Read Pointe for Free Online

kid. And the candles—they’re propped up on every available flat surface. Tea lights and pillars and scented. I know the people who left all this stuff mean well, but they’ve only succeeded in making the Pratts’ lawn look like a shrine . . . or a junkyard.
    Phil is staring at it, too, when I slide into the passenger seat.
    â€œSo, I guess you haven’t seen him?” he asks, chewing on his bottom lip as he turns to me.
    â€œWe’ve called a few times but they’re not answering.” I take a deep breath, thinking of how hopeful I was this afternoon when my mother and I sat next to each other on the couch, the phone between our ears. “I think they unplugged their answering machine. And my mom says we can’t go over without talking to someone first.”
    â€œWhat do you think he’s doing? Besides feeling really fucking happy that he’s back?”
    â€œMaybe that’s all.” I strap my seat belt across my chest, click it into place. “Maybe being happy is enough.”
    I look along our street as Phil reverses down my driveway. Our neighborhood looks like any other neighborhood in Midwest, suburban America. The same brick houses, the same long, wide driveways, the same tastefully landscaped yards and seasonal porch decorations. This time of year, it’s colorful gourds displayed in groups of three and four, and harvest wreaths hung on front doors.
    â€œPhil, where do you think he was?” I ask, glancing at Donovan’s house once more before we head in the opposite direction. “I know the cops found him in Vegas, but where do you think he was actually
living
?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Phil looks both ways before he continues through a four-way stop. “I didn’t really think about it. I mean, I did, but it felt wrong. Like, here I am living this normal life in a normal house and he’s out there being forced to do God knows—”
    I put my hand on his arm when he doesn’t continue, gently squeeze right above his elbow. “Yeah. Me too.” Then, “Do you think he’s the same at all? I mean . . . what will we talk about when we finally see him? I can’t picture it. I can’t . . . I won’t know what to say.”
    Phil is quiet for a few moments as we coast through town on the way to Sara-Kate’s, and I wonder what Ashland Hills would look like to Donovan now—
will
look like, once he leaves his house. It’s changed some since he’s been gone. Not a ton but enough to notice if you haven’t been around for four years. Like the big-name coffee chains that have cropped up, trying to put Coffee & Jam out of business. Or the new barbecue place down the street from Casablanca’s where every day around noon it smells like someone’s shooting off a pulled-pork cannon. There’s Ashland Hills Elementary and the organic foods/hippie store that’s always empty, and we don’t think about what it would be like to suddenly stop seeing them every day.
    â€œDo you remember that time we went to Great America?” Phil rolls to a stop at a yellow light instead of cruising right through like I would. He drives like a model in a student driving handbook—hands at ten and two, never more than two miles above the speed limit.
    â€œOh. With all our parents?” I haven’t thought about that day in years.
    â€œYeah.” When I look over, Phil grins. “We were eight, right?”
    â€œNine. And Glenn was with us and started crying because he was too short for that roller coaster we rode over and over again until you puked.”
    â€œWeak stomach. It’s genetic.” His grin widens, showing his perfect white teeth. They should be, considering they were caged under braces for three and a half years. “I wasn’t the only one. Remember my dare?”
    â€œGod.” I groan, clutching my stomach at the memory.