by Daisy Allen
I blink and try not to react. "Oh, whatever do you mean?"
She punches me on the shoulder lightly. "Yeah right, you left a glass of milk on the table, you ass."
"Fuck,” I let out a laugh. “Why didn't you ever say?"
"I was saving it for when I needed something."
"And that's now?"
She makes a pained face. "Yeah... please, oh please don't let Marius sing."
"Deal. And by the way, the cake was delicious. Totally worth it." I grin and watch her eyes grow red with anger before running into the other room, my little sister hot on my tail.
Returning to the land of the living.
***
"Here." Dennis comes up to me as everyone starts to stagger back to their rooms after a marathon karaoke session that ended in one microphone being thrown into the toilet and the HDMI cord cut in two. There’s a folder in his hand.
"What's this?"
"It’s a file, about the accident. Your accident. About what happened the night the car hit you."
"Dennis.”
"Jez. It’s time. You’ve spent your whole adult life with me protecting you, making sure you guys are safe, that you guys are taken care of, that nothing can hurt you. Nothing can interfere with your music, your performing. But, if the accident taught me anything, it’s that I can’t be there every second of your life. And I can’t make all the decisions for you. You're an adult. And I should’ve told you from the beginning who Noémie was. And let you make the decision with all the information. I think we've seen, hiding from it, or not remembering, doesn’t mean it doesn't happen. You should know. So here. Here is everything. This time, make your decision, with all the information. Try to make it the right one, okay. And for the right reasons.”
I stare at the folder in his hand and close my eyes. The scene changing instantly in my mind.
I remember seeing the pedestrian lights change, and stepping off the sidewalk onto the street.
I remember headlights blinding me from the side.
I remember the tires screeching.
And then nothing else, until I woke up in the hospital.
It’s nothing new, I’ve been replaying the scene over and over in my head hundreds if not thousands of times. Sometimes when I’m awake, and sometimes in the dead of dreams.
Noémie said once, there was nothing worse than having everyone else know what happened in your life, and yet have no recollection of it.
How was my experience any different?
There was another side of the story of what happened that night.
But I never wanted to know it. It’s time to see the whole picture.
“Time to take back your life, Jez,” my manager tells me. And I know he’s right.
I take the folder from Dennis and he gives me a grim smile, squeezing my shoulder before leaving me alone.
I wander back to my room, and sit with it in my lap, picking up the decanter from where Anca left it and take a swig.
"Now or never."
I flip open the folder and see it's filled with official reports and news articles and tabloid pictures of the scene. There are private photos probably taken by the guys in our entourage of me bloodied and bruised on the bed, the whole band surrounding me, Anca looking tired, eyes red from crying.
My stomach flips and I almost stop. I didn’t want to know about this. I’d been too involved with my own recovery, that I never really thought about the effect it had had on everyone around me.
But it’s not the whole story without them. So I let my heartbeat slow, taking deep breaths before I continue flipping through the pages.
I pull the police report from the pile. Everything, details in black and white.
The date. The location. Pedestrian hit, Jeremy Petrescu. That's me.
Driver found unconscious at the scene. Severe head injuries to the front and back of her skull. Noémie De Bruyn. That's her, I remind myself. Noémie was the driver who hit you.
Passenger also unconscious, revived by paramedics at the scene.
Vehicle, car, 2017 Viper Dodge.
Green.
Totaled at the scene.
Patrons at the bar heard the accident and came over, and called the paramedics.
Wait.
Hang on.
I go back and reread the details. No. It can't be. I flick through the pictures, looking for something to confirm what I have read.
Oh my god.
Oh my god! That can't be!
I can't believe it. I grab the papers and run out into the room.
"GUYS! Wake UP! WAKE UP!"
Brad comes running out of his room, Emily follows, tightening the belt around her robe.
"What's up, what's going on?"
"I can't explain right now. Just... get me a car. And grab the others. We have to go, now!"
"Go where?" Brad says, picking up the phone.
"You'll see!" I yell, running into my room to quickly pack a bag.
"You're crazy,” he calls after me.
"Maybe. We're about to find out."
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Noémie
My childhood bed in my childhood bedroom is small and creaky.
I can't turn over in it without waking the whole house, the decades-old mattress sagging under me, and the wooden bed frame moaning as the rusted screws hold on for dear life. It was a hand me down from my older cousin, and probably a hand me down from someone before him.
Except for the bed at the Bellagio, I've never known a more comfortable place in my life.
Paige and I spend the first day of our stay here holed up in my room, poring over the hilarious memorabilia of my teenage years. She recognizes some of the people from the pictures in my photo album but the rest is a strange phenomenon to her.
When we finally emerge at dinner time, my mom has conjured a feast with all the comfort foods of my heart. Tuna casserole, mac and (very orange) cheese, green beans and corn on the cob slathered in butter. I think Paige gains ten pounds just looking at it all. I watch as she digs in and I know she can tell the difference, when a meal is created out of love.
