Between (36 page)

“I don’t know. I feel sick,” I tell her, taking a step to my left, toward the dining room. We have to shout just to hear each other.

“Liz, is the room spinning? Pick something to focus on. Don’t close your eyes.”

She’s trying to be helpful, but I wave her away in annoyance as I take another step into the room. “The whole house is spinning,” I yell.

“What?” she shouts back.

“I said the whole house … never mind.”

“Where are you going?” Josie is close behind me, her hand at my waist. “Do you need to throw up?”

I nod. It’s much quieter in the dining room. There’s obvious relief in my expression as our surroundings shift, becoming palpably calmer.

“Go to the bathroom.” And she points. “Down the hall.”

“I know where the bathroom is,” I say, putting my hands on my knees. My cup tilts to the side, spilling foamy beer onto the oriental rug beneath me. “Why is it so far away? Where’s Richie? Josie, will you go get—”

I’m wearing four-inch heels that make it almost impossible to walk straight. I take another staggered step, and then I throw up with
force
onto the rug.

“Damn! Liz blew chunks!” It’s Chad Shubuck. Of course.

I’m bent over, elbows on my knees now, and from the looks of it, I’m doing my absolute best not to collapse.

Chad thumps me on the back. “Keep it coming, honey. Get it all out. I always feel better after I puke.”

“Richie,” I mutter, wiping my mouth, my eyes bloodshot and watery. “Please find Richie.”

“Oh my God. Liz, what the hell is the matter with you?” It’s Caroline. She rushes to my side, staring at the mess on the rug. “My parents are going to murder me,” she whispers, with genuine fear in her voice. “They’re really going to kill me. For God’s sake, couldn’t you make it to the bathroom?”

I regain my footing, find a chair, and sit down. “I’m so sorry,” I tell her, wiping my mouth. But the words sound empty somehow; I’m obviously distracted by the puke on the floor, and the fact that I’ve just embarrassed myself in front of all my friends. “Oh my God. This is so humiliating.”

Richie hurries into the room. “Liz, what happened?” He looks at the rug. “Oh. I see.”

“Did I get any on my outfit?” I stare down at my clothes. With shaking hands, I touch the layers that I’m wearing: a white babydoll dress with pink detailing over pink leggings.

“Was I right, or was I right?” Chad asks, edging his way between Richie and Josie. “You feel better, don’t you?”

I smile at him. “Yeah, I do. I feel good.” And I grin at my friends. “Plus, I didn’t get anything on my clothes.”

Josie beams. “Yeah, Liz! Give it up for projectile vomiting.”

I beam back at her. She and I give each other a high five.

Richie hands me a glass of water, which he seems to have produced from thin air. He’s like that, though: always looking out for me. “You feel better now?” He’s worried, but he’s also wasted. Like me, his eyes are fully bloodshot. But he also reeks of weed and cigarettes.

I nod, wrinkling my nose at his smell. “Yes. What time is it?”

“It’s time to go home.” Josie bites her lip, her gaze lingering on the grandfather clock that sits against the far wall of the dining room. “It’s almost ten. We have to get home, Liz.” To Richie, she says, “Our parents are leaving for Dad’s conference early tomorrow morning. They want to see us before they go.”

My boyfriend narrows his eyes at her. “She shouldn’t drive, Josie. You two should spend the night here.”

I stand up. I finish my water, shake my head, and pronounce, “I’m fine.” I take a deep breath. “I think I got all the alcohol out of my system,” I tell my friends. “I’m good.”

Richie crosses his arms, frowning in disagreement. “No, Liz. You can’t drive. You’d still blow drunk on a Breathalyzer. You shouldn’t try to go home like this.”

“Richie, it’s like three miles.” I give him my best, most reassuring smile. “What am I supposed to do? Call my parents and tell them I’m too drunk to drive home? We’ll go. Everything will be fine.”

He glances at Josie. “Can you drive her car?”

Josie shakes her head. “The Mustang’s a stick shift. I haven’t learned to drive it yet. Didn’t you know that?”

“No, I didn’t. Then you should take my car.” He rubs his forehead with worry. “Jesus. I shouldn’t have let you drink so much. I should have been watching you closer. This is a bad idea.”

Josie smirks. “Richie, don’t be such a mom. Liz, you’re good, right?”

I nod. “Yes.”

