Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
Easton comes to pick me up from therapy on Tuesday since Gramma Sharon is still on pain meds. I’m hoping that when I see her
tomorrow morning she’ll be able to talk. I want her to be able to respond to me when I tell her the truth. Whether she wants
to tell me off, scream, cry, or—as my ideal fantasy goes—tell me she doesn’t give a shit and that she still loves me.
Yes, it’s a reach. But hearing her say that would be worth the wait. And Marcus has been avoiding me anyway.
Easton looks at me skeptically as I hop into the car, tilting his head. “Doesn’t look like it shrunk.”
“That only happens after several sessions,” I say. “How was your cleaning?” It was Easton’s turn to go to Valencia this afternoon,
hence him having custody of her car.
He grins his perfect white teeth at me. “Still no cavities.”
“Does Mom dig violently around in your gums or is that only saved for her homeless children?”
“No, she lets Hillary do my cleanings. I think her doing yours herself was a Nate special.” He shifts into drive and pulls
slowly into traffic. “Mom told me Dad’s picking her up from work and they won’t be home till later, so I said we’d go somewhere
for dinner. Where you want to go?”
That actually sounds great. I can relax a little and not be in a constant state of fear back at the house.
Hanging out with Miles last night was such a relief.
I tell Easton he can pick, and twenty minutes later he pulls into the restaurant Gramma Sharon took me on our first lunch date.
It’s still early for dinner—only a little after five—so the restaurant is slow and the only other diners are people well past retirement age.
We’re seated in a booth facing the street, which is clogged with rush hour traffic. Easton and I casually talk about our days
while looking over the menu. When the server comes to us—a short-haired brunette Easton’s age or a little older—we order,
and she takes our menus.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Easton says. “You and Miles have been hanging out a lot lately.”
“Not a question, but yeah. Mom said he and I used to be friends back in the day, so I’m trying to rekindle that.”
He nods. “You decide if you’re going to talk on his podcast?”
“I said I’d think about it.” But something about the way Easton asked makes me feel like he knows more than he’s letting on.
So I add, “But I don’t think I will.”
He nods, but it’s like he isn’t sure he believes me. “He started this whole thing sometime last summer. Came over one day
to ask me if I’d come on his podcast and talk about the day you disappeared.”
“I assume you said no.”
“Of course. I hate that true crime shit. Because he wants to make it about him. He wants to be the special person who finds
the one crumb of evidence overlooked by the police. He doesn’t care whose trauma he’s exploiting, just that he gets to be
the one to present it.”
I shake my head. “He’s not like that.”
“How do you know? You only met him a couple weeks ago. Unless you remember something from before?” He looks at me with what
I can only say is suspicion. So I turn away from him and shake my head.
“No. But he doesn’t seem so bad.”
Easton leans across the table. “Don’t trust him, Nate. He’s going to hurt you. He asked me, Mom, and Dad all to record something.
And now he wants the former FBI agent who was in charge of your case to come on and talk about us?”
“It’s not about you all, it’s about me. And him, too. We were friends before I disappeared. You said he’s exploiting your
trauma, but you forget he knew me, too. Maybe he’s working through his own shit.”
Easton’s jaw tightens as he stares at me. “You already talked to him, didn’t you? Recorded something.”
“No.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
Probably because I’m not selling it all that well. While it’s true I haven’t recorded anything, I have been helping Miles investigate.
When I don’t answer, he shakes his head. “I was hoping he wouldn’t get you involved, but I guess that was stupid of me.”
“I was already involved in it,” I remind him. “It’s my life, too.”
He laughs, but part of him is obviously annoyed. Maybe disappointed. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.”
When our food arrives, we eat in silence. Easton checks his phone several times, texting someone, but I don’t bother to ask
who.
When we finish, the server drops off our bill. Easton hands over his card without looking at her. She brings it back promptly, he signs for it, and we go back out to the car.
He pulls onto the road, but not in the direction of the house.
“Do you want ice cream?” he asks. The ice cream place is straight ahead, and he points with his index finger but doesn’t take
his hands off the nine-and-three position on the steering wheel. “I’m in the mood for ice cream.”
“Sure.” I want to mention we could have gotten ice cream at the restaurant when the server asked if we wanted dessert, but
I assume he likes the ice cream at this place.
