‘I’m going back to bed,’ Wren announced quietly as he stood up. His mom grabbed for his hand as he walked past, but he moved from her reach. She looked wounded, but Wren didn’t have the energy to care. He walked past Billy, who said nothing. Normally he would have put him in his place gently about brushing off his mother. He did everything gently, but not today; he didn’t say a word.
He fell asleep almost immediately and, of course, he dreamed of her. Olivia. He was watching her as she slipped under the water, her last breath bubbling to the surface. He woke up in a cold sweat. Had she thought of him? Of how he hadn’t helped her? Or was her last thought a loving one?
The shadows were starting to touch his bedroom. He’d obviously been asleep all day and everyone had left him be. He redressed, pulling off his sweat-soaked clothes and changing into a fresh, clean set. He went out the back door, grabbed his bike and rode over to Olivia’s house. Was it still Olivia’s house, or was it Principal Holmes’s now?
It was gloomy, but Principal Holmes had the lounge light on and Wren could see the man hunched over on a couch. In one hand he held a framed photo; in his other, a glass of wine. Wren put his bike down. The least he could do was offer a shoulder to lean on. He owed her that. Wren rang the doorbell and waited. The door opened and before him stood not the strong, commanding Principal Holmes, but a man broken with grief. His shoulders hitched for a moment before he got himself together. ‘Wren,’ he said flatly.
‘Principal Holmes.’
‘What are you doing out so late?’ Principal Holmes asked.
‘Not sure. I just ended up here. Can I come in?’
Olivia’s dad seemed to think about it for a moment. ‘Yes.’ He opened the door wider and stood to the side.
He walked into the lounge. A bottle of red wine and the half-filled glass sat on the table, the framed photo of Olivia close by. Wren was staring at it when Principal Holmes walked back into the room.
‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, sir, she is.’
‘I keep wandering into her bedroom to check, to make sure that this hasn’t been some huge mix-up; that she’ll be sitting on her bed, legs tucked up under her, watching a movie on her laptop. You know how she loved a good movie. Horror was her favorite.’ Wren knew this but nodded, the man needed to talk, and he would listen. He owed him that.
‘I’m so sorry, Principal Holmes.’
‘We’re bonded in a way we never were before. We’re bonded in grief. In our shared love of Olivia. And I know she loved you.’
Wren looked down, then put a finger in his mouth, chewing on a nail. He looked up slowly, sure that Principal Holmes would see the guilt on his face, the blood on his hands, but he was staring at the photo.
‘I don’t understand why,’ he said, his eyes wet. The man struggled not to cry. ‘We moved here for a fresh start for her. She was happy here. Yes, she had been different for the past week or so. She was upset, but she wouldn’t tell me why. Do you know anything about it?’ he asked.
‘No, I don’t,’ Wren said, swallowing the lie.
‘Well, did you have a fight? She didn’t talk about you like she normally would. Did you break up?’
‘Not really,’ he lied. ‘She said she needed a break, not a breakup, just a break. I got the impression she was working through some stuff.’
‘She could have told me anything,’ Principal Holmes said sadly, and Wren knew it was time to go.
‘I’d better go. I didn’t tell my mom where I was going – she’ll be worried.’
‘Thanks for coming round. Olivia would have appreciated you checking in on me.’ His voice was thick with pain and Wren said goodbye hurriedly, picked up his bike and left.
Wren’s mom offered to drive him to school the next day, but he refused, saying that he’d rather catch the bus. He knew that she felt him pulling away and it would upset her, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to be touched or pushed gently to confide in her like he always had. This was a situation that he’d never been in before. As he hopped on the bus, all conversations ceased and he guessed that Olivia had been the topic of conversation. He didn’t care. He took a seat and they resumed talking around him. He heard his name a few times, but he tuned it out. It was all background noise, white noise: they didn’t matter. He needed to talk to someone that actually mattered. He needed to find Justin.
It wasn’t hard to find him. He and Wade were in the courtyard, talking to a small group of friends.
