This is What Goodbye Looks Like

by Olivia Rivers

  I nod, but then I realize he can’t see my response. “Um, yeah. I remember. You were looking for someone to help you take photos, right?”

  “Yeah. And I think you’d actually make a perfect photographer for it.”

  “Why?”

  “Like I said, you remind me of my brother. And it was his project originally. He was just about to graduate from college early with a degree in Photography, so this was supposed to be his final thesis project. The bulk of it was a thirty-page paper that he already finished and turned it. But then he also had to create a gallery of his own pictures to go along with his paper, and he died before he could finish it, so...yeah.”

  Seth clears his throat. “I got a hold of one of his advisers at the university. She said she needs the completed thesis turned in by the end of the semester if there’s any chance of Parker still getting that degree awarded to him. So I lied and told her Parker actually finished the photo part of the project, but I just need a few weeks to pull the pictures off his laptop and get them organized. She extended the deadline until mid-April, but now I actually need to get the rest of those photos taken so I can turn in a completed project.”

  My words stay frozen in my throat as snow starts to drift down around us. Ms. Thorne had warned me about Seth’s obsession with this project, and she’d asked me to stop him from working on it. To convince him it wasn’t necessary. But as I stare at his grief-stricken face, pulled tight with anxiety as he waits for my answer, there’s no way I can believe it’s unnecessary.

  “We should get back inside,” Seth says, his voice sounding exhausted.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “It’s starting to snow, and I’m not going to be responsible for you getting frostbite.”

  “No, I mean, why do you want to get that degree for your brother? Seth, it’s...it’s not going to bring him back.”

  “That’s why I need to get the degree,” he says, his words suddenly desperate and rushed. “Because it was Parker’s dream for years, and he might not be around anymore, but that degree is. He deserves to have his dream survive, even if he can’t.”

  “I’ll do it,” I say. The words slip from me before I can think them through, but as soon as they’re out, I realize I don’t even want to take them back. “I’ll help you with the project. Just tell me what to do, and, yeah. I...I’ll do it.”

  Seth deflates then, his shoulders sagging and breath heaving from his chest. For a moment, I think I’ve said something wrong, but then he hoarsely murmurs, “Thank you. Really. It means a lot.”

  I wonder if I’m finally helping Seth instead of hurting him. Taking a couple pictures will never, ever make up for what I did, but still...it’s obviously a comfort. And I have absolutely no right to deny him any comfort I can offer.

  “So are you going to tell me what this project is?” I ask.

  He bites at the inside of his cheek. “It’s a thesis project, so it’s definitely not something I can explain quickly. But how about we meet in the library tomorrow and go over stuff properly. At eight-thirty, maybe?”

  “Eight-thirty in the morning? It’s the weekend.”

  He shrugs, but his tone is unapologetic as he says, “I like mornings.”

  “Okay,” I say, giving a reluctant nod. “Eight-thirty it is.”

  He nods and pats his leg, silently calling Koda. She comes bounding across the patio, skidding to a stop hardly inches from him. Then she trots over to me, licks my hand, and dutifully goes back to Seth’s side, looking up at him with adoring eyes and a lolling tongue.

  I head back inside, leaving behind the cold and the snow, and Seth hovers next to me with Koda guiding him along.

  “Sorry she keeps licking you,” he says, absently stroking his dog’s head. “She doesn’t usually do that, you know.”

  “It’s no problem,” I say, reaching over to ruffle Koda’s ears. “I like it.”

  “I knew you were a dog person,” Seth says, sounding almost smug.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He offers me a vague smile. “It means dogs have good taste.”

  Brie waves at us as we step back into the main room, and the others toss out greetings like we’ve been gone for days instead of just fifteen minutes. Cameron suggests getting coffee across the street, and waves around a couple twenties, saying he’ll buy. Judging by Landon’s scowl, I get the feeling he just lost the cash over a pinball game. Everyone starts packing up their stuff and throwing coats back on, and we’re about to leave when a hand brushes my shoulder, the touch a strange mixture of strength and gentleness.

