“Alex, answer me!”
“It’s nothing,” I tell her after a few seconds. “I just dropped my glass of water and was worried I had cut myself, but I’m fine.” I force myself to giggle. Anna looks at me dubiously. She knows I never giggle.
The guys are looking at me skeptically, too, finding it hard to believe me, but not wanting to say as much.
I just want them all to leave so I can figure out what is going on and convince myself I am not crazy. But I know in order to do that, I have to assure them everything is fine. I was never good at lying, but since the day I was sworn to secrecy my skills have improved dramatically, and I am determined to get through this so I can be alone with my thoughts. I plaster a look of innocence on my face while trying to come up with an acceptable explanation.
“I came in here to get a glass of water. I was feeling a little groggy so I splashed some water on my face. I guess my hands were still wet and the glass just slipped.” That is the best excuse I can come up with, and I’m pretty sure it’s convincing.
They all look at one another, silently questioning whether they should believe me. God, I hope they do. No one says anything and I’m starting to get nervous and irritated. “Look, I’m fine. I’m just tired, so, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go take a shower and lie down.” Still, no one says anything. I huff out a breath of air. “Seriously, everything’s fine, so stop looking at me like I’m some pitiful lost child who needs your help. It’s been a long day and I just want to clean up and go to bed.” I’m starting to lose my patience and I can hear it in the tone of my voice.
“Okay, fine. We’re just worried about you, Alex, but if you say you’re fine, then I guess you are,” Anna says, running her fingers along the hem of her “I heart Paris” shirt that she got when our family vacationed there two summers ago. What I wouldn’t give to be away from this whole mess and back in the City of Love with my whole family. The unshed tears are burning my eyes and I know I have to get out of here before I break down.
“Thank you, I am,” I squeak out, walking around them to get to the stairs so I can escape up to my room. Luke grabs my arm as I pass, and I crane my head to look up at him. I know he doesn’t believe me, but there’s nothing more I can do or say to convince him. I force myself to smile at him and I feel some of the tension leave his rigid body. “Really, Luke, I promise, I’m fine,” I tell him, leaning up on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek.
“Okay,” he says. “ I had your sister put my number in your cell and she did the same for me, so if you need me just call. It doesn’t matter the time, I’ll be there.”
The sincerity in his voice is clear and I don’t doubt his words. “All right, I’ll talk you tomorrow.” I squeeze his hand and head up the stairs, thankful the confrontation is over. I’m not sure how much longer I could have stood there and kept up the lie.
I reach my room and the shakes return, spreading from my legs up to my head. Tears spill down and over cheeks, obstructing my vision. Get it together, Alex, I tell myself. The guy at the bar, the letter, it was one big joke, like Anna said. Just some idiot trying to get his kicks by torturing me. It was just a joke. It was just a joke. I keep repeating this mantra over and over to myself and eventually the tension begins to uncurl itself. I take a few deep, cleansing breathes, wipe the tears from my eyes, and head to bathroom, turning on the shower.
I make the water as hot as I can stand without scorching myself and melt into the warmth. Steamy rivulets cascade over my skin, washing away my anxiety. I watch, in an almost hypnotic state as the soap bubbles swirl around the drain like a cyclone before receding. With my body a little more relaxed and my mind somewhat clearer, I begin to replay the day in my head, looking for any clues that may tell me what the hell is going on and who the hell is messing with me.
“Carlson,” I say out loud. I finally have his last name! I rush through washing my hair, and skip shaving. I have more important things to worry about, like doing some major investigating. Hopefully my childhood hobby of reading Nancy Drew books will pay off and I can put to use some of her detective skills. My foot slips on the wet floor while stepping out of the shower, but, luckily, I’m able catch myself on the sink before I crash to the floor. The last thing I need is for everyone to come barging into the bathroom, with me in all my glory, to make sure I’m all right. I stand there for a few minutes, staring at my reflection in the mirror. I wipe my hand across the surface to clear away the fog. My face is too pale, highlighting the blotchiness covering my cheeks, and my eyes have dark circles under them. God, I look hideous. I grab some of Anna’s face scrub and apply it, rubbing vigorously. I pinch my cheeks a few times trying to get some color into them, but all it does is add to the red blotches. Oh, well, I give up. I just need a good night’s rest, but I doubt that’s going to happen. Not tonight anyway.
