I remembered that.
I’d been texting Abbi.
I stared at my phone, barely aware of Mom saying she was going downstairs to make some calls. The phone wasn’t at all damaged. Not a single crack in the screen or anything. How was that possible?
I saw the missed texts, phone calls and social media notifications. There were so many—too many. I bypassed them all and opened up my texts, then scrolled until I saw Abbi’s name. I didn’t read her messages. I zeroed in on the message box, on the half-complete message.
Caught a ride with Megan. Didn’t want to bother
“Oh my God,” I whispered, dropping my phone on the bed like it was a bomb waiting to go off.
My text was still there, waiting to be sent. A thought left unfinished. A message that never made it to the intended. That could’ve been the last thing I ever typed. Probably should’ve been, but a strap only two inches wide had saved my life.
I smoothed my hand over my hair, pushing the strands back from my face. I sat there for several minutes, not moving. I needed to do my breathing treatments soon. The inhaler was on the nightstand. Throwing the covers off my legs, I carefully scooted over the bed. Standing made my ribs feel like someone was taking a vise grip to them, but I ignored the pain as I walked the short distance to my desk and picked up my laptop.
Back on my bed, I cracked open my laptop and went straight to Google to type in the local newspaper’s name. The website popped up and it took no amount of time to find what I was looking for.
Articles on the accident.
The first one, the day after the accident, had a picture of the SUV. I clapped my hand over my mouth as I stared at the image. It had been taken that night. There was a red-and-blue glare to the picture.
How could they be allowed to post a picture like that?
The vehicle had been smashed to the point it was almost unrecognizable. The roof caved in, doors peeled off. Windows broken out. One side looked like it had been peeled open. A yellow tarp covered part of the windshield.
Chris had been sitting up front.
Jerking my hand back from my laptop, I sat there for a second, wondering how I’d even survived the crash. How had a seat belt saved me from that?
Names had not been released when this article was printed. Families had still been waiting for their lives to be shattered. Two patients had been transported by air to INOVA. Alcohol was suspected as a preliminary cause.
Clicking back, I scanned the headlines and stopped on the one that read Four Local Students Die in Alcohol-Related Accident. It was from Tuesday.
I read the article numbly, as if I were reading about strangers instead of my friends. They listed them out by name. Eighteen-year-old Cody Reece. Eighteen-year-old Chris Byrd. Seventeen-year-old Megan Byrd. Eighteen-year-old Phillip Johnson. My name wasn’t listed. I was referred to as a seventeen-year-old minor listed in critical but stable condition.
All except for one had been ejected from the vehicle, and another had been partially ejected. I thought about the tarp over the front passenger side...and I didn’t want to think about it anymore.
I kept scrolling and I kept reading. Preliminary toxicology reports indicated that the driver—Cody—had a blood-alcohol level two times the legal limit. On Tuesday, nearly a week ago, they’d been awaiting a full toxicology report, and I...I saw Cody in my head, reaching for the door handle and missing. I heard him saying as clear as day, as if he were sitting next to me, Jesus. Are you serious? I had one drink. And I didn’t want to read anymore, but I couldn’t stop.
I skimmed the article announcing that Clearbrook High had forfeited the game against Hadley this past Friday night out of respect for the massive loss to the football team. They talked about the boys, about their records on the field. How Cody had been hoping to attend Penn State and Phillip had been planning to go to WVU, the same for Chris.
Another article was posted yesterday, announcing a vigil to be held at Clearbrook High this Friday night, after the football game, when Clearbrook would kick off their “bittersweet” season. But that article mentioned something else—charges.
Charges against—Oh my God. I read the lines twice, stunned and sick to my stomach.
An investigation of the accident is currently pending. Local authorities have revealed that all the occupants in the car were minors and had left the residence of Albert and Rhonda Scott. At this time, it is believed that both adults were home while the party was being held at their residence. If charged, they could be found guilty of endangering minors, furnishing alcohol to minors, reckless endangerment and criminal negligence.
Holy crap.
That was Keith’s parents, and I knew they’d been home. I’d seen them inside the house, in the kitchen. And that hadn’t been the first party they’d been well aware of.
Dazed, I got to the end of the article and I...I did something I knew I shouldn’t do, but I did it anyway. I started reading the comments on the article that had announced their names. The first comment simply said “Prayers.” Second comment read “What a waste of potential. RIP.” Third comment was “Seen that Reece boy play. What a damn waste. Surely heading for the NFL.”