‘Wren! Been looking for you,’ said Justin.
‘Well here I am, motherfucker.’
Justin’s eyes narrowed. ’Scuse us.’ He grabbed Wren by the forearm and dragged him away from the group, who watched on with interest. Wade followed them.
‘What the fuck is your problem?’ demanded Justin.
‘What’s my fucking problem? What do you think? Olivia killed herself.’
‘I heard. Good for us – now she can never tell what we did. We’re home free. Stupid bitch.’
‘You mean you’re safe. You and Wade, I didn’t do shit.’
‘Sorry, buddy, but you were there too and didn’t stop it. You’re just as responsible as us.’ Justin sneered. ‘I’ll just tell people that you let us have sex with her.’
‘At least call it what it was, Justin. Rape. You and Wade raped her and then she killed herself.’
‘Calm the fuck down, Wren. You want people to know what we’re really fighting about? Remember, we’re in this together.’ Justin’s eyes blazed with anger, Wren’s with righteousness.
‘I’m not with you at all. Just forget you know me.’ Wren glared at Justin, then at the silent Wade.
22
The insistent knocking woke Vanessa from her pleasant dream. It was still dark outside and Billy slept beside her, taking up most of the bed and snoring softly as he exhaled. She thought about waking him up in case it was Mark at the door, but he’d been working so hard lately and was so tired, she decided to leave him be. The knocking began again.
‘Coming,’ she muttered to herself. She wondered if Wren had forgotten his keys again and needed to be let in. Surely he would have knocked on her bedroom window rather than the front door, though? So maybe it wasn’t Wren. She quickened her step as she hurried down the hallway, hoping that Ty wasn’t woken up. It was always hard to get him back to sleep, especially if Wren wasn’t home; sometimes he was the only one who could get him to drop off.
She looked out the window beside the door and her breath was stolen away. Two uniformed police officers stood at her front door. She put her hand to her heart and immediately thought of her dad. She was his next of kin. He could by lying on a hospital bed injured. She quickly unlocked the door.
‘Mrs Vanessa Sawyer?’
‘Yes, but I remarried. It’s Wright now.’
‘May we come in, Mrs Wright?’
‘Sure, of course.’ She unlocked then opened the screen door, inviting them both inside before closing the door again. She began to feel funny, like your stomach does as you’re going up the steep climb of a rollercoaster and you know that at any moment you’re going to tip over the edge and free fall. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Let’s sit down. I’m Officer Jason Miles and this is my colleague Sergeant Jasmine Wicker.’
Vanessa was frozen with fear, wishing that she could stop time and prevent the words that she knew with absolute clarity that they were about to say.
Yet, he spoke anyway. ‘Please sit.’
Her legs felt like wooden logs, refusing to bend in the middle. Finally, she dropped onto the couch and waited for someone to speak. Vanessa picked up the hem of her nightie and began twisting it and untwisting it in her fingers. She looked at the clock. It was two in the morning. Nothing good happened after midnight.
‘Mrs Wright, there was a car accident tonight at approximately midnight out on the old highway. The accident involved your son, Wren Sawyer.’
She waited at the top of the rollercoaster.
&n
bsp; ‘The ambulance crews did everything they could, but I’m afraid he didn’t make it. He died at the scene.’
Free fall.
Time refused to move for her. She could see their lips moving but could hear nothing. Then slowly words instilled themselves into her brain.
Accident. Catastrophic injuries.
She screamed. Not the scream of someone enjoying the ride on the roller coaster, that of someone who’d come off the tracks completely. A raw and primal scream burst forth from her lips again, as the female cop, her name already forgotten, moved to sit with her, to do her job and comfort her. Vanessa heard heavy footsteps running down the hallway and Billy burst into the room, hair sticking up wildly. He took in the scene and immediately ran to his wife, wrapping her shaking body in his arms.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked bluntly.
‘Are you Mr Wright, Wren Sawyer’s stepfather?’
‘Yes, what’s happened?’