The kitchen table is quickly cleared after dinner and we bring out the games. A rowdy game of Cards Against Humanity has us howling with laughter deep into the night, my Mom waving away suggestions about her going to bed to rest for work the next day as she gleefully deals another round, talking trash.
The clock ticks over into another single digit hour of the early morning when Paige and I wish each other goodnight, her breath quickly becoming soft and steady.
I close my eyes, and all I can see is his face.
“Piss off, Jez,” I whisper, shaking my head etch-a-sketch style, but the screen in my head doesn’t clear. Those lines of his face that I drew with my mind in those first few days together at the hospital have burned themselves into my memory. He’s the background of everything I do, think, feel.
In those first few days, I was numb.
The band-aid had been ripped so fast, that I was still reeling from the shock.
But the saying shouldn’t be “time heals all wounds.” It should be “time heals and wounds.”
Because as the days ticked by, that numbness gave way to a crippling, breathtaking sense of loss.
I miss him so much. Sometimes I realize I’m holding my breath because I’ve forgotten how to breathe without him.
But there’s nothing I can do.
I’m what he hates most.
There’s nothing I can do.
Except love him and miss him from afar.
I pull my phone from under my pillow and open you tube, searching for the Rock Chamber Boys, something I only let myself do in the hardest moments.
I open an old interview video of his and watch on mute, watching him flick his fringe back off his face as he flirts with the interviewer, winking and grinning, his eyes bright and warm. Everything I’d come to take for granted in the short time we had together.
I wipe the single tear that f
alls as the video ends. I wish him goodnight, goodbye.
And let him go.
A few days later, Paige is on the porch with a cup of coffee when I join her after a sleep in.
"Hey," I say, taking the coffee from her and taking a sip, making a face when I realize it’s cold.
"You are so lucky," she sighs, ignoring my splutters from the coffee.
"Why do you say that?"
"You have all this," she says, waving her hand around.
I look around, she can't be pointing to the disheveled porch with the obligatory rusted bikes and dusty baby pools in the corner. Wilted plants on wobbly tables in someone's vain attempt to garden, rickety chairs salvaged from the side of the road.
"All of what?" My eyebrow raised.
"Family."
"Ah. Well, you have that, too. Your Dad adores you. He spoils me, that’s how much he adores you."
"No, he buys me off. We both know that."
"You and he know that?"
"No, you and me. I think he thinks that he's actually showing love." Her voice is hard, resentful. I wonder what’s brought all this on.
"But he does love you, Paige. I've seen you guys together. He does love you."
She just shrugs. "Sometimes, love is giving someone what they need most. Not just what you can afford to give. And all I ever wanted was his time. And a little attention. But he's never had any of that to spare for me. Never could give me anything that interfered with his precious company."
"I'm sorry it feels that way for you."
"Me too,” she sighs.
"Well, we can't say that my Mom ever tried to buy my love." I think of her having to get up early this morning to take on a shift at the local penny store.
"Maybe I can give her some money? Just a little to help?"
"It's bad enough you paid for my medical expenses. I think that probably keeps her up at night as it is. She doesn’t need your money. babe. You brought me back here, that's more than anything she could’ve asked for."
Paige nods and goes quiet for a few minutes, staring out into the woods across the street. I wonder how many times in her life she’s spent an extended time in a place quiet enough she can hear her own thoughts, not interrupted by car horns and traffic and loud thumping music.
"How do you feel?" she asks, after she comes back from her mind wanderings.
I shrug, truth is I thought coming home with be cathartic, but it's just been a different location for the same thoughts.
I still can't forget him.
Every breath is laced with missing him and mourning what could've been.
All because I made the biggest mistake of my life. One I can't even comprehend myself committing. It makes for a tough time for an already confused brain.
"Do you... want me to call...?"
"No!" I yell. I don’t want either of us to try to contact him. I couldn’t handle more rejection.
She holds her hand up. "Wait, you didn't let me finish. Do you want me to call Chris?"
I instantly shudder at the thought. "Even MORE no!"
"He's been asking about you."
"Look, I don't know what happened there, but I think it's better for the both of us that that just stays dead. You should've seen how he acted the last time I saw him at the hospital. He was such an asshole, totally repulsive. I wouldn't want to be with someone like that. I'm glad I saw it in him, it made things a lot easier for me. Less guilt, for sure." And not for the first time, I wondered how I could’ve been with him in the first place.
"Okay, I'm just saying, if you're lonely, nothing wrong with barking up old trees." Paige waggles her eyebrows, reverting back to her old silly self.
"Dude, are you calling me a dog?"
"No, babe, I'm calling you a dawgggg! You hot and you need to get some!" She holds her hands up like paws and pants.
I laugh and grab an old chewed up dog toy on the ground and launch it at her head. She yelps as it bounces off the top of her head and throws me a wounded puppy look.
She opens her mouth to yell something but the sound of a car engine echoing down the quiet street drowns her out. We look at each other, you don't hear that often around here. Downtown L.A., yes. Not in this backstreet of rural Maine.
