“I have to go now, but I want you to know that. I want to know you believe that, Jessa.”
And I do, I realize. I wonder: can I take both sides? The parts I do know, and the parts I missed? This is what I know deep in my bones: he didn’t do it. I can tell because I’ve seen the different sides of him—the regret, the love, the fear, and the anger. I do know the sides of Caleb now. I know what a lie looks like, and he’s not lying.
“If you told the police it was self-defense, Caleb, your mom would’ve confirmed it. You didn’t have to disappear.”
He laughs then, and it’s pained. “Oh, no, Jessa, she would not. I wanted to tell. The guilt was too much. I thought we had done the wrong thing, and I couldn’t live with it, not in that house, in that room. And you know what she said? ‘All the evidence points to you, Caleb.’ She said she kept his pocket watch and wedding band, that they would have my blood. And we used my car to move him. Then we took his car when we left that week and sold it for cheap. I only realized after why she made us use my car, and not his. She said it was because we were selling it, but come on. It was to make sure I never said anything. And if Sean had helped set up my dad back then, then so did my mom, right? Jessa, who had I been living with?”
His voice drops, and he’s asking. He’s really asking.
“You could’ve left…,” I begin, but Caleb’s already shaking his head.
“She would’ve never given me permission to leave. Not even for college. She’s the guardian of my account, and as long as I was there, she could use part of the money to maintain our quality of life. But I have to be there. Leaving was not part of the picture for her. You know why she’s so determined to find me? It’s not because of me. It’s because the money is no longer hers. It goes to my dad, if I’m dead. It should’ve been his from the start. My grandparents left the money to me because my dad was in jail. This was the only way.”
“It’s not,” I say. “There are still other options. It’s not too late. You have to tell the police.”
He shakes his head. “It’s my blood on his things. His DNA in my car. He was in my trunk. We were fighting. Mia knows it, everyone knows it. We’d fought before, even you would say that, if asked. I was the one driving Sean’s car when we went to sell it. When I told her the evidence could point to her instead, she said there were cameras on the gas stations we passed, the storefronts, every place I drove by, with her following. Evidence that it was me. She had me completely under her thumb. My money was in her hands until I turned twenty-five. Everything went through her.”
The cameras that he used, later, to fake his disappearance. This must’ve been how his mother was so sure he had done it. Destroying the car, a piece of evidence. Using the cameras, to prove it. Leaving.
“You put him in the river?” I ask, my hand on my stomach, the thought unbearable.
“No, not the river,” he says. “Not near us. Drove down at night, to the Pine Barrens.” He chokes on the horror of what he’s done, shakes his head, turns away, as if he can’t bear me looking at him, either. Endless miles of untouched forest area, where he might be. “I wouldn’t do it. Got sick on the side of the road at the entrance. She left me there. Came back an hour later. So, I don’t know exactly. It would be my word against hers.”
“How is this life any better? You still lose,” I say. We’ve all lost.
“The trust. On my death, it goes to my dad. We’re just waiting for the paperwork to clear. I’ve been staying in the tent, in case someone comes looking for him. But after that, then we can leave, and we’ll be fine. We’ll be gone. I’ll be someone new.”
“You won’t be fine. You won’t have college. Or family.” Or any of the people you’ve left behind, I think.
“She took years from my father. She took years away from me, too. It’s all I want now, to make up that time with my dad, to have the future years with him now.”
Of course Caleb had a plan. He always had a plan.
I believe Caleb is telling the truth, that he didn’t do it. But I also know I won’t trust him again, not in the same way, not ever. I step back.
“You left us all behind. Mia too.”
His face falls, and I know I’ve struck a nerve.
“I’ve been taking care of all of them for years. My mom can figure it out now.”
“Your mother had a plan, too. She was tracking my phone. I didn’t know. Until just before. Until it was too late. She’s coming, Caleb. She must be.”
His father barges through the trailer door, and I jump. He has returned with the tent, and his gear. “Caleb,” his father says, “we really need to move.”
“You led her here?” he asks. He’s angry, but I’m angrier.
“You don’t get to blame me for this. Did you know that everyone blames me for your death, Caleb?” He jerks back, and I see he didn’t expect that. I know he thought of no one but himself. “She’s been using me to find you, because you disappeared. I’ve been”—empty, guilty, no one—“grieving for you, for months.” I choke out the last word. Does he not realize the impact his actions have had on everyone?
He’s already backing inside the trailer. Throwing the rest of their things in a bag. “She has to find me before the money transfers. Before the bank releases the funds to my father. She needs proof I’m alive, and then she can claim I was kidnapped or something. Either way, I’m alive, and she’ll hold on to the funds again.”
I am nothing but a pawn. An ex-girlfriend. Just a person in relation to someone else. This cannot all be for nothing. Going through his life, piecing together the story, finding him—not just what happened, an absolution, but him. All the parts of me he took with him when he left, and I need them to be mine again. For this to mean something.
“Where will you go?” I ask.
“It’s better if you don’t know, Jessa.”
“Caleb, I can fix this.”
“This isn’t your life,” he says. “How could you possibly understand? You have the perfect life, with the perfect family. You don’t have to worry about anything.”
And I think: He doesn’t know me at all. It makes me immeasurably sad, that he doesn’t even notice my own journey—all I’ve done to make it here. I’m standing right in front of him, and he doesn’t even see. How little each of us really knew about each other, underneath the facade.
“Let’s move,” his dad says. “Now.”
Caleb turns to me. “Come on. We’ll lead you out to the road this way. You can call for a ride from a restaurant or something.”
I look down at myself, wondering if he’s really serious. I’m freezing. I’m soaked. He wants to leave me at a restaurant. But I can’t go out with them, back to some access road in Pennsylvania. Not right now.
“Max is coming,” I say, and Caleb freezes. “I called him. He’s coming.”