“Kasey! Where were you?!” I exclaimed. “I called you like a zillion times!”
“Sorry. I’m here now,” she said, plunking herself down next to me on my bed. “Tell me what you found out.”
“Oh God.” I covered my face with my hands. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“The beginning. Stop and take a deep breath first.”
I used my crutch to double-check that the door was shut tight. “They were calling each other, back and forth, him and Julia. I saw it all on his phone. There’s no way he could have been unconscious.”
Kasey made a fist and pounded her knee. “I knew it!”
“He waited so long to call 911. Why would he do that?”
She shook her head. “I mean, I could see him calling Julia after 911 … but not before. It makes no sense. Why would he do that?”
We stared at each other, not able to come up with anything. I finally dropped my eyes. “There’s something else.”
“Tell me.”
“I remembered a bit from when we were in the car. He was trying to …” I couldn’t finish. The thought of what “might be” made me physically ill.
Kasey’s eyes grew wide. “And did he?”
“I don’t know. It was only a flash, just lasted a few seconds.”
“Bastard!” she seethed, practically foaming at the mouth.
I bit my lip so hard I could taste blood. “I’m all messed up, Kase. I want to remember the rest, but what if, you know … I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle it.”
“Good or bad, you’ll go totally insane if you don’t find out for sure.”
“But how long am I going to have to wait? Like, what if my memory never comes back? What then?” It was the first time I allowed myself to think like that. It can’t turn out that way, though — it can’t.
The phone rang in the kitchen. Out of habit, I paused and listened in case it was Diane. It was oddly quiet. Something made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“Hold on a sec,” I told Kasey. I grabbed my crutches and went to the kitchen.
Mom had her back to me, arms stretched out along the counter, the receiver still in her hand.
“Was that Diane?” I asked.
She nodded but didn’t turn around.
It caught me off guard. I always asked if it was Diane, but it never was. My stomach dropped and a clammy feeling spread over my skin. “Is everything okay?”
Slowly, she hung up the phone but still didn’t turn or answer me. She didn’t have to. It was all in what she didn’t say.
I limped over, put my hand on her shoulder. I had to see her face.
One look removed any doubt. Taking a step back, I covered my mouth with my hand as awful retching sounds erupted from somewhere deep inside me.
Mom reached out her arms but I kept backing out of the kitchen.
Everything had changed. He was dead. I knew what that meant.
There would be new charges, ones that said I killed somebody. What was going to happen to me now? My chest hurt. I couldn’t tell if my heart was racing at some insane speed or if it had completely stopped altogether.
Mom picked up the phone again. She stared at it, like she wasn’t quite sure what it was. “I should call your father,” she said in a faraway voice.
Once outside the kitchen, I leaned against the wall as sweat dripped down the middle of my back. I could hear Mom talking to Dad. She was crying.
“… second-degree murder … reduced … criminal negligence causing death … yes … I don’t know … vehicular manslaughter … maybe … Diane …”
Slipping into the bathroom, I hung over the toilet, feeling the urge to throw up. But nothing would come, only some yellowy bile that burned like acid. I splashed some cold water on my face and dragged myself back to my room. I’d forgotten all about Kasey. She was gone anyway. She must have gotten tired of waiting.
I crawled into bed and cried great gut-wrenching sobs that rattled my whole body. My eyes and throat felt as though they were on fire. Time passed. How much, I wasn’t sure. There was the sound of movement and the feeling of weight on the mattress.
Mom picked some wet pieces of hair off my cheek and tucked them behind my ear.
I turned away from her to face the wall. I couldn’t make myself speak. No words would come. There was nothing to say.
She squeezed my shoulder and more tears spilled out of my eyes like I was an over-soaked sponge. I felt her get up, then heard my door softly click shut.
The next time my eyes opened, the shadows in my room were longer, stretching across the floor, so I must have slept a bit. My eyes were swollen and my pillow was damp.
This time it was Dad sitting on the end of my bed. “Hey, Pumpkin.” His entire face looked like it was sagging downward, pulled by some invisible force.
Still not able to speak, I sat up and wrapped my arms around his neck.
He gathered me close and whispered, “It’s okay, honey, we’ll get through this,” as I cried on his shoulder. I let him hold me for a long time. It made me feel safe.
I didn’t leave my room for the rest of the day — I didn’t want to have to see Mom and Dad’s faces, watch them struggle to find something to say. Nothing was going to make this any better.
Mom kept checking on me, trying to get me to eat something. I got up and locked my door. She got the hint and stopped trying.
I wanted so badly to go back to sleep, if only to forget for a while, but I couldn’t get there. My mind would only allow me to fade in and out of some kind of never-ending nightmare. At one point, I sat right up gasping for breath, my body drenched in sweat. I almost cried with relief when I saw Kasey crouching beside me. I opened my arms to hug her but she evaporated through my fingers. She had just been part of my dream.
The next morning, I felt worse. All life had been sucked out of me and I could barely lift my head.
There was a knock on my door.
“Please leave me alone,” I said in a strangled voice. I wanted to disconnect myself from anyone and anything that existed >beyond my bedroom.
