Chapter 9: Smear

On Monday afternoon I bought a twenty-five dollar phone with my own money, from my own new account.

It was the first thing I had ever owned that nobody else could shut off.

I turned it on at the diner counter.

In the four minutes it took to set up, my mother's post reached me.

A woman from the school cafeteria sent me a screenshot first.

By the time Noah slid a cup of coffee in front of me, I had seven.

The post was long, and it had a photograph of the whole family at Christmas with me cropped out.

Mom had written, "Pray for our family."

"Our eldest just turned eighteen, and she has been taken in by an older man who is keeping her from us. We are terrified."

Underneath were two hundred hearts and fifty comments.

"Praying, Diane."

"Sending love."

"Do you need me to call someone? That poor child."

I read it twice.

"An older man," Noah said, leaning over my shoulder.

"I'm twenty. I have a nametag that says Noah, and a burn on my arm shaped like Ohio."

"She thinks you're a villain."

"I'd like to be a villain. I'd like the cape."

I laughed, which surprised me.

Then I stopped laughing.

"They'll believe it," I said. "Half those people have known her for twenty years."

"And?"

"And nobody here knows me."

"I know you," Noah said. "So does my mother. So do the nineteen people who saw you throw a cake away."

I put my face in my hands.

On Tuesday, two women from my parents' church came into the diner and ordered pie.

They stared at me the whole time.

One of them left a note on her napkin.

It said, "We are here if you want to come home."

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