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"July" Preston looked afraid again And he was right to "She showed up on the Fourth of July I re there were fireworks" He looked at ot them"
"She came here--to this embassy--in July?" Abby asked
"No" Preston shook his head "She came to me"
The roooing to be a gorgeous fall day, and I tried to iine Ro through Europe and ot separated from your parents That’s what you said, at least"
"But you saw through enuinely embarrassed
"Really, Caed "At first I thought…well, I don’t knohat I thought You were sick or soh They insisted you take the guest room across the hall from mine, and it felt like you slept for a week You were so--"
"And you didn’t call me!" Macey shouted I sansend shift, annoyed, but Macey couldn’t be held back "My friend shows up on your doorstep in a foreign country, exhausted and alone, and you didn’t think ‘Hey, maybe I should drop Macey a line’?"
"Macey," Abby said, but Macey pushed her aside
"She was alone!" Sixout of her "She was sick and she was alone…all summer She was alone," Macey said one final time and backed away
Everyone--Bex and Abby, even Townsend and Zach--stood staring It seemed to take forever for Preston to drop into a chair "Do you ever think about Boston, Macey?" he asked "About what happened on the roof? I do I think about it all the tih his hair, then placed them on the table
"I still dream about it sometier "I see the helicopter--the way the shadow spun on the roof I don’t think I’ll ever forget that spinning shadow And the way the two of you didn’t seem afraid And that woman--" At the mention of his mother, Zach went horribly still "I don’t think I’ll ever forget that woman" Preston shook his head and looked at Macey "I think about it all the time"
"I know--"
"No," he snapped, cutting her off "You don’t Because, if you did, then you’d know that when the girl who saved your life shows up on your doorstep hungry and exhausted, you take her in, and you bring her some food, and you wait for her to wake up You want to knohy I didn’t call you? Because when that girl shows up on your doorstep, you do exactly what she says to do, and she said not to call anyone"
Preston pointed to me, then stood and paced to the s that overlooked the front of the e for access to that small piece of American soil
"Everyone comes here when they’re lost"
It made sense, why I’d come there The only question that remained hy I’d had to leave
"Preston," I said, "was I…dangerous?"
"What?" he asked and shook his head "You were sleepy That’s it I thought you were just exhausted and needed a place to rest" He wheeled on s you back?"
"Preston, it’s sort of…coht and in Boston, but you don’t know about--"
"The Circle of Cavan," Preston filled in
"Yeah, I--"
"Ms Morgan," Townsend warned
"It’s okay," Preston told his every day, and ular surveillance in the family quarters We can talk here" He looked at me "You really don’t remember?"
I shook my head "No"
"Don’t remember…what, specifically?" he asked
I took a deep breath "Suive -tricks-on-me looks, but they didn’t come Instead, he reached into his pockets and pulled out a passport and a sher Acade," he said "I thought you would call or so after you left, but--"
"She left?" Bex asked
"Yeah I caone I found a stained towel and an empty box of hair dye…and these"
Zach reached for the passport and sotten it from his stash"
He handed the passport to Abby, but it was the book I was afraid to touch, not because it was unknown to me, but because I could recite every word and knew it had no place within those walls
Bex turned to the first page and read the opening line: "‘I suppose a lot of teenage girls feel invisible sometimes, like they just disappear…’"
"What is that?" Zach asked, and I shook e that he could know me and not know those words
"It’s a report," I said "About what happened fall semester, sopho before, they felt almost like ancient history I wasn’t embarrassed, I realized, because in so irl
A silly girl
A naive girl
A girl who ed for a norht then, I illing to settle for life Period