Forever by Maggie Stiefvater

maybe.
    â€œSam?” she said after a pause, like she had to think to recall my name. “I’m busy.” She was fumbling with the key in the lock, and not managing it. After a moment, she abandoned the key she’d been using and began digging in her purse for another. The bag was a massive, gaudy patchwork creation, full of clutter; if I needed any evidence that Grace was not her mother, that bag would have sufficed. Mrs. Brisbane didn’t look at me as she dug through it. Her total dismissal — like I was not even worth fury or suspicion now — made me sorry that I’d come out of the store.
    I took a step back. “I just thought you might not know. It’s not Grace.”
    She jerked up to look at me so sharply that her scarf slid the rest of the way from her neck.
    â€œI heard from Isabel,” I said. “Culpeper. It’s not Grace, the girl they found.”
    My little mercy felt less like a good idea as I realized that a suspicious mind could pull apart my story in a moment.
    â€œSam,” Mrs. Brisbane said, in a very level voice, like she was addressing a young boy given to fibbing. Her hand hovered over her bag, fingers spread and motionless, like a mannequin. “Are you sure that’s true?”
    â€œIsabel will tell you the same thing,” I said.
    She closed her eyes. I felt a stab of satisfaction at the obvious pain she’d been feeling at Grace’s absence, and then felt terrible for it. Grace’s parents always managed that — making me feel like a worse version of myself. I ducked swiftly to pick up her scarf, awkward.
    I handed the scarf to her. “I have to get back to the store.”
    â€œWait,” she said. “Come inside for a few moments. You have a few minutes, don’t you?”
    I hesitated.
    She answered for me, “Oh, you’re working. Of course you are. You — came out after me?”
    I looked at my feet. “You looked like you didn’t know.”
    â€œI didn’t,” she said. She paused; when I looked at her, her eyes were closed and she was rubbing the edge of the scarf on her chin. “The terrible thing, Sam, is that some other mother’s daughter is dead out there and I can only be glad.”
    â€œMe, too,” I said, very quietly. “If you’re terrible, I am too, because I’m very, very glad.”
    Mrs. Brisbane looked at me then — really looked at me, lowering her hands and staring right at my face. “I guess you think I’m a bad mother.”
    I didn’t say anything, because she was right. I softened it with a shrug. It was as close to lying as I could manage.
    She watched a car go by. “Of course you know that we had a big fight with Grace before she — before she got sick. About you.” She glanced up at me to see if this was true. When I didn’t reply, she took it as a yes. “I had a lot of stupid boyfriends before I got married. I liked being with boys. I didn’t like being alone. I guess I thought Grace was like me, but she’s not really like me at all, is she? Because you two are serious, aren’t you?”
    I was still. “Very, Mrs. Brisbane.”
    â€œAre you sure you won’t come in? It’s hard to have a pity party out here where everyone can see me.”
    I thought, uneasily, about Cole in the store. I thought about the people I’d passed on the sidewalk. Two ladies with coffee. One smoking merchant. One lady with babies. The odds of Cole being able to get into trouble seemed fairly minimal.
    â€œJust for a moment,” I said.

• COLE •
    A bookstore was not the most entertaining place to be marooned. I wandered around for a few minutes, looking for books that might mention me, scuffing the carpet on the stairs backward so that it said my name in lighter colored tracks, and searching for something less offensively inoffensive to play on the radio overhead. The place