Jessa Garcia's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Jessa kneels in front of the wardrobe and pulls out the book she's read a hundred times. Her hands shake as she opens to the passage about Lucy and the coats and the lamppost. Her mother sits beside her on the floor, close enough that their shoulders almost touch. Jessa reads the words aloud, her voice catching on the familiar lines. She reads them again. And again. The air stays still. The wardrobe stays wood. After the fifth reading, her mother reaches over and closes the book. "That's what you've been doing," she says. Not a question. Jessa nods. Her mother picks up the journal and turns through pages of crossed-out theories and desperate notes. "And you think if it works, you'll leave. You'll go through and not come back." Jessa can't lie anymore. "Yes." The word hangs between them. Her mother sets the journal down and reaches into her cardigan pocket. She pulls out a folded piece of paper, edges worn soft like she's been carrying it for days. Jessa recognizes it immediately. The note from under the door. The sketch of the house. The arrow pointing to the second-floor window. "I found this in your room three days ago," her mother says. "I've been waiting to see if you'd tell me yourself." She unfolds it and smooths it flat on the floor next to the journal. "Someone's been watching you fail. And you were going to meet them without telling me." Jessa stares at the note, at her mother's tired face. "I didn't want you to know," she says. "I didn't want you to hope I was staying." Her mother's eyes fill but no tears fall. "I already knew you weren't." The silence in the storage room feels heavy enough to break the floor. Jessa looks at the wardrobe with its doors still open, the shelves of books arranged like prayers that went unanswered. She looks at the journal filled with failed theories. She looks at the note her mother found and kept secret, waiting for truth that never came. "You should go to that house tonight," her mother says quietly. Jessa's head snaps up. "What?" Her mother taps the sketch with one finger. "Whoever wrote this thinks they know something you don't. And if you don't go, you'll spend the rest of your life wondering if they were right." She picks up the note and presses it into Jessa's hand. "But you're going to tell me everything they say. No more secrets. No more pretending you're looking for a cure when you're really looking for an exit." Jessa closes her fingers around the note. The weight of her mother knowing changes everything. She can't go back to careful lies and half-truths. She can't pretend she's fighting to stay when she's been planning to leave. But her mother isn't asking her to stop. She's asking her to stop hiding. "Okay," Jessa says. "I'll tell you." Her mother stands slowly and helps Jessa to her feet. They leave the storage room together, the wardrobe doors still open behind them, the journal and the note carried between them like evidence of a trial that's finally over. Tonight Jessa will go to the house at the end of the street. But for the first time since she started trying to cross over, she won't be carrying the weight alone.