“No,” I said firmly, putting my hand out to stop her. The thought of waiting any longer to see Derek sent a sharp spasm through my heart. “I’m fine. I want to go back.”
She let out a sigh and put the phone down. “We can take it one day at a time.”
When I glanced up, I noticed that the rack above the sink that usually displayed her extensive knife collection was now completely empty. That’s when I realized that she didn’t trust me. She had already come to her own conclusions about what happened that night, no matter how many times we’d gone over it.
• • •
The dining room not only felt too big for the four of us, with the long, rectangular table that could seat twelve, it also felt foreign, like we were guests in someone else’s house. Or maybe it was just that I was the one who felt like a guest.
I didn’t say much through dinner. Neither did my dad, who checked his BlackBerry every five minutes, while my mother filled the silence by jabbering on about her orchid club and a brand new varietal she couldn’t wait to show “the girls.” For the past five years, a dozen neighborhood ladies with nothing better to do met each week to trade tips on orchid care. It always seemed like they were secretly competing, as if the color and size of their flowers represented who they were as people. My mom considered herself the Grand Dame of the group. Not just because she was its founder, but because she was the only one with a bona fide greenhouse. She had it built when Noah started school, and it had quickly become her third child.
“Olive, is there something wrong with your meal?” she asked, doling out seconds for Noah. He seemed so much bigger than he did two weeks ago, as if life was bursting out of him.
I moved my food around the plate to make it seem like I was eating. I’d been trying to avoid this very question. My queasiness had only gotten worse as the odor of garlic filled the room. I could still taste the meat on the roof of my mouth, like it had gotten stuck there and would never go away, no matter how much water I drank to try to wash it down. “No, it’s just that I ate something before coming home,” I lied.
“That’s too bad. I wish I had known. I made this especially for you since it’s your favorite.”
“It is,” I agreed. Or it was. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to enjoy meatloaf again. I knew there was no way my mother would understand, not without reinforcing all the conclusions she’d already come to. Plus, it was clear I’d already offended her. She considered it a personal affront if you didn’t have seconds, much less finish your first plate (even though she herself was exempt from this expectation). It’s one of the reasons she loved it whenever Derek stayed for dinner. His hearty, insatiable appetite was like one giant ego boost. Sometimes I wondered if that was the real reason she liked him: because of the way he made her feel. But I couldn’t blame her. That was just Derek. When he decided to shine his light on you, there was no resisting its glow. It wrapped itself around you like a second skin, making you forget everything and everyone else.
I reached my hand back through my hair and felt around for the wound. Most of the stitches had already disintegrated, just like Dr. Farmand told me they would. The area where he’d sewed me up was still devoid of nerve endings. He explained that it could stay that way indefinitely.
Tracing my fingertips across the bumpy ridge, I felt like I was touching someone else’s skin. Short bits of hair were slowly starting to poke through. They reminded me of the soft stubble that appeared across Derek’s face when he tried to grow a beard last year. He was doing it to try to look older so he could buy beer at the gas station by the freeway on-ramp (which was notorious for not carding). Only with his smooth, pink skin and fair, blond hair, the “beard” had the opposite effect. The thin, uneven patches actually made him look younger, like a boy pretending to be a man. Maybe that was why I liked it so much. It somehow made him seem less intimidating, more on my level. Caressing the new patch of peach fuzz on my head, I closed my eyes and imagined it was Derek’s cheek.
“Stop fussing with that, Olive,” my mother warned, swiping my hand away as she got up to clear the table. “Noah, why don’t you go on up and get ready for bed.”
I was about to get up too when my mother put her hand on my shoulder. “Your father and I would like to talk to you.”
“Okay,” I said, twisting my napkin into knots.
She sat back down, throwing my father a pointed glance. “We’re concerned about you,” she started in before he could offer anything. Not that he would have, anyway.
“I told you I’m fine.” I felt like I should plaster it on my forehead.
