Crashing Into You

by Unknown

  I had particularly mixed feelings about my birthday this year; the start of school meant I wouldn't get to spend as much time with Evan. In the month we were together following that memorably dangerous day at Runyon Canyon, we spent almost every waking moment together—from lounging around on the beach and taking long road trips, to boring ourselves silly in art galleries and picking out the craziest new foods at Trader Joe’s. I slept over at his place, he slept over at my place more, and we just generally slept together, a lot. Probably enough to make any other young couple go insane, with exhaustion, with boredom, or both. But when it came to Evan, enough was not a word in my vocabulary. And now with our classes starting on Monday, and with Evan trying to balance school with a part-time internship at a local law office, our time was going to be limited to the weekends—and that's if we were lucky.

  “Would you like another bottle of wine for the table?” the waiter asked, as Evan passed out the last slice of cake.

  Evan looked at me, for permission, and I shrugged. I thought we had enough, but he said, “We’ll get one more of the same, please. Thanks.”

  “Right away.” Before he departed, the waiter made an obvious glance toward my glass of wine, which, unlike the other empty glasses on the table, was still half-full.

  That was the other difficult part of my birthday this year: turning twenty-one. I didn’t have the excuse any longer. I couldn’t say, “Still underage, still a kid, maybe next time.” Even though I’d had a fake ID since freshman year, I only used it when Lukas pressured me into it. Now that I was twenty-one, I was going to have to start acting like the other lame kids my age who waited too long and had to finally catch up on their drinking. I knew one little glass of wine was about the equivalent of having an unsweetened fruit punch, but I still refrained from going overboard, even tonight. I didn’t care that it was my birthday, and that I was supposed to be the one drowning myself in alcohol. What if I was the only one sober enough to drive? I didn’t need to drink to have a good time. Evan knew that about me. Night after night after night.

  “So Sydney,” Lukas said, as he dug his fork into the cake, “what’d you wish for?”

  I took a bite of the sinfully rich dessert, and shook my head. “I didn’t wish for anything.” It was the truth. Ever since my fifth birthday, when I wished my new dog Maximus to stay with me forever and ever, only for him to get run over by a truck the following morning, I always cleared my head before I approached a lit candle.

  “Oh, come on. You have to wish for something.”

  I enjoyed a second bite, then set my fork down. “All right, all right. Here’s my wish.”

  Robert looked at Lukas and whispered, as if I couldn’t hear him, “But if she tells us, it won’t come true.” Lukas slapped his boyfriend’s hand, and nodded toward me.

  I cleared my throat, and raised my glass. “I wish that the four of us have a healthy, and very happy, junior year.”

  “Here, here,” Evan said. The second bottle of wine came just in time; the waiter poured it for Lukas, Robert, and Evan. When he finished, we tapped our glasses together, and I took another sip of the spicy Zinfindel.

  I sighed, quietly. I was twenty-one, and I was still scared to drink. I hated forcing myself to always be the designated driver, but what if they all started slurring their words and stumbled out of the restaurant forgetting their own names? I didn't want anyone crashing the car on the way home. I had to play it safe. If anyone I loved ever got hurt because I let loose for even just one single night, it would break me forever.

  I scooted out the left side of the table. “I’m going to the bathroom. Nobody touch my cake, all right?”

  Lukas waited for me to stand up, and then he hovered his fork over my barely touched slice.

  I spun around. “Hey! You better not!”

  He put his hands up, like he was under arrest. “Only kidding.”

  “I’m watching you, all of you,” I said, playfully, and then leaped down the three steps to the main floor of the restaurant.

  I passed by the overcrowded sushi bar and entered the ladies’ restroom. It was quiet inside, obviously empty. I went to the stall in the back and took a seat. I closed my eyes, tried to relax. Oh, how I hated birthdays.

  The bathroom door opened, and someone with loud heels marched inside. She stopped at the sink and washed her hands.