I THROW ON SOME GYM SHORTS and my old Hilldale High t-shirt and crawl into bed with my laptop. I pick up my phone from my nightstand and pull up Luke’s contact information. I stare at his number, reciting them in my head, debating calling him. He probably hasn’t even made it home yet. I’m sure he would come back if I asked him to. But what would he think about me cyber stalking Tyler. I drop my phone on the bed, deciding against calling him, and boot up my laptop. I reach for the phone again. Maybe he won’t think I’m crazy. He knows what happened tonight. He would understand my reasoning. NO! I have to do this myself. I power off my phone and shove it under my pillow. Out of sight, out of mind.
Going back to my computer, I pull up Facebook, figuring that would be the best place to start since everyone has a Facebook page. I type “Tyler Carlson” into the search bar and get several results, but after looking through each profile carefully, I determine none of them belong to him. I thought everyone used Facebook. What’s up with this guy? I decide to check other social media sites, even the long-forgotten MySpace, but come up with nothing. I slam the top down and flop back on my pillows, aggravated and exhausted, despite my earlier nap. Anna comes into our room shortly after, but I pretend to be asleep. I’m really not up for her questions right now.
During the night, I dream of that day. That horrible, life-altering day. I sit bolt upright in bed with the images still clear in my mind: two bloodied bodies, one an older man and the other a teenage boy that looks strikingly like Tyler, and my dad yelling at me to leave. Will this ever stop, this dream that has haunted my sleep for months? I tiptoe into the bathroom, careful not to wake Anna, and wash the sweat off my face. I come out of the bathroom just as Anna’s alarm clock goes off. I ease back into bed and once again pretend to be asleep. I’m still not ready to deal with Anna and her questions.
Her alarm goes off a few more times before she finally decides to get up. I listen to her going about her normal routine until she finally heads out the door. I release a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding and crawl out of bed to go downstairs.
I spot Mom sitting at the kitchen table wrapped in her housecoat, drinking coffee, and reading People magazine. She has always been a sucker for celebrity gossip. I don’t see Zack anywhere so he must still be in bed. After tossing and turning for most of the night, I could really go for a caffeinated pick-me-up, but I forgo the coffee and instead opt for a big glass of orange juice. I sit across from Mom and she lays her magazine down on the table after folding the page down. “Everything okay, Alex?”
“Yep, everything’s good. I just didn’t sleep well for some reason,” I tell her, sipping my orange juice.
“Did you have a good time with Anna yesterday?” Mom asks, bringing her steaming cup of coffee to her mouth.
“Yeah, it was okay,” I tell her, shrugging my shoulders.
“You don’t seem so sure. Did something happen?” I know Mom’s just concerned and interested, but these questions are really starting to bug me. She blows on her coffee, sending the fragrant steam in my direction, waiting for me to answer. Something happened all right, I think, but I don’
t dare tell her that.
“Nope, it was fine.” I quickly finish my orange juice and place the empty glass in the sink. I head back toward the stairs, knowing that the only way to avoid her interrogation is to lock myself in my room.
“Oh, Alex, a package came for you. It’s on the table by the door.”
I stop at the bottom of the steps, my hand resting on the banister, and turn to face Mom. “For me, are you sure?”
“Well, it had your name on it, so unless you know another Alex Spurlock in this house then I guess it belongs to you,” Mom says sarcastically. I snatch the package off the table and run to my room.
