Tweaked by Katherine Holubitsky

to Mom’s car.
    I clench my fists and beat them against my legs. Hysterical. I’ve only read the word in books and heard it referred to in movies, but I know this is what it must be like. It’s like I’ve gone deaf and blind all at once. I can’t think, I am so disoriented. And I am so mad every nerve in my body is sparking. If at that moment Chase appeared, I would go for his throat without giving him time to defend himself.
    I am also scared to death. How will I ever explain this to Mom and Dad?
    I grip the steering wheel and breathe deeply. Okay, maybe he’s just taken off for the night and he’ll be back. Maybe he’ll be back before my parents are up in the morning. He knows it’s breaking bail, that everything in his life—our lives—depends on him sticking around. I start the car. Who am I kidding? He’s a crankhead with fifteen hundred dollars in his pocket. He’s gone, along with my money.
    I call Jack on my cell, but there is no answer. I don’t know what else to do or where to go, so I drive to Jade’s. Her mother and sister are in bed, but she is up, watching TV .
    Sitting at the kitchen table, speaking in a whisper, I tell her what an idiot I am, how stupid I was to be duped by an addict. I’d watched it happen in my house a thousand times. If I’d only gone with him, everything would have turned out differently.
    â€œIt’s not your fault,” she says after I finally stop repeating myself. “You did what you thought was right.” She then adds, “I don’t know if it helps, and I’m sorry if I sound like a cynic, but I also don’t think it would have turned out any differently. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened tonight, but eventually, he would have taken off. Obviously, that’s what he wanted.”
    â€œBut I made it so easy for him.”
    â€œYou can’t think like that. You’re not dealing with a rational person, so stop beating yourself up.”
    â€œOh, god, what have I done?”
    â€œGordie.” Jade lays her hand across mine. “You are going to have to tell your Mom and Dad.”

EIGHT
    It’s after midnight when I leave Jade’s apartment, but I can’t go home, not without looking for Chase first. Sitting in Mom’s car on the street outside Jade’s apartment building, I try Jack’s number again.
    This time he answers. “Hey,” he says, “what’s up?”
    In as few words as I can, I explain what’s happened. I tell him that I took Chase to pay his dealers, but my plan backfired and he took off instead. I finish by saying, “You’ve got to help me look for him.”
    There is a pause at the end of the line. No doubt he hears the panic in my voice, but there is the practical side to my request. “But it’s a school night. They won’t let me go out this late.”
    Jack’s bedroom is in the basement. “Sneak out,” I tell him. “I’ll be parked in front of the Watts’ house in fifteen minutes.” I hang up, not wanting to give him a chance to argue.
    Fifteen minutes later, Jack is where I asked him to be, sitting on the utility box in front of a hedge at theedge of his neighbor’s front yard. He gets in the front seat. “You know I’ll be forced to beat on you if my parents find about this. What’s going on?”
    As I start down Mountain Highway, heading back toward the Second Narrows Bridge, I fill Jack in on the details. I try to word it carefully, or at least so I don’t come off like a total fool.
    Once I’ve finished, he neatly sums up what I’ve said. “Okay, let me get this straight—you gave him two thousand dollars in cash—your cash—and you let him go in the house alone? You idiot! How could you be such a chump? Your parents are going to kill you.”
    There isn’t much I can say. I know it well enough myself.
    It’s