  “Thanks,” Seth says softly as the others push past us, heading for the door.

  I wait for myself to cringe away from his touch, but instead, a sense of warmth washes over me. “Like I said, it’s no problem,” I say, hoping I don’t sound as confused as I feel. “I’ll bring my camera tomorrow, and we can get started.”

  “No, not that. Well, yeah, thanks for that, too. But thanks for not calling me crazy for wanting to finish Parker’s project.”

  He offers me a small, soft smile that’s a thousand times more sincere than the one on my lips. If there’s anything insane about him, it’s that he still manages an expression that genuine when he’s in so much pain.

  “You’re not crazy,” I say. “You just care.”

  “Sometimes I think they’re the same thing,” he murmurs, his smile falling away.

  I nod slowly. “Sometimes I think you’re right.”

  Before he can make me explain, I follow the others outside, holding my breath as I brace against the inevitable surge of cold.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I’m exhausted by the time we get back to our dorm, but Brie somehow still has enough energy to hurry off to a late-night study group for her French club. She’s just like all the other students here—never still, always productive. It’s dawning on me that I don’t stand a chance of maintaining my top-of-the-class status, and a year ago, I would have been crumbling into a panicked mess. Now it hardly seems to matter. If my GPA is doomed anyway, it at least gives me an excuse to focus on Seth’s project.

  It’s nine o’clock when Brie leaves, and our room is eerily quiet as soon as the door closes behind her. The memory of my sister’s scream keeps cycling through my mind, piercing the silence every time I glance over at the camera resting on my nightstand. It’s been sitting there all week, and it looks just the same as always—black frame, torn shoulder strap, cracked lens and digital screen. But the damage is minimal, and as I hesitantly pick it up, I flick at the camera’s power button. The broken screen stays dark, but I know it would light up if I’d just give the battery a short charge.

  If I’m going to help Seth with his project, I’ll have to get my camera fixed. Brie mentioned that there’s a photography shop in town, but the thought of handing it over to a careless stranger for repairs makes my stomach clench. Camille gave me this camera, and she was so proud of her gift, and it was so perfect, and...

  I couldn’t deal with losing it. It’d be like losing a part of her.

  My fingers absently trail over the little memory card socket, and I flip it open. The card’s still in there, the same one from the night of the accident. I have dozens of pictures stored on here from our family reunion, images of smiling relatives and the huge feast my aunt and uncle cooked for dinner.

  There’s also the video.

  After the accident, when the hospital finally released me, the first thing I did was check to see if the video survived the wreck. I remember holding my breath as the files from the memory card downloaded onto my laptop, one after another. I silently wished for an error message to pop up and tell me that the files had been corrupted, that the memory card had been ruined by the impact. But then the video popped up on my screen, the last and most recent file on the memory card.

  “Begin Playback?” my laptop had asked me. I started the video, making it through only a few seconds of dim, shaky footage before I exited out of my file-vie
wing program. It was long enough to confirm that the video was intact and could provide solid evidence, but I couldn’t stomach watching any more.

  I already knew what the rest of the video would show. It’d been a simple idea, maybe even a smart one if things had worked out. My mom always claimed that she could drive fine even when she was drunk, and that night, I had been determined to get proof of how bad she actually was. So I’d discreetly trained my camera’s focus on the road and set it to video mode. It had started recording right away, capturing the sight of the swerving road and the sound of my mom mumbling hasty apologies.

  In the morning, when the alcohol was out of her system, I’d planned to show her the video. I was sure it would shock her into a true apology, make her promise to never drive drunk again and go into rehab. And maybe she’d even follow through on those promises this time.

  Then a beat-up Honda Civic had appeared, its chipped paint glistening in our headlights.

