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Reed was a sensitive kid. Artistic. He wouldn’t go sit in a greasy burger bar when his world was crumbling and he felt like he had no way to stop it.
He’d go somewhere meaningful. Somewhere—
“Daisy.”
She lowered the phone from her ear. “Yes?”
“Where’s the bridge?”
“Bridge?”
“Where Quinny died. Where is it?”
Her eyes rounded. “You think he’s there?”
“I don’t know, but I’m thinking we need to check.”
It took a half hour to drive out to the bridge Quinn had died jumping from. I hated bringing Daisy here, but she’d insisted on coming with me. If Reed was here, even if the worst had happened, she wanted to see—to know.
I wasn’t thinking too hard about that. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to be steady for Daisy, and I’d promised I’d be that for her.
I parked in gravel and jumped out of the car. No one used this bridge anymore. I hadn’t known it was here.
Weeds grew from cracks in the pavement, and trash huddled in corners. Our footsteps echoed on the cement as we started across.
I spotted him first, squeezing Daisy’s hand hard. When she gasped, I knew she’d seen him too.
“Reed. Baby,” she croaked thickly, not nearly loud enough for him to hear. It was a lament. A cry for the pain he must’ve been in to lead him here.
Reed was sitting on the ground in the middle of the bridge, his legs dangling over the side. He had to have heard us coming, but he was focused on the water below.
As we grew closer, the scene around him almost brought me to my knees. His backpack. A dog-eared paperback. A crumpled sack of fast food. A few empty, crushed soda cans. He had to have been here a while. All day, probably. And he was just a kid, not even fifteen years on this earth. He’d been here, suffering all alone, not knowing for certain he had at least two people he could’ve leaned on without question.
It killed me.
“What time is it?” he asked when we were next to him.
“Almost six,” I replied.
“Huh. I didn’t think it was so late.”
I crouched down beside him, careful not to touch him. “Did you mean to come back before the end of camp?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about getting up for a while now, but I can’t make myself do it.”
“You don’t have to get up,” Daisy said softly. “We’ll sit with you.”
She scooted in beside him, her legs dangling half the length of his, and I took his other side.
“I’m not going back to that class.”
“You don’t have to,” Daisy assured him. “We know what happened. You never have to go back there.”
“I tried to tell Mama. She told me she’d paid a lot of money and I had to give it another chance.”
“She didn’t understand. I’m sure she does now.” She hooked his pinkie with hers. “If there’s a problem, I’ll explain. I’ll tell her about the kids who deleted the song you were working on.”
He sucked in a jagged breath. “They’re from my school, you know. They’re not gonna forget how much they hate me. Even if I don’t go back to class, I’ll still have to face them.”
