My fingers wrapped around the neck of the bottle, pulled it toward my lips. I only intended to have a sip. To simply feel the stinging fire racing down my throat. But I kept going. After several gulps, Adam pulled the bottle from my mouth, yanked it from my clasped fingers.
“That’s enough,” he said.
I swiped my hand across my chin, flinging droplets of the liquid into the night. “Since when do you have a vote?”
Adam grunted. “I’m still your friend, Mags.”
“Coulda fooled me.” I swung toward him, my hair falling over my shoulder.
“Then why’d you call me?” Adam’s voice was tired. He seemed totally drained of life.
“I need your help.”
Adam turned to face me, raising both eyebrows.
“I figured out who Joey was with the night of Dutton’s party.” I swiped some hair from my eyes, blinking away the frustration that had settled into every molecule of my body.
Adam straightened his leg and dropped his foot over the side of the rock, swinging it slowly back and forth, just above the surface of the water. He didn’t look at me. And he didn’t say a thing.
“It was Shannon. They were all worried about some kind of threat you’d thrown down. And then there’s something strange about the night of the carnival. Remember how Joey supposedly got home really late from the Reds game? Well, that’s not how it happened. My mind is racing to all these terrible places, but I don’t want to go to any of them—I just can’t—not until I know something for sure. So I’m asking you, Adam. What the hell was going on?”
Adam stared at the rippling surface of the water, the way the moonlight danced across the silver channels, as if I wasn’t even there.
I grabbed his arm, pulling him toward me. “You have to tell me.”
“I’m sorry, Mags.” Adam shook his head.
“Adam, please.”
Adam shifted his weight, twisting on the rock so he could face me. He hesitated for a moment, his eyes focused on mine. “Where did you hear all this?” he asked. “What happened?”
And then, though he remained perfectly silent, I heard his voice continue, a distant echo in my head. What happened before the screaming?
I pulled back, sucking in a shaky breath.
Adam recoiled like I’d shocked him. “Maggie, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“Screaming?” I clasped my hands together. Tight. “There was screaming?”
Adam leaned toward me again, holding my hands in his. Somehow, the touch warmed my entire shaking body.
“Why are you asking that?” Adam’s lips were tight and his eyes looked frantic. Wild.
I kicked my legs out, clawing my feet at the rock, trying to gain my footing.
Adam put a hand on my knee, and I saw a flash of blood. Remembered not knowing if it had come from him or from me.
“There was blood on your arm,” I said. “It was Joey’s?”
“Just relax for a minute, okay?” Adam pressed the bottle into my hand.
I took another long swig. This time Adam didn’t pull it away. When I stopped, the spicy liquid dribbled down my chin, but I didn’t care. “You asked me what happened before the screaming. At the cliff. Right?”
Adam took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said. “I did.”
“What else?” I asked. “What else happened? Because I can’t remember now. Not anything.”
“You didn’t remember then, either.” Adam stared at me, his eyes turning a silvery green in the moonlight. He looked so much like his old self that I almost believed everything since Memorial Day weekend had been a bad dream, and that, even if it wasn’t, Adam would suddenly snap back to normal and be the friend I’d always known.
“Adam, you have to help me. I feel like I’m losing my mind here. I mean, everything from the cliff top is gone. And then you, you’re gone, too—”
“Maggie, I’m not gone.”
“It sure feels like it. You’re one of my best friends, Adam. And it’s like you’ve died, too. And then I find out some shady shit was going down between you and Joey. And somehow Shannon’s tied into it. I’m just walking around bumping into random things and hoping I find some answers.” But at the same time I’m afraid. What if those answers just confirm my worst fears? What if the things I can’t even say out loud are true?
“You can handle this. The memories, they seem to be coming back in pieces,” Adam said. “That’s good, right? You’ve remembered a lot in the few times we’ve hung out.”
“I’ve only remembered one thing without you, Adam. One. And it was a snapshot, not an actual memory, okay? You’d know that if you’d taken the time to be more available.”
“Available?” Adam’s voice changed then. It went from soft to charged with just one word. “To what? Help lead you through your feelings? News flash, Maggie, I lost Joey, too. And I’m dealing with my own feelings. Huge, suck-ass waves of feelings that are about to take me under. So, I’m sorry, but I can’t carry you to the other side of this. I have to carry myself. And if that means there’s a little distance, then you either deal with it or you don’t. I can only take on what I can handle right now.”
“I don’t expect you to carry me, Adam. But I expect some honesty. I mean, this is us we’re talking about.”
Adam laughed. Stood from the rock and looked down at me. “Jesus, Maggie, do you ever stop?”
I wanted to kick his legs from under him so he would fall back down and have to face me. “Tell me what you know, Adam.”
“You’re asking the wrong person, Mags.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Why do you always talk in code now? Nothing you say makes one bit of—”
“I don’t know how I can make it any clearer for you. There’s nothing more I can say.” He looked at me, his eyes filling with an emotion I couldn’t read. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I really am.”
