Unbroken

by A. J. Matthews

  On her way downstairs, she poked her head into Trista’s bedroom and was surprised to see her daughter asleep in her bed. She had no idea when Trista had come home last night, but it must have been late. Her dream had had something to do with an argument between Trista and Robbie, and she wondered if Trista actually had the gall to have her boyfriend up to her bedroom. She wished she could recall more details of the dream, but they were melting away.

  While she was scrambling eggs, making enough for Trista if she bothered to show up for breakfast, she heard the shower start upstairs. Nate had already showered, so she knew Trista was awake and apparently planning to ride to school with her father as usual.

  When she came downstairs, Trista acted as if everything was perfectly normal. Kiera waited for her to say something about her being home from the hospital, but Trista was typically uncommunicative. It was just as well, Kiera decided. She intended to wait until after school and Nate was home before she confronted Trista and told her in no uncertain terms that she would never allow her to move out of the house while she was still in high school.

  After perfunctory good-byes and a peck on the cheek from Nate, he and Trista left for school. Kiera was still trying to dredge up a clear memory of the dream that was still haunting her, so she was glad to see them go.

  A little before nine o’clock, just as she was settling down on the couch in the living room with a cup of coffee, the phone rang. The caller ID showed that it was Jon. Kiera’s first impulse was to ignore it, but she knew he’d leave a message and then try her cell. She answered it because she couldn’t think of a good enough excuse not to.

  “Hey there,” she said, a bit surprised by her cool, aloof tone of voice.

  “Hey yourself. How you feeling?”

  “Okay, I guess. How are you doing?”

  Kiera sensed a chill between them, and she wondered if it was mutual or if it was all coming from her.

  But what could she do?

  After what Jon had said to her yesterday, how was she supposed to feel about him? He had all but asked her to leave Nate and run off with him. It wasn’t like she could just pretend he hadn’t said the things he’d said.

  After a short silence, Jon cleared his throat and said, “We, uhh, need to talk.”

  “I’m listening,” Kiera said. She hated that she was treating Jon with such detachment. She didn’t have to remind herself that he had buried his wife yesterday. No matter what happened between them, he was her closest, dearest friend. What she’d been through seemed almost insignificant compared to his recent loss. She should be kind and forgiving, not cold and angry.

  “About yesterday . . .” Jon said, sounding weak and hesitant. Kiera could easily imagine how uncomfortable he was feeling. Maybe he was embarrassed about what he’d said and had called to apologize. If he had said what he said because he wasn’t thinking straight because of grief, she should let him know that she still cherished his friendship.

  But she also had to make it clear that’s all they were. Just friends. It was never going to go any further than that.

  Or could it? whispered a faint voice in the back of her mind. Maybe he said what you’ve been thinking all along . . . what you’ve been wanting but afraid to admit . . . even to yourself?

  “Look, Kiera. I can’t do this over the phone. Can we meet for lunch or something?”

  Kiera sucked in a breath and held it, struggling to sort through the confusion in her head. She was exhausted after such a lousy night, and she didn’t think she had the energy for this . . . not now, anyway.

  “Maybe in a day or two,” she finally said. “I’ve been . . . I’m still pretty wiped out from the surgery, and Liz’s death really affected me.”

  “Me, too,” Jon said simply, but even through her confusion, Kiera detected an insincere note in his voice. Her lower lip started to tremble, and tears misted her vision as she looked around the living room, wondering if Jon had been in love with her all along, and not Liz.

  Could he have been carrying a torch for me all this time . . . ever since high school . . . and I never even knew it?

  Or did I . . . is this what I’ve wanted all along?

  “I want you to know how concerned I am about Trista, too,” Jon said.

  His words sliced her like a razor. A chill took hold of her as a surge of panic rose in her stomach.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Jon sighed in frustration. “You hadn’t heard? It’s on the news this morning.”

  “What’s on the news?” Kiera choked back a scream she could feel building up inside her. Fragments of her dream flashed through her mind, a vague memory of moving down a long, dark road, watching the red taillights of a car ahead of her until she saw it careen off the road.

  “Her boyfriend—Robbie what’s-his-name—died in a car accident. They found him out on Cold Spring Road. Rolled over a couple of times and went right through the windshield.”

  “Oh my God,” Kiera said, stunned. Her vision narrowed until she was staring at a small square of the floor at her feet. Her senses seemed to be shutting down. She wasn’t aware of anything other than Jon’s voice inside her head.

  “The first reports indicate he was drunk,” Jon continued. “You’re damned lucky Trista wasn’t with him.”

  Kiera tried to speak but couldn’t as she listened to Jon and the loud rush of her blood in her ears.

  Robbie Townsend’s dead?

  How was this possible?

  If Trista hadn’t been with him last night, where had she been? Did they have an argument? Had she walked all the way home from his place? If she had been with him, she no doubt would have been killed, too. It frightened Kiera to realize that right now, if things had been just a little bit different, she would be trying to cope with the loss of her only child. That she had seen Trista this morning, even though they had barely spoken, seemed almost a dream now.

  “Are you still there?” Jon asked.

  Kiera swallowed, but the dryness in her throat didn’t yield.

