Me Since You

by Laura Wiess

“Well, maybe I don’t want to talk about it,” she says coolly, fluffing her hair and avoiding my gaze. “Did you ever think of that?”

  No, I didn’t, and all the things I was going to tell her about the serious talk with my father and this bizarre video fallout, meeting Eli and discovering that he actually goes to this school, stick in my throat.

  “Hey.” Danica nudges Bree and glances at her watch. “C’mon, we have to get that, er, thing out of your locker before the bell rings. See you guys later.” She grabs Bree’s arm and all but drags her away.

  We stand in unhappy stalemate.

  “It looked bad, okay?” Nadia says finally, staring out over the courtyard. “What do you want me to say? They showed what, maybe a minute of it, and it looked like your father and that guy with the dog just stood there while that psycho killed his kid.” She catches the outrage in my gaze and heaves an impatient sigh. “I’m not saying that’s what happened, Row. I’m saying that’s what it looked like, okay? A lot of people hate the cops anyway. You know that. So yeah, they’re pissed.”

  I can’t believe this. “Nadia, he did everything he could.”

  “Brett says he should have just tased him,” she says, checking her phone.

  I open my mouth, shut it again and count to five, trying not to say that I don’t really give one shit about what Brett thinks because that’ll just make things worse. “Corey was holding the baby. If my father had tased him, Corey could have fallen forward right off the bridge and down onto the highway. With the baby.”

  “Yeah, well, he did anyway, right?” she says with a cool shrug.

  Oh my God. “But nobody knew that at the time! He was trying to keep Corey calm, talking and alive until ERT got there.” I don’t get this. She’s been at my house a million times, sat at our table for a thousand dinners and snorted milk out of her nose, laughing at my father’s stories . . . I thought she’d be mad at what they were saying, not a part of it. “You’ve known my father for what, six years? Has he ever done anything half-assed, especially police work? I mean, c’mon.” I gaze at her, bewildered and feeling more than a little betrayed. “Why are you being like this?”

  “Why are you? God, just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I’m wrong, you know,” she says, sticking her phone in her jacket pocket. “I’m entitled to my opinion.”

  “Oh, right. Don’t you mean Brett’s opinion?” The words are out there before I can stop them.

  She gives me a long, level look. “Think what you want,” she says finally as the bell rings. “You asked and I told you, and now you’re mad. I knew this was going to happen. Why do you think I didn’t even want to talk about it?” She turns to leave, pauses and glances back. “You coming?”

  I hesitate, then nod, mouth tight and hugging my books fall in behind her. She weaves through the stream of students without looking back, confident, I guess, that I’ll follow, but my chest is hollow and my footsteps grow slower and slower. By the time I reach the lockers a solid wall of kids has filled the widening gap between us and I can’t see her at all.

  | | |

  Thirteen snide comments, one flat-out hostile “Fucking East Mills PD are all assholes,” endless curious looks and one intense, burning “They should never have aired video of a mentally ill man dying” from the psych teacher later, my stomach is knotted, I can’t concentrate and all I want to do is go back to being invisible.

  When lunchtime comes, instead of heading straight for the cafeteria to meet up with everyone like usual, I stop at the vending machines; grab bottled water, a granola bar and a bag of Doritos; and decide to disappear.

  I find Eli sitting out in a sunny, deserted spot against the wall on the grass in the front corner of the school. He’s leaning back against the brick, head down, hair loose and spilled forward, and is scrolling through his phone.

  “Hey,” I say, ambling up beside him. “You’re sitting in my spot, you know.” And when he looks up, startled but then shading his eyes against the sun and searching my face, I see the recognition dawn and smile.

  “Hey, Rowan.” He gives me a surprised but welcoming smile, then glances back down at his phone. “Good to see you. Have a seat.”

  I do, sitting next to him on the grass with my back against the wall and my legs stretched out. The sun warms my cheeks and the breeze, fresh and sweet with the new life of spring, ruffles my hair. “Nice.” I set my stuff in my lap, tear open the granola bar, snap it in half and offer him a chunk. “Want some?”

