And so it began. They fired questions at us, mostly at John and me, but some at Mr. Bennett. We gave answers like: “On day three, in the Lost and Found,” “PS 142,” “West Side Highway.” And the whole story came out. At one point I was asked to decode MODMIYKIFDBTAPZMDIBIVHY using the Fibonacci sequence and the Caesar shifts. At noon they brought in sandwiches, lemonade, and iced tea, and we kept on answering questions.
Finally at two p.m., there was nothing else to say. The man at the far left of the table said to the tape recorder, “This satisfactorily concludes the questioning of John Bennett, Farrah Higgins, and Henry Bennett in the likely capture of Jonas Furnis.”
Don Woods finally spoke. “This concludes your involvement in this investigation. The CIA will be handling Jonas Furnis and Steven Bonning’s role there for obvious reasons. The last item of business is what to do about you, John. After you have secured the safety of this young woman, unearthed a spy among us, and all but ensured the eradication of one of the world’s fastest-growing terror organizations, I cannot exactly send you back to work receiving tips from the public.”
Laughter all around. John’s dad seemed really proud, and John smiled humbly.
“So I have spoken with the folks in D.C.,” he went on, “who have been seeking to fill an opening in Special Sector, and I have recommended you for the job. Their training schedule is tight, so if you accept the job, your flight leaves immediately.”
John let out an audible gasp. “Sir, that is an honor. Thank you very much.”
Mr. Bennett, the wisest person in the room, looked over at me. I met his gaze.
What about me?
my eyes shouted.
“Do you accept?” Don Woods asked.
John looked at his hands for an answer. “Of course—I’m ready to go now.”
“Great. Ribowitz will get you outfitted and shipped out.” He gave Mr. Bennett a little smile. “Whereabouts unknown. You know the drill.”
John turned to his dad and hugged him. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Mr. Bennett asked.
“No. But it’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“All?” his dad asked.
“Bye, Dad. I’ll call when I can.” Then, as if to end the conversation, he turned to my parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Higgins, it was so nice to meet you both. I’m sorry that you had to suffer through your daughter’s absence. I’m so glad that she is home safely.”
Wait. What?!
I was the only person between him and the door, where Don Woods and his new life were waiting. I felt a shadow of my former self starting to speak to save face. “Hey, congratulations. I totally get it—thanks for everything.” But she didn’t speak, because she barely existed anymore. I was done saying things that weren’t true and then hiding behind them. It was too late for that. I wasn’t going to backtrack and pretend this didn’t happen. It occurred to me to start crying, but why? I was slightly, just slightly, above tricking him into staying. All I could get out was, “No pizza?”
He barely looked at me, knowing that if any intimacy passed between us, his credibility with the almighty Don Woods would be gone. “I have to go. I really have to.”
“You don’t have to.”
Our eyes met for a second before he brushed past me and out the door. I’ve heard people say that you can actually hear your heart break. I’m not sure if I did, but I know that I felt it. It was a bit like having an elephant kick you in the chest, knocking all the wind out of your lungs. In fact, my chest felt so heavy that I wondered if I was having a heart attack. My breaths were short and incapable of filling my lungs. I backed into the chair behind me and let my head fall into my hands, wondering how I was going to get out of that building.
Mr. Bennett’s voice faded into a low rumble as he spoke to the lady who was waiting to escort us out. “If you wouldn’t mind, may we please have a few minutes alone? I can show us all out.”
She left without a word—seemed to be going around. My mom spoke first. “Oh, darling. How awful.” She turned to Mr. Bennett. “What was so important about that job? Why would he just leave without giving it a second thought?”
My dad’s face had gone gray. I could tell that he was actually feeling my pain. Is it even worth it to be that close to someone that you have to feel their pain too?
Mr. Bennett answered, “It’s a long story. That job carried with it a bit of folklore in our family—it’s like the one that got away. Farrah, I’m so sorry. I knew he wasn’t listening to me. All I can tell you is that he’s an idiot and a coward. Not all the time, but right now he is. He’ll figure it out, and it will be too late. By then you’ll be over this.”