Footsteps faded away.
The hours slowly slipped by. My heart thumping in my ears was the only sound I heard. I tried to stop myself from envisioning my future, because when I did, there was nothing there. All the plans Kasey and I had. We were both going to go to King’s, take journalism, share an apartment. That was never going to happen now — not for me, anyway.
That evening there was another knock. “Libby, it’s time to open the door,” Mom said.
I didn’t answer.
“Libby.” Her voice was firmer. “You’re scaring Emma.”
The mention of her name broke through my fog. “Libby?” a tiny voice whispered from the hallway.
Wiping my eyes and nose on the edge of my sheet, I forced myself to hop over and unlock the door. Emma flung it open as soon as she heard the click and threw her arms around my hips. “Don’t be sad. It’s going to be okay,” she said, holding on tight. “Daddy said so.”
Again I thought about how wonderful it would be to be eight, and believe that Mommy and Daddy could fix everything. But I wasn’t … and they couldn’t …
I hugged her back. “Do you want to hang out in here with me?” My mouth was so dry I was hoarse.
“Can I draw some more stuff on your cast?”
“Sure.”
Mom brought us milk and peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. I watched Emma create tiny works of art on my leg until she fell asleep curled up beside me, marker in one hand, sandwich crust in the other. I drifted off soon after. Through hooded eyes I saw the outline of Dad scooping Emma off my bed.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
Chapter 22
The ticking on the window woke me up. I raised one hand to shield against the daylight and the other to wave at Kasey to go away. She scowled back at me. I ignored her and buried my head under the pillows, desperate to shut out my new reality.
Sometime later I dug myself out for air, and there, sitting cross-legged on the floor, was Kasey. I blinked a few times. “When’d you —?”
“I figured you fell back to sleep. You didn’t move or anything. I
thought I’d just wait.”
“Maybe I did …” I rubbed my eyes. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore …”
“I’m sorry about what happened,” she said.
“Please, Kasey, go home,” I sighed. “I want to be by myself … I’d better get used to it.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
I sat up on my elbows. “I’m probably going to jail, you know.” My voice was squeaky with emotion. “Me. Jail. Can you understand why I don’t feel like talking right now?”
She didn’t say anything. She just stared at me with her lips pinched together.
I stared right back at her. “Leave. Now.”
“No.”
“What?” I flopped back on my bed.
“You’re not going to jail,” she said, standing up.
“What?!” I repeated. How dare she say something like that? Who did she think she was? “You don’t know!”
“A lot can happen between now and the trial.”
I reached for my crutches and hauled myself up to face her. “Could you please stop talking and get out?” I said tightly.
She raised her eyebrows. “Why are you mad at me?”
“Because! Because I-I …” My shoulders began to shake. “I don’t kn-know.” I didn’t think I was physically able to cry any more, the muscles in my chest hurt so much, but out of nowhere tears sprung to my eyes and streamed down my cheeks. I didn’t bother to wipe them away.
“It’s okay,” Kasey said.
Hugging my arms around myself, I sat back down and wept quietly for a few minutes.
Kasey sat beside me. “I get it. I really do,” she soothed. Then she crossed her legs and jiggled her foot while she waited patiently for me to pull myself together. When I finally reached for a Kleenex and blew my nose, she said, “Are you done now?”
I leaned away, speechless, and gawked at her.
“I’m not trying to be a hardass, Lib — okay, maybe a bit — but time’s up. You have to remember what happened that night, and I mean now.”
“Why?” I shrugged. “What difference will it make?”
“Have you forgotten about Cal? Time to find out what he’s lying about. Time to find out what that loser’s hiding.”
I had forgotten about Cal. But I couldn’t bring myself to think about him right now. I just didn’t care. “Kasey …”
“Remember in the summer, we watched that movie, Head Case?” When I didn’t reply, she pushed on. “With the gorgeous psychic guy who helped the police?”
“No,” I said, wadding up my Kleenex and tossing it in the general direction of my garbage can.
“Think. You’re not even trying. They found the girl wandering in the woods? She’d been in a car accident? Everyone in the car was dead, but she couldn’t remember what happened.”
“Look, I don—” I paused for a second. The girl, she was covered in blood. “Wait. I think …” The psychic had an accent. “I do remember. He used music.”
“There’d been a CD in the car. He got her to lie down, concentrate, and listen to the music — the same music that had been playing that night.”
My heart sped up a little. “And it worked. She remembered.”
“I know it’s only a movie, but you wanna try?”
Surprisingly, I found myself considering it. Could this really work? What did I have to lose? “Yeah. Yeah I do.”
“Okay,” she said, and clapped her hands together all businesslike. “We were listening to Madonna on the way to the party. Do you remember that?”
“Madonna,” I repeated, staring off at nothing, willing the memory to come back. A picture finally began to form.
“I’m so psyched!” Kasey yelled, slamming the car door. “Where’s your mom’s Madonna cassette?” She started rooting around in the glove box. “Bingo! I can’t believe she still has these. You should take them on the Antiques Road Show or something.” She slipped it into the cassette deck and immediately started singing at the top of her lungs. “This song’s like thirty years old! Why do we know all the words?!” I tried to laugh, hoping her enthusiasm would rub off on me, but all I wanted was to go home.