“And I thank God for that every day. But that’s not what I’m talking about. What we’re talking about,” she added, throwing my father another exasperated look.
I still hadn’t thought about God, much less thanked him. Besides, if there really were a God with a capital G, how could any of this have happened in the first place? “There isn’t anything else to talk about.”
“We’d just like to go over what happened that night.”
“Again?” My body tensed up as the screeching noises in my head rushed back in, like a living, breathing organism had taken my brain hostage.
“Based on the impact, the police report says you had to be speeding—”
“It wasn’t my fault,” I protested, cutting her off. Snippets of music, pieces of a song, kept pushing through. Was it the song playing on the radio when the car crashed? With the invasive sounds closing in, it was too difficult to hold on to the melody long enough to identify what it was. I only knew that it weighed me down with a haunting sadness.
“Honey…” She looked at my father, her eyes pleading for him to back her.
“Your mother isn’t saying it’s your fault,” he finally said, clearing his throat. His voice was flat and distant, like he wanted to be sitting there about as much as I did.
“But it’s what you believe,” I said, thinking about the now-empty knife rack.
“It’s just…help us understand,” she said, pulling her chair in closer. “It’s so unlike you to drive like that. Hyacinth Circle is tricky enough as it is with all those sharp turns. You know that. But at night, in the rain…what were you doing, Olive?”
I’d never been in trouble before. Never broken curfew or failed a test or played hooky from school. I was the perfect daughter. Why couldn’t she just let this one thing go?
“It’s like I already told you,” I said, trying to recall the exact words I had used when we first talked about it in the hospital. “I forgot I had an English paper due in the morning, and I had to get to the library before it closed.”
Clasping her hands, she placed her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “That’s not what Derek said.”
“What do you mean?” Panic coursed through me. “You talked to him?”
“The police did, naturally. It was his car. You were coming from his house.”
Even though they were only the facts, they sounded like accusations. “What did he say?”
“That you had a disagreement.” She stared at me like she was waiting for me to slip up, to do or say something that would prove she was right to keep probing.
“It wasn’t…we didn’t…” I blinked hard, trying to force back flashes from that night that threatened to pierce through. “What does that even have to do with anything?”
“He said you were upset and left abruptly in his car,” she pressed on.
“It was an accident,” I whispered, barely able to get the words out.
“That’s enough, Marian,” my father said, placing his napkin on his plate.
“Where are you going?” she asked as he scraped his chair back and stood.
“I forgot a file at the office.” He paused on his way out to kiss the top of my head. “It’s good to have you back.”
His voice cracked. A well of tears rose up inside me. I could still feel the warmth of his lips even after I heard the front door shut and his engine come to life.
Bam.
The invasion in my head intensified, an audio assault of deafening noises. I felt like I was going to vomit and fall asleep all at once if I didn’t get out of there. My mother didn’t say anything else as I got up to leave the table. Hopefully that was the end of it and the discussion was over. But with the ethereal tune snaking its way through my brain, growing louder and more melancholy with every note, I feared this was only the beginning.
CHAPTER 3
I SPENT THE next two hours parked in front of the television in the den. A DVR packed with two weeks’ worth of shows would normally have been heaven for a TV addict like me. But not even back-to-back episodes of Hailey’s Clinic, my all-time favorite medical show, could draw me in. I used to love getting lost in the drama of the main characters’ lives. Only now their words dissolved into static noise. On the screen, all I could focus on were the nameless patients in the background. Lying in their blue hospital gowns, hooked up to all sorts of machines, I realized they were the ones who were most like me. Not the glamorous actresses playing the parts of the doctors.
“Need anything?” my mother asked, poking her head in for about the tenth time. I had been waiting for her to go to bed so I could finally use the computer in peace, without the risk of her monitoring my every click of the mouse. But she kept clanging away in the kitchen, like she was deliberately trying to outwait me so I couldn’t get online. I didn’t understand what she was afraid of. I guess that on top of everything else, she was from the generation that was suspicious of the Internet, convinced it was dangerous.