‘He’s dead?’ said Vanessa, shaking like a leaf. ‘He can’t be dead. Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid. There was a car accident.’ the female officer repeated for Billy’s benefit. ‘He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.’
‘It’s not Wren then. He always wore he seatbelt. He was good like that.’ Vanessa tried to convince them that they’d got it wrong. ‘Oh God, Justin? Wade? Are they dead too?’ she asked, guessing that Wren was with them and that they had been in Justin’s car.
‘No, they’re both alive, in hospital with severe injuries but expected to make full recoveries.’
So only her Wren had died.
‘We will need someone to come and identify his body.’ Delicately said but still a knife through the heart.
At this, Vanessa started wailing, the sound of a heart breaking. She kept repeating, ‘No, no, no, no,’ over and over again.
‘I can do the identification,’ Billy offered.
‘He’s my son, I’ll identify him,’ she said weakly. She barely registered the hurt look cross Billy’s face. Wren was his son too. She’d said as much.
‘I’ll ring Maggie and ask her to come over and take care of Ty.’
Within a few minutes, Billy re-entered the lounge, now dressed in pants and shirt. All eyes swung to him. ‘Maggie will be here in ten minutes to watch Ty – Ty is our other son.’ Remaining son.
Not even five minutes later, Maggie burst through the door, using her own key to get into the house. She’d been crying, her eyes already red and puffy. Billy hugged her; Vanessa just watched. She didn’t have the tears right now; they had dried on her face, not even wiped away, like glistening trails. Maggie came over to where she was sitting and bent down in front of her. ‘Ness, I’m so sorry.’ Vanessa looked straight through her, ignoring her like she wasn’t even there.
Billy had a quiet conversation with Maggie, probably about Ty and what to tell him if they weren’t back when he woke up. Just how long does it take to identify someone?
‘Ness, are you sure you want to go? Do—’
‘Yes,’ she snapped.
‘Well you’d better get dressed then. Do you need help?’ Billy asked.
He was treating her like a child, an invalid or something, his voice a higher pitch than normal, his face lined with concern. She pulled on the first things she could find: black pants crumpled on the floor and a thin red cable-knit jumper draped over the chair.
‘Are you ready to go, Mr and Mrs Wright?’ the young officer asked.
She was never going to be ready for this. She was doing this because she owed it to Wren.
Rather than letting either of them drive, the officers gave them a lift to the hospital, morgue. No one said anything. Maybe they were trained not to say anything, maybe they didn’t know what to say. She looked out the window past the dark night, then she saw her reflection and started gently banging her head on the glass. Suddenly she banged harder and Billy reached across, grabbing her by the shoulders and all but pinning her down.
‘Don’t you touch me,’ she hissed. She had wounded him. Well, so what? She had been dealt a fatal blow tonight too.
The officers took them through a back entrance, down a short hallway and into the morgue itself.
‘Are you sure you want to go in?’ Billy asked, giving her one last opportunity to have him do it, but Vanessa had to see Wren, had to know it was him and that all hope had been lost.
‘I’m sure.’
‘Are you ready, Vanessa?’ Asked the female officer.
‘Yes.’
She waved her hand and a gurney was rolled over. The sheet was pulled up over the body and Vanessa needed to both see and not see what was under the sheet. The attendant didn’t just remove the sheet, yanking it down with a flourish as she’d seen them do in the movies. He took his time, peered under the sheet first, then lifted it up high and back, smoothing it just under Wren’s neck. Vanessa saw why. The right side of his face was still her beautiful Wren, but the other side was covered with carefully placed bandages.
‘Wren!’ she screamed, her heart beating wildly in her chest, a bird desperate to be set free. She stared at his face, surrounded by hard stainless steel when he should have been at home, surrounded by family and friends. Vanessa collapsed. No one managed to catch her before she went down, her world destroyed.
Vanessa woke up, aware that there was something firm yet soft underneath her. She struggled to sit up. She saw Billy sitting in a chair beside her in what looked like a hospital room.
