Positively Beautiful (20 page)

“Oh,” I say and begin to cry.

“Erin. Hey, Erin! Quit it. Stop. Please, stop crying. Ashley told me all about you. You sound like you're in trouble. Can I help?”

“Not unless you want to drive to Alachua and pick me up,” I say because I don't know what else to do.

Silence. I'm about to hang up when he comes back. “Okay, I Google Mapped it and it should take me four hours and eighteen minutes to get there. Can you hang on that long?”

I laugh, but it's almost a sob. “That's all I do,” I say. “I hang on.”

I tell him what gas station I'm at and go and sit under a tree. I'm out of sight of the station but I can still see the parking lot. I drink from a supersize bottle of water and munch on a sandwich I bought with my six dollars and twenty-six cents. Now I have seventy-eight cents rattling in my pocket.

I must have fallen asleep because when I wake, a police car is in the parking lot. I remember then you can track your phone if you lose it, and are they tracking
me
? I turn off my phone even though I told Jason I would keep it on in case he can't find the gas station. I edge further behind the tree. Darned if the clerk doesn't come out with the cop, and they are standing outside the store looking up and down the road. The clerk is talking fast and then she does something that makes my skin crawl. She hands the cop my wallet. I hadn't even noticed I'd lost it.

The cop looks through my wallet thoughtfully and then talks into his shoulder mic. Before long two more cops show up and yes, they are looking for me. This is insane and I don't know what to do. I need to get away but Jason is my best bet. I'd glanced at the time right before I turned off my phone, and I know he should be here any minute. I see it already in my imagination. He gets here. Doesn't see me. Goes in and talks
to the clerk and she promptly directs him to the police. And there goes my only ride out of town.

I know I need to do something, but I'm paralyzed.

A ragged blue Jeep turns into the station. It pulls up to the gas pump and a guy gets out. He looks eighteen, nineteen, a little older than me, and he's tall with curly blondish hair pulled back into a ponytail. He's tanned and sloppy-looking, like he's just come off the water, and I know exactly who he is.

I wonder if I can signal him somehow. He doesn't seem to be sweating my absence. He's not looking around or anything. In fact, he looks bored. One of the cops comes over and talks to him and he shrugs and shakes his head. No, he hasn't seen a girl, curly black hair, glasses.

When he goes to get back in the Jeep, I see he's got his hand down low at his side where the police officers can't see him. He's pointing down the road. He gets in without looking back and drives off in the opposite direction.

Great. Now what do I do?

What choice do I have?

I look at my phone and put it on the ground and smash it with my heel. I start worming my way through the bushes in the direction he pointed. After a while, I get far enough away from the gas station and I get up and run. I keep the road in sight but I go for five minutes and don't see him. Did I misunderstand? Was it even him?

But I know it was and somehow I'm not concerned. I keep walking, closer to the road now, and few minutes later the Jeep roars up and swerves to a stop.

“Get in!” the guy yells.

I hesitate because I don't know whether they can still see us from the gas station and then I take a leap of faith and run. I fall into the seat and he is accelerating before I even have the door shut.

“I called in a fire down the road, but I don't think it'll keep them occupied for long.” He glances in the rearview mirror. He is big and male and it's hard not to notice that.

“What fire?” I fumble for my seat belt because he's accelerating like Mario Andretti. But he gets to fifty-five and stays there.

“I called 911 and said there was a small brush fire just north of the gas station, figuring those cops would respond,” he says. “Hopefully it gave us enough time. Are you okay?” He glances at me.

“How did you know? How did you know those cops were looking for me?”

He hesitates. “Your mom called my house this morning. Looking for Ashley. She looked at your cell phone records so they know you've been texting … her.”

Something about the way he says this makes me look at him sharply.

“And what did Ashley say?” I ask.

“She said she hadn't heard from you since early this morning before you soloed and she didn't know where you were. They found the plane a couple hours ago, so now they know you're around here somewhere. They're calling you a ‘troubled teen.' ”

I keep looking at him, not even caring right then about the whole “troubled teen” thing.

“How old are you?” I ask.

He hesitates. “Eighteen.”

“And you and Ashley are what? Twins? She never mentioned a twin brother. Or a brother at all for that matter.”

He doesn't say anything.

It all makes a horrible kind of sense. The fact he has Ashley's phone, the strange hesitations, the feeling of familiarity …

“You're
her
, aren't you?” I whisper. “You're Ashley!”

He won't look at me. Then, “Look, I'm sorry. I didn't know it would go this far. I wanted to tell you, but it never seemed like the right time.”

“What, are you some sort of online predator or something? Why were you pretending to be a girl?” I don't know whether to be scared or angry. I put my hand on the door handle, but we're going too fast for me to jump out.

“It wasn't like that!” He looks at me, his eyes earnest. “I didn't mean to do it. When I joined that BRCA forum, I was thinking of my little sister, Ashley. I knew Mom was going to tell her about the gene when she turned eighteen next year, and I was wondering what it was like to be a girl and know you might have the bad gene and have to make all those decisions about what to do. So when I signed up, I used the screen name Ashley, because her name was the first thing that came to mind.”

I remembered my own screen name: Thissucks.

“When you posted, it was the first time I'd seen anything
from someone our age. When I e-mailed you, it didn't occur to me that you would think I was a girl. Not until too late. And then you were telling me … stuff …”

“Oh my God!” I shriek, remembering some of the things I told Ashley. I talked about Michael, about kissing Chaz, my new fun nickname Va-jay-jay Girl, my
period
, for flip's sake. Oh my God,
ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

I cover my face with my hands.