I quickly closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep. She came in anyway, pried the remote from my hand, and turned off the system. “Let’s get you into bed,” she said, gently nudging my shoulder.
“What time is it?” I asked, throwing out a fake yawn.
“Almost ten.”
I figured she wasn’t going to rest until I did what she wanted. I reluctantly stood up and followed her down the hall. “I’ll drive you in the morning,” she said when we got to my room. “But you have to be ready by seven fifteen because it’s my day for Noah’s carpool.”
Clearly my old routine of driving myself to school in my dad’s old Honda was no longer an option. The truth was that I wasn’t ready to drive yet anyway. I wasn’t so sure I ever would be. But I didn’t need my mother making that decision for me.
Too tired to fight with her, I nodded and said good night, closing the door behind me. I let out a deep sigh as I heard my mother retreat down the hall. Leaning back against the door, I took in the sight of my bedroom. It was obvious she had already done a sweep. My folder of old homework assignments had been moved to the other side of the desk, and a few knickknacks had been rearranged on the shelf. I’m not sure what she was expecting to find.
She had also unpacked my bag from the hospital. Even though I hadn’t worn anything besides a hospital gown for the last two weeks, she washed all the clothes she had brought me. They sat in a neat pile on top of my dresser, right next to the Ziploc bag containing the gold chain with the heart pendant Derek gave me for my birthday last year. So that you will always have my heart, he had written in the card. It was the closest he had come to saying, “I love you.”
The paramedics removed the necklace in the ambulance when they were trying to revive me. It had been sitting in this tiny plastic bag ever since. With all the bandages and IV tubes and sponge baths in the hospital, they wouldn’t let me put it back on until I got home. I slowly unsealed the baggie. The chain slid out onto my hand. It was so thin and delicate. My fingers trembled as I unlatched the back and slipped it around my neck. It felt cold against my skin, just like it had the first time Derek put it on me. I hoped the fact that this necklace survived, intact, was a sign that we would too.
My knees suddenly felt weak. There were signs of him everywhere. The pictures of us tacked all over my bulletin board. The bouquet of pink roses he had given me on our first Valentine’s Day, now dried and preserved in a clear box on the bookshelf. His blue debate team sweatshirt hanging over the desk chair. He had forgotten it the last time he was here. My stomach twisted into knots thinking the very thing I’d been trying so hard to avoid. What if it really was the last time he’d be in my room? I ran over and pressed the sweatshirt to my nose. If I inhaled deeply, I could still make out the scent of his Old Spice deodorant.
Just then my cell began to ring. I scrambled to find it in my purse, where I was sure I had left it. It wasn’t there, no doubt thanks to my mom. I frantically tore through the room, chasing the muffled sound, until I finally found the phone buried under the pile of laundry. I picked up without checking the caller ID. There was no point, since Derek’s number was blocked, anyway. He took his privacy to an extreme, like he was already an elected official. A real one that is, outside the walls of Vista Valley High.
“Hello?” I was out of breath.
“You sound strange. Did I wake you?”
I let out a disappointed sigh and collapsed on the bed. It wasn’t Derek. It was my best friend Annie. “I couldn’t find my phone. My mom unpacked for me. Of course.”
“Of course,” Annie agreed. She knew what my mom was like. “You thought it was him again,” she added. She also knew what I was like.
“I’m just a little out of it,” I said, even though we both knew I was lying.
I reached over and absentmindedly ran my fingers over the old, hand-painted wooden box on my nightstand. Annie got it for me on her trip to India for her sweet sixteen. In a nutshell, that was the difference between Annie and the rest of the girls in Vista Valley. While most of them were trying to outdo each other on the elaborate party front, Annie was roaming the streets of Delhi, handing out pens and chocolates to homeless kids.
“I told you to give me a special ringtone so you can avoid this problem. Something peppy to match my awesome personality. I swear I’m just going to do it tomorrow so that you don’t have a coronary every time I call.” She paused for a beat. “Another one that is.”