  Parker Ashbury had been singing along to the radio right before we hit. That was the one glimpse I got of him before his expression twisted with horror—in the seconds before he realized we were about to collide, his lips had been curved in a smile as he sang the lyrics of a Mumford and Sons song. When the brakes stopped squealing, and the metal stopped screeching, the crackling radio of the wrecked Civic kept spitting out the chorus of that song. If there’s one sound in the world I’ll never forget, it’s that one—the lyrics of the cheery folk song mixing with the gurgling of Parker’s last breaths.

  I stare down at the memory card in my hand, gliding my fingertip over its smooth surface. As soon as I realized the video was intact, I’d decided getting rid of the evidence was the best option. But when I unplugged the card from my laptop and got ready to put it through Dad’s paper shredder... I couldn’t do it. Days passed, then weeks, then months, and I still couldn’t bring myself to destroy the card once and for all. So I put it back in my ruined camera and kept it hidden.

  Sometimes I want to think I did the right thing, but I know it’s just another lie. The right thing would have been to press the memory card into the hand of the nearest police officer. If I’d just turned in the card to the authorities, if they’d just seen the video, if they had solid evidence of what actually happened...

  Then an innocent boy would still be dead, and my sister would still be trapped in a coma, and I’d still be stuck with ruined legs. Everything would be exactly the same, except my mom would be sentenced to prison. I did the right thing. I had to protect her.

  Even if she wouldn’t protect me.

  I clench my fist around the card, letting the sharp edges dig into my palm. For one bizarre moment, I have the urge to slip it under Seth’s door so he can see his brother’s last moments and know the truth. But that idea is crazy on too many levels to count, especially since Seth can’t even see anything at all.

  I fall back on my bed and stare at the ceiling. The accident cycles through my mind a dozen times over, first fast, then slow, then fast again. Always the same crushing impact. Always the same gut-wrenching scream. I know better than to try squeezing my eyes shut against the images—the darkness just reminds me of that night on the road, and how it’d seemed so still in the moments before the crash.

  I’m going to have to get a new memory card, I realize. This one I can hide somewhere, but there’s no way I can use this same card to store the pictures for Parker’s project. That’d just be sick. Well, pretty much everything about this situation is sick, but it’d be sicker than usual.

  I add a memory card to the mental list of supplies I’ll need to pick up from that photography store. Then I stick the card back in my camera and rest it gently on my nightstand. I grab my backpack from the base of my bed, and it only takes me a couple moments to crack open my Chemistry textbook and immerse myself in the latest chapter. A swirl of numbers and theories and equations fills my mind, driving back the squeal of crunching metal.

  For a little while, at least.

  Chapter Fourteen

  For the first time, Prosecutor Whittaker looked visibly agitated, his bushy eyebrows furrowed as he paced in front of me. It was my third day on the stand, and he had abandoned his casual sitting and patient questions. The court session had started only a few minutes ago, but I could already tell that things were going to proceed differently today. The hushed audience in the courtroom seemed to think the same, and the room was filled with wide eyes lined with dark bags.

  “Now tell me, Miss Alessio,” he said, using that phrase I despised. “Was the accident a direct result of your mother’s drunkenness?”

  In my mind, I saw our car approaching the darkened bend in the road. “I’m not sure, sir.”

  “Did you see the accident happen?”

  “Yes, sir. I told you, I was conscious throughout the accident.”

  And after. I was awake to see Parker’s broken body lying next to his wrecked car, to try to run over and help, to scream in agony when my shattered legs refused to move right. To scream even louder when I realized Camille couldn’t move at all.

  Whittaker nodded curtly. “Yes, I’m sorry you had to witness it. But can you please describe what happened in the moments leading up to the accident?”

  I stopped to take a sip of water from my flimsy, styrofoam cup, and my shaking hand made some slosh into my lap. I stared at the droplets as they soaked into my skirt, the cool water chilling my throbbing knee.