  “Yeah . . . I . . . I’m here.”

  “Damned cell phones. You can never tell when you have a connection or not.” Jon inhaled heavily. “So . . . she must be pretty broken up about it, huh?”

  “I . . . I don’t think she even knows about it. She was her usual self this morning . . . not upset or anything. I—” Kiera rubbed her bandaged forehead and shivered. “I don’t know what to think.”

  She found it difficult if not impossible to focus. She wasn’t surprised that the news didn’t really upset her. She had almost been expecting it, but she didn’t know why, unless it was because of that dream she’d had last night. As cold and heartless as it made her feel, her only concern was how Trista would react to the news when she found out. She was going to be devastated, but Kiera could only feel immense relief.

  “From what you told me, you should be pretty happy, huh?” Jon said. “It’s not like that creep was doing Trista any good. Am I right? I was just . . . you know . . . worried how Trista was dealing with it.”

  “I don’t know,” Kiera said. Dozens of conflicting thoughts crowded her mind. Because of the dream she’d had last night she had the unnerving feeling that—somehow—she had been involved with the accident last night, that she was responsible for it.

  “I can’t believe he’s dead,” she said.

  “It’s on the news. Put your TV on. Hey, this is what you wanted, right?”

  Jon’s words, so heartless and echoing her own thoughts, stung her. She had to be honest with herself and admit this was exactly what she had wanted. If Trista was going to be so stubborn about seeing Robbie, then—yes, she had wanted him dead. But getting what she wanted at the expense of someone else’s life was almost too much to handle.

  “Even Trista will get over this,” Jon continued. “With any loss, it’s just a matter of time until the pain goes away and you forget about it.”

  “No,” Kiera said as an image of Billy Carroll rose unbid
den in her mind. “Some of them, you never forget.”

  “You might be right,” Jon said, still sounding much too casual about this. Kiera couldn’t stand how he sounded so empty of emotion. She wanted to scream at him, but she was too drained and numbed to react.

  “But eventually, the immediate pain goes away,” Jon said. “All I’m saying is, she’ll be fine. Don’t worry about her. She’ll get over it. It’s just gonna be rough for a while.”

  Kiera couldn’t take any more of this. It didn’t matter what Jon said; he was really irritating her, mostly because she was so twisted up with guilt. Just because she had wanted Robbie Townsend to die didn’t mean she should feel guilty because he had. It was an accident . . . just like what she had spent most of her life trying to convince herself had happened to Billy. It wasn’t like she was responsible for it.

  Or was it?

  She wasn’t so sure, because the more she thought about the dream she’d had last night, the more she was convinced—somehow—she had known what was happening and maybe even had something to do with it.

  “Look . . . Jon . . . I’m really not feeling so good,” she said. “I have to lie down.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

  Once again, Kiera was struck how much this didn’t sound like the friend she knew . . . the friend who had just buried his wife yesterday.

  “I’ll call later this afternoon. Maybe we can get together for a late lunch.”

  “Tomorrow might be better,” Kiera said, and she hung up before Jon could say anything more.

  She focused on the view outside the living room window as a powerful wave of dizziness swept over her. Nausea filled her stomach, and she sagged back, feeling like she was about to pass out. She grabbed the arm of the couch with both hands, her heart beating high and fast in her throat. Every pulse made her vision twitch. When she took a breath, her chest ratcheted as tiny white spots of light swam across her vision.

  “This can’t be happening,” she whispered as she squeezed the couch arm, holding on desperately. The room seemed to be heaving up and down like a storm-tossed ocean.

  Somehow, she managed to get up off the couch and make it into the kitchen, where she went over to the sink and turned on the tap. Cupping her hands, she filled them with water and splashed her face several times, blubbering and sputtering. The cold wetness washed over her without seeming to penetrate her, and she had a dissociated feeling as if this was happening to someone else, not her. She grabbed a dish towel and rubbed her face, but she still felt frighteningly disconnected from her senses.

  “I have to lie down,” she muttered, but she wasn’t sure she could make it back to the living room. Her vision narrowed as darkness closed in from all sides. Just before she collapsed onto the kitchen floor, although she had been thinking about Robbie Townsend, a face appeared before her.

  It was Billy Carroll, and he was smiling.

  2

  Kiera came to an hour or so later when she heard the telephone ringing for what seemed like a hundred times. Finally, the answering machine clicked on, and Nate’s recorded message played. After the beep, Nate spoke.

  “Hello, Kiera. You there?” And after a pause. “I have some really upsetting news.”

  Even through her confusion as she struggled to sit up on the kitchen floor, she registered the agitation in his voice.

  “Last night . . . Robbie Townsend was killed in a car accident.”

  Kiera dragged herself closer to consciousness, wishing she had the strength to get up and reach the phone before he hung up.

  “All I could think was—thank God Trista wasn’t with him! We’re at school, and she just found out. Needless to say, she’s devastated. I . . . I don’t know what to say. I—I’m taking the day off to bring her home, so we’ll there soon. Hope you’re feeling better. See you in a bit. Bye.”