It’s a small brown package with no return address or postage on it. Like the letter, it must have been delivered in person. I consider not opening it, afraid of what I might find inside, but my curiosity gets the best of me. I grab some scissors out of my desk drawer, and with slightly trembling hands, I carefully cut through the tape, hoping the mysterious package isn’t about to blow up or anything. I flip open the flaps and jump back, not knowing if something is going to pop out at me or explode in my face. When I decide I’m in the clear, I start digging through the peanut shells inside and pull out a cell phone. I set it on my bed and dump the rest of the packaging shells out of the box, hoping to find a card or something that will tell me who sent it, but there’s nothing.
I flip the phone over in my hand, examining it. It’s just your typical cell phone, although it’s probably one of the cheaper ones you would buy at Wal-Mart. I power it on and am alerted that there is a new text. I go to the inbox, opening the message. It’s a picture with a title that says, “I know.” I watch the little hourglass spin around and around until the image finally finishes downloading. It’s a snapshot of a crumpled car, and not just any car. It’s the car I hit. Oh, my God! No, this can’t be happening. The phone falls from my hand and lands on the bed. I run into the bathroom, violently dispelling the orange juice I just drank and maybe even some of the pizza from last night.
Once my stomach is empty, I force myself to get up on shaky legs and lock the bathroom door. I turn on the shower to drown out the sounds of my uncontrollable sobbing. Why would someone do this? They know. Someone knows the truth. No, that’s not possible. No one knows except for Dad and me. God, I really need my dad right now. The thought only makes me cry harder. I speak to my Dad occasionally, but I haven’t seen him since he left. He said it would be best if we didn’t visit for a while and let things settle down. He wanted us to get used to him not being around. But I really need him now. He is the only one who knows exactly what happened and I need to talk to him privately, not on some recorded phone line. I splash some cold water on my face and go search for Mom.
I don’t find her in the living room or in the kitchen, so I call out for her. “Mom, where are you?”
“I’m in the laundry room,” she calls back as I’m heading that way. She looks up at me, throwing an armload of wet clothes in the dryer. “Did you need something?” she asks. I look down at the floor, trying to muster up the courage to ask her about Dad. “What’s wrong, Alex?” Her voice is laced with worry.
“Nothing, it’s just….” The words get clogged in my throat like a popcorn kernel that refuses to go down no matter how much soda you drink. Come on, Alex, just ask her, I tell myself. “I’d like to go see Dad. I know he wanted us to stay away for a while, but it’s been months now and, well, I miss him and I really think it’s time for us to go see him,” I spill out in one long jumbled sentence. I’m still staring down at the ground when Mom places her finger under my chin, forcing me to look up at her and her tearstained cheeks.
“I was just thinking the same thing, sweetie.”
I can no longer fight the well of emotions clogging my chest. I throw my arms around her neck and we cry together.
“Um, what’s going on?” Zack asks, padding into the room on bare feet. He has serious bed hair, and he scratches his bare chest that is just starting to sprout a few lonely blonde hairs. Zack is only fourteen but he has already outgrown most of the boys in his grade. He stands about five-nine with sandy blonde hair that he spikes up in the front and eyes as blue as a cloudless sky. He’s what I imagine Dad would have looked like at that age.
“I’ve decided we’re going to go see your dad today,” Mom tells him, loosening her embrace on me. I’m not quite ready to let go of her so I keep my arms wrapped around her waist and cock my head to look at Zack.
“Really? Awesome! Well, come on, let’s go!” Zack says, his voice full of excitement. He heads toward the garage, making Mom and me laugh. Zack turns and looks at us, his eyes scrunched up in confusion. “What? What’s so funny?”
“Well, for starters, Anna isn’t back from swim practice yet, and second, I think you may be forgetting something,” Mom tells him, pointing to his bare feet and chest.
“Oh, right, guess I better go get dressed.” He runs a hand through his hair, mussing it up more, and heads back to his room.
“Yeah, that would probably be a good idea,” Mom responds, still laughing. “You go ahead and get ready, too, Alex. Anna should be here soon and then we’ll need to be on the road no later than nine. I’ll double check, but I’m pretty sure visiting hours today are from three to five.”