“But what about the rug?” Caroline pleads, looking frantic. “You promised me you’d help clean up in the morning! You didn’t tell me you had to go home!”

“I’m really sorry. Look—just tell your parents the dog did it.”

Josie hands me my keys. With Richie at our heels, we walk toward the front door. Just as I’m taking steps to follow us, I hear Caroline murmur under her breath—out of earshot of my alive self—“We don’t
have
a fucking dog, Elizabeth.”

As the Mustang makes its way down Caroline’s long driveway, rain begins to hit the windshield, the droplets growing heavier by the second. But I don’t switch the wipers on. As I watch my living self, my hands gripping the wheel tightly, body leaning forward slightly to get a better view of the road (
why
don’t I turn on the wipers?), it is obvious to me that I should not have gotten behind the wheel. As soon as we’re on the main road, I can see that I’m having trouble staying to the right of the double yellow lines. I’ve only had my license for a little over a month and I’ve only had the Mustang for a few weeks; I’m not that great at driving in general, and I’m definitely not very good at driving a stick yet. Twice, I almost stall out. Luckily, there’s next to no traffic. Noank is a sleepy town; not much happens after nine p.m.

“Put your wipers on, Liz,” Josie instructs.

“Ohhh … where
are
they? I can’t find them.”

“To your right. Try to stay focused.”

Finally, I find them. “Wow, that’s much better,” I tell her, giggling.

She turns the radio up. “Good. You feel okay?”

I nod. “Yes. I feel fine.”

But I can tell that I’m lying. I’m not fine; I’m clearly still drunk.

Regardless, with the music blaring, Josie and I start singing along with R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion.” The speed limit is twenty-five. I look past my living self at the dials on the Mustang’s dashboard, and am shocked to see that I’m going over fifty miles per hour. The rain grows steadily heavier. It’s becoming a downpour.

“Slow down, Liz,” I murmur to my living self. Even though I know it’s only a memory, I feel a growing sense of dread. We’re going too fast, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

It comes out of nowhere. My focus is shaky, and at first, watching the scene unfold, I think I’ve hit a small animal, or maybe a rock, but I realize almost immediately that it was something else. Something bigger. As quickly as it appears in my line of vision, there’s a thick-sounding
thump
—and then it’s gone.

“Shit,” I say, pulling over, looking around. There’s no other traffic in sight. “Shit. What was that? I think I hit something.”

Josie turns the music down, but not off. “What did you say?”

The sound of the rain falling all around us creates a thick din of noise. “I said, I think I hit something.” I pause. “It was probably a deer. Should we get out and look?”

Josie stares out her window. “It’s pouring.”

“I know.”

And we both sit there, looking at each other. Watching us, I feel a heavy sense of disappointment that blossoms into disgust. We don’t want to get out of the car because we don’t want to get
wet
.

Finally, I say, “Josie … we really ought to check.”

She glances into the backseat. “Do you have an umbrella?”

I shake my head. “No. We’ll shower later anyway. Come on.”

She presses her lips together, wrinkles her nose. “Why don’t you go?”

“No. I’m not getting out by myself. Josie, please?”

She switches the music off altogether. She looks around, peering at the road through the wet windshield. “You really think it was a deer?”

“It was
something
big. Come on. We have to check.”

My stepsister gives me a long sigh. Taking her time, she reaches into the center console and fishes out a ponytail holder. She pulls her hair back tightly so it won’t get completely soaked. Once she’s finished, she rolls her eyes at me a little bit and says, “Fine. Come on, then.”

We get out of the car. We’re about a quarter of a mile down the road from the Mystic Market, which is closed for the night. There’s nothing else around us but woods, a windy two-lane road, and the rain.

“Turn off the car,” Josie instructs. The rain is coming down so heavy now that there’s no point in trying to stay even remotely dry; we’re both immediately drenched. “Turn off your headlights.”

I reach into the car and do what she says. Then I find a flashlight in the glove box.

I gesture toward the woods. “I can’t go out there in these heels. They were three hundred dollars.” I frown. “The mud will ruin them.”

“Take them off,” Josie says.

I pout. “But then my feet will get all muddy.”

She stares at the dark sky in frustration, rain pouring down her cheeks. “What are we doing, Liz? You’re the one who wanted to get out. Now do you want to look, or do you want to look? Make up your mind. I’m cold.”

I shine the flashlight into the woods. Its beam of light is weak; I can’t see anything but barely illuminated trees.

