By her twentieth birthday, there are a few things Valarie Ricci knows for certain.
She knows that her waitressing job barely covers the costs of living out of a beat up old van. She knows she's stuck in the dead end hometown her high school friends...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Alice flicked on the turn signal as she merged lanes, a green Bienvenue À Québec sign speeding past Valarie's window just as quickly as she'd been able to read it. The quiet tick of the indicator paired with Alice's soft humming, which she'd been doing on and off ever since she got behind the wheel after lunch. Valarie didn't mind, knowing that Alice tended to hum or mumble to herself whenever she was focused on something.
The humming actually helped settle the whirlwind of bullshit cycling around inside her head. She could close her eyes and pretend for a moment that they were back home and Alice was making tea or reading a book and nothing had ever gone wrong.
She stole occasional glances at Alice, watching her chew on her lip whenever they hit a particularly dense spot of traffic, and visually tracing the curve of her neck when she checked over her shoulder, skin exposed by the messy knot she'd tied her hair into. Alice had a beauty mark just above the seam of her sweater, and Valarie knew that three more dotted her collarbone, arranged in an impossibly straight line. She used to trace them with her fingertips, pepper the vulnerable skin with delicate kisses.
The sight of Alice's hands on the steering wheel alone was doing something to Valarie that she didn't want to think about.
She forced herself to look away. Her eyes fell on the phone sitting in her lap that was cluttered with unanswered messages, and she felt like someone was breathing ice down her neck. How could she explain any of this to Rachel? They hadn't properly spoken in about three months, but that didn't mean she didn't still consider Rachel her best friend. Rachel was away at school, and it was only natural that the two of them had drifted apart. She told herself that was expected, normal, that she wouldn't distract Rachel with too much of her bullshit.
Now, she dreaded the moment she'd finally have to return one of the seven missed calls from her. Valarie could practically hear Rachel pointing out that Alice had only come back because she needed something. She'd say that Valarie was blindly repeating old patterns: giving too much of herself to people who didn't give back. Worst of all, Rachel would probably be right.
But, despite all of that, Alice and her were together again, and that had to mean something. Right? This whole thing wasn't about the two of them; it was about Grace. It was about finally getting some peace. Kylie's words at the diner floated back to her: I hope it's worth it.
Valarie did too. She needed this to be worth it. She just wasn't entirely sure what that meant yet.
To distract herself, she reached down past her phone to the pink notebook that was sitting atop a gym bag near her feet. She opened it to the same October entry that Alice had been reading from. I'm a good person was written out in Grace's confident, curly handwriting. Valarie didn't know much, but she did know that good people don't usually go around saying how good they are.
Not that Grace was a bad person, or–well, she didn't really know what kind of person Grace was. She only knew how Grace presented herself at school or at parties; how she was talked about after she was gone. God knows Alice never spoke much about Grace before or after she disappeared, which was weird in itself. As much as Valarie had tried, Alice never opened up about her sister beyond the occasional (usually drunken) slip.
