Letters to Nowhere

by Julie Cross

I exhaled. “Okay.”

  There. A very big–girl move on my part, and it hadn’t been as difficult as I’d built it up in my head all these months. Maybe because I’d imagined convincing my mom and dad of this and not my coach, whose job it was to train elite gymnasts.

  I stood up and hesitated before walking upstairs. Bentley lifted an eyebrow and said, “Anything else on your mind?”

  Yes, my routines, your picky hard–ass coaching. But Jordan had said to give it more time. I forced a smile. “Nope, that’s it.”

  ***

  After two hours of attempting to fall back to sleep after another horrible car–jumping nightmare, I decided to go downstairs and get a snack or watch TV.

  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with this idea. Tony was sprawled out on the couch watching The Simpsons in his boxers and a T–shirt. It was a tribute to the months I’d now spent inside a man–house that I didn’t blush or giggle at the sight of Tony’s boxers. Instead, I grabbed a container of fruit and a jar of peanut butter from the kitchen before sitting down on the far end of the couch.

  “Which episode is this?” I asked.

  He glanced at me and smiled like he hadn’t seen me come down the stairs. “The one where Homer gambles all the Christmas money away and brings Santa’s Little Helper home from the racetrack.” He sat up and leaned closer to look at my snack. “You’re putting peanut butter on cantaloupe?”

  “Don’t knock it until you try it.”

  He sighed and grabbed a piece of melon, sticking it in the peanut butter, wrinkling his nose before tossing it into his mouth. “That’s terrible!”

  “Maybe it’s different for me.” I shrugged. “I can put peanut butter on almost everything.”

  Tony picked at the fruit in the container, pulling out a red grape and popping it in his mouth without peanut butter. “What’s your excuse for being up at two in the morning? Or is this when you and Jordy usually—”

  I tossed another grape at him, hitting him in the cheek. “That is none of your business, but no, that’s not why I’m up.”

  I pulled my knees to my chest and curled up in the corner of the couch. Maybe telling Tony would help me, maybe it would help him tell me his secret. Not that I wanted to have an awkward conversation about his sexuality, but if it helped him to practice telling people…

  “I have nightmares,” I said finally. “I think it’s because I don’t know what happened that night with my parents.”

  “What do you need to know?” Tony asked. “Besides the obvious, I don’t see how it could help to have details.”

  “You know how sometimes when someone says, ‘I need to talk to you privately,’ and then you can’t talk for like an hour and for that whole hour, ideas are building in your head and all of your theories end up so much worse than the real thing?”

  Tony just stared at me for a long time, then nodded slowly. “Okay, I see what you mean.”

  “In my head, there’re body parts everywhere and it’s like this bloody gruesome horror movie.”

  “You were at the funeral, right?” he asked. “Didn’t you see them in the casket?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, hating every mental picture that went along with my answer. Hating those stupid urns resting on the mantel in my dusty, lonely house. “They were cremated.”

  Tony scooted closer, eyeing me carefully. “And you really, truly believe that getting the details would fix the nightmares?”

  “It’s not just the nightmares.” I told him about my experience on the beam in Houston and the little girl I screamed at the other day and all the near–panic attacks.

  “Don’t think I haven’t figured out why you’re spilling all this to me.” He exhaled heavily, shaking his head.

  I wasn’t sure if he was onto the fact that I knew his secret or…

  “You want my help again,” he stated.

  Okay, not the being gay thing.

  “There must be a police file or something, right?”

  “I’m sure there’s a file, but I’m just not sure I can get my hands on it,” he said. Then I watched him cover his face and groan into his hands. “Now I’m gonna have to try, because if you fall and break your neck on the beam it’ll be on my shoulders.”

  I held my breath, trying not to get my hopes up or act too excited. “That would be so helpful.”

  “One condition.” He waved a hand to get me to stop blabbering. “Stay here and watch TV with me.”

  “Deal.”

  I turned on my side and pulled the blanket from the back of the couch over me. I couldn’t believe that I might actually be able to fill in those missing puzzle pieces. Tony had come through for me once already, maybe he’d do it again.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  April 14

  Mom and Dad,

  Why did you want to be cremated? I’m not fond of the idea of bodies being under the ground and trapped in coffins, but how do I know you were whole before they burned you to ashes? How do I know any of that? And do you have any idea what it’s like to imagine someone setting your parents on fire? Every time I think about it my heart feels like it’s shattering to pieces.

  Please answer.

  Love, Karen

  ***

  “Where do you put your parents?” Jackie asked.

  Where do I put them? Like where’s the urn? “Uh…what do you mean?”

  “Whenever people lose someone,” Jackie explained, “mentally, they have to put them somewhere. You have to sort them into a category. It’s human nature. Without doing that, you can’t actually move on. And I don’t mean get through the grieving, you wouldn’t be able to function.”

  “You mean like heaven?”

  “Exactly.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I tried the heaven thing, but it didn’t stick. I couldn’t talk myself into it.”

  She searched my face as if the answer was going to be written on my forehead. “You have to have put them somewhere. You are coping. I can see that with my own eyes.”

