I’d drifted into the lane of oncoming traffic.
The truck coming from the opposite direction clipped the front end of our car, sending us into a spin which turned into a roll. The car rolled over four times.
I could still remember watching as Mitchell’s extra pacifier had flown through the air, like it was in slow motion. I could still remember the way the contents of Melanie’s purse floated around her like a cloud.
I could still remember the scream and then the dead silence when the car finally settled. The smell of burned rubber and exhaust stung my nose, making my eyes water.
And that was the last thing I remember.
21
Ethan
I stare into the fire, taking a short break to swallow past the lump in my throat. “Melanie died at the scene. I was taken to the hospital and I woke up four days later.” My cheeks are wet, and I hate that they are, but I don’t try to brush my face dry. I leave the evidence of my shame there for her to see because I think she needs to see everything.
“Oh, Ethan,” Abigail says, but she doesn’t reach to touch me, not like most women would. Instead, she sits absolutely still, her legs drawn up and crossed in front of her, like she’s trying to ball herself up. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. Her voice cracks and I hear her sniffle.
It’s only when I hear that sniffle that I finally look over at her. “I didn’t want to tell you. But I felt it was only fair.” Her eyes are so bright there in the firelight, brimming with tears. “If you want to leave now, I’ll understand,” I say quietly. Then I steel myself for the moment when she gets up and walks away. It’ll wreck me, but I’ll survive.
“I don’t want to leave,” she says.
I say nothing, mainly because there’s nothing I can say that will adequately conceal the level of shame that’s coursing through me right now.
“You loved her,” she says simply. It’s not a question. It’s a statement.
“I still love her,” I say, and my voice breaks again, and I hate like a motherfucker that it does.
“Oh, Ethan. You’re wracked with guilt over this, but it wasn’t your fault.”
“It was my fault.” The words burst from my mouth with more venom than I had intended, so I struggle to gentle my tone. “It was my fault,” I say again. “If I hadn’t looked at my phone, she’d still be alive.”
She shakes her head. “Ethan, you made a mistake. And it was a terrible one, but it was still a mistake.”
I snort out a pained laugh. “So you think what I did is okay because I didn’t mean to do it?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Her voice is soft like she’s speaking to a wounded animal. “I’m saying that it was an accident. You didn’t have any intent to harm anyone.”
I snort again. “That’s not what the police said. One of the witnesses in a passing car had seen me staring down at my phone when I’d drifted into the other lane. He told the police what I’d done.”
“And that’s why you went to prison?”
I nod. “That’s why.”
“I don’t understand. It was a mistake. A terrible accident, but an accident nonetheless.”
“Actually, it’s referred to as involuntary manslaughter.” I shrug. “Melanie was the town darling. Her dad is the fire chief and he knows everyone, even back then. He made some calls because he wanted justice for Melanie.” I suck in a breath and blow it out. “But what he didn’t understand was that I wanted justice for Melanie just as badly as he did. I wanted them to do their worst to me, because their worst wasn’t nearly as bad as how I wanted to punish myself. With my careless actions, I killed her.”
She sits quietly, still hunched up in a ball.
“When I woke up in the hospital, I had handcuffs holding one wrist to the bed. I didn’t even know what had happened. I was alone, until a nurse heard me calling out for Melanie. They sent a doctor in to tell me what had happened and to explain about Melanie.”
“I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you.”
“What came next was easy. I got charged with involuntary manslaughter, and they were using my case as a landmark decision to deter people from using their phones while driving. They offered me a plea bargain—seven years in prison if I would plead guilty. I got out in five with good behavior.”
“You weren’t guilty,” she says quietly. “You made a mistake.”
“I was guilty. I still am guilty. And I’ll always be guilty.”
“No,” she says. “What you’ll always be is who you are.”
I look at her finally, and I see that her face is wet too, and it kills me that I’ve done that to her. “Then who am I?”
“You’re Mitchell’s father. You’re my best friend. And some day, when you’ve had enough time to process all that happened, you are going to get your life back the way you want it, the way you deserve to have it.”
“I got exactly what I deserved.” My voice sounds like I’ve been chewing gravel for days.
“Well, thank you for telling me,” she says after a long moment of silence.
“You’re welcome,” I whisper. I stare at the fire so long that I can see flames dancing in the darkness when I look away.
“Do you feel like you’ve paid your debt to society?” she suddenly asks.
I shrug. “The courts feel like I did.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever feel worthy of falling in love, having a family, and living a good life. I botched it all up so badly the first time.”
She jerks her thumb toward the tent. “That little boy loves you, and I’m sure he’s heard all the rumors about what happened to his mother. Kids can be cruel. And he loves you anyway.”
I grit out a laugh. “Kids have no sense of self-preservation.”
“He’s happy here with you.”
I nod. “He seems to be.”
“Do you still look at your phone while you’re driving?”
My head jerks so I can look at her. “Never. Ever.”
“Good.” She finally uncurls her legs and eases back a little, resting her head on the back of the chair. She stares up at the sky. “We all do stupid things from time to time. Thoughtless things. Things that we look back on and know were bad decisions.”