“This is why you don’t drink and drive. What a damn shame.”
“Driving that road sober is scary, let alone drunk? Idiots.”
The comments just...just went downhill from there. People, complete strangers, commenting as if they knew them—knew us. Strangers saying horrible, horrible things as if they didn’t care that Cody and Phillip’s friends, or Megan and Chris’s family, could be reading these.
“They made stupid decisions. They died. End of story.”
“Why are we having a vigil for four dumbasses who got behind a wheel of a car drunk?”
“Well, that’s four people we don’t have to worry about repopulating the earth.”
“The parents of the party host should be charged with murder!!!”
“Does it make me a bad person to be grateful that they didn’t kill anyone else?”
“Thank God they didn’t kill anyone else. Dumbasses.”
On and on the comments went, hundreds of them. Hundreds of strangers weighing in, their comments stuck in between the “prayers” and the “poor parents.”
“Lena?” Mom filled the doorway. “What are you doing?” Her gaze moved from my face to my laptop. She quickly stepped around the bed, looking down at the screen. She snapped forward, grabbed the computer out of my lap and closed it as she backed away.
I stared up at her, shaking. My entire body was trembling. My face was wet. I hadn’t realized I’d started crying. “Have you read those comments?”
“No.” She placed my laptop on the desk. “I caught a glimpse of some of them and I didn’t need to read any more.”
“Do you know...what they’ve been saying?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She sat on the edge of the bed, beside me. “It doesn’t—”
“That’s what they think about them!” Pointing at my computer, I struggled to get in deep, even breaths. I knew I needed to calm down. “This is how they’re going to be remembered, isn’t it?”
“No. That’s not how they’re going to be remembered.” Mom eased her arm around my shoulders. “Because that’s not how you’re going to remember them or how their families will remember them.”
But that wasn’t true, because the whole world would forever see them differently. That was all Megan, Cody, Phillip and Chris were now. Four lives reduced to blood-alcohol levels and bad choices. That was who they were now.
Not football stars.
Not undecided college majors.
Not a badass on the volleyball court.
Not a friend who’d drop everything and listen to you whine about a boy.
Not a guy who worried enough about his friend’s future to ask questions.
Not a guy who had the worst taste in shirts.
Not the kind of people who could always make you laugh no matter what.
Instead they were two times the legal limit of alcohol.
They were reckless and irresponsible.
They were people removing themselves from the gene pool.
They brought this onto themselves.
They were dumb kids who made dumb decisions who died.
They were a lesson to others.
That was all they were now.
Their entire lives were now a fucking after-school special on the dangers of drinking and driving. That was it.
And I hated it.
Because it was right.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I heard them downstairs, approximately thirty minutes after school got out. Their voices rose from the first floor. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I knew my mom wasn’t stopping them.
Panicked, I rose from the bed and glanced at the balcony doors. Could I make a run for it? That was almost laughable. My ribs would fall out of my body if I tried to run, and where was I going to go? I was stuck.
Abbi and Dary were coming.
Every muscle in my body tensed as their footsteps pounded up the stairs. Pain flared across my ribs, no longer dulled by the potent pain meds the hospital had administered. They’d given me a prescription, but I hadn’t taken it yet.
I dropped the binder full of homework and catch-up assignments, the pressure in my chest increasing.
Abbi was the first through the door. She stopped just inside my bedroom. Dary was behind her, but Abbi didn’t move for what felt like forever. Like she couldn’t come into my room, because the room represented everything that was no longer there. Just like I had felt.
Her curls were smoothed back into a high, tight bun. The dark skin under her eyes was puffy. Dary finally edged in around her, into the room, and she looked just as...shattered.
Her wild black hair was gelled back. The white-framed glasses did nothing to hide how swollen her eyes were. Normally Dary was wearing something bizarre. Today she just had on jeans and a loose V-neck shirt. No bright colors. No funky dresses or suspenders.
“You look like crap,” Abbi said finally, her voice hoarse.
My mouth was dry. “I feel...like crap.”
Dary’s face crumpled and she came forward to sit on my bed. Abbi plopped down in the chair as Dary leaned over my legs, planting her elbows in my bed and hiding her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook, and I wanted to say something, to offer comfort.
“I’m sorry.” Dary’s voice was muffled. “I told Abbi I would keep it together.”
