This Is How It Happened

by Paula Stokes

  It turns out that Dallas’s parents held his funeral the day before I woke up from my coma. Mom didn’t mention it at the hospital because she thought I’d be upset, but after I got home, Shannon sent me a YouTube link where someone recorded the whole thing. The church was packed and hundreds of people waited outside to be part of the graveside ceremony.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “You didn’t know if I was even going to live.” I look down at my hands, my trembling fingers making tiny tears in the Kleenex I’m clutching. “Plus, I kind of want to remember Dallas the way he was, you know?”

  Nora nods rapidly, her eyes filling with tears again. She grabs for a second tissue.

  “Dallas didn’t have a will, of course,” Glen says. “Not for his earnings or his personal effects, but we know how close the two of you were.”

  My eyes widen. “Oh. I don’t need or expect stuff from him. We weren’t, like, getting engaged or anything.”

  Nora smiles through her tears. “I could tell that he loved you, even though he didn’t talk about that kind of stuff with me. But wow, when I listen to the album, I realize just how deep things ran between the two of you.”

  I’ve heard the whole album, of course. Dallas tried to tell me that all the songs about romance were inspired by me, but I could tell which of them actually were and which were just cool ideas that he and his producer dreamed up together.

  Nora swallows back a lump in her throat. “Is there anything you would like . . . his laptop, his clothing, perhaps photographs of you two?”

  I blink hard and then look down at my lap. The Kleenex I’ve been holding is a mess of torn fragments. I hadn’t thought about everything Dallas left behind. Not just people and an album sure to go platinum—or whatever successful albums go—but little things like his collection of pop culture T-shirts, his notebook of partially written songs, and our junior prom picture wedged in his dresser mirror.

  “Pictures would be good,” I whisper. “I’m not sure if I can—”

  “We don’t need to do this now,” Glen says. “We just wanted to come see you and wish you well, and make sure there wasn’t anything specific that you wanted.”

  I want Dallas to be alive, I think. But I don’t say it, because his mom has finally stopped crying, and I don’t want to be the reason she starts again.

  After Dallas’s parents leave, I head back to my room, but Connie follows me. “Good news,” she says, just as I’m about to crawl back into bed. “Most of the reporters followed the Kades when they left, which means that for the time being your paparazzi have dwindled down to just two. How about a walk around the block? I’m sure you could use some fresh air.”

  “I’m not really feeling up to it,” I mumble.

  “You know, not exercising is going to delay your recovery. Aren’t you anxious to get back into your running shoes?”

  Yes. So I can run away from all this.

  My new phone chirps with a text, a sadistic reminder of how I’ll never be able to escape completely. I swipe at the screen. It’s Shannon.

  Her: When are you coming back to school? I am dying without you.

  Me: I am just plain dying :P

  Her: Oh, G. I wish I were there to give you a hug :(

  Me: It’s okay. I’m fine. Just a little overwhelmed.

  Her: It’s okay if you’re not fine, you know?

  Why does everyone keep saying that? It’s like they missed the actual accident, so they want me to crash and burn a second time so they can witness the wreckage.

  Me: I gotta run. Evil Nurse is forcing me to exercise.

  Her: Yay! If you can exercise, you can sit through all your boring classes.

  Me: Ha. Maybe.

  Her: All the hugs.

  Me: All the <333

  I turn back to Connie. I could refuse her, but if I do, my mom will end up making me go for a walk later. At least now there’re no kids from school outside. I think of the unread emails in my inbox. I don’t want to hear about how sorry they are. It won’t change anything. It won’t fix anything. “Get rid of the remaining vultures, and I’m all yours.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Connie disappears and returns about ten minutes later. “I told them their presence was hindering your recovery and suggested they take a lunch break.”

  “And they agreed to that?”

  “No, but I called your mother and she said to let them choose between a small payout to leave you alone or dealing with her lawyer.”

  “How small is small?”

  “Two hundred bucks each.”

  “Good to know I’m such a cash cow,” I mutter. “All right, let’s do this.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to . . . freshen up a bit first?”