“If I hit a deer,” I say to her, “there’s probably nothing I can do about it now. Right?”

“Wait,” she says, looking at my car. “Oh, wow. Check it out.”

I’ve hit
something
, all right. There’s a dent on the right side of my front fender.

“No blood,” Josie says. “That’s a good sign, right?” She peers at me in the darkness. “Maybe the rain washed it off, though.”

“I feel like I have to throw up again,” I tell her.

“No, you don’t.” She’s curious now. She wants to know what happened. “Come on, Liz. We should find out what it was.”

With clear reluctance, I take off my heels, placing them on the floor of the front seat, and the two of us begin walking toward the woods. We haven’t taken more than ten steps when we both stop cold. Standing beside my living self, I come to a halt.

“Oh my God,” I say. “Josie. Where’s your cell phone?”

In the slim beam from my flashlight, a bicycle wheel spins on its rear axis in the pouring rain. All three of us hurry toward it. I imagine that, in my bare feet, I can feel the stones and sticks in the dirt cutting my feet, but I obviously don’t care. My breath, audible despite the downpour, sounds sharp and panicked. I don’t seem the slightest bit drunk anymore.

The bike is a mangled mess, lying upside down on the ground, its front smashed up against a tree. But there is no rider. Whoever was on the bike is not in my range of vision.

Out of nowhere, the rain slows to a light drizzle.

“Be quiet,” Josie orders. “Listen.”

What I hear next, I know, has stayed with me ever since this night, except that I’m only realizing it now. Even before I see him, I understand what has happened. I know. It is not the sound of breathing so much as it is a liquid gasping, the noise of a horrible struggle. I watch as we follow the sound and find him on the ground, his limbs bent at cruelly awkward angles. His face is so bloody that at first I don’t recognize him. I can see his skull beneath his hair. I can see his brain.

“Josie, he’s breathing.”

He’s
barely
breathing. His eyes are open. They stare up at us—at me—pleading for help, for life, for something that I cannot possibly give him.

“Go get your phone, Josie,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “Call 911.”

He takes another labored breath. Josie waits. She does nothing.

“Josie, what are you doing? Go get your phone!”

“Liz, we’re drunk.” Her tone is flat.

“So what?” My voice trembles with panic. “Call someone! He’s going to die!”

I stare at him. It’s the most curious thing, watching someone slip away. Our gazes are locked together, and in that moment I know that he sees me, he recognizes me.

“We know him,” I say, unable to stop staring. “Josie, I recognize him. We go to school with him.”

“What’s his name?” she whispers.

As a ghost, the frustration is overwhelming. “Do something!” I scream at myself, at Josie. “He’s going to die! Help him!”

But we don’t do anything.

“I don’t know his name,” I tell my stepsister.

He takes another breath. It’s his last one. And then—nothing. He becomes completely still. Drops of water roll from his cheeks, falling like countless silent tears.

“Jesus Christ, we’re in trouble,” I say. I take a big step backward. I almost fall over.

“No. We’re not.” Josie looks at me. She reaches over, turns off the flashlight, and we are instantly surrounded by darkness. “Let’s go back to the car,” she says. “Let’s go home.”

I stare at her. “What do you mean?”

“Liz.” Her tone is calm and steady. “You just got your license. You still aren’t allowed to drive with passengers. We’re both drunk. If anybody finds out what happened here, it will ruin our lives. Do you understand?”

I shake my head. “Josie, we can’t just go home. We can’t leave him here all alone. Besides, it was an accident. He came out of nowhere. People will have to understand—”

“No, they won’t.” She reaches for my hand. “I’m not kidding, Liz. We don’t have a choice. We have to go,
now
, before somebody gets here.”

My dead heart breaks for Alex, lying there in the dirt. How could we just leave him? This act, I realize, will destroy me from the inside out. It will consume me in the months that follow.

Josie tugs my hand. “Let’s go. Let’s go home.”

So we do. We pull my car into the garage, parking it close enough to the wall that my dad likely won’t notice the small dent. I’ll worry about getting it fixed later. For now, we both agree, the most important thing is to act normal.

That night, clearly unable to sleep, I sit on my bed and pore through my yearbook, searching for the face that I could not match to a name. After pages and pages of looking, I finally find him, staring up at me with a shy smile, a quiet, unpopular boy who I barely knew existed when he was alive: Alexander Berg.