Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee Read Free Page A

Sitting still and being quiet, when there’s so much inside I want to say.
    She leaves, and the cops leave, and Mom comes into the room with Jay trailing behind her, fourteen-year-old Jay, who looks nothing like the version I remember. He has a thin face now. He’s beanpole skinny, with a buzz haircut and a baggy T-shirt, and he’s about six feet tall if he’s an inch.
    He has the same eyes, though. Huge and brown and staring from his new face.
    â€œI’m sorry I never brought the blackberries,” I blurt.
    He stares. His jaw clenches, and his whole body tenses as if he’s about to run.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I say. I don’t know why I say that, except that I can see he’s hurt. I can see that it was more than blackberries I took from him, more that’s changed than his height.
    â€œHoney . . .” Mom says. I don’t know if she’s talking to him or me, but I know she wants to close the space between us. Always, even before, she wanted us to be close, to not fight, to take care of each other. But the three feet between Jay and me is a chasm.
    â€œYou were okay,” he says. His eyes are filling up with tears,and I see the little boy that I remember. I want to step forward and hug him, but he’s leaning away.
    â€œI’m okay,” I say.
    â€œAll this time. We thought you were dead, and you were
fine
.”
    I stare at him, searching for something I can say.
    Tears spill from his eyes, and he almost bumps into Mom as he speeds back through the bedroom door. Down the hall, another door slams.
    â€œHe needs time,” Mom says.
    â€œIt’s okay,” I say, but it isn’t. I imagined seeing him again. I would give him those blackberries. I would take him into my arms and hug him. I would tell him how sorry I was for all the times I snapped at him or ignored him. I would tell him I loved him. But he thinks I didn’t try to come home, didn’t care that they all thought I was dead. I can’t blame him, because he doesn’t know. But he’s wrong. He’s so totally and completely wrong.
    â€œHe’ll be okay,” Mom says. “Now that you’re back, we all will.” She wraps her arms around me again.
    I close my eyes. I wish I could erase all the hurt I just saw in Jay. I wish my dad was here and not in Colorado. But at the same time, I don’t know if I could handle them here, loving me, either. My mom’s love is already so much, it’s overwhelming. It radiates from her body, almost explosive. I love her, but it’s too much. I’m not ready for all this love for Amy, who I haven’t been in so long.
    Sweat still pours from my skin, and I need space. I needtime to let this all in, to figure out where I am and what my name is and how to live here. I want to lie down in the dark and the silence and let Amy go, and be Chelsea again. Or be neither—no name and no thoughts and no one I have to love or who loves me. I want out of this, but I can’t get out. I chose to come home, and I’m staying here.

ONE KIDNAPPED GIRL RETURNS
    Fate of second girl unclear

    JUNE 13
    AMY MACARTHUR has returned. In a case that rocked the county and made national headlines, the girl, now 16, and her cousin Dee Springfield, who would now be 18, were seen being forced into a vehicle by an unidentified man six years ago. According to Grey Wood police, MacArthur appeared at her mother’s door Sunday afternoon with no warning and no explanation. Police are now reopening the investigation into the girls’ disappearance.
    â€œMiss MacArthur was unable to explainher whereabouts for the past six years,” said a police spokesman. “This makes it even more important that anyone with information about the kidnapping come forward.” The spokesman did not provide any information about MacArthur’s mental or physical health, except to say that she is not being treated at a hospital at