“She did.” Abbi pulled her legs up, wrapping her arms around her knees. “She promised me.”
“I just... I’ve missed you.” She pushed her glasses up to her head and wiped under her eyes as she straightened. “And when your mom said you didn’t want visitors, I had to wait to see you—to make sure you’re okay.”
“And I’m trying not to be pissed off about that,” Abbi said, resting her chin on her knees. “But it sucked real bad having to get updates through Sebastian.”
“I’m sorry.” I leaned back, careful to not let the pillows slip too far down. “Sebastian kind of...forced his way in.”
“You wanted space. I’m trying to understand that, but...” Dary dragged the backs of her hands under her eyes. “It was just really hard.” There was a pause. “Everything has been really hard.”
“It has,” I admitted softly.
“How are you feeling?” Dary asked, dropping her hands as she sat up straight.
“Better. Sore.”
She slipped her glasses back on. “What about your chest? Your lungs? Is that what the inhaler is for?” She glanced toward where it sat next to the pile of textbooks.
I nodded. “Yeah. The doc thinks everything will heal fine, but I have to use the inhaler a couple of times a day for the next week or so.”
“What about the arm?” Abbi asked.
Lifting my left arm, I winced. “Should heal fine. Hopefully, I get the cast off in a couple of weeks.”
Abbi stared at my arm. “So...what’s going to happen with volleyball?”
“I don’t know.” I shifted against the pillows. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
“When I broke my arm, I had that cast for, like, six weeks.” Dary frowned. “God, I remember getting poison ivy somehow under my cast that summer. Ugh. It was torture.”
I glanced over at Abbi. She wasn’t looking at my cast anymore but at the foot of the bed. “Are...are you guys okay?”
Abbi laughed, but it was without humor. “I don’t know what that question even means anymore.”
“It’s just...” Dary closed her eyes and shook her head. “Megan was nuts—nuts in the best way. It’s just so weird not having her here, not hearing her voice or seeing her get excited about seeing a cat in a yard or something. It’s just... Nothing is the same.”
“Do you remember the car accident at all?” Abbi asked suddenly.
A tremble coursed through me. “Only a little bit. Like flashes of conversations.”
“Your mom said you had a concussion and that you were having trouble remembering,” Dary said.
I nodded.
“So you don’t remember it all?” Abbi asked again, and my gaze flicked to hers briefly.
“Not much,” I said, and hated myself for it. “But I...I remember that I was going to text you and let you know that...I was leaving.”
“I didn’t get the text.” Abbi lowered her feet to the floor.
“I didn’t get...a chance to send it.”
Dary closed her eyes. “I know you don’t remember, but do you think they...that they suffered?”
Smoothing my hands along the comforter, I let out a shaky breath. “I don’t think so. I don’t think Cody did either.”
“He never woke up,” Abbi stated quietly.
I shook my head, at a loss for what to say as I glanced between them. The lack of Megan was a heavy, tangible presence in the room.
They stayed for a bit, Dary sitting on my bed, Abbi in the computer chair. They talked about school and about Megan—about the songs played at her funeral. They talked about the charges that Keith’s parents could be facing and how he was handling it all. Dary did most of the talking.
I went through the motions, nodding and answering when I needed to, but I wasn’t there, not really. My head was a hundred miles away. It was close to dinner when they got up to leave and Dary hugged me goodbye.
Abbi hugged me just as carefully as Dary did. “I know you need some time, some space,” she said, pressing her forehead against the side of my head. Her voice was low enough so only I heard her. “I know this has been hard for you, but it’s also been hard for us. Don’t forget that. You need us right now.” Her voice cracked, and over her shoulder, I saw Dary bow her head. “We need you right now.”
* * *
I heard the knob turning and I looked over. A shadow was on the other side of the balcony doors. Putting the inhaler aside, my heart skipped a beat. The door opened, and Sebastian came in, closing the door behind him.
Sebastian was dressed for bed, wearing flannel bottoms and a white tank top. He looked good. He always looked good, but I almost didn’t want to acknowledge that. Like I shouldn’t be able to do that anymore.
Like I’d lost that right.
“I didn’t text you,” he said, walking over to the bed and sitting down. “I figured you wouldn’t answer it.”
“Then why did you come over?”
His lips kicked up at the corners. “You know why.”
I raised a brow. Before I could respond, he started moving.