  “I write letters,” I admitted for the first time ever out loud. “To them, to my grandma, to you sometimes. I don’t always write it on paper, but if I can then I do. Sometimes I’m just drafting it in my head.”

  I was afraid she’d give me the crazy person look, but she didn’t. “Do you have any of these letters? Can you share them?”

  My hands shook as I retrieved my notebook from my bag and flipped to an earlier page. I glanced over it before setting it in front of her. She read the first page and closed the notebook right after she was done.

  “Well, that was easy to answer.”

  “Okay?” I asked.

  “Think about it, Karen, you haven’t been inside your home in months, not farther than the garage, anyway. You write them letters…”

  My heart pounded and I looked up at her, my eyes wide. “I haven’t put them anywhere. I’ve put myself somewhere.”

  “Yes.” She handed me my notebook. “But I think part of you knows the truth, you just need to take some time and figure out where you’re going to put them.”

  “Like forever?” I had a million questions to ask her and so many swirling emotions, but my phone distracted me. I shouldn’t have looked at it right then, but it only took a tiny glance to see a text from Tony.

  Meet me at my house in an hour.

  Oh. My. God.

  He found something. He found the file.

  My foot tapped the entire last ten minutes of my session with Jackie, and I had no idea what she said or what I said. But somehow she looked satisfied with our progress right before I bolted out the door.

  When I pulled up to Tony’s house, a tall, half–bald man was climbing out of a Lexus in the driveway. He pulled out a key and unlocked the door, so I had to assume this was Tony’s dad, the plastic surgeon.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m here to see Tony,” I said.

  His face brightened. “Oh! Great.”

  Uh oh, sorry, Tony’s dad.
I’m not his girlfriend. He likes boys. “I can wait here. Just tell him Karen’s here?”

  He ushered me into foyer despite my protest. “Tony! You have company.”

  Tony came charging down a staircase, carting a red duffle bag. “Hey, Karen, got those CDs you wanted.”

  “Great.” I took the bag from his hand and it felt like it actually had CDs in it.

  “You kids still listen to CDs?” Tony’s dad asked.

  I flashed him my judges smile in preparation for next Monday’s training camp. “School project.”

  “Have you had lunch?” Tony’s dad asked me. “I was just going to make some sandwiches.”

  Tony shook his head. “She’s got to go, Dad.”

  “Yep,” I said, then I turned to Tony. “Thanks so much. I’ll give them right back.”

  “I can pick them up tomorrow,” he said opening the door for me. “See you later, Karen. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Thanks, Tony.”

  I didn’t think it was possible to keep putting one foot in front of the other, knowing the true weight of what was in that bag, but somehow I did.

  My heart never slowed all the way home and all the way upstairs to my room and while I locked the door and sifted through dozens of CDs before pulling out a large dark brown folder. I sat at my desk and opened the folder. The front cover had a piece of paper stapled to it with their names and the exact location of the accident.

  My fingers shook as I removed a paper clip and held a stack of photos in my hands. The first image was of the car, our black Toyota. And it wasn’t shattered to pieces like it had been in my head. The windshield was gone completely. The top of the car was crushed and the driver’s side caved in. I flipped to the next picture and gasped when I saw my father lying in the grass, his face and head bloody, paramedics all around. The next image was my mother in the grass, and she had blood all over her leg and her side.

  Tears dripped onto the folder. It was so horrible and unfathomable to see them dead. Actually dead. They were pronounced dead on the scene. I remembered the police officer who had come to Blair’s house that night saying those exact words. I laid the images side by side and stared at them for what felt like forever, and the tears that continued to fall were nothing but relief. There were no pieces, no limbs strewn in the grass. They were whole people. Whole people who had died a horrible and probably painful death, but holy crap had it looked so much worse in my head.

  And God, I missed them. So much.

  I felt dizzy with this new sensation of lightness. I had to put my forehead down on the desk for a minute. Sweat pooled on the metal surface as I breathed in and out. When I was finally able to raise my head again, I stuck the photos back under the paper clip and removed a stack of papers. My eyes scanned the page on top—a printed e–mail.

  Henry,

  I agree with you a hundred percent that discretion is key in this situation. Jason Campbell was a good friend and he helped our detective team put many deserving individuals in prison. As I told you last night at the hospital, the elevated blood alcohol levels of the Campbells could be kept out of the media, assuming we were able to determine there are no other victims. At this time, the police department has been unable to find any other faults or damage other than to the Campbells and their vehicle, therefore we will be able to honor the request and not release the autopsy results to the media.

  If you could notify the child’s grandmother and head of Jason Campbell’s law firm to let them know of the decision that would be very helpful, as I have received similar messages from each of them.

  Thank you,

  Kennedy Nelson

  St. Louis Police Chief

  Chief Nelson,

  I’m just following up on our conversation last night. I can’t stress enough how important discretion is in this situation for Karen Campbell and for the members of the community who knew the Campbells. Please let me know as soon as possible if the department has found any cause for releasing the accident details to media outlets.

  Thank you,

  Henry Bentley

  There was nothing in the entire world that could have prepared me for reading those pages. Nothing. No training. No drills. No life experience. So many feelings began to boil over and I had no idea what to do with them. It was too much.