  I finished up, flushed, and stepped out of the stall. The girl was still standing in front of the mirror. I could only see the back of her, but she looked like she was re-applying lipstick. She wore a skimpy black-and-white-striped dress, and had straight blonde hair that dangled down past her shoulders. I approached the sink next to her.

  I ran my hands under the faucet, applied the foamy soap. I looked at my face in the mirror. I didn’t realize how much I had overdone my make-up before I left the apartment. I wet my pinky with the warm water and brushed off some of the eyeliner. I reached for a paper towel, but the girl beside me blocked the dispenser.

  “Umm, excuse me,” I said. “Could you hand me a paper towel?”

  “Sure thing,” she said, and she grabbed two.

  “Thanks. I—”

  I screamed, and struck my back against the hand dryer. It turned on full blast behind me.

  “Whoa, what the fuck!” the girl shouted, taking two steps back. “What the hell's the matter with you?”

  I brought my hand to my chest, tried to breathe. I looked at her again. Squinted. “Oh. Oh my God. It’s you.”

  She stared at me, harshly. “I'm sorry, do I know you?”

  I looked away from her for a second, took a long and deep breath. “Yes, we met at your sister’s funeral.” I wanted to crawl under the nearest stall and hide for the rest of the night. “I’m so embarrassed. I don't know why I screamed. It’s just… you look so much like Melanie.”

  She took a few deep breaths herself, and said, “Trust me, I know. I’ve heard it my whole life.”

  “I'd imagine so.” I pressed my lips together and nodded, awkwardly. “Again, I'm really sorry.”

  “It's fine, don't worry about it,” she said. She tapped her fingers against her chin. “Wait a minute. You're Sydney, right?”

  “Yes. And you’re…” I hesitated. Went blank. What the hell was her name?

  “Michelle. Hi.” She reached her hand toward me. I had screamed in her face, had forgotten her name—and she still wanted to shake my hand.

  “Michelle, of course. It’s nice to see you again.” I grabbed her hand, shook it real fast, and tried to seem happy to see her. She looked so eerily similar to Melanie that she could have been her twin. At least at the funeral the girl had worn her hair a little shorter; now her hair was exactly the same length Melanie’s had been the weekend of her death.

  “So, special occasion?” she asked.

  I stared at her, bewildered. I had no idea what she was talking about. But then she pointed to the top of my head.

  “Oh!” I took off my stupid hat. “Yeah, it’s my birthday.”

  “Oh really? Happy birthday.”

  “Thanks.” I tapped the hat against my side. I wanted to get back to the table, but she had me cornered.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one.” I faked a smile.

  She took a step closer to me and flashed a big grin, like she wanted my autograph. “Twenty-one, how cool is that! Are you here with your friends?” She took the hat from me, caressed the flimsy thing with her sharp fingernails.

  “Yeah. My roommate and his boyfriend. And also my…” I stopped. My mouth hung open for a second. I couldn’t tell her about Evan, no way. At least not yet. “I'm just here with some friends. And actually, I should be heading back. They’re probably wondering what the hell I’m doing in here.”

  “Tell them you needed to get a good scream off your chest,” Michelle said, with a creepy smile.

  I nodded, but narrowed my eyes a little. What an odd thing to say. “Well, it was nice seeing you. Are you holding up okay?” I immedi
ately hated myself for asking the question. Now I would probably never get back to the group.

  “Yeah, I've been okay. It's been a tough summer, but it's getting better. What about you?”

  I pursed my lips. “It’s been hard. Melanie and I, we... well... we weren't super close, but I cared about her. A lot.”

  “I know. She cared about you, too. She talked about you all the time.”

  I crossed my arms. Suddenly I was in no rush to leave the restroom. “She did?”

  “Mmm hmm,” she said. “She said you were one of her best friends. That no one else got her the way you did.”

  I lowered my head, perplexed. “You sure you don’t have me confused with someone else? I don’t think Melanie would have said that about me.”