And then Adam turned and stepped off the rock, moved through the trees and into the darkest part of the shadows until he disappeared. It was in that moment that I finally understood I’d lost him all the way. It hurt more than I’d expected it to, the pain crashing down on my chest until I felt like I could hardly breathe.
14
His Too Blue Eyes
“I found a package on the front porch for you,” my mom said as I came down the steps the next morning. She was standing at the island, the newspaper spread in front of her as she munched on a piece of peanut butter toast.
“From who?” I asked, not really caring. With Joey gone and Adam so totally disconnected, nothing seemed to matter anymore.
My mother smiled, holding a small rectangular box in the air. It was wrapped in brown paper, with my name written on the front. No address or shipping labels. Just my name, which was spelled in block letters with a dark blue Sharpie.
“It’s very mysterious,” my mom said, sliding the package across the counter to me. “I think you have an admirer.”
“Mom, please.”
“I’m not saying that you have to jump into a new relationship right away,” my mother said. “But you can’t close yourself off forever. It’s not healthy.”
“Why don’t you leave the therapy to Dr. Guest?” I said. “She’s a trained professional.”
“Well, it’s something you may want to discuss with her. There will naturally be some guilt. But it’s something you need to—”
“Mom, really,” I said, walking behind her and tugging on the belt of her robe, “leave it alone.”
My mother sighed, then turned to face me, holding her coffee mug with both hands. “I’m heading upstairs to get ready for work.”
“Have a good day,” I said as my mother made her way through the kitchen and to the staircase.
“Maggie,” my mother said, stopping, her robe swaying around her legs. “I meant what I said. I know you and Dr. Guest have been focusing on your memories because recovering them is so important to you, and I know that a month is too soon to expect you to move on, but everything
that comes next is just as important as everything that’s already happened. Okay?”
“Right.”
“Don’t do that,” she said, shaking her head. “Say what I want to hear so I’ll—”
“Mom. I get it. Okay?”
She sighed. “I made you some pancakes and bacon. They’re in the microwave if you want to zap them for a warm-up.”
I thumbed the buttons on the microwave and grabbed the bottle of maple syrup from the counter, turning to look down at that package. Part of me wanted to rip it open. But another part of me wanted to throw it in the trash. In my life, surprises had lost their appeal.
But as I poured the syrup on my pancakes, the package sat there calling to me, and I had to know what was inside.
So as soon as I finished breakfast, I grabbed a pair of scissors and went back up to the privacy of my room, wishing the little brown-wrapped gift had the power to flip everything back to normal.
When I pulled the paper away, I was confused. Someone had left me a photo album, the front cover dotted with hand-drawn hearts. My first thought was that it was from Joey. That was the stutter my brain still suffered from, a misfire that made me instinctively believe that he was still alive. But even if he were still here, he’d never been the type to doodle pink hearts.
I reached out, expecting the book to send shock waves of emotion up my arm—love, loss, hope, regret.
Something inside me pulled tight with unease, but I told myself that was stupid. I had to convince myself that none of my fears were justified. That there was a perfectly good explanation for all the things Joey had kept from me. And that this photo album was probably someone’s way to honor the relationship I’d had with him, cataloging our time together with photos I’d somehow never seen.
I held my breath, hoping with everything in me that someone from the yearbook staff or the school newspaper had searched through old files for pictures that had once been unimportant. I visualized a shot of Joey and me walking through the locker-lined hall, clasped hands swinging between our bodies. But that vision was quickly erased.
As I flipped open the front cover of that album, I saw the worst thing ever.
A picture.
Of Joey.
And Shannon.
Kissing.
Shannon had taken the picture. I could tell by the way her outstretched arm reached toward me that she’d been holding the camera, turned it toward them, and pressed the button the instant Joey’s lips had touched hers. How she’d gotten the picture so perfectly centered, I’d never know.
But she had.
And there they were.
Sitting in Shannon’s basement. On her couch. Exactly where I had been sitting just a week ago, when we confronted Adam about blowing us off.
Shannon was laughing, her eyes squeezed tight.
Joey, too, his parted lips pressed against hers.
I slammed the album shut. Pressed my palm into all those hearts. Willing it away, away, away. But it didn’t disappear like I needed it to. Instead, the album seemed to grow heavier, holding me down.
It flooded me in an instant. Understanding that all of Joey’s secrets revolved around Shannon. That everything I’d feared most since finding that stupid necklace in my drawer was actually true.
His secrets. They weren’t just his. Those secrets belonged to both of them.
Together.
I wanted to know how big it was. How long it had been going on.
But the only way to find out was to face everything in that album.
I was nauseous from just one picture. I didn’t want to go on.
But I had to. There was no other choice.
“You have to face this, Maggie,” I told myself. “Just do it. Fast.”
And so I did.
I flipped through the pages, finding more of the same. Pictures of Joey and Shannon together in the woods surrounded by falling red, orange, and yellow leaves; eating ice cream while wearing wool caps and gloves; sitting lazily on a swing in the park in T-shirts and jeans. They were laughing, or kissing, or touching in almost all of them—through the seasons of at least one full year.
