Her chin trembled.
“You don’t know why Lily really gave Annie that dress?”
“To help her. Lily told me what’s been happening at school.”
The woman started to cry. She reached into her coat and held out a small box.
“Is Lily home?”
I don’t know why, but the second I saw it, I went cold.
“You don’t know your daughter at all,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry I have to be the one to tell you.”
Inside the box was a flash drive.
“I’m Marissa. Annie’s mom. Please. Watch it before Lily wakes up. Without her.”
I should have thrown them out. Instead, I looked at her shaking hands and let them in.
I sat them at the kitchen table. I opened my laptop. My heart was pounding in my ears.
What I saw shocked me to my core. I couldn’t believe it.
“You don’t know your daughter at all.”
At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at.
I watched it again.
By the third time, my stomach turned over, and I gripped the edge of the table.
“This can’t be Lily! It’s not her.”
“It is,” Annie said softly.
I demanded to know what was going on with my daughter.
What I saw shocked me to my core.
But Annie said there was something else I needed to know first.
She took a shaky breath.
“After the concert, Lily and I talked. And she said something that scared me.”
As soon as I heard that, I ran upstairs.
That’s how I found out my daughter was gone.
I had failed to protect my daughter from her own mistakes. But what was I supposed to do now?
That’s how I found out my daughter was gone.
When I came downstairs, Annie looked like she knew what to do.
“I think I know where she went.”
“Where?”
“The train station. We used to sit on the benches there for hours. We’d talk about our dreams and what we’d do if nothing worked out.”
Marissa was already grabbing her keys.
“The train station.”
***
Marissa drove. I sat beside her, and Annie sat in the back, staring out the window.
Nobody said a word.
Marissa ran every yellow light. All I could see in my head was Lily, small and furious, stuffing her sewing shears into a bag.