“I remember. You thought you knew all the words, but really you got most of them wrong,” I said.
“Thanks,” she smirked. “More importantly, that music was probably still on when you and Cal were in the car.”
“Hmmm,” I nodded. “The radio doesn’t work, so that’s a good bet. But the cassette would have been trashed in the accident.”
“We need the exact same music. You must have the CD.”
“No … wait, though. I might have most of the songs.” I opened my bedside table drawer and pulled out my iPod. “Mom got me to download a bunch of Madonna and make her a playlist. She listens to it when she vacuums.” I scrolled through the menu. “Yup, here it is. I can even put them in the same order as on the cassette.”
When I finished making a new playlist, I untangled my earphones and stuck them in my ears. “I think we’re good to go.”
“Lie down and make yourself totally relax,” Kasey said.
I did as she instructed, arranging my cast to get comfortable. “I should close my eyes, right?”
“Definitely. Actually, you should probably try to almost fall asleep.”
“Okay.” I shut my eyes.
“Press play, and completely clear your mind,” Kasey whispered. “Let everything go …”
The music started. I did some deep breathing, concentrated on relaxing all my muscles, and let the words and melody wash over me. The first song finished. Nothing. Then the next, and the next. It wasn’t working. I sighed in frustration.
“Don’t give up,” Kasey said. “It’s only been a few songs.”
“Live to Tell” sounded in my ears. About halfway through the song, suddenly there was a brightness beneath my eyelids, and I tried to bring whatever it was into focus.
A streetlamp. It shone down a cone of light and reflected off the raindrops splattered on the car window. Just past Cal’s shoulder I could make out the last part of a sign on a brick building: “worth Park School.” I was in the parking lot of Grosvenor Wentworth Elementary — my old school.
I didn’t know why I was there, but I knew how I felt — scared. The armrest dug into my back and I reached behind, feeling for the door handle.
He moved closer, almost on top of me, momentarily blocking the light. “Babe, just relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”
His voice sounded like buzzing in my ears and I was aware of him pressing against me, his hand on the bare skin of my leg, then on my waist under my T-shirt. I tried wriggling away, twisting my body, but the car was small and I was stuck. There was no place to go. His lips were wet, leaving a trail of slobber all over my face as I jerked my head from side to side.
Fear urged me on, and I struggled harder, pushing on his chest with all my strength. He grabbed my wrists and pinned them with his hands. Then he wedged his knee between my legs, making it impossible to move. The only thing I could do was scream, “No! Get off !” but nobody was there to hear me. I caught a whiff of his breath. Liquor. It smelled sour and sweet at the same time. A wave of nausea rolled over me. “I’m going to be sick!” I shouted.
“Shut the hell up!” Somehow he managed to trap both my wrists with only one of his hands and undo his belt with the other. I knew what was coming next. A blast of adrenaline shot through me and I drove my knee into his groin.
He yelped out in pain, pulled back and covered his crotch with his hand. “Bitch!”
My eyes flew open.
Pulse racing, I yanked out the earphones.
“Are you okay?” Kasey asked. “You were making some pretty scary faces.”
I sat up and presse
d my hand to my chest, feeling my heart thumping like crazy. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“It’s working, isn’t it? You’re remembering.” She knelt beside me. “Talk to me.”
“Not yet. I have to keep going.” I lay back on the pillow. My hands trembled as I replaced the earphones.
The song started again. I closed my eyes and tried to even out my breathing. After a second, the brightness returned.
I was back in the car, wrenching my hands out of Cal’s grasp and swatting at his face with my fingernails.
“Friggin’ tease!” he spat, wrestling against my flailing arms. “Think you can string me along all night, and not follow through?!”
There was something about his eyes, his voice. It was like he was possessed.
My stomach contracted again. Liquid filled my mouth and leaked out the sides. I choked it back down. “I told you! I’m going to throw up!” I tried grabbing for the door handle one more time, but he was too fast and reached over and slammed the lock down.
He paused briefly, took a good look at me, then pushed me away in disgust. “Sit there and shut your damn mouth!” He started the car and peeled out of the parking lot.
Whimpering, I curled myself into the seat. Outside whizzed by, the interior of the car illuminated by pops of light from the passing street lamps. I saw the fog in the headlights, heard the wipers swishing back and forth. The left one squeaked, over and over. “Please slow down!”
He clenched his jaw and stared straight ahead, swearing under his breath.
“I have to throw up! Pull over!”
The car jolted as Cal’s hand shot out towards me. Whatever he’d been trying to do, he failed. There was a sound of squealing breaks that seemed to last forever. The noise was so real in my head it snapped me back.
I whipped out the earphones and sat up. Kasey was still kneeling beside me, a stunned expression on her face.
“Do you know what you just said?” Her voice was breathless and her eyes huge.
“I said something out loud?”
“Yeah.”
I went over the scene still fresh in my head. “I … I told him to pull over … It was so I could open the door and throw up.”
She nodded slowly. “Soooo, what does that tell us?”
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