  “Thanks.” He takes a bite and, chewing, tilts the phone so I can see the photo on the screen. It’s a close-up of a man, a soldier with tired eyes and a wide smile, a weathered, sunburned man in rumpled, dusty fatigues cradling a shaggy, black and tan German shepherd pup in his arms. The dog is impossibly small, skinny and neglected looking, its fur dusty, matted . . . and it’s licking his cheek, eyes bright and tail frozen in a blur of wagging. Eli swallows and says, “My dad and Daisy, right after he rescued her.”

  “Wow, where is this?” I say, opening the bottled water and handing it over.

  He takes a swig, says thanks and hands it back. “Iraq,” he says, scrolling to the next photo. “He found her and her sister Rosie lying in the road when they were only like six weeks old, starving, dehydrated and covered in fleas.” He shows me a photo of his father and some other dusty, cheerful-looking men crouched in the dirt with the puppies between them. “He brought them back to base to try to save them.” He’s talking faster now, like the story’s been bottled up inside of him and waiting too long to be told. “I never met Rosie, one of the other guys adopted her, but the first time I saw Daisy, me and my dad were Skyping and she was just sitting there on his lap. He was like, ‘Surprise!’” He smiles slightly at the memory. “He always had her with him when he called after that, because he wanted her to get used to me and my mom. To recognize us as part of her pack. And she did. Shepherds are smart.”

  “Cool,” I say, and break off a small piece of granola bar. “So your dad’s in the military?” I pop it in my mouth.

  “Was,” he says after a moment. “He was killed in Iraq right before they pulled out. He was a marine. An IED got him.”

  Oh no. I take a hasty gulp of water, swallow hard and say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Which is kind of dumb because why would I know, but I’ve never met anyone my age whose dad has died before, and I have no idea how to handle it. The only family members I’ve ever lost are my grandparents on my father’s side, who died when I was fourteen. That was sad and I miss them, but grandparents are not the same as parents. So should I keep talking about it, or ignore it and change the subject? I don’t know, and for a panicked moment all I want to do is jump and run. “Uh . . . When did he die, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “A little over a year ago.” He scrolls to the next picture, an older one of a tanned, wiry, dark-haired boy of eleven or twelve wearing board shorts and caught in the headlock grip of his father. Both are laughing, the man grinning straight at the camera, the muscled arm hooked loose and loving around the boy’s neck, the boy gazing up at him, face shining, eyes so bright they make my heart hurt. “They said he never knew what hit him, which is better than seeing it coming, I guess. I don’t know. Either way sucks, if you ask me.” He shakes his head and looks away. “Sorry. I don’t usually talk about it. I mean, who wants to hear somebody else’s sad story?”

  I could agree with him, change the subject to something light and meaningless just to pass the time until lunch is over, but there’s something in his voice, a thread of loneliness or yearning maybe, woven beneath his words, that gets me just like that photo did, and so instead I say, “No, it’s fine. Really. So your dad found Daisy in Iraq?” And I know the minute his expression clears that I’ve done the right thing.

  “Yeah.” He puts the last of the granola bar in his mouth, chews and swallows. “Jesus, that was stale.” Catches my affronted look and grins. “Sorry. Next time I’ll buy.”

  “Deal,” I say,
crumpling the wrapper and shoving it into my purse.

  “So yeah, anyway, he worked hard trying to get Daisy out of there before his unit pulled out. He knew when they left she’d be killed, and he didn’t want that to happen. By the time he died, she was already in Houston with me.”

  “Why would she have been killed?” I ask, ripping open the bag of Doritos and popping one in my mouth. I offer them to him but he shakes his head.

  “The Iraqi army had squads that swept through after we left, shooting all the dogs—”

  “Why?” I say, horrified.

