Damage Done (24 page)

Once upon a time my name was Julia Vann. Then, for another, wonderful time, it was Lucy Black. For a brief flash I was Julia Vann again, but that burned out faster than a sparkler on the Fourth of July.

Now my name is Ariella Brown. I wanted to name myself after Alane, or after one of Michael’s sisters, but I’m not stupid. I won’t do anything that could possibly help them find me. The
A
is enough of a tribute.

Ariella Brown lives in New York City. The city is a big place, and it’s easy for someone to disappear.

Especially when no one is looking for her.

I’ve Googled
Julia Vann
so many times I’m starting to worry the police will track me down through it, even though I’m filching off a neighbor’s Wi-Fi. The eleven-year-old cancer victim Julia Vann is still dead, and the volleyball-playing Julia Vann ended up deciding on UCLA and the scholarship (and seems happy there, even with a recent shoulder strain), but nothing new turns up about me. I’m assuming the cops want to keep everything that happened, motives and all, a secret. No one wants to admit they were outsmarted by a stupid teenager.

I was surprised by one thing I found, however. I’d Googled everyone associated with the case, from Spence to Joseph Goodman, and that included Miranda. I’d expected to find her obituary, maybe a tribute featuring stunned relatives and friends with no idea why she’d descended into drugs. But I’d apparently misjudged, hadn’t given her enough of my mother’s pills. I found a snippet on a state college website a few months ago talking about their incoming candidates for a master’s degree in social work, and Miranda was among them. I’m not unhappy she survived. I wish her well.

I didn’t Google my parents. Ariella Brown doesn’t have parents. I can only assume that Mr. and Mrs. Black are happier not being parents anymore.

Miranda apparently didn’t talk, and Michael didn’t, either, at least not that Google can tell me. I wonder, sometimes, if the love Michael once felt for me was enough for him to keep my secrets. If he, too, claimed amnesia. If he let some big, fat crocodile tears slide down his cheeks and then moved back into his life, like I’d never been there at all.

Google tells me he’s done quite well for himself in this last year. He made it to states in the butterfly, finished fourth, and will be coming out to NYU in the fall to study history and swim. His oldest sister, the one he thought of as more of a distant aunt, lives out here—I’ve walked past her building once or twice, maybe even seen her, though I don’t remember her face that well. Sometimes I wonder if he’s coming out here to become closer with his sister, to see what he’s missed out on.

Or maybe it’s because of Alane, who will be attending Columbia. After I vanished, Alane threw herself into her studies and graduated as valedictorian and captain of the show choir, which she led to a fine showing at regionals. I watched their video online; her voice was richer and fuller than I’d ever heard it before, with a thread of melancholy in it that brought tears to the judges’ eyes. Sometimes I fancy I’m the reason for that, too.

They’re together now. Alane and Michael. One of Alane’s comments online celebrating their one-year anniversary tells me that they leaned heavily on each other after I left, which soon progressed into something more than friendship. I love them both. I hope they love each other.

I like to think that they’re being pulled to New York because of me, because they’re in my orbit, that I’m Saturn and they’re my rings.

I know that’s ridiculous. The city is a big place.

I’ll probably never see them again.

It’s impossible to thank everybody who influenced this book or my writing in a few pages, so before I start in on the specifics: thank you, all of you, who have championed my book on Twitter or talked over a plot point with me or helped me somehow with this whole book thing.

Merrilee Heifetz, you are wise and wonderful and the best agent anyone could ever ask for. Sarah Nagel, you found me and let me cry on you and are just generally amazing, really. Michael Mejias, I don’t know where I would be today without you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you to everybody else at Writers House, too, and to Kassie Evashevski and the rest of United Talent for handling the film side.

Chelsea Eberly, thank you for being the best editor I could possibly have ended up with—the way you “get” my writing and my book never ceases to amaze me. Michelle Nagler, thank you for acquiring me and championing me through every step of the process. And thank you to editorial assistant extraordinaire Jenna Lettice, as well as to Aisha Cloud, Jocelyn Lange, Nicole de las Heras, and Christine Ma.

Thank you to the friends who supported me throughout this whole process, especially those who let me steal parts of their lives or our friendships in my writing: Christienne Damatac, Shimmy Edwards, Eleni Axiomakaros, and Kim Holmes. My colleagues at Lippincott Massie McQuilkin have been incredibly supportive of me and my writing, especially Kent D. Wolf; I couldn’t ask for a better workplace.

Thank you to the critique partners and beta readers who helped make this book and my writing better: Annette Dodd, Brenda McKenna, Lucas Hargis, and Dahlia Adler. Fearless Fifteeners, I’m thrilled to be on this ride with all of you and glad to have you on my side. And thank you to all the teachers and librarians throughout the years who helped this dream come true, especially Emily Franklin, Mary-Sherman Willis, and Naomi Fletcher.

Finally, I don’t want to imagine life without my weird and wonderful extended family—grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins—and my siblings, Rebecca, Adam, Noah, and Sam. I love you all, and I’m so glad our relationships are nothing like the ones in this book.

A
MANDA
P
ANITCH
grew up next to an amusement park in New Jersey and went to college next to the White House in Washington, DC. Amanda now resides in New York City, where she works in book publishing by day, writes by night, and lives under constant threat of being crushed beneath giant stacks of books. Visit her online at
amandapanitch.com
and follow her on Twitter at
@AmandaPanitch
.