  The answering machine beeped again and then clicked off. Kiera sat there on the floor, her legs splayed in front of her as she rubbed her face and struggled to process what she had just heard. She still wasn’t fully conscious, but something—not Nate’s news—something else was bothering her . . . a lingering memory that left her with a clear mental image of the accident. She hadn’t actually seen the accident; it was more like someone had told her about it . . . had whispered the details to her while she was passed out.

  As she struggled to clear her mind, the memory faded until all she was left with was an empty, hollow feeling. She couldn’t stop thinking she was forgetting something vitally important.

  “Damn it,” she whispered as she struggled to stand up. Nate and Trista would be here in a few minutes. She had to pull herself together enough, at least, so they wouldn’t see her falling apart like this. She couldn’t shake the feeling that, no matter what she did, no matter how freaked out her husband and daughter were, they—especially Trista—would know something was wrong with her. And she couldn’t shake the feeling that she didn’t just know about Robbie’s accident. Somehow she had been involved with it and—even worse—she was somehow responsible.

  “That’s not possible,” she whispered as she moved stiffly to the kitchen sink.

  She groaned and covered her eyes with both hands as she leaned against the wall and tried to force herself closer to consciousness. But the closer she got, the faster that vague memory faded, no matter how hard she tried to hold on to it. Once it was gone entirely, she was left feeling like it was a phantom limb—an amputated arm or leg that still experienced sensation. No matter how much she tried to scratch it, the limb was no longer there, so she was never going to be able to relieve the irritation.

  She was still leaning against the wall when a car pulled into the driveway. Shaking her head to clear it, she got ready to put on a false face and pretend she felt terrible about Robbie dying. The truth she could never admit to anyone was she was happy he was out of their lives—especially Trista’s. She was ecstatic, even.

  Feeling tense, she waited to hear the garage door open as Nate and Trista pulled in. After what seemed like a terribly long time, she began to feel nervous. Now that she thought about it, there hadn’t been enough time for them to drive all the way home from school.

  Someone else is out there!

  A cold, clammy feeling slithered under her skin as she walked down the hall to the family room. The windows looked out onto the driveway and the street in front of the house, but there was no car in sight. Her nervousness spiked when she heard an engine rev so loudly it practically shook the walls. The family room windows rattled as the sound rumbled like thunder. A haze of pale blue smoke swirled in the air from around the corner of the garage.

  “What the hell is going on?” Kiera muttered.

  Why couldn’t she see the car she knew was out there? She was tempted to go outside and take a look around, but she held back because a sense of impending danger made the hairs on her neck stir.

  One thing she was sure of, this wasn’t Nate. If Trista was as upset as she thought she’d be, they would have come directly into the house. She didn’t think they’d stay out in the car, having a heart-to-heart talk . . . unless Trista felt so alienated from her mother she didn’t want to face her. Did she think Kiera was going to gloat and say, “I told you so?”

  But why can’t I see the car I know is out there?

  It sounded like it was parked in front of the garage, but the angle was bad, and no matter how close she got to the window looking left and right, she just couldn’t see it. The street in front of the house was also empty.

  As she leaned against the window, wondering what to do next, Kiera’s focus shifted, and she found herself looking at her reflection in the glass. She was instantly captured by the frantic, almost insane look she saw reflected in her eyes.

  And then something happened.

  Something impossible.

  As she took a step back from the window, still listening to the throaty roar of the car’s engine, her reflection moved, too, but it didn’t move in synch with her. Fear rippled through
her as she tipped her head to one side and turned it. The face in the window didn’t move. Instead, it stared straight at her without blinking.

  A frightened whimper that she barely recognized as her own escaped her. As she took another step back, she tripped over her own feet and almost fell, but somehow she kept her balance. She started trembling violently, afraid that she was having a complete mental breakdown. She covered her mouth with both hands to stifle the scream that was about to burst out of her. In the reflection, her hands remained at her sides as she stared back at herself with a cold, unflinching gaze.

  “What is happening to me?” she said in a raw whisper.

  Another strangled sob escaped her as she stared at herself and had to acknowledge that this was no trick of the eye, no illusion. In the reflection, her mouth didn’t move when she spoke. The image’s lips remained a thin, compressed line, and her mouth twitched only after she stopped speaking. It took her a terrifying instant to realize her reflection was speaking to her. At first, she couldn’t hear what it was saying. Then, as faint as the flutter of a moth’s wings in the dark, a voice hissed at her in a soft, grating whisper.

  “I could ask you the same thing of you,” her reflection said. Each word hovered just at the edge of hearing. “Who are you?”

  Kiera was too stunned to respond. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She wanted to believe she was asleep on the couch and dreaming this because, if it wasn’t a dream . . . if she really was awake and this was happening, then she was losing her mind if she hadn’t already lost it.

  “We have a lot to talk about,” the reflection whispered. The voice, a strange distortion of Kiera’s voice, was so faint it could have been the wind blowing through the trees. But the windows weren’t open, and a dense stillness was hanging in the air and pressing down on her with a hot, steady pressure.

  “No . . . no,” Kiera said, shaking her head in adamant denial as she watched her unmoving reflection. “I’m asleep. This has to be a dream.”