  “They think of them as vermin, like rats or something. My father said it was awful.” He takes a sip of water and recaps the bottle. “Anyhow, he looked online for help and found one of those animal societies that help service people get the dogs and cats they adopted back home safe. The procedure was pretty complicated but he wouldn’t give up. He got all the guys to chip in what they could and we raised some money back in Houston, too. Once she was approved he had her flown home. The last time we Skyped she was sitting there with me instead of him and she went nuts when she saw him on-screen. He got all choked up and was like, ‘Take good care of her for me till I get back.’” He glances at me, his hair drifting into his eyes. “Best present he ever gave me. Last one, too.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I murmur, and take my time selecting just the right Dorito from the bag to give him a chance to recover. “It’s good that you have her, though. She’s a sweetheart.”

  “Yeah, she is,” he says gruffly, and scrolls through several more photos until he finds the one he wants. “She really misses him. Here.” He leans closer until his shoulder touches mine and shows me the screen.

  It’s a funeral scene both beautiful and terrible, a gleaming mahogany casket being borne into a church by solemn, ramrod-straight marines in crisp full-dress uniforms and Daisy, head down, tail tucked and body wilted, her forehead wrinkled with what could only be grief, padding slowly along behind.

  I look up at him, tears in my eyes.

  “Semper Fi,” he says softly, and closes the screen. “‘Always faithful.’” He tilts his head back against the wall and closes his eyes.

  After a long moment, so do I.

  We sit in silence until the bell rings and lunch is over.

  | | |

  I learn several things during afternoon classes, none of which are good.

  Nadia isn’t going to come looking for me, either.

  The video’s been posted pretty much everywhere and gone viral.

  The kids I go to school with, most of whom have never done anything more heroic than wrestle a banana from the bunch, all believe they know exactly what my father should have done to save baby Sammy and insist on telling me, whether I want to hear it or not.

  They suggest tackling. Tasing. Lassos. Giant blow-up stuntman cushions placed down on the highway. Nets. Snipers on rooftops. An aerial assault team from a hovering helicopter. A hypnotist. A dart gun.

  And on and on, like the murder/suicide video wasn’t real, only a scene from a high-budget action movie or a video game instead of two final, irreversible deaths.

  And who knows, maybe I would think the same thing, be just as quick to judge, as arrogant and critical, if I didn’t know anyone in the video, either.

  It’s a disturbing thought.

  Somehow, I make it through the rest of the day without screaming, and when the final bell rings, I don’t wait for Nadia at my locker or scan the crowd for a glimpse of Eli, only head straight for the bus idling at the curb. From here it’s one quick ride to the stop near the dry cleaner’s and—

  “Hey, anybody catch East Mills’s finest on the news last night?” the frizzy-haired driver says loudly as I pass. “There’s your tax dollars at work. Thanks for nothing.”

  I stop right in the middle of the aisle. Turn, heart pounding, and meet her narrowed gaze in the mirror. “Are you done?” My knees are trembling but my voice comes out cool, controlled, polite.

  For some reason this strikes me as important.

  She grunts. “Not hardly. That whole thing was a friggin’ disgrace. He should hang his head in shame for letting that kid die. If that baby had been a donut you can bet your ass he would’ve jumped for it and not just stood there talk—”

  Somebody laughs and the mocking sound shatters my polite paralysis, sends me charging past the others standing frozen and wide-eyed in line and right back up front, shaking and furious. “No, Sammy Wells died because his father killed him, and you know what? The day you quit smoking crack and get a real life, then you can talk about my father, but for now, why don’t you just shut up and drive the fucking bus!”

  She stares at me, mouth agape. “You little shit! Where the hell do you get off talking to me like that? Get off my bus. Let your old man haul your ass back and forth to school from now on, since that’s all he’s good for. I’m filing a complaint against you with the principal.”

  “Oh, please do!” I say wildly, caught in an adrenaline-fueled, full-body, trembling fury. “I can’t wait till he asks me what happened and I can show him and the school board all these videos, because look, everybody in here has their phone out. So.” I turn away, wobble to the back of the bus and collapse into an empty seat. Hear the shuffle and clump as the other kids file on, feel the weight of their gazes, the sick flurry of hushed, excited whispers all around me, and I don’t know what to do or how to make them stop. I pull out my phone to text Nadia and then remember, and don’t. Stare blindly out the window, sweating, my heart racing and my thoughts in a scared and jumbled whirl.