  I glance in the mirror and debate trying to fix myself up, but there’s no point in putting lipstick on a pig, like my dad used to say. I look like crap, and no amount of foundation or mascara is going to hide it. “Nah, let’s just get it over with.”

  The two of us head for the front door. Connie helps me down the porch steps and I blink rapidly in the bright sun. It makes me think of a line from a movie I saw with Dallas: Why do my eyes hurt? You’ve never used them before. I feel sort of like that, as if I’m seeing everything differently now.

  Connie walks next to me on the side with my injured leg. I step with my good leg and pull the other one behind me. I’m lucky that it’s just pain I’m wrestling with, that there wasn’t any nerve damage. Eventually my leg will return to its pre-accident state, even if the rest of me won’t.

  The smell of fresh-cut grass wafts over from the neighbor’s lawn. A flag mounted above the mailbox snaps in the breeze. A face peers out from living room window. Mrs. Ernst. I used to see her power-walking in the early mornings while I was running. We exchanged waves and smiles, but that’s all, because I always had my headphones in. Dallas used to make me playlists. At first he named them for the days of the week, but later he got more creative. Now my iPod is full of lists like “Feelin’ Good Mix,” “Running Sucks So Why Do I Keep Going?” and “Songs for Genna.” That last one was a mix of stuff he wrote for me and other songs he said made him think of me.

  Mrs. Ernst lifts her hand in recognition. I force a smile. My cheek muscles feel stiff, like it’s the first time I’ve used them too.

  Connie and I make our way slowly around the block. Very slowly, like “lapped by an old lady with tennis balls on the bottom of her walker” speed. Okay, not really—we only have to pass one person on our walk—Mrs. Henderson, whose daughter ran cross-country with me back when I was in middle school. But if an old lady with a walker had been out with us, I guarantee she would’ve kicked my ass.

  “It’s good to see you, Genevieve.” Mrs. Henderson beams like I’m one of those internet videos of a baby sloth getting a bath or something.

  “You too.” I manage a second smile in return.

  “Looks like you’ll be back running in no time!” she chirps.

  “Hope so,” I say, limping off at a speed that might just rival that of a baby sloth.

  When my mom gets home, I stand outside her study and eavesdrop on Connie giving her a progress report.

  “She’s moving around just fine. A bit slow, but her endurance is good. Didn’t want help getting dressed. Even made lunch for the two of us.”

  “Excellent. Thank you so much for taking such good care of her.” Mom sounds pleased.

  I have a feeling I know what’s coming next, and I want no part of it. Before either Mom or Connie can catch me eavesdropping, I head back to my room. I hide away until it’s time for dinner.

  Later, when I’m setting the table, Mom sneaks up behind me. She rests a hand on my shoulder and I flinch, dropping a fork onto the clean kitchen floor.

  Mom reaches down and snatches up the fork in her nimble surgeon hands before I can even say I’m sorry. She goes to the dishwasher and deposits the dirty utensil into one of the plastic baskets. Then she turns back to me. “Connie says you’re moving around without
needing help, doing basic things for yourself. That’s great. I think you should try going back to school on Monday.”

  “But Mom.” I retrieve a new fork from the top drawer of our kitchen island. “There are only two weeks left in the semester. Do I have to?”

  “Dr. Chao told me the best thing for you would be to get back to a normal routine as soon as possible.”

  “Get back to normal?” I grip the fork tightly. The world might have flipped some terrible switch and stolen away my boyfriend, but I don’t have a switch I can flick to be okay with it. “Dallas is dead. That is never going to feel normal.”

  “I know, honey. But wallowing in your grief isn’t going to help. If you want, I can bring you by the grave site. The stone won’t be up for a couple of months, but all the things his fans have left are lovely. Maybe it would help you find closure.”

  “I don’t need closure,” I tell her. “It’s not like we broke up.”

  She plucks a piece of lint from the front of her blouse. “Is this about how you look?”