“I’m afraid mine will follow me for the rest of my life,” I admit. I finally bend my neck so I can wipe my face on my sleeve.
“It’ll only follow you for the rest of your life if you keep running from it,” she says, her voice strong but quiet.
And her comment sinks deep into the center of me.
“Don’t give me hope, Abigail,” I say, almost pleading. I let out a wet chuckle. “That’s the last thing I need.
She smiles. “I’m a little bit in like with you, so you’re going to have to give up on that.”
I lift my head to look at her. “Still?” Even after all that?
She nods, staring up at the sky. “Still.”
She reaches over and takes my hand in hers, and she holds it as we sit quietly and stare up at the stars. We sit there until the logs on the fire have become nothing more than small glowing embers, and I see her shiver.
“I had better get home,” she says over a yawn. She stands up.
“Do you have to?” I grin at her. I’ve never felt as much peace as I feel when she’s around.
Suddenly, a quacking sound comes from down the lane.
“Is that Wilbur?” she asks.
“Sounds like it.”
We both stand and watch as Wilbur toddles down the lane in the moonlight, and then he walks straight into the open door of the tent, settles onto his pile of blankets, and lays his head down.
“You think he got laid?” I ask.
“He does look awfully content.” And Abigail laughs out loud. Then she covers her mouth, appalled at the fact that she made so much noise.
“For what it’s worth,” I say to her, “I’m still in like too.”
S
he steps up onto her tiptoes and presses her lips very quickly against my cheek. I want to draw her to me, and I want to kiss her for real, while she’s pressed against me. I want to hold her.
But I also want to give her time to think about everything I told her tonight. I want her to decide if she can live with it or not. I have to live with it, but she doesn’t.
Aside from Melanie’s death, which was something I would never get over, the worst part about that day and the events that followed—the very worst part—was that I’d never learned when Mitchell had finally given up his pacifier. I wasn’t there so I didn’t know how it happened or what made him want to do it.
And the loss of small details like that…those were what made all the wasted time over a dumb choice I’d made seem like such a tragedy.
22
Abigail
The next morning, I wake up feeling like crap. My throat hurts, my head feels like it’s in a vise, and even my skin hurts. I go from freezing to sweating every five minutes, so I get up, go to pee, and then go straight back to bed. I stay there, and I’ll probably stay there for the next week.
In the back of my mind, I wonder how things are going for Ethan. I wonder if Mitchell slept all night and then got up really early. I wonder if they got the chance to try out that fishing pole that Ethan bought for Mitchell. I wonder a lot of things, but my body hurts too much for me to get up and go check on them, not to mention that I don’t want to infect either one of them with this creepy crud that has taken over my whole body. I reach over and grab a tissue to blow my nose, and I wish that I had some pain relievers in the house. There’s nothing, because no one ever gets a headache at the lake unless you’ve drank too much.
I pick up my phone and dial Gran. She answers on the fourth ring, which probably means that she forgot where she left her phone.
“Gran,” I say, my voice sounding as weak as I feel.
“Abigail?” she says, and I can almost see her stand up to her full height in my mind.
“I don’t feel well, Gran.”
“Is it your tummy? Sometimes if I don’t poop for a few days—”
“It’s not my poop, Gran,” I say as I roll over, cough a few times, and close my eyes. Even the sunlight that’s coming through the open window hurts. “I think I’ve caught a cold or the flu or something.”
“You’ve got that kissing disease,” she says.
“I do not have mono,” I retort.
“You want me to come and take care of you?”
The good thing is that if I said yes, she’d be here in an hour. She wouldn’t wait. She’d come in, she’d bathe my forehead with cool water, rub my temples, and feed me purple juice and chicken soup with little pasta stars in it. She’d do all that and more without complaining because she loves me.
“I’ll be okay,” I say. I roll over again, my whole body aching so much that I can’t find a comfortable position to lie in. “Do you have any pain relievers hidden in the cabin?”
“No, I packed them up with everything that was in the medicine cabinet when we closed the cabin at the end of the season.”
“Oh.” I heave out a heavy breath, which makes me cough. “I felt fine yesterday.” I rest my palm on my forehead, wishing like crazy that I had someone to rub it for me. The vise keeps getting tighter and tighter.
“Were you around anyone with a cold?” she asks.
Come to think of it, the day I arrived at the lake, when I’d stopped at the tackle shop to buy some shirts, there had been a woman in there walking around carrying a damp handkerchief, and she’d been coughing up a storm. “Maybe,” I say. “Maybe someone at the store.”
“I’m telling you, it’s that kissing disease.” She laughs.
“I told you it’s not mono. And I haven’t been doing that much kissing.” I add the last more as an afterthought.
She cackles. “So there has been some kissing going on. Okay. Go Abigail,” she sings quietly. “Go Abigail, it’s your birthday.”
I frown. “It’s not my birthday.”
“Well, I know that, dummy,” she says. “It’s a song.”
“You couldn’t carry a tune to save your life.”