  The bus rumbles to life, pulling away from the curb with a jerk.

  The snotty-nosed freshman from this morning’s debacle dives across the aisle and into the seat in front of me. He swivels, eyes bright, cheeks pink, and with a look of absolute awe, says, “Dude, you rock.”

  Oh my God.

  Chapter 6

  Work is slow and Eva, who looks grimmer than usual, is uncharacteristically quiet on the whole video subject. She leaves at four o’clock, giving me plenty of uninterrupted time to finish pinning the clothes, find Eli’s Facebook page—friends-only, damn it—and then Google him.

  Most of the links lead me right back to the Corey video.

  I hesitate, finger poised. I really don’t want to relive this, don’t want to start questioning or blaming or letting all that general-public poison sink in too deep, but . . .

  I just don’t get how we could all watch the same tape and see it so differently.

  So I search further and find one on YouTube.com that shows the whole fifteen-minute video, not just the sixty edited seconds the local news aired. Plant myself on the stool, take a deep breath and turn up the volume.

  This time, for the first time, I hear it all. I listen to my father try to forge a bond with Corey, humanize little Sammy, defuse the situation and stall until county crisis arrives. See the growing stress on his face, the tension in his shoulders, the sweat darkening the cool blue of his police shirt, and suddenly I can feel what he feels and it’s hard to breathe. I watch through blurred eyes as he steps in front of Eli to shield him, Eli who is ghostly pale and has a white-knuckled grip on Daisy’s collar. Watch as my father moves closer and closer to Corey, trying to get close enough, I guess, to grab him and pull them both back to safety. Close enough, though, to put himself in danger of being grabbed and dragged over the side with them . . .

  Watch, heart pounding, as my father’s and Eli’s faces suddenly flood with shock and horror as Corey tips forward and disappears from sight.

  Fifteen minutes later I’m fumbling around under the counter for a handful of Eva’s tissues to wipe my face.

  The psych teacher was right. Corey’s last moments, the utter despair in his words and on his face . . . That was nobody’s business and should never have been made public.

  I scroll down the page to the comments section and feel like throwing up at what’s written. The stuff about my father is sickening, and Corey
was right when he said that if little Sammy lived he’d have been subjected to an ugly stream of forever Google-able insults and contempt for his father.

  The commenting public plastered the walls with their blind, hateful fear, calling Corey a despicable coward, a selfish jerk, a loser. He was stupid, a waste of space, an insult to God; he should have just snapped out of it, changed his life; he’d go straight to hell and burn there forever—a never-ending flow of judgment with no thought or care as to who’s reading it or being hurt by it.

  It’s horrifying.

  I follow links and discover that Sammy’s mom, Payton Well, didn’t fare much better. A news clip of the baby’s funeral is posted with an overdub about how she was planning to take Sammy and move back to Florida, and instead of empathizing with her pain they ripped her up in writing, calling her a bitch for taking the kid and trying to leave, saying she was spiteful, vicious and deserved to lose him, saying she belonged in hell beside Corey and that maybe next time she’d keep her slutty legs closed, calling her stupid for sleeping with somebody so messed up, as if she were an oracle instead of a twenty-two-year-old Applebee’s hostess with an accounting degree and an overbite.

  And last but not least, they went off on Eli, too. The comments are cruel and scathing, saying he’s useless, he should’ve manned up and wrestled that baby away, that he should’ve put on his big-boy panties and sicced the dog on the guy or something, anything, rather than be caught by surprise and stand there in shock, a mere mortal instead of an instant action hero. One loser actually had a vicious hoot at Eli’s pained, “Don’t t-talk about my f-father,” asking, stutter much dickhead? and earning himself a flood of LOL kudos from his audience.

  The motion-sensor doorbell rings and I look up to find old Mr. Hanson coming straight at me, his purple lips stretched into a familiar leer.

  And here I thought this day couldn’t get any worse.

  I close the screen and shove my phone and tissues under the counter, hoping I don’t look like I’ve been crying. “Hi, Mr. Hanson.”