by Trisha Leigh
In spite of the increasing ache in my leg, I still consider walking, but the clouds have begun to churn. I barely make it to the bus, climbing the steps moments before the driver closes the doors.
I’m an anomaly, a junior riding a bus filled with mostly freshmen and half as many sophomores. Good thing I no longer care about my social status.
Nearly every seat is packed with hyper teenagers, but I find an empty spot in the second row. The redheaded freshman in the seat looks startled, her eyes widening when she realizes who I am. She scoots toward the window, plastering her body to the side of the bus. I perch on the seat edge, my feet in the aisle, protecting the girl’s personal space.
I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t want to sit by me either.
The bus is half-empty by the time it reaches my stop. It’s sprinkling now, splattering the sidewalk with polka dots. I pause on my front porch and close my eyes. The cold rain coats my face.
A car horn blares down the street. My eyes snap open and I search for the source. I find it three lots down, next to Monica’s house. I suck in my breath at the thought of her and dig my key out of my backpack to let myself in. My little sister’s still at school and my parents are at work.
I enter the quiet house, bypassing the kitchen and head straight to my bedroom. My backpack hits the floor where I toss it. I throw myself on the bed and grab a pillow to curl around. A picture frame on my nightstand catches my attention.
The frame is a curse. I hide it in my drawer, but after a few days it’s back on the nightstand. My mother sets it out, calling it a precious memory. I call it a reminder of my guilt.
Against my better judgment, I reach for it, my fingers curling around the edges of the cold, silver frame. I pull it closer, studying the photo, and a lump forms in my throat. An image of Monica and I last spring at the annual school picnic fills the space. Our heads are bent together, her long blonde hair a sharp contrast to my thick, brunette waves. She smiles for the camera, a cheesy grin that most people found infectious. My heart aches and despair clouds my head.
My eyes well with tears. What would Monica tell me now? What sharp-witted barb would she have used to shake me from my melancholy?
Perhaps if I hadn’t killed her, she would be here to help.
Then again, if I hadn’t killed her, I wouldn’t need her help.
Anger surges along with a wave of frustration. I throw the frame across the room and it dents the wall. Glass shatters on contact, spraying shards across the room. The frame bounces off, landing on the carpet with a thud.
I hug my pillow and twist the chain of my bracelet. My thumb rubs the attached silver medallion, engraved with Julia on one side and Love endures forever on the other. A nice sentiment, if I only knew how I got it.
The bracelet is just one of my oddities since the accident. They found me wearing it at the scene, but I have no memory of it and neither does anyone else. Then there’s my doodling, which turns into elaborate scrolls and arabesques, when I was barely capable of drawing a stick person before. And the dreams, nightmare and fantasy, yet both so vivid in detail I’m sure they’re real.
The doctors attribute it to the coma, the result of my head trauma. My psychologist blames it on survivor’s guilt. Whatever the cause, there’s no changing the past.
Monica is dead.
I lay on the bed and stare at the wall. The patter of rain lulls me into a zombified state. The door creaks open. I hear a sharp intake of air and crunching glass. The mattress dips behind me and the familiar feel of my mother’s fingers threads my hair. I sigh, closing my eyes as she rakes from the front of my head to the back.
“Mr. Archer called me today.” Her voice is soft and soothing.
I don’t say anything, hanging in the state of nothingness.
“Julia, please,” she begs, her desperation unmistakable. “Don’t shut me out.”
It hasn’t been intentional. It’s as if a glass wall separates me from the rest of the world, my mother included. I can see what happens on the other side, but the view is slightly dimmed, the sounds muffled. Other than the few times she pushes through the barrier, like now, I feel nothing.
And it scares me.
I roll onto my back and look up at her. Tears cloud her gray eyes as her mouth pinches tight. The fact I have caused my parents so much misery is not lost on me. I merely add it to my long list of offenses. Reaching my hand up to hers, I stop her in mid-stroke. “I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t mean to.”