“Boy, you do feel bad,” she says. “You’re cranky. Always were kind of sour when you got sick. Your daddy was the same way.”
“I’m going back to sleep, Gran.”
“Wait,” she calls out, and I hear her even though I’ve already dropped the phone on the bed.
I pick it back up. “What?”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come? I will. I’ll get right in the car, right now.”
I don’t like for Gran to drive long distances by herself. And I don’t want her near me if I’m contagious, either. “No, I’m fine. Seriously. I’m just going to sleep it off.”
“Love you, Abigail. I’ll call you later to check on you.”
“Love you too, Gran.” I let the phone fall to the bed again as I pull the covers up under my chin, my teeth chattering.
As the sun sets, I wake up to the sound of someone knocking on the front door. I’ve been in and out of consciousness all day, getting up only long enough to go pee and to force myself to drink something. But I haven’t done anything more than that. Once, I’d gotten up and pulled Gran’s old heating pad from the closet and plugged it in because I couldn’t get warm enough.
But now I’m sweaty. My clothes are damp, the sheets are damp. I must have been sweating beneath the covers. I feel gross.
The knock sounds again, and I hear the lock turn, meaning someone has a key, as the front door opens. “Abigail,” a deep voice calls out. “Are you here?”
The footsteps stop in the front room. “No,” I call back weakly.
The footsteps come toward the bedroom, but I’m too sick to care. “Abigail?” Ethan says. I can see him silhouetted in the doorway of the bedroom with the light limning his body. “Close your eyes,” he says. “I’m going to turn the light on.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. The light still hurts when he turns it on, so I moan into my pillow.
“I heard you were sick,” he says. He walks over to the bed, and he reaches out to touch my forehead with the back of his hand. “You’re burning up.” He takes a little machine out of his pocket and rolls it across my forehead. “One-oh-three-point-two.” Jesus, why didn’t you tell me? I would have come sooner.”
“Who told you I was sick?” My voice cracks as I talk.
“Your grandmother called the Jacobsons, and Katie was coming over here to bring you the pain relievers you need.” He holds up the little thermometer. “She also told Katie to take your temperature.” He grins at me as he shakes a bottle of pills in front of my face. “But Katie walked by my tent and told me where she was going, so I volunteered to come instead.”
“Gran called them?” I croak. My throat is stinging like it’s on fire.
“She called them and gave them a list of things you need. And she told them where to find the key that was hidden outside.” I see that he’s still holding on to a plastic shopping bag, which he sets on the side of the bed. “So I went to the store and got all of the things your grandmother said you would need when I took Mitchell back to Ma’s house.”
He starts to unload the bag. He has a carton of purple juice, the kind from the refrigerated section of the grocery store.
“What’s the deal with the purple juice, anyway?” he asks. “It was on the list.” He goes to the kitchen to get a glass, and when he comes back he opens the juice container and pours a few inches into the glass. Then he sticks in a straw. That must have been on Gran’s list too, because I know there are no straws in the house. “She said it didn’t matter what flavor it is, that it just had to be purple. And I had to give it to you with a straw.” He holds out a piece of paper. “Katie actually wrote all her instructions down.”
“I like purple juice,” I manage to say. I let him hold the straw to my lips and I take a few tentative sips, but they burn like fire going down.
&nb
sp; “Most people would say ‘I want pomegranate juice’ or ‘I want grape juice.’”
“No,” I say. “I just want purple juice.”
He opens the bottle of pain relievers and shakes two into his hand. “Take these.”
There’s no way they’re going down my throat. I turn my head away.
“You have to take them,” he says. He holds them out to me again.
“Nuh-uh,” I grunt at him, turning my face farther away. “They’re too big.”
“That’s what she said too,” he mutters. Then he laughs to himself and walks back to the kitchen. A minute later, he’s handing me two pills that have been cut into pieces. I hold out my hand so he can lay them in my palm. One by one, I drop the pieces on my tongue and take a sip after each one. They feel like shards of glass going down, but I need them. I ache all over.
He looks at me like he’s examining me. “How long have you been sick?”
“I woke up feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck.” I kick the covers down to my feet, suddenly hot again, not even thinking that I’m wearing nothing but a Lake Fisher t-shirt and panties. His eyes glance down and then quickly back up.
“Why didn’t you come and get me?”
He brushes my hair back from my forehead, and I preen like a cat, pushing against his palm. He very lightly starts to drag his fingertips across the feverish skin under my bangs, and it feels so good.
“You had Mitchell,” I remind him.
“So your staying away was just because you were sick?” he asks. I open my eyes and find him staring down at me, his gaze open and trusting, but wary.
I nod even though that hurts too. “What else would it be?”
“I thought maybe after last night…”
“No, I had planned to come and see you guys today. I just couldn’t make it.”
I roll over onto my stomach and shift one leg to the side, trying to get comfortable. I feel my panties ride up into my butt crack, but I’m just too sick to care.
I don’t complain when I feel his fingertips grab the hem of my panties and pull them out of my butt so that I’m fully covered. “Thank you,” I murmur.
Feels like Rain (Lake Fisher Book 3) Page 15