  “Parker Ashbury’s car came around the bend on Greystone Road, and we collided.”

  Whittaker rubbed at his neatly trimmed beard, muffling a sigh. “Yes, that’s already been established multiple times. But who caused the accident?”

  My eyes drifted up to the front row of seats, locking with Mom’s. She was sitting with her shoulders straight and her hands clasped in her lap, but even from up on the stand, I could see the tremors running through her. I thought of all the brownies those shaking hands helped me bake, all the patches they sewed onto my Girl Scouts uniform, all the math homework they helped me solve. How could they also be the hands that steered straight into Parker’s path?

  I knew it wasn’t too late to turn over the video. I could clear up the events of the accident without leaving a single speck of doubt. I could give the Ashbury family honesty and closure, even if it was such a pathetic offering compared to what had been stolen from them.

  Or I could save my mom from a prison sentence and keep my own family intact.

  I took a shuddering breath. “You’re right when you say my mom was drunk,” I murmured into the microphone.

  Whittaker raised his eyebrows, as if surprised I’d actually admitted it that bluntly. “But is this what caused the crash?”

  The scene flashed in front of me, making me flinch. Mom’s SUV had hit a small pothole and lurched out of control for half a second. If anyone sober had been driving, it would have caused a single moment of panic before the car righted itself. But Mom had jerked the wheel too hard, dragging the car into a sharp correction that sent us skidding into the opposite lane.

  The same lane where Parker Ashbury was driving toward us at forty miles per hour.

  “Miss Alessio?”

  I shook my head to clear it as Whittaker’s voice broke me out of the memory. He must have thought it was an answer, because he said, “Please remember to speak out loud and into the microphone for the record. Did your mother cause the accident on the night of May fourth?”

  I forced in a deep breath. “My mom wasn’t the only person who had been drinking that night,” I said, reciting exactly what my dad had told me to say. “Parker Ashbury had alcohol in his system, too. The coroner’s report said so.”

  Parker’s name was like acid on my tongue, and I wanted to spit it out and apologize to his family for daring to use it. In the corner of the courtroom, I heard a sharp gasp, but I didn’t need to look up to know who it belonged to. Parker’s mother seemed to have been stripped of words, but her small gasps were like sharpened exclamation points stabbing int
o me every few minutes.

  “Yes, Parker had alcohol in his bloodstream,” Whittaker said with one of his careful nods. “But it was a perfectly legal amount.”

  “Barely,” I said. “It was at point-zero-six percent, right? That’s nearly illegal, and more than enough to get most people tipsy.”

  More gasps came from Parker’s family, but now murmuring from the jury box joined in. Shame coursed through my veins, hot and thick. No matter how many times Dad told me it was a reasonable argument, I knew it wasn’t. Parker was a twenty-one-year-old who drank regularly and was close to six feet tall. He might have been close to being drunk by legal standards, but in reality, he probably would have needed several more drinks to really get drunk.

  Whittaker gave an exasperated sigh. “What exactly are you saying, Miss Alessio? That Parker was the one who caused the accident?”

  I remembered the horror on Parker’s face in the split second before the accident. His bright blue eyes had been frozen like that when he died—pained and terrified and shocked.

  I opened my mouth to tell the truth, but then I pictured another scene—my sister waking up, and her blue eyes mirroring that same expression as she discovered the aftermath of the accident. Months lost to a coma, her normal life completely ripped to shreds. I couldn’t rip her mom away, too. Losing Parker had devastated the Ashbury family. I couldn’t sentence Mom to rot away in prison and inflict the same sort of loss on my little sister.

  “Miss Alessio, please answer the question,” Whittaker said, his voice tense with impatience. “Was it your mother who caused the accident, or was it Parker Ashbury?”

  “Parker came around a bend in the road,” I murmured, my voice quiet despite the microphone in front of me. “We barely even had time to see him. He hit a pothole, and he lost control and swerved into our lane. And that was when he hit us.”