The laptop lid snapped shut so fast it made me jump.
It was 1:47 in the morning. A Tuesday in late April. I’d gotten up for a glass of water and seen the blue glow under my son’s bedroom door.
“Wyatt. It’s almost two.”
“I know. Sorry. Going to bed.”
He was sitting cross-legged on his bed with the laptop pressed flat under both hands, like it might jump up and run away. His hair hung past his shoulders. Long. Brown. Tangled at the ends.
But I’d seen the screen for a second before the lid came down.
An email. The top line, in bold.
Dear Mr. Quinn, Thank you for your inquiry regarding your daughter.
Mr. Quinn.
Harper’s father.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Nothing. School thing. We have to write fake business letters for English. Role-play.”
He looked me straight in the eye when he said it.
My son had never been a good liar. He’d always looked away. Always.
That night, he didn’t.
I should have noticed that. I noticed everything else.
I went back to bed.
My name is Megan Holt. I’m forty-three. I’m a dental hygienist. I’ve cleaned the teeth of half the people in Bramble Creek, and I can tell you who flosses and who lies about it.
My son, Wyatt, is fourteen.
It’s been just the two of us since the day he was born. His father isn’t part of our lives. That’s a longer story. I’ll get to it.
Wyatt and Harper Quinn had been best friends since the second grade.
She was the girl who traded him her pudding cups for his apple slices. He was the boy who walked her home every day because her house was on the way to nowhere. Pinewood Elementary. Then Fairhaven Middle. Then their first year at Fairhaven High.
Fourteen years old, and still inseparable. Same lunch table. Same bus. Same terrible taste in music.
See Continuation On Next Page 👇