  “What? No!” Okay, the giant creepy scars and big bald stripe across my head don’t exactly increase my desire to spend all day in public, but it’s not like I have anyone I need to look good for. And it’s not like everyone at school won’t be staring at me already.

  “What then?”

  “I just don’t want to deal with any of it—the sympathy, the staring, the inappropriate questions.”

  “Maybe you should give your friends more credit,” Mom says. “I don’t think they’re going to pump you for gory details.”

  “It’s not my friends I’m worried about,” I mutter, thinking back to the random emails from people who didn’t even know Dallas.

  “Genevieve, you have to try.” Mom glances at the black marble wall clock and then back to me. “Can you do that for me? At least try?”

  A surge of guilt moves through me. I talk a lot of crap about my mom being a dictator, but the reality is that she works her ass off to take care of both of us. Yeah, I wish she cut me more slack, but maybe maintaining a household without much support from anyone requires ruling with an iron fist. I should try, for her. Maybe school won’t be as bad as I think. Maybe I can just zone out—pretend I’m hiding in my bed all day and then come home and do my assignments in the quiet safety of my room.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll try.”

  “Thank you.” Mom checks the time again. “The food was supposed to be here five minutes ago. I’m going to give them a call.” She swipes at her phone and turns away to look at something in the backyard, tapping one foot while she waits for the call to connect.

  I head back to my room and start mentally preparing for going back to school. I grab my phone to text Shannon but then decide it might be fun to surprise her. Peering at my reflection in the mirror, I try to cover the scar on my cheekbone with some concealer, but it just makes it look more obvious. At least I got the stitches out the other day.

  There is, however, still an extremely creepy line of staples in my skull. I don’t want to show up with my head bandaged, but I’m not allowed to wear hats in the classroom, so covering it up will require a bit of creativity. I scan my room for ideas. My eyes fall on a rack of patterned scarves I wear mostly in the fall and winter. I pull a pink one from the rack and fold it into thirds and tie it around my head.

  Not terrible. I look like I should be reading someone’s fortune at a carnival, but at least I don’t look like a Halloween monster. I shrug at my reflection. It’s all just pretend anyway. Making myself look normal on the outside isn’t going to change the way I feel inside. Hollow. Empty. About as far away from normal as I can get.

  CHAPTER 7

  School is every bit the nightmare I expected it to be. Pre-accident, my day usually went like this: Up at 5:00 a.m. to jog. Shower. Eat breakfast. School by 7:00 a.m. Look over homework, aka help Shannon with her homework, before first hour. Three lecture classes where no one paid me much attention. Lunch with Shannon and Dallas and some of his friends. Poetry class, technology lab, and last period gym. On a normal day, I probably spoke to fifteen people max.

  Today I speak to almost fifteen people before I even make it to first period. The first two are Krissi and Mandy Sanchez, identical twins who play on our soccer team. My mom drops me off at school and Krissi nearly bumps into me as I’m limping my way up the front steps. Her eyes widen when she recognizes me.

  “Oh my God, Genevieve. It’s so good to see you,” she says.

  “You look great,” Mandy adds. “I like your shirt.”

  I force a smile. I’ve gotten surprisingly good at that in the past few days. “Thanks.” My shirt is just a striped T-shirt from a local department store, but I’m sure Mandy just wanted to say something nice and couldn’t find anything else to compliment.

  “I’m sorry about Dal—” she continues, cutting off when her sister elbows her in the ribs.

  “We’re just happy to see you back at school so soon.” Krissi smiles brightly.

  “Thanks,” I say again. The girls are both wearing their soccer jerseys. I gesture at their outfits. “Do you have a game tonight?”

  “District playoffs,” they say in unison. They giggle.

  “Awesome. I hope you win.” I fidget with one end of the scarf tied around my head, wondering if it looks weird.

  We all turn and head into the school lobby together. Halfway to the main hallway, Krissi and Mandy get waylaid by a couple of senior boys and I continue toward my locker by myself.