“You must have thought it was real funny, messing with me like that,” I say through my hands. “Ha-ha. Hilarious.”

“No!” He reaches over and grabs my leg. Even through my jeans his touch burns. “It wasn't like that. I told you. I hadn't met anyone else my age with the gene, and it felt … good to talk about it. I thought if you knew I was a guy you'd … I don't know. Stop talking.”

“Wait, wait.
You
have the BRCA mutation?” I stare at him incredulously.

He looks at me quickly. “Yeah, I have it.”

I guess I knew guys could have the BRCA mutation, I just never thought about it much.

“Things kind of snowballed. I didn't mean to lie to you, but I couldn't find the right way to tell you who I really was. It was stupid, I know, and I've felt bad about it. So many times I wanted to tell you.”

I am trying not to mentally go through every e-mail and text I ever sent him. Every time I do I think of something else embarrassing. I thought I was talking to a
girl
, a girl I was beginning to think of as a good friend.

“It's still me, okay?” he says softly. “My name's not Ashley,
it's Jason, but that's the only thing I lied to you about. The rest of it's true. It's
me
.”

I sit and stare out the window at the trees and bushes rushing past my window. I know I should be mad, and probably worried. You hear stories about this all the time, a guy pretending to be someone else and luring a young girl to her doom. But the difference is that Jason didn't
ask
me to come; in fact he's risking a lot by helping me. And after all the time we spent talking, I feel like I know him even though we just met.

Finally, I nod, because I'm too tired to be angry and because I don't want to lose Ashley, even if she's a guy.

“So what did my mom say? Is she okay?” I ask.

He hesitates. “She's … very worried. She wanted to know if you had said anything to me about all of this, if you had planned to leave. Apparently the authorities are questioning your instructor as well about letting you fly by yourself so soon after starting lessons, whether you were really ready to solo.”

“I
was
ready to solo! Stew didn't do anything wrong.” My heart sinks as I think about all the trouble I've caused.

“Were you coming to see me?” he asks. “Is that why you flew to Florida?”

“I don't know what I was doing,” I say after a moment. “I guess if I was thinking of anything … it was your island. But I was just flying. I wasn't thinking.” It's hard to explain that vibrating emptiness in my head, an echo of which is still there. “I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what I'm doing. I just know I can't go back right now. I
can't.
”

“What do you want to do?” he asks carefully.

“I don't know.” I lean my head back against the headrest. “How should I know? It's all so messed up.
I've
messed it all up and I don't know how to make it right. I want to be … somewhere else for a while.”

“You've got to call your mom,” he says. “I won't help you unless you call her and tell her you're okay.”

I nod. Yes, I need to call Mom, but now I've smashed my cell phone and what on earth do I tell her? What can I say?

“Then what?” I say. “I call her and then what?”

“I'll take you where you want to go.”

“The island,” I say immediately. “I want to go to your island.”

I wake screaming and Jason is saying, “Whoa, Erin, it's okay, you're okay. I'm right here.”

I look at him blankly, not at all sure where I am for a moment. I'm still deep in my dream where I come home and Mom is sitting at the table drinking a glass of water, but when she turns to look at me she's a corpse. Rotting flesh peeling away from her skull, the hand holding the glass just bones.

“Erin?” Jason gently shakes my leg, trying to bring me back.

I remember then, where I am, and what I've done. I lean my head against the seat.

“We're almost there,” Jason says.

I nod. I'm trying not to think of my phone conversation with my mother. Right outside of Alachua, Jason found a pay phone, and I felt like everyone was looking at me as I dialed my home number collect. Mom cried when she heard my voice.
“I'm okay, I'm okay,” I kept saying. “I just need some time. A couple days, okay? Tell them I'm okay. Tell them to call off the search. Can you do that? I'll be home in a couple of days. I'm safe, I promise. I just need … a little time.”

“You need to turn yourself in,” she said, which made my blood turn icy and shivery. “Everyone is looking for you.”

“Mom, I can't come back right now. I just can't. But I'm safe, I'm with a … a friend. Tell them … tell them I'll come back in a few days. Tell them that, okay?”

“I don't know if I can, Erin. This is pretty serious. I don't know if they'll stop looking just because I ask them to. Can't you just come home now?”

“I can't, Momma, I just … can't.”

It didn't end there, of course, but after a while I told her I needed to go.

“See you later, alligator,” she said, and her breath hitched as she said it.

“After a while, crocodile,” I said and hung up, shaking.

I think about how hard it was to be apart from her when I was six and scared she would die while I was at school.

Being apart from her right now? It feels like an amputation. Painful, but vital to my survival.

Jason is driving through a small town, colorful cottages clinging to the edge of the road, the water all around. He's humming along to the radio. I can see the side of his face, and I watch him, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror, his lips moving as he mouths a few words. Jason is big and tanned and freckled across his nose. The slanted sun glows in the golden fuzz on his cheek and his long eyelashes sweep the sweet spot
under his eyes. I'm sure a lot of girls think he's cute, but judging from his threadbare T-shirt and his careless, tangled hair, he doesn't care what people think. Trina would say,
He's, like, a magnificently messy nature boy. Yum.

And then I miss Trina fiercely, and I put her voice out of my mind.

We go over a bridge, and the rest is a blur until we stop in front of some tall green bushes.