The others, the ones where it was obvious there was some special meaning even though I couldn’t see either of them, those were creative, just like Shannon. A shot of their bare feet in the grass, her toenails painted a bright pink, his underneath, perfectly trimmed. One of a sunset melting into a bank of snow-covered trees. A picture of pebbles along the bank of a creek, gathered together to spell out their names.
Joey & Shannon.
So together.
And so very alone.
The last page was different. A folded piece of paper, creased and worn.
Joey’s name written on the front flap in Shannon’s loopy handwriting. In her favorite purple pen.
I yanked the note free, practically ripping it in my need to understand.
Maybe I had something wrong. Maybe this was old, whatever had been going on. I needed to believe it had all happened before Joey and I ever began.
As I started to read, I held onto that hope.
And quickly felt it all fade away on the tide of a new loss that somehow outweighed the darkness of Joey’s death.
Joey,
I know what you’re thinking. What you’ve been thinking since this all started last fall. That this is bad. All kinds of bad. But it’s not, Joey. Nothing that feels this good can possibly be bad. It might hurt some people, Maggie most of all, but we have to figure this out. And we have to get it out in the open before the damage can’t be undone.
School will be ending soon. Summer starting. And that gives everyone three months to deal. To understand. And to let go.
They will. You’ll see. They have to.
I love you. And you say you love me. So this should be simple. I’ll do it any way you want. So take the next few weeks to do what you need to do. And then the summer will be ours.
I’ll be waiting.
Always.
Shannon
My hands were shaking so badly that I couldn’t refold the note. So I balled it up tight and shoved it back under the thin plastic sleeve, flipped the album closed, and threw it on the floor. I scrambled to my feet, clawing my hands through my hair and wanting to scream so loud that everything around me would shatter to pieces. I was pissed. So very pissed I could practically see waves rippling from my body and out into the room.
But then I saw his face. His too blue eyes. And his smile. Staring right up at me from the frame on my nightstand. It was my favorite picture of us together, because we looked so at ease. Tanna had taken the shot after school one day just a few months ago, when we’d all gone to Getrie’s Dairy Farm for ice cream. I was sitting on Joey’s lap, one leg kicked up, with my head tipped back mid-laugh. Joey’s arms were wrapped around me, his hands clasped around my waist. The hands that had touched Shannon. I didn’t understand how the Joey in my picture could have been the same Joey that was tucked away in her photo album.
I slipped down onto my bed, curling up on the quilt my mother had mended with thread that didn’t quite match the rest, feeling the pain well up fresh. Joey’s death somehow hurt more, swelling inside me until I felt like I might burst.
15
The Countdown
They had always been so alike. Crazy and senseless, rushing into things without thinking. Plotting pranks together. Daring to dive down the most curvy sledding hill in town while I stood at the top trying to convince myself I’d be fine if I followed after.
She’d always looked at every boy but Joey.
And me, I was the opposite.
Cautious. Reserved. And Joey had always been my only interest.
When I thought about it, all of it, the years we’d spent growing up together, it made sense, Joey and Shannon together. More sense than Joey picking me.
And that thought nearly killed me.
But what sliced into me even more were all the things I should have picked up on. All the rushed glances I’d mi
ssed. All the spontaneous things they’d done together that essentially eliminated me from the picture.
How totally stupid I had been.
“Lookie there, lookie there,” Joey said, running a hand along his chin as he stood in the middle of the Duttons’ oversize, three-car garage. A few feet in front of him was a shiny black and green motorcycle, with paint that literally sparkled in the overhead fluorescent lighting.
“Joey,” I said. “Please tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
Joey looked at me. His eyes sparking with the not-so-quiet kind of mischief he’d always been known for. “I promise I’ll be good.”
Tanna laughed out loud, the sound echoing off the white walls of the garage, the super-shined surface of the Duttons’ black Jaguar, the riding mower, and the totally organized work space stuffed with every kind of tool imaginable.
“Good?” Shannon asked, poking Joey in the arm, and the back, and the gut like an annoying little sister. “I wasn’t aware you knew the definition of that word.”
Joey whipped around, grabbing Shannon’s hand and twisting it behind her back. “What did you say?” He was smiling, and so was she, but Shannon was wriggling to pull away from his grasp.
“Let her go,” Tanna said, jumping onto Joey’s back, “or you’ll be sorry.”
“I can take you both.” Joey’s voice strained as he struggled to upend Tanna while keeping his grip on Shannon’s arm.
And then I saw it, the one thing that would stop him like nothing else. Tanna had a finger in her mouth and was juicing it up with fervor.
“Ears,” I warned, “watch your ears.”
But it was too late, Tanna had already plugged Joey’s right ear with her slimy finger. Joey shuddered and yelped, releasing Shannon and flinging Tanna off his back as he jumped away.
“You are so disgusting,” Joey said as he wiped Tanna’s spit from the side of his face and the inside of his ear.
Tanna and Shannon fell into each other in a heap of giggles, giving each other a smacking high five in celebration of their victory.
“You,” Shannon said, “are a bully.”
One Moment Page 13