He pulls into the parking lot, and we get out to stand in the long line of people waiting to be served. We still don’t talk,
and this whole evening has turned a little awkward. I want to ask him what he wants from me. If all he needs to hear is I won’t go on Miles’s podcast, sure, I’ll say it. Because I won’t. He’s doing his podcast with or without me, and I’ve already decided to be long gone
by the time he does it.
But even that has started to get to me. Will it be nice not having to worry about Marcus trying to poison me with glass? Absolutely.
But I’ve kind of started to feel close to Easton and Valencia. The only thing that could change my feelings toward her is
knowing she was involved in Nate’s disappearance, too.
When we reach the front of the line, Easton orders a vanilla cone and I order their non-trademarked version of an Oreo Blizzard.
As we exit, I start toward some seats on the right side of the shop, but Easton stops me, pointing to the left. “There’s a
few seats over here.”
There’s one table, and it’s empty. But that’s because the dumpsters are a few feet away. And they stink.
“There’s places over there that aren’t near the dumpster,” I say.
“Yeah, but this side is quieter. Breathe through your mouth.” When they call out Easton’s name, he goes and grabs the ice
cream, then sits across from me.
Finally he changes the subject, telling me about school and how he did on his finals—aced every class. He also asks about
my therapy because he’s interested in possibly going into psychology.
“I’m fascinated by how our brains work,” he says. “Like, do you know what the DSM is?”
I shake my head, trying to enjoy the ice cream without breathing in the garbage smell. The shift from him scolding me about
the podcast to talking about school is sudden and a little awkward. But maybe it’s how Easton wants to say he’s ready to move
on.
“Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Basically every mental disorder is listed in there. It wasn’t even published as the DSM until the fifties, and even then it was antiquated. Like they said homosexuality was a sociopathic tendency. And then they
didn’t take it out until the seventies.”
I almost choke on my ice cream.
“You good?”
“Brain freeze,” I lie, trying to play it off. Is he sharing trivia or is he purposely telling me about the history of gay
psychology?
He gives me a second before continuing. “It’s wild to me because this manual—which everyone is supposed to refer to for diagnostic support—is from studies of people who have already been diagnosed.
Which, what if someone’s diagnosis is wrong?
We don’t actually know what’s going on in someone’s head or why people are the way they are; we’re guessing based on the knowledge we have. Like
they used to give women hysterectomies as a treatment for hysteria. And then decades later they’re like, ‘Oops, our bad, we
shouldn’t have done that.’”
Easton’s ice cream cone is melting; he’s barely even touched it.
“So are you thinking you want to go into psychology because you want to figure out how brains work?”
He shakes his head. “I know how they work. I think it’s interesting that people will go talk to someone else about their problems
instead of fixing them themselves.”
Oh. “Therapy is people fixing themselves. You talk to your therapist about your issues and they give you tools to help figure them out when
you’re on your own.” I’ve actually enjoyed talking to Dr. Zapata. Sure, it’s only been a couple sessions. But it’s still nice
to talk to someone.
“But what if they give you the wrong tool? Or diagnosis? And I don’t mean by mistake; I mean, what if they choose to make
you worse?”
“Why would they want to do that?”
He stares at me for a second, then shrugs. “To rip you off and overcharge your insurance company, I guess?” He licks his ice
cream to keep it from melting onto his hands and stares off at the dumpster.
“Well, that’s not my therapist,” I say.
“Sure.” He takes out his phone and checks it. “Want to hang out with me and JT tonight?”
“Because this has been a blast. I can walk home from here if you want to go.”
He sighs.
“I’m sorry if I’ve been a dick tonight. I’m . . .” He shrugs.
“Feeling some trauma from when I disappeared?”
Easton laughs and the energy between us shifts. “Yeah, that’s it. Come hang out with me and JT. You need a night out of the
house anyway.”
He doesn’t know I was at Miles’s house last night, so it would really be two nights in a row out of the house. And if all
goes to plan, I should be home free tomorrow afternoon. Well, as home free as a homeless imposter can be. Plus, Easton is
clearly trying to make up for being a dick. “Okay.”
“Well, we’re late, so let’s go.” He gets up and throws away his ice cream cone without even having eaten much of it. I take
another spoonful of mine before throwing it away.
He stops me as we get to the car. “Listen. Valencia is going to be tracking your phone, and I don’t want her freaking out