. Oliver sat next to me, hanging on to the letter the way Caro used to hang on to her rag doll, Alice.
“It’s, um, I don’t.” Oliver cleared his throat and I could see his eyes were starting to redden. “I just want to keep it for me, if that’s okay.”
“Okay, yeah, of course.” I put my hand on his back, feeling him shudder under his hoodie. “But what does it say? Does it say where he is?”
Oliver shook his head. “No. But he, um, he wants to see me. Tomorrow. At lunch. I guess he doesn’t realize I’m in school right now.” Oliver named a restaurant that was about ten minutes away. I had been there with my parents once, but my mom hated their French fries so we never went back.
“What?” If I hadn’t been sitting down, I would have needed to sit down. “He’s here? He’s here in our city right now?”
“I don’t know! I don’t . . .” Oliver took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know,” he said again. “But he wants to meet me at this diner tomorrow afternoon. He said he wants to talk.”
“Oliver,” I said. “Ollie, you have to tell your mom. You have to call the police. This is an actual serious crime!”
“Yeah, I know, Emmy,” he said, and he jerked away from my hand and got up from the bed. “I’m actually really aware of that, but thanks.”
“You can’t go meet him!” I cried. “You know that, right? What if he tries to take you again? What if he, I don’t know, what if he has a gun?”
“My dad? With a gun? Seriously?” Oliver scoffed at me, but he also wouldn’t make eye contact. “Look, you don’t know him like I do, okay? He probably just—”
“No!” I said, standing up alongside him. “You keep trying to defend him, Oliver! And I get it, I understand, he’s your dad, but people—active police officers—are looking for him. They’ve been looking for him for ten years! You have to tell someone!”
“You don’t understand!” he yelled back, and now we were face-to-face. I had never seen him look so shattered before, so completely lost. “I just need to see him, all right! But I can’t drive—”
“Oh no!” I said. “I’m not driving you to meet your dad! Are you serious right now, Oliver?”
“I know when I left that it was hard on everyone but—!”
“Stop saying that!” I screamed and he took a step back, surprised into silence. “Stop saying that you left. You didn’t just leave, Oliver! He took you away from us! He fucking kidnapped you!” I yanked open my closet door with such force that the doorknob slammed into the wall, climbing up onto the step stool and grabbing the dusty shoe box. “Here!” I said. “Look!”
“Emmy—” he started to say, but I just yanked the lid off the box and threw my college application on the floor. There was nothing in that box, I suddenly realized, that was a secret anymore.