I run as fast as I can back up to my room, both excited and nervous. I can’t wait to see Dad, but I hate that I’ll have to give him bad news. Someone knows our secret and is using it against me, but Dad will know what to do, he always does. He’ll know exactly how to put an end to this, or at least I hope he will.
SIX HOURS, THREE REST STOPS, and switching drivers twice, we finally arrive at the Pawson Community Corrections Facility, a lackluster building surrounded by barbed wire fence and a guard tower. We’re ushered inside by two armed guards who point us toward the check-in area. We walk up to the desk where a portly female guard sits listening to a scanner and we sign our names in the visitor’s log.
“I need to see some identification.” The woman’s voice is raspy and sounds like she smokes two packs of cigarettes a day. We hand her our IDs and she takes her precious time scanning them into the system. She basically throws them back at us as she asks, not so nicely, who we are there to visit.
“We’re here to see my husband, Mason Spurlock,” Mom tells her with just a hint of an attitude, which earns Mom a “go to Hell” look from Officer Bitchy.
The guard checks something on her computer and then speaks into her walkie-talkie to let someone know we will be arriving in the Block B visitor’s area.
A spindly Barney Fife-like guard escorts us to the double steel doors and then through a metal detector. Once he clears us to enter, a burly guard guides us down a long corridor. The bare gray cinderblock walls feel as if they’re closing in on us. I reach out for Anna’s hand as we hurry to reach the big white metal door at the end of the hall. The guard enters some numbers on the keypad under the “Visitor’s Area” sign, and we hear the loud thunk of the tumblers turning in the steel locks. The guard ushers us in and two more guards greet us kindly. One politely asks us to have a seat at the table by the guard station.
While we wait anxiously, I use the time to look around. It’s a fairly big room, about the size of my old high school gym, with rusty tables and chairs placed throughout. There are no windows; the only light in the room comes from the buzzing fluorescent bulbs overhead. Other than the set of doors we used, there is another, which I assume are the ones Dad will come through. Two guards stand at each set of doors, their arms folded across their chests, their guns holstered on their sides. In the center of the room is a guard station that is completely enclosed with what looks like plastic windows along the top half. Inside, I can see four guards looking out. There’s no way I’ll be able to talk to Dad with all of these guards around. There are probably cameras and listening devices everywhere.
The doors opposite the ones we entered open wide, and I hear Mom’s sha
rp intake of breath.
Two more guards escort my dad inside. My heart swells at the sight of him. He’s wearing an orange jumpsuit with matching sandals and white socks. He shuffles toward us, his hands cuffed in front of him and hooked to a chain that encircles his waist and drops to the shackles around his ankles. He looks like he’s lost some weight and has about a week’s worth of beard on his face, but everything else about him is the same. The confidence in his stride, the kindness in his eyes, and the love in his smile.
The guards exchange some words, then they un-cuff my dad, the chain clanking loudly as they unwrap his waist and ankles. He immediately heads in our direction. Tears course down my face, but I don’t even notice until someone sets a box of tissues on the table in front of me. I quickly grab one and wipe my nose and eyes while sliding the box over to my sister who’s in no better shape than I am. The only ones who seem to be holding it together right now are Zack and Dad. The glistening in Dad’s eyes, though, tells me he is struggling a bit, too. He reaches the table and we all stare at one another for what seems like forever, but it’s probably only a few seconds before Mom breaks the silence.
“Can we hug you?” she asks softly, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.
“Of course, you can. Come here,” Dad says in his strong voice, pulling her toward him and hugging her tightly as if he will never let go. Eventually, we kids get our turns, but when he wraps me in his familiar hug, he lingers just a little longer and whispers in my ear, “You hanging in there, baby girl?”
I can’t speak past the lump in my throat, so I nod my head against his chest, smearing my tears on his jumpsuit. He pats my back and lets me go, settling into the chair beside Mom.
“I’m so glad you all came! How do you guys like New Hope?”
“It’s good,” Mom tells him. “The people are very pleasant and welcoming.”
“Anna, are you still on the swim team?” Dad asks, his eyes showing pride for his daughter.
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