  And in that instant I hated everybody in this entire folder—Chief Nelson, Coach Bentley, and most of all, my parents. I hated them with an intensity I’d never felt before. My feet moved on their own, dragging me out of the room, away from that folder and into the garage.

  How could they be so careless? How could they be so irresponsible? I didn’t want any part of them touching any part of me.

  I yanked open a box and threw a trophy across the garage. It hit the door with a loud clank and broke. There were two framed photos in the bottom of the box, both with me and my mom. I threw them as hard as I could into the big garage door, smashing the glass into a million pieces. I felt the first surge of relief since I’d started reading that e–mail.

  Everything was tainted. All of it. The trophies broke easily, the medals didn’t. Plastic and glass frames exploded onto the garage floor. My fingers ached with paper cuts from ripping open cardboard box after box.

  “What the hell? Karen!”

  I heard Jordan shouting my name. I knew it was him, but I couldn’t stop. There was more of it…more of them…in this room, and I wanted them out. Jackie said I needed to put them somewhere, and that was exactly what I planned to do. I could leave them in bits all over this garage floor, just like they had left me in pieces.

  Tears spilled down my cheeks, and I had to keep wiping my nose on the bottom of my shirt.

  “Karen, stop!” Jordan yelled. “Dad! Dad, get in here!”

  The glass crunched under Bentley’s tennis shoes when he entered the garage. He ducked as a trophy soared from my hand over his head.

  He didn’t try to shout my name, he just grabbed me from behind and held me tight, my arms pinned to my sides.

  And then I remembered that I hated him, too, and I should have broken all of his stuff, too. I fought him to escape, elbowing his sides and throwing my head around.

  “Let me go!” I kicked his shins and attempted to duck under his arms but failed.

  Then Jordan was right in front of me, grasping my shoulders and trying to search for his non–crazy girlfriend somewhere on my face. “Let her go, Dad. Just let her go.”

  Bentley released me and I spun around to face him. “You knew! All this time you knew and you didn’t tell me!”

  “Knew what—?”

  “You knew they’d been drinking!” I wiped my face with the bottom of my shirt again, my muscles and limbs had suddenly turned to Jell–O, and I could barely stand.

  Bentley covered his face for a second, taking in a deep breath. “Oh God, Karen…how do you…how did you—”

  “I hate them,” I said, barely above a whisper. My voice was hoarse. “It wasn’t even an accident. They didn’t even care about leaving me. They couldn’t have or they wouldn’t—”

  “What’s she talking about, Dad?”

  I felt Jordan’s hands gripping my upper arms from behind like he could tell that I couldn’t stand anymore.

  Bentley closed his eyes again for a second, fighting his own emotions. “Both of the Campbells had an elevated blood alcohol level the night of their accident. The police chief agreed not to release the information to the media, assuming there were no additional victims found after twenty–four hours.”

  “Yep,” I said. “No victims. None at all.”

  I broke free of Jordan’s grip and sprinted from the garage, using the last bit of energy I had left. I took the stairs two at a time and slammed and locked the door to my room. Once I was inside, I dove onto my bed and pressed my face into the pillow and let it muffle the sound of my crying.

  ***

  I woke up around one in the morning, and Blair was lying beside me. She half–opened her
eyes and whispered, “Jordan’s asleep on the floor. He was really worried about you, but he didn’t think it was a good time to reveal Jaren to Bentley, so he picked the floor over the bed.”

  “When did you get here?” I asked her.

  “You weren’t at practice and neither was Bentley and you didn’t answer your phone, so I called Jordan and he told me what happened and then came and picked me up. I tried to wake you up, but you were out cold.”

  My eyes filled up with tears again. “They were drinking, Blair. Why did they have to drive home? My dad was the one driving. But they were both drinking. How did this happen? Did he tell her he was fine and she believed him? I hate him for saying that and I hate her for believing. If that’s true, she picked him over me.”

  “I’m so sorry, Karen,” Blair whispered. “I hate them, too. I really do.”

  Tears ran down the sides of her face as she put her arms around me, and I let her hug me.

  “I feel like a total psycho,” I whispered. “You should have seen me. Bentley’s going to kick me out for ruining his garage.”

  She shook her head. “Bentley’s really worried about you. He feels terrible. I’ve never seen him like that before. He’s not angry at all. And Jordan…well, he’s here sleeping on your floor, so you already know what he thinks.”

  I leaned over the side of the bed and looked down at Jordan, sound asleep, using the blanket and pillow I had used during my sleeping–in–the–closet phase. That seemed so long ago, and yet, had I really gotten any further in dealing with my life?

  Blair squeezed my arm and settled back into the pillows. “Just get some sleep. Everything will be a little less dramatic in the morning. You’ll see that Bentley’s not going to give you the boot or send you to the psych ward.”

  “Thanks for coming over,” I said. “Thanks for being here.”

  After Blair drifted off to sleep again, I climbed off the bed and lay down on the floor beside Jordan. He stirred and then woke up with a start, like maybe he hadn’t planned on falling asleep.