  “Sydney Baker, right? Her roommate?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No, it was about you.” She tapped my hat against the side of her leg.

  “Really? Well… I'm happy to hear that. Thanks for telling me.”

  “No problem.”

  I approached the door and reached for the handle, but another question entered my head, and I had to ask it. I looked back at Michelle. “What brings you all the way out to Marina Del Rey? I thought you lived in Chatsworth.”

  “I do. Well... I did. I’m living here now. I just moved into the dorms last night.”

  My eyes widened. “The dorms?”

  She turned to the mirror, quickly blotted her lips. Then she looked back at me. “Yeah. At LMU.”

  My heart dropped. “Say again?”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to LMU?”

  “Uh huh.” She flashed me an obnoxious grin. “I just did freshman orientation last week. Isn’t it the prettiest campus you’ve ever seen in your life?”

  I nodded, and leaned against the door. “Uhh, yeah. Yeah, I guess.” Melanie's younger sister had enrolled at LMU? For real? I tried not to scream a second time. “Well… I guess I’ll see you around then.”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “Can I get your number? Maybe we can have coffee sometime, after I get settled. I don’t really know anyone on campus yet.”

  I didn’t get back to the table for another five minutes. I ended up giving Michelle my phone number and e-mail, even though avoiding her on campus was to become my new impossible mission. When I returned to the trio, the question was obvious. But my answer had to be ambiguous, at least for now.

  “Sorry about that, I bumped into a friend from school,” I said, and offered no further details.

  Lukas pointed at the plate in front of me. “We were good. Nobody had a single bite.”

  I looked down. The cake looked delicious enough to devour—but I had lost my appetite. “Thanks.”

  Evan nudged me in the shoulder. “Hey, where’s your hat?”

  “What?” I touched the top of my head.

  I had left it with Michelle.

  Chapter 25

  Evan dug his head into the pillow as he pounded himself against me for the better part of ten minutes, but I wasn’t able to give a lot back. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders but couldn’t summon up the enthusiasm to moan even a quarter as much as he was. When he kissed me, he kept his lips pressed against mine for a long while—but then he stopped moving.

  “Are you all right?” he finally asked, staring down at me. “What's the matter?”

  “I’m fine. Keep going.” I kissed him back, tried to pretend like I was in the mood. But my mind was elsewhere. I knew it, and he knew it. Evan stopped again, and brought his hands to my cheeks. “Come on, what is it? Something's up.”

  “Sorry, I’m just... I'm having a little trouble concentrating.”

  “Why? What's on your mind?” He rolled off me, and lay down on his side.

  I was still reeling from seeing Michelle. But I had no intent of telling him about my awkward, longwinded encounter with her at the restaurant. Even though her presence on this side of L.A. was to remain a secret until, oh, Monday, I decided to focus on the real root of my problem. “I’m just nervous about going back to school, that's all. I haven’t been on campus all summer, and I know it’s gonna be super weird. Everywhere I look will remind me of Melanie.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “I know. It’s gonna be really hard for me, too.”

  “I just can’t stop thinking, you know, what classes would she have taken? What was her commute to school gonna be like?” I pulled the covers over my neck, and stared up at the ceiling. “Mostly, I’m thinking, would she be doing this with you, at this very moment, if she hadn’t died?”

  “Syd, come on…”

  “What?”

  “We’ve talked about this. You can’t think like that.” He stroked his thumb against my cheek. “Don't you love me?”

  I scooted toward him, grabbed hold of his strong yet gentle arms. “Of course I do. You know I do.”

  “Good. Because I love you, too. I don't care how hard this first week is gonna be. I'll make sure we get through it together, okay?”

  I nodded, and brought my hands to the back of his head. “What do you…” I stopped, thought maybe I shouldn't—but I knew I couldn’t avoid it, not anymore. “What do you know about Melanie’s sister?”

  His eyes opened wide, like he had expected me to ask pretty much anything but that. “About Michelle?”

