Send Me a Sign

Chapter 2

Coming tonight had been a mistake. I did a quick survey of the party: Hil mixing drinks on a makeshift bar made from hay bales; Ally and Lauren dancing; Ryan cocking his wrist to throw a Ping-Pong ball into a cup of beer. Since they were all occupied, I allowed my smile to slip, let my cup dangle loosely at my side, and stepped back into the shadows that formed along the wall beneath the hayloft.

“Drop the drink, Mia. We’re leaving.” It was Gyver’s voice. He didn’t belong here. Not that the rest of us did, but we used the old Nathanson barn for parties more often than the East Lake Historical Society used it for their reenactments, so it felt like ours.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He grabbed the red plastic cup from my hand and threw it into the hay. “Seriously. I don’t care if I have to carry you. We need to go. Now.”

The action and the words clicked: he was the police chief’s son. “I’m not drunk. I can walk.”

“Then do. Quickly.” He grabbed my wrist and began to pull me past the stalls containing couples mid–hook up. Past the blaring iPod-speaker combo set up on the ladder to the loft and the barn door balanced on hay bales, where one game of beer pong was ending and guys were fighting over who was next.

“But what about—” Twisting back toward the loudest part of the crowd, I tried to locate Ryan or the girls. I stepped in someone’s knocked-over drink and slipped; my flip-flops had no traction on the dirt floor.

Gyver didn’t answer, just steadied me and hurried me out the door, down the grass slope, and into his black Jeep, which was still running at the edge of the nearly empty parking lot. Most people parked on the other side of the woods, so they could escape out the back and run if needed. Gyver barely stopped for me to shut my door before he pulled out and sped away. I waited for him to speak. He didn’t.

It was dark in his car. And quiet. The party lights and noise faded as we traveled around the lake and back toward town. It was too dark to see the titles of the CDs stored on the visor above my head. Too quiet for comfort. I couldn’t handle silence; I’d gone to the party to escape, so I wouldn’t have to think about what I learned today—and what would happen tomorrow. Not that I understood tomorrow’s agenda. I still couldn’t grasp what the doctor had told me. I understood the individual words, but strung together in a sentence they no longer made sense.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to comprehend anything yet. I wanted to hide from the truth for as long as possible. So while the doctor told my father about treatments and my mother sobbed on the shoulder of some supportive nurse, I’d tuned out and planned my outfit for the party we’d just left.

Parties and I were a predictable fit, like Gyver and his music. I reached up and grabbed one of his CDs—it could be any of his custom playlists: Songs for Studying, Rhythms for Rain, An Album for Algebra.

He liked alliterative titles. And names. Walt Whitman, Galileo Galilei, Harry Houdini, Arthur Ashe. And me, Mia Moore. Was that why we were so close? If I’d been named after Dad’s mother instead of Mom’s, would I be sitting in his car right now? Maybe my name was his sign.

But Gyver didn’t look for signs the way I did, and he’d laugh if I suggested this.

He wasn’t laughing now. He fixed his frown on the road, and I studied the CD I twirled on my finger. I wished, not for the first time, that his car had an iPod hookup so I could see the contents of his playlists.

It didn’t matter; the first song that played would be a sign— and I needed something to point the way. Should I tell him? Could I tell him? I hadn’t said the words out loud yet.