Free Don't Try to Find Me: A Novel by Holly Brown Page A

have so much free time.
    It’s a fight not to go through B.’s stuff. He’s seemed more removed than I expected. And less goofy. He doesn’t seem like the guy who tweeted all that silly poetry for me (“You’re the one I’m forever picking / I love you more than fried chicken”) or the one who was so open about his past, who told me all about his parents abusing him and the girls who screwed him over. “I need you, Mar,” he used to say. One night, he texted it to me ten times right before bed and called it a lullaby.
    Since I got here, he hasn’t once told me he needs me.
    I’m tempted to dig around and see if I can recognize him in his possessions. But he trusts me. I don’t want to see him later and know that I violated that. Also, he might be able to smell it on me. He’s really alert for betrayal. I’m sure I’d be like that, too, if I had a dad like his and ex-girlfriends like Staph.
    I can look at his bookshelves. They’re right out in the open. He has a ton of books, which is one of the things that attracted me to him. I like that he’s a reader and a thinker. He runs deep. People my age are way too shallow. They’re like wading pools, and he’s the whole ocean.
    Would Ms. Finelli like that analogy? Or is it a metaphor? I get those mixed up.
    She always said the way to become a better writer is to read more. So I select one of B.’s favorite books: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. He read it last semester and raved about it.
    Maybe he’s too smart for me. That could be one of the things he’s realized now that I’m here. That I’m fat and I’m not that smart or interesting.
    I better start reading. Dr. Michael’s right. I need to keep my mind occupied.

Day 6
    OUR HOUSE HAS BECOME a command center. It’s a hive with the buzz of volunteers donating their time to find a girl who might not want to be found. Might not? Try definitely not. She led with that in her note: Don’t try to find me.
    Unless that was opposite-speak, a possibility that became much less appealing once I translated that final line. I don’t think it’s wrong to want to believe that she loves me rather than hates me. But I wouldn’t want to place a bet on it. It seems pretty hateful to take off and go six days with no communication.
    She has to know it’s killing me. Her father can depersonalize and go into work mode. His new job is finding Marley, and unlike the police, his resources seem infinite. That’s not true of me.
    I can’t believe how quickly Paul has gotten FindMarley.com up and how professional it looks. One of the web designers from his tech company put it together. So now Marley’s eighth-grade graduation photo is center stage, her smiling face encircled by specs about her disappearance: when she was last seen, what she was wearing, which police department is investigating. It’s a Wanted poster, really, but with lots of digital embellishments and links. People can download the flyer, print it out, and put it on lampposts and bulletin boards wherever they are. Paul’s put his cell phone number out there for all the world’s quacks to find.
    He wrote a little essay (credited to both of us) that talks about what a sweet girl Marley is, that she’s smart and funny and well-read and well loved. He said it’s there to “humanize” her. Who thought she wasn’t human, just because she’s missing?
    Paul’s in his element, running the show. He used LinkedIn to connect with a private investigator as well as a PR specialist, a comely twentysomething named Candace whose auburn hair seems perpetually backlit like all the world’s a shampoo commercial. She strides around, high-heeled boots clacking, as she pitches us to San Francisco media. There are three people—strangers, volunteers—gathered around our dining room table, all talking on their cell phones. It’s like Marley disappeared and the volunteers materialized in her place.
    I keep revisiting the last morning I saw her. Her backpack was bulging