“I’ll never be over this.” I couldn’t bear to lift my head and see them all watching me fall apart.
Mr. Bennett touched my chin and raised my face to meet his. “Listen, Farrah. I’ve never seen him like that with anyone, bringing you to our home, sharing himself, hanging on your every word. It was real, Farrah. He just blew it. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. I need to go home now.” They all nodded and gathered their things and escorted me to the door like I was made of sand and was about to slip through their fingers. How right they were.
It’s an interesting thing, getting dumped. I’d never had a boyfriend before, and I still wasn’t totally sure that I had, but I knew that I loved someone and that he’d walked away. So by anyone’s definition, I guess I’d been dumped. In this particular situation, your only choices are to suck it up and move on or to “go there.” For those first couple of days, I went there. I got home from the FBI that day, put on my pajamas, got a pint of Chunky Monkey, and watched
The Notebook.
Five times. Everyone left me alone. I suspect they were a little afraid of me. I went up to my room and listened to Taylor Swift’s “White Horse” on replay, knowing she was the only person in the world who could relate. My nerve endings seemed to be on the outermost parts of my body, ready for any stimulus to pass by and hurt them, inviting it, even. I knew what it meant to have your heart broken wide open, because I was roadkill.
Olive took Danny to the Senior Prom on Saturday night. I came down to the living room in my sweats to watch them take pictures. He wore a white tux that she’d picked out; she wore black. I watched them hold hands as they walked out, somehow happy for them and sick to my stomach at the same time. The limo pulled up in front of our house. Kat popped out of the sunroof with her arms in the air, dancing to the beat of music that I couldn’t hear. I tried to imagine myself at the prom, if none of this had happened. Maybe with Drew, dabbing Scotch behind my ears to keep up appearances. I felt sorry for that girl, maybe more sorry than I felt for my new self. I went inside and popped in
The Notebook.
Again.
My mother woke me up Monday morning with a tray of ice-cold cucumber slices. “You’re putting me on a diet?” I asked, rubbing my swollen eyes.
“Darling, you’ve been crying for five days—you look like a prizefighter. Let’s just put these on your eyes to bring down the swelling before school starts.” I wanted to tell her that I didn’t really care that my eyes were swollen, but I found that I didn’t even care enough to say that. I just lay back and let her tend to me.
An hour later I was seated behind the wheel of my trusty old Volvo wagon, headed to school. Getting dressed and getting into that car felt like moving through Jell-O, but I insisted on driving myself. It’s weird enough appearing back at school, unexpected after a brief kidnapping, but I didn’t need an entourage. My parents followed Danny and me to the car: “What are you going to tell people?”
“It doesn’t matter. They can think what they want.” And I rolled up the window against the cheery spring morning. I pulled out of the driveway and headed out, feeling Danny watching me.
I glanced over at him. “What are you staring at?”
“You’re just so different. It’s cool.”
“Why? Because I got my heart broken? Yeah, cool.”
“Sort of. I mean more because you’re opened up. It’s like my karate teacher says—you are more alive when you are feeling pain than when you are so careful that you feel nothing. Maybe after some time goes by, this will have been really great for you.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I had the strangest desire to reach over, open his door, and kick him into traffic.
“I know Dad said we can’t talk about him, but I liked the way you were when he was around. You were Digit again, like when we were little. And if you can stay there, then, yeah, I think this was worth it.”
“Danny, I really don’t want to start crying again. Can we just stop talking?”
“Suit yourself.” He turned up the radio and left me alone.
I have to say that depression or grief or shock or whatever can make you a bit of a badass. I parked my car and strolled with my little brother past all the people I’d turned to for approval all those years. Some followed me and asked a thousand questions; others stood back and whispered too loudly: “She looks different—think she was raped?” Danny turned to say something, but I grabbed his arm and led him inside.
In the hall, nothing had changed. My locker still opened with the same 19-9-24. All of my books were still inside with my rotting lunch from exactly nineteen days ago. Danny stood behind me, as if on guard, as I got my things for class. When I turned around, the Fab Four and Drew Bailey were all gathered behind him. The girls hugged me tentatively, Olive pretending like she was surprised I was back.