I stand up and look out to see two cars driving up the street. Expensive cars, luxury cars, polished and beaming new cars, that have no place in this setting.
They both come to a screeching stop in front of the house and the car doors open, letting the drivers and passengers out.
And suddenly he’s here.
Jez.
Jeremy.
Jez and his bandmates.
"What the...?" I mutter under my breath, too speechless to go on.
My heart lurches at the sight of him.
I was wrong, my mind hadn’t been true to him. He was so much more… alive, than anything I’d been remembering and even watching on my iPhone screen.
He was… otherworldly.
Vibrant and sexy and warm and… making my internal organs forget their form and function, turning my insides into complete mush.
I feel a little giddy, and realize, even with him here, sometimes I forget to breathe.
He stands by the side of the car and smiles.
"Come for a ride with me," he says, like it’s nothing. Like the last time we saw each other, we both left each other intact and not in broken, jagged pieces.
I don't know what to do.
Paige has jumped to her feet as well, standing right there, behind me, her breath short and loud against my ear.
"You don't have to do anything you don’t want to," she whispers.
"Noémie." He says my name and I forgot what it sounded like, spoken in his voice, from his lips.
I have to say something.
"What are you doing here, Jez?" Do I really care? Haven't I been just praying to have one more minute with him?
"Come on. Let’s go for a short drive. Just you and me." He doesn't move and I can't see his eyes behind his dark sun glasses.
He just keeps holding out his hand.
I draw a long breath.
"Noémie." Paige says my name, a warning tone in her voice.
"I'll be okay." I tell her. Or am I telling myself. I only then just realize I'm still in my pajamas.
That'd be right. I finally see the man who broke my world into a thousand irreparable pieces and I’m wearing flannel with pictures of cupcakes on it.
No time to worry about that now.
I walk down the few steps from the porch onto the sidewalk where the car is parked. He's watching me the whole way.
I reach out for the handle of the car door and it's locked.
What game is he playing here?
I look up and he's walking over to me.
The breath catches in my throat. I thought I was very aware of how much I missed him.
Seeing him now, in the flesh, I realize how quickly I'd forgotten how tall he is, how broad his shoulders are, how square his jaw is, how much he takes my breath away.
Jez.
My Jez.
Well, no longer my Jez. Maybe never my Jez.
"Nice car," I say when he's face-to-face with me. Because it's the only thing I can think of, other than begging him to never leave me again.
He grins, almost blinding me with his white teeth. What is going on?
I've dreamt of seeing him again, a hundred, a thousand times. But it was never like this.
It was passionate or dramatic, sweeping declaration or accusations. But not this. Not smiling, happy Jez. Seriously, what the fuck is going on?
"I thought so. Wanna drive it?"
He holds out a keyring to me.
"Come on, give it a little spin. I just bought it."
There's a loud clanging in my ears and my heart thumps and it feels like there's a trampoline in my rib cage.
I can't remember the last time I drove.
And then I remember, or not remember. The last time I drove was the night of
the accident.
The night I almost killed Paige, Jez, and myself.
The loud clanging stops in my ears and it's filled with a burning acid, dripping down my throat as I realize he's just here to fuck with me.
"What sort of sick game are you playing, Jez?" I shake my head at him, and for the first time, I hate him.
Hate him for being so cruel.
The grin on his face instantly falls and he frowns.
"No... no. Noémie!" he yells as I spin around, ready to storm back to my house. And never see this asshole again.
I ignore him, but before I can take a step, his hand is on mine, pulling me back.
"Leave me alone, Jez!"
"No, Noémie. I'm not... I'm not playing some game. I'm serious. I came to take a drive with you. Or let you take me for a drive. Please." He pushes the sunglasses up to rest on top of his head.
And his eyes tell me he's saying the truth.
There's no malice there. No cruelty.
Just Jez. Warm, honest, beautiful, passionate Jez.
And I believe him.
“Okay,” I sigh. I reach for the keyring, ignoring the spark that stings my hand when his fingers brush against my palm. "A short drive. Then you can tell me what you're doing here."
"Deal."
I walk over to the driver’s side of the car, just as Paige runs down the steps.
"Noémie! Stop! You… your driver’s license is suspended, remember? And you shouldn't drive, anyway. You’re not ready."
"Ignore her, Noémie. We’ll just go a little way up the street. They’ll be able to see us the whole time," Jez says, nodding to me over the top of the car, and gesturing his head to Paige and his three bandmates standing in front of the house, watching everything.
I turn off my brain and slide into the driver's seat. I can feel the skin over every inch of my body become slick with perspiration as I run my fingers over the steering wheel, acquainting myself with the strange car.
"Hey." His voice is soft, deep, low. Intimate. "It's just the two of us in here. It's just you and me. You can do this."
"Jez, why in the world are you in a car with me? I don’t understand what’s going on!"
My frustration doesn’t faze him and he just says, calmly, "The deal was, you take me for a drive, and I'll tell you why I'm here. So, drive." He turns and stares straight ahead.