Neal and Julian appeared at my window yesterday night.
“Can we come in?” Julian asked. So I stood aside and just let them clamber in. My mom was at work so they could have just come to the door, but then again my mom might have our neighbors keeping an eye on me, so it’s probably for the best that they came in through my room.
It was awkward having them in my room. Partially because I was wearing my pajamas at six o’clock and very obviously had not showered since they’d last seen me. Mostly because I’d gotten them arrested.
There was a long moment of quiet, and then Neal just said it: “We have to leave town.”
I don’t remember what I said, but I’m sure it wasn’t kind.
“I’m sorry,” Julian said. “But we’ve got some outstanding warrants… there was no way we were getting out of there without Celeste’s help. They’re sure to be looking for us.”
“Is that why you haven’t called?” I asked.
Neal nodded.
“So you’re just going to leave us here?” I asked.
Julian said, “we’ve talked to Celeste. She’s just a phone call away at any time, and she’ll keep an eye on you guys. You’re going to be fine.”
“What about Madelyn?” I asked and I could feel myself getting ready to cry and freak out again. “Where is she?”
“We’ll do everything we can to find her,” Julian said. “But I don’t think she’s here.”
“But the psychic said —” I began, but Neal interrupted.
“The psychic said she’s both alive and dead. The Flynn witches said we won’t find her, and if we do she won’t be the same. I need you to consider the fact that we may never know what happened to your friend. Do you understand that, Shiloh?”
And that’s when I lost my tenuous grasp on the situation.
“That isn’t good enough!” I shouted at him. I went on, but I’ll spare you.
“Shiloh,” Neal interrupted, with forced calm. “We can’t prove they’ve done anything illegal. What can we do?”
And I knew, even then, in the middle of my total panic explosion, that they’d run out of options. Maybe if I hadn’t made sure that they were caught bursting into a private religious practice with drawn weapons there might have been some options, but as things stand it makes total sense that they had to go.
I get that now. At the time I was less generous.
“Fine!” I shrieked. “Leave us here! I never asked for your help anyways!”
Julian tried to reason with me, but I screamed at him until he stopped. When he said, “if we find anything else, we’ll let you know,” I threw my slipper at him. They left pretty quick after that.
So now I’m alone.
Well, not quite alone. Georgia messaged me on Tumblr to let me know that she was grounded, didn’t have her phone, and had to sneak onto her little sisters iPad to message me at all, but that she missed me at school. She said Tilly was asking about me.
There’s no way in fuck I’m facing Tilly after all this. God how am I supposed to face anyone? Hahahaha everything is terrible.