She moves her hand to my cheek and stares into my eyes. “It wasn’t your fault.” She whispers.
With those four words, the emotional wall slams shut and suffocates me in my desperation. I close my eyes with a slow exhale of grief.
My mother sighs, realizing she’s lost her small window of connection. Her fingertips trail down my cheek as she stands, the mattress creaking with the shift. She pauses and I hear a metallic clunk on my nightstand.
“I know it hurts to look at this picture now, but someday you’ll cherish it.”
The door closes, and I’m alone in my solitude. Alone in my agony. Alone in my guilt.
The next morning, I wake up anxious about Evan and what his look meant. I decide I’ve imagined it all. It’s ludicrous really, thinking Evan Whittaker would be looking at me when he’s never noticed me before.
Before History, I pass him in the hall on the way to the Mrs. Hernandez’s office. He walks with a group, several cheerleaders and football players. I keep my eyes on the floor, staring at students’ feet. My gaze shifts up as he passes, and I hold my breath. Sarah Chapman, one of the popular girls, has his full attention.
She tosses her silky, blond hair over her shoulder with a flick of her manicured nails, then leans into him and laughs. The corners of his mouth raise in a smirk, his eyes narrowing as he looks down at her. I’ve almost completely passed him when his eyes shift in my direction, then he’s pulled along in wave of students rushing to class.
I stop in the open door to the counselor’s office. Mrs. Hernandez sits at her L-shaped desk, typing on her computer. She lifts her head and greets me with a warm smile.
“Julia, come in.” She looks down at a file on her desk as I cross the threshold. “And shut the door behind you,” she adds.
I close the door before I slump in the worn office chair, dropping my backpack on the floor.
Mrs. Hernandez laces her fingers together and rests her hands on the desk as she leans toward me. “Julia, I see you’re still having difficulty in your classes.”
I tilt my head and shrug.
“I know the last six months have been hard on you, but it’s time to pick up the pieces of your life and move on.”
Just like Monica can move on with hers? I want to ask, but I bite back the words and rub the charm dangling from my mystery bracelet, the grooves of the engraved letters rough under the tip of my thumb.
Mrs. Hernandez watches me, waiting for a response.
“It’s hard to concentrate,” I offer. The words feel sluggish on my tongue and I realize how rarely I actually speak in school any more. I clear my throat.
“I’ve talked to your parents and we’ve discussed several options. It’s obvious you’re struggling to keep afloat this year. If we don’t see substantial improvement, it might be in your best interest to go to alternative school.”
My heart sputters and the blood rushes to my toes. Alternative school is for pregnant teens and juvenile delinquents. Losers.
Mrs. Hernandez smiles tightly. “Your mother thought you might have that reaction as well. I suggested that we have someone tutor you first, see if you can raise your grades without resorting to sending you to another school.”
I swallow, trying to coat my dry mouth, and nod. “Thank you.”
“We’re trying to assist your academic success, but you’re going to have to make some effort, Julia. You can’t keep going on like you have, living your life in limbo. I know you’re punishing yourself for Monica’s death, but all the pain you ca
use yourself won’t bring her back.” She reaches her hand across the desk and grabs my hand. “I knew Monica. She wouldn’t want this. She’d hate to see what you’re doing.”
My eyes burn and I stand, her hand falling so that it droops over the edge of the desk. “Are we done?” I ask, my chest constricting.
The hope in her eyes extinguishes. “Yes, I’ll line up some tutors and let you know your schedule tomorrow.”
I turn and grip the doorknob, flinging the door open. I burst from the room and down the now empty hall. Everyone’s in class, doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Except me. I hear Mrs. Hernandez calling my name, but I ignore her as I run for the doors to the parking lot. I have to escape.
I bolt out the side door, sucking in deep gulps of cool autumn air as I face the stark reality.
There is no escape.
This pain will always follow me. Failing or thriving at school, nothing has changed. The burning in my eyes becomes unbearable and I finally gave in, the tears flooding down my face. I bend over, elbows on my thighs as I release the first sob. For six months I’ve kept it buried, hid the anguish deep within.