“Very funny,” I snorted. I didn’t mind Annie’s making jokes like that because I knew how much she cared. She was also the only one besides my parents who had called and visited me in the hospital.
“So, what’s it like being home so far?”
“It’s great. The entire neighborhood came out and gawked at my return, like I’m some kind of circus freak. My dad’s practically gone mute and my mom’s on overdrive, running around like a headless chicken on speed. At least Noah’s acting normal.”
“So what you’re basically saying is nothing’s really changed.”
Annie had a way of cutting through the crap. It was probably because both her parents were shrinks, like she was born with a special gene that helped her see things the way they really were. And she wasn’t afraid to say it.
“Anyway, I’m calling because I’m gonna come get you in the morning,” she said.
The lump in my chest dislodged. A barrage of tears bubbled up. I thought about all the times that Derek had taken me to school, of his trademark honk when he pulled up outside: three quick beeps in a row. “Everyone always does two,” he used to say. “Three is how you’ll know it’s me.”
I sat up and opened the wooden box on the bedside table. Inside were all the fortunes I’d secretly been saving from our Friday Chinese take-out dates. I only kept the ones about love. Both his and mine. Derek didn’t know. He already thought I was enough of a hopeless romantic. Wedging the phone between my ear and shoulder, I reached in and pulled out a fortune. My other hand grabbed hold of the pendant as I read the black words printed out on the small piece of white rectangular paper: Everything will now come your way.
Now more than ever, I needed it to be true.
“Hello?” Annie tapped her fingers against the phone. “You still there?”
“Of course,” I said, releasing the gold heart. I slipped the fortune back in the box and closed it, trying to snap myself out of it. “You sure you don’t mind picking me up?”
We had been best friends since we were twelve, when fate paired us together for an assignment in social sciences. Sometimes I wondered if we’d be friends now if we hadn’t met when we were so young. All it took was one glance to see how different we were. Annie was what I liked to call a gamine. She was petite, but what she lacked in size she more than made up for in confidence. In her vintage scarves and dresses, she looked like she lived in New York City, not the San Fernando Valley, land of the strip mall. Her short pixie cut perfectly framed her delicate face. She was the only one I knew who could pull off such a different look without becoming a total outcast.
My hair was long and landed halfway down my back, just like all the girls at school. And I was much taller and bigger than Annie too. No matter how many times she told me my curves were sexy, all I felt when I looked in the mirror was round and chubby. It was the reason I wore loose shirts and avoided form-fitting dresses. It was also the reason I never let Derek see me naked.
“It’s a good excuse for me to try to be on time for a change,” she said. “Now get some sleep. I’ll be there at eight.”
I slipped under the covers and tried to get comfortable. I hoped that now that I was here, in my own bed, I would finally be able to sleep, but my mind raced with thoughts of Derek. How was he going to react when he first saw me tomorrow? When would it be? By our lockers where we usually met up? On the stairwell between classes? In the cafeteria at lunch? I didn’t know if I could wait that long.
I flung off the covers and jumped out of bed. Pausing by the door, I strained to listen for signs of my mother scurrying around like a domesticated mouse, but even mice had to sleep. Thankfully, the house was completely silent. I quietly opened the door and crept toward the sunroom.
Even though this had been our home for the last eight years, there was something unfamiliar about the moonlit shadows in the darkened halls. It almost felt like I was walking down them for the first time. Family pictures covered the walls. My mom had spent hours picking the perfect shots and placing them in chronological order, starting all the way back with my parents’ wedding photo. The most recent picture was this year’s annual Christmas family portrait, taken in the garden by Vista Valley’s preeminent photographer. My mother made us wear matching red and green tops for extra holiday spirit. With our fake smiles and perfectly brushed hair, we looked so stiff and unnatural, like wax figures. I wondered what next year’s portrait would look like, and if I could still manage a smile.
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