“Oh my God, Farrah, are you okay?” Kat looked legitimately worried.
“I’m fine. It wasn’t that big of a deal.” I know that my face told them otherwise. I imagined that I looked cracked, like a piece of china that had been dropped and had a web of lines running through it, threatening its structure from the inside out.
“Where did they take you?” Tish asked.
“Did you see us on TV?” Veronica was trying to hide her excitement.
“Yeah, you looked great.” I looked for a hole in the circle they’d formed around me, but they were shoulder to shoulder.
Drew looked really concerned. “You guys leave her alone. I mean, I’ve heard that in these kidnappings they take you back to their ship and take out all your organs and do medical experiments.”
I almost smiled, partly because that was so stupid and partly because he’d nailed it—that was exactly how I felt. “I think that’s in alien abductions. I’ll see you guys later. I have to get to class.”
Danny led me by the arm out of their circle, and we made our way through the sea of staring faces in the hall. I didn’t care. I was even shocked that I ever cared. It was all so clear now that this person that they were gossiping about didn’t really even exist. They had no idea who I was. And Danny was right—just because I was completely broken, I didn’t have to go back there. I was probably incapable of it, and that was the only thing in the world that felt close to good.
That first day of school lasted forever. I had lunch in my math teacher’s room, assuring her that I was fine and blowing through some tests that I’d missed. I was grateful that they were making me finish all the work I’d missed. And then I’d have AP exams and finals to kill the next few weeks. My mind seemed to offer a break for my heart. Letting my mind do that computing thing kept me afloat. It was so natural and so involuntary, it seemed to happen without me. Anything that required any effort at all, however, eventually required me to use my will. And my will to do things was gone.
In the weeks that followed, things were really different between me and the Fab Four. First of all, I found that there was nothing I could do to get them to dump me. I told them I wasn’t really interested in drinking as a sport. I told them I wanted to stay home Friday night to watch
Cosmos
on PBS. I told them my SAT scores. I told them about MIT. I was completely in their face with Digit, and they were unfettered. I wondered if they’d been true friends all along. Or if my cachet as Party Girl was nothing compared to my status as Kidnapping Victim. I’d gotten them on TV, for God’s sake.
The second change was me. I saw them now from the perspective of someone who had watched Olive save the lives of hundreds of people through her knowledge of science. What else was possible? Kat’s sarcastic comments suddenly had humor to them. Veronica was still no genius, but she seemed softer and sweet. I found out that Tish took classes at the Santa Monica Arts Center and was really into sculpting. Where had I been?
My days were busy with normal stuff like school and homework. But when that wasn’t enough to fill the time, I found myself diving into the less healthy side of Digit. I made a habit of taking everything out of the linen closet—and I mean everything: flat sheets, fitted sheets, hand towels, bath towels—and ironing them into perfect nine-inch squares. The shelves in the closet were thirty-two inches wide, so I was able to place three stacks on each shelf, perfectly equidistant, with one and one-quarter inches separating them from each other and the walls. Temporary relief.
My nights were brutal. I alternated between staring at the ceiling and staring out my window, torturing myself by replaying every moment: the days in the warehouse, laughing at Luke and Scarlet, the flight to New York, the cramped secret townhouse entrance, the first kiss, the one and only phone conversation, the end. I wanted to tell myself that it didn’t make sense, that it’d been a mistake, and that he’d be back. But I was fully committed to being honest, even with myself. I had known he had a tendency to shut down and go robot. Even his dad had seen this coming and had tried to warn me. If all of his girlfriends had told him he was emotionally unavailable, why was I going to be any different? Could someone get me Oprah’s number?
On the one-month anniversary of my broken heart, I had a little knock on my door at around two a.m. Danny walked in, rubbing his eyes, and sat down on the side of my bed. “Man, Digit, you were hit pretty hard. Think you’ll ever sleep again? I can hear you in here every night, in bed, out of bed, in the bathroom, back in bed. It’s exhausting.”
I smiled at his concern. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen this movie before. Is it going to be a week and I’ll wake up okay, or will it be a lifetime of regret and a house full of cats? I have no idea.”