My knees drop to the ground. Monica is gone. Sweet, funny Monica is gone. I miss her with an anguish that threatens to consume me.
But mostly, I’m tortured by guilt, that I could kill my best friend and not even remember it. I should be made to relive her death over and over in my head.
Instead, I only have snatches of the dreams that visit me every night. The screeching tires. The impact of the crash. Screams. Shattering glass. Pressure on my chest. Monica, who sits in the seat next to me, practically unscathed while I die.
And that’s how I know the dreams aren’t real. They aren’t my suppressed memories as the doctors suggest, but my fantasies instead. The reality I’ve created to appease my guilt.
Monica alive.
I push to my feet and run as a slow drizzle falls from the sky. The pounding of my feet on the pavement fills my ears, fills my head until my heartbeat finds a rhythmic union. Tears blur my vision, but I know where I’m going. The only place where my world makes sense.
I run from the school, down the street a half-mile and turn the corner down the two-lane highway that edges town. I ignore the ache in my leg that creeps up my thigh. My hair grows slick and heavy from the rain. My thin, long-sleeved t-shirt plasters to my body.
I push on, despite the stitch in my side and the now-sharp pain in my leg. The gray, stone church tucked into the edge of the woods comes into view. It’s my beacon, my anchor. Tears stream down my face and blend with the rain, which now falls at a steady rate. My breath comes in desperate pants, yet I refuse to slow down, refuse to stop until I’m there.
My feet crunch against the gravel of the church parking lot and my gait falters. A black, wrought-iron fence lies ahead. My hands fumble with the latch of the gate until it opens. The hinges creak as I rush through, toward the back of the cemetery where the fence and trees are almost one. I run past the older headstones, past the newer compact markers until I drop. The soft ground absorbs the impact as my knees hit the earth. I fall face forward before Monica’s headstone.
“It should’ve been me,” I cry, my hands grasping the edges of the cold, slick stone. Gut-wrenching sobs rack my body. The rain falls harder, pelting my back.
Warm hands wrap around my arms, pulling me off the ground. My body turns and my face presses into a firm, warm chest. I’m enveloped inside the opening of a warm coat. I sink into the warmth, my legs barely holding me upright. A voice whispers in my ear, “It’s okay, Julia. I’m here now. Everything’s going to be okay.”
A sharp pain stabs my neck, and then there’s nothing.
Contents
Title page
CHAPTER 1.
CHAPTER 2.
CHAPTER 3.
CHAPTER 4.
CHAPTER 5.
CHAPTER 6.
CHAPTER 7.
CHAPTER 8.
CHAPTER 9.
CHAPTER 10.
CHAPTER 11.
CHAPTER 12.
CHAPTER 13.
CHAPTER 14.
CHAPTER 15.
CHAPTER 16.
CHAPTER 17.
CHAPTER 18.
CHAPTER 19.
CHAPTER 20.
CHAPTER 21.
CHAPTER 22.
CHAPTER 23.
CHAPTER 24.
CHAPTER 25.
CHAPTER 26.
CHAPTER 27.
CHAPTER 28.
CHAPTER 29.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chapter One
Table of Contents
Title page
CHAPTER 1.
CHAPTER 2.
CHAPTER 3.
CHAPTER 4.
CHAPTER 5.
CHAPTER 6.
CHAPTER 7.
CHAPTER 8.
CHAPTER 9.
CHAPTER 10.
CHAPTER 11.
CHAPTER 12.
CHAPTER 13.
CHAPTER 14.
CHAPTER 15.
CHAPTER 16.
CHAPTER 17.
CHAPTER 18.
CHAPTER 19.
CHAPTER 20.
CHAPTER 21.
CHAPTER 22.
CHAPTER 23.
CHAPTER 24.
CHAPTER 25.
CHAPTER 26.
CHAPTER 27.
CHAPTER 28.
CHAPTER 29.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chapter One