‘Shh, Ness,’ Billy said, gently helping her swing her legs over the side of the bed.
‘What happened?’ she asked, her mind giving her a few more blissfully unaware moments.
‘You fainted while you were… identifying Wren’s body.’ He cleared his throat and Vanessa could hear the emotion thickening his voice.
‘It wasn’t a nightmare?’ she asked, unfeeling wood replacing her emotions.
He shook his head. ‘I’m so sorry, honey. He’s gone.’
She put her head in her hands, fingers finding purchase on the strands.
‘Are you all right?’ Billy asked.
‘No, I’m not fucking all right. My son just died.’ She went to stand up, but she lost her balance, falling back against the bed. Billy put out a hand to steady her. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she snapped.
The officers were waiting outside the room for her – she couldn’t have been out for long – and offered to give them a ride home.
It was quiet the whole way back. Vanessa stared, unseeing, out the window while Billy kept his eyes firmly on Vanessa, the officers once again not saying anything.
When they got to the front door, Billy realized that he had left his keys inside and knocked on the door. Maggie opened it. ‘Ty’s awake,’ she said immediately. ‘He wanted to know where you all were and why I was here. I told him you’d speak to him about it.’ She hung her head and swiped at her eyes. ‘I just… Ness… both of you. I’m just so damn sorry. Wren was an amazing young man. Someone who you could always count on—’
Vanessa pushed between Billy and Maggie and walked slowly down the hallway to their bedroom. Ty would have to wait. She couldn’t handle talking about Wren’s death just yet. Soon enough it would be out there, and people would know. They’d ask questions like the busybodies that they were, giving her empty platitudes that didn’t help. No, she would leave telling Ty to Billy. He was good at that kind of stuff.
‘How bad was it?’ she heard Maggie ask Billy in hushed voices.
‘Fucking awful. He had bandages over one entire side of his face.’
Vanessa listened from the doorway. She had no idea what the officers had said to Billy while she’d been out of it.
‘Did they tell you, like, how he died? You said it was a car accident that killed him. Did you get any more information? Specifics?’
Was Maggie being a gossip or just a person who loved Wren deeply and needed to understand and make sense of this tragedy as much as Vanessa did?
‘There…’ She h
eard Billy take in a deep breath. ‘There was a lot of damage done. For some reason Wren wasn’t wearing his seatbelt when the accident happened, and his air bag failed to go off. It… it made for injuries that he couldn’t have. It’ll have to be a closed-coffin service.’
Vanessa stuffed her fist into her mouth to keep from crying out. What injuries? Did Billy know? Her beloved baby. Taken from her.
She couldn’t even think about his… funeral. She would have to put him in the cold, hard ground, alone. Abandoned. And where had she been while he’d lain there dying? Safely tucked up in bed. She hadn’t even waited up for him. She assumed that he’d been with Justin and Wade, safe.
Maggie spoke, her voice carrying down the short hallway.
‘But why? Why did they crash? What happened, Billy?’ Her voice broke as she asked the question, and she imagined that Billy had laid a comforting hand on her arm.
‘The police said that Justin swerved to miss a deer, but they ran off the road and into a tree.’ Billy paused, then kept talking. Vanessa clung to the doorframe for support, knowing that she couldn’t hold herself up without help. She could have called for help, but she needed to hear the rest of the story. Billy might water it down for her, to protect her, but he was being straight with Maggie. ‘When they hit the tree, Wren wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. He went through the front window.’
‘Oh God,’ Maggie gasped.
‘He had a broken eye socket, a fractured skull, broken neck, and deep lacerations on his arms and torso. He… he lost an arm too.’ Billy rattled off the litany of injuries her baby had suffered.
Maggie began to cry, mirroring exactly what Vanessa was doing. She turned away from the conversation and her crying best friend, wanting nothing more than to die right along with her son. Before she closed the door, she heard Billy say, ‘They don’t know if he died right away. He could have lived, seconds maybe, but those few seconds…’ His words choked off.
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