  Three girls I’ve never seen before suddenly appear in my peripheral vision. They have their heads together whispering as I slowly make my way down the corridor.

  The tallest of the three flounces up to me. She’s almost as tall as my mom, but thin and coltish, with knobby knees and long limbs. A freshman, probably. “Genevieve. I just wanted to say I am so sorry. We all are.” Her minions quickly nod like a couple of bobblehead dolls. Tall Girl lowers her voice. “We hope the guy who killed Dallas goes to jail forever.”

  The guy who killed Dallas. He doesn’t even have a name to these girls. He’s probably not even human. I wish I didn’t know his name either. I wish he wasn’t human to me. I think back to the three pictures from the online article, Dallas and I looking so fresh-faced and full of hope, Brad Freeman looking like a criminal. I wonder if that picture is who he really is. I wonder if his numbness has worn off too, if he’s hurting even worse than I am, if he’ll ever be able to forgive himself.

  The second-tallest girl shoos curious onlookers out of the way while the leftover member of the trio timidly offers to carry my backpack.

  “I’m okay,” I say, my fake smile materializing out of nowhere. “But I’ve got to get to my locker. See you later.” Or not.

  I head down the corridor as fast as I can manage, leaving the freshmen behind, but accepting two more messages of sympathy—one from a teacher I had in tenth grade and another from our senior class president, a girl who I’ve shared at least six classes with during the past four years but only spoken to once or twice.

  When I turn the corner and head down the main hallway, I’m relieved to see the one person I actually want to talk to rooting through our locker. Shannon. She’s wearing the cutest skinny jeans and tunic outfit and has her hair done up into three buns down the back of her head, what she likes to call her superhero hairdo.

  “Oh my God, ohmygod, yay!” Shannon literally jumps up and down when she sees me approaching. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back today?”

  “Surprise.” I grin.

  Shannon wraps me in a tight hug. “I can’t believe you’re here! I’m so sorry I haven’t been by the house the past couple days, but my parents dragged me to Carlyle Lake this weekend and we didn’t get home until nine last night. I hate coming over late because I always feel like I’m pissing off your mom.”

  “You and me both,” I say, wincing a little in her embrace. “Easy, I’ve still got a lot of cuts and bruises.”

  �
�You poor thing.” Shannon steps back and the fluorescent lights reflect off her lip gloss, nearly blinding me. “I can’t believe you came back so soon.”

  “Well, you know my mom. Pretty sure I’d be back here by now even if I broke every bone in my body.”

  “Truth. Can you imagine sitting through school in, like, a full body cast? A janitor would have to roll you from class to class on one of those dollies.”

  “That sounds almost as much fun as a coma.”

  Shannon laughs, and for a few brief seconds life feels like it did before the accident, just me and my best friend getting ready to do her homework and then head off to first hour.

  And then someone taps me on the shoulder. I spin around. It’s another girl I don’t know. Her face is stained with tears and she’s wearing a “Students Against Drunk Driving” T-shirt. A tiny bouquet of daisies is clutched in one hand.

  She thrusts the flowers at me. “I am so sorry,” she says. “My boyfriend also died in a drunk driving accident.”

  “Thank you.” I accept the flowers. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “You’re welcome.” Tears start to leak from her eyes, but before I can say anything else, she turns and skitters down the hallway.

  Shannon takes the flowers out of my hands and reads the card. “From one of Dallas’s biggest fans and someone who knows what you’re going through. May our hearts heal together. #NeverForget Sincerely, Cassandra 636-555-8989.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t handle all these people.”

  “They mean well.” Shannon hands the bouquet of daisies to me and I set them at the bottom of my locker.

  “She did, maybe,” I say. “But my hospital room was full of gifts from strangers, and random people have been emailing me and asking me sketchy Dallas-related stuff.”

  “Forget email. Have you seen your Twitter lately?” Shannon’s eyes widen beneath her expertly applied cat-eye eyeliner.

  “No. I haven’t even downloaded the app onto my new phone. Why?”

  “You have like eight thousand followers.”