  “Uh-huh. I lived with Melanie for two years, and she barely mentioned her. Did Melanie ever talk about her?”

  He shook his head. “Not really. I don’t think they were super close. They would see each other at holidays and things, but that was about it.”

  Not exactly the juicy response I was looking for. “Well, what about you? Did you ever spend any time with her?”

  “Just at Christmas. But she was gone most of the weekend.” He laughed, and tapped his fingers against my chest. “What brought this up?”

  Oh, nothing much, just that the lookalike sister of his former girlfriend was going to be attending our college, that's all.

  I had no idea why I felt the urge to keep the news about Michelle a secret. School was starting in two days, and Evan was going to find out about her eventually. It was almost as if I wanted the summer of just him and me, and no one else, to last a tiny bit longer, even if it was only one more day.

  “I was thinking about the funeral,” I said, “and the look on her face when I asked if she was Melanie. Didn’t that ever freak you out? How much they look alike? It's kind of eerie.”

  Evan sat up. “I guess they do a little, but... I never really thought about it. Most brothers and sisters look pretty close, don’t they? My older brother's got blond hair, but we look really similar.”

  I wanted to contest his claim—I had met his brother Liam once last year, and the two looked nothing alike—but I could tell he wanted to change the subject. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Are you thirsty? I’m gonna get some water.” He pushed himself to the edge of the bed, but I stuck my arm out, blocking him.

  “No, no. Let me.” I put my underwear on, and threw a random blue shirt over my head.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I need to stretch my legs.”

  “But it’s your birthday,” Evan said, emphasizing that terrible word. “You shouldn’t be doing things for me.”

  I glanced at the clock. 12:08 AM. “Actually, it’s not my birthday anymore. You’re off the hook.” I leaned back, and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Did you have fun tonight?”

  “Yes, of course I did.”

  “You barely had anything to drink though. Did you even finish that glass of wine?”

  I set my hand on top of his. “Evan, you should know that about me by now. I'm not much of a drinker.”

  He gazed into my eyes, more seriously than he had in days. “Why, Syd? Why are you so invested in being sober all the time?”

  I sat down Indian-style and ran my hand through my hair. My trip to the kitchen was officially on hold. “It's not that I don't want to have—
”

  “Because I get this feeling from you sometimes,” he interrupted, “you know, that you do want to drink, that you do want to have fun, but you force yourself not to. And that's what concerns me more than anything. I mean, really. What are you so afraid of?”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I pushed my palm against my chin, and looked down, at the soles of Evan's feet. Finally: “It just can't ever happen again.”

  “What can't?” he said.

  “Kyle Lowe.”

  The air in the room turned still. “You mean... that boy? The boy your boyfriend killed—”

  “The boy that I killed. It was both of us. James might have been driving, but if I hadn't been so drunk, maybe I would've had some fucking sense to tell him not to get behind the wheel.”

  Evan sat up, leaned his chest against my side. He put his arms behind my back. “It was an accident, Syd. It wasn't your fault. You can't let it ruin your entire life.”

  “He was nine years old, Evan,” I said, as the tears came. I cried when I just thought about little Kyle, but when I talked about him, there was no limit to my waterworks. “He was in third grade. He played soccer, he liked to draw. He had so many friends.” I sat up straight and closed my eyes. “He'd be almost twelve now. He had a whole life ahead of him, he had so many dreams and so much to live for. And I took that away. Because I wanted to drink and have a little fun.”

  Evan obviously didn't want to combat me on this issue, not anymore. He just rubbed my back and said, “Shh, it's okay, it's okay.”

  “I'm sorry,” I said. I looked into Evan's eyes. “But if my staying sober will save a life, just one, then it's all worth it. I could barely live with myself after what happened, and there's no way—literally none—I'd be able survive if it happened a second time. No one will ever die if I'm behind the wheel, Evan. I can promise you that. And if someone else is driving, if I have the slightest sense that they've had even one too many drinks, I'll strike them down, I swear to God.”