Lurlene McDaniel (13 page)

I see sadness in his eyes and I know he's wishing he could have bought me my first car. I hook my arm through his. “It's just a car, Dad.”

“It's every teen's dream. It's freedom,” he says. Well, at least he got one right.

If only I
was
free. But I have no liberty. Quin's revelation about my accessory status hangs over my head and haunts me day and night. I've gone online and researched what he's told me and I've discovered that he's right. I'm as guilty as he because
I said and did nothing! All these months, I was fixated on my own agenda, on elevating my own popularity and dealing with my mother's expectations. But it's been a bust. The guilt over Analise and what we've done is eating me up.

If I see Jeremy in the halls, I duck into the closest room, or—like the other day when I unknowingly parked beside him in the student lot at school—I take off in the opposite direction like a rabbit. The school grapevine hardly mentions Analise anymore, except for Amy collecting wishes from students for the upcoming yearbook. I swear I'm not even buying one of the books. This is one year I want to forget!

Nothing's turned out the way I wanted. My life's in the toilet. I can't talk about it with anyone, not even Judie, who appears to have forgotten we were in this together. I corner her one afternoon in the parking lot and I say, “You never call anymore.”

“The phone works both ways.”

Her rebuke stings. “I—I've just been crazy busy trying to keep all the balls in the air. I thought you were going to become my chief advisor. What about being puppet master and Xbox controller?”

She gives me a cool glance. “You haven't consulted me in weeks. Since we have such different
schedules, and friends, Laurie, you are not part of my life anymore.”

Is that true?
She looks hurt, and I think about seeing her with a new crowd sitting at the lunch tables, “commoners,” according to Karen and her group. I had laughed with them, and Karen had asked meanly, “Isn't the fat one a friend of yours, Laurie?”

My cheeks burned. “I—I know her. Since elementary school.”

“She not only needs to lose weight, she dresses in clothes no one should wear. You should dump her,” Karen said.

“I have,” I snapped, then instantly regretted saying it.

Now, facing Judie, I know I've let her down majorly. How had things gotten so out of control? “Maybe we can hit the mall on Saturday.”

She studies me. “You don't want to be seen anywhere with me. We both know that.” She doesn't sound sarcastic, just sad. “I don't know why I didn't predict this. It's like a bad teen movie, I've seen it a hundred times, but I thought you'd be different.”

“No. Really.”

Judie holds up her hand. “Please, don't. We've both moved on, Laurie. I gave you what you wanted—a way to be popular and get your mother
off your case. Don't worry about me. You've got enough other real stuff to worry about. I'm surprised at both of us, really.”

Her words hurt. Yet she's the only person who knows the truth. What if she turns on me?

She seems to read my mind. She takes a step back. “Your secret's safe with me. Who would believe we'd come up with the idea of, well, blackmail? No one. Don't get nervous on my account. I think Quin's waiting for you over there.”

I look across the lot behind me and sure enough, Quin's glaring at us from beside his truck. “I—I have to go,” I say to Judie.

“Sure you do.” She clutches her books to her chest and turns.

I want to call to her to come back, but my tongue feels stuck to the roof of my mouth. Quin's car horn blows and I hurry to him, all the time telling myself that Judie wants out of this mess and is doing what's best for her, not me. I can hardly believe after all our years of friendship that it has come to this—but I know it is over, and I am someone else now.

Dad takes me to a small restaurant and we buy gourmet hamburgers. I have to choke mine down because he's watching me through every bite.
When we're finished, he volunteers to take me to buy a new spring outfit, but I beg off, tell him I want to go back to his hotel and veg out. Once there, he pours me a cola and makes small talk about his job and a woman he's begun to date. I say, “Maybe I can meet her this summer when I come over.”

“I'd like that.” He fiddles with a sofa pillow. “Laurie, is something bothering you?”

I shrug. “High school's hard. Not at all the fun thrill Mom keeps telling me it was for her. She expects so much for me.”

“Your mom was the most popular girl in school, so it was fun for her. She got to call the shots. That's not true for everyone.”

“So power's the key?”

“Not power. Attitude. If you want a friend, be a friend. She was outgoing and totally unbiased about who she hung with. People liked her in spite of not wanting to like her.
I
sure fell hard.” He smiles. “I felt like the luckiest guy in the world when she chose me.”

His words only underline the differences between Mom and me. “Well, these days, guys run the show.”

His brow knits. “This guy you're dating, he's not … you know … not pressuring you, is he?
Not asking you for things you don't want to give him? Because if he is—”

“No, Dad,” I interrupt. “Nothing's going on between me and Quin … like you're asking about.” I squirm. If only it
was
something as simple as being pressured for sex. I want to talk about my predicament without giving myself away, and ponder how to do it. I decide that I should act studious, be a seeker of information.

“I—um, well, you're a reporter. What if you know something that would hurt a lot of people if you told it? It's for a paper I'm writing,” I add hastily. “Hypothetical.”

He takes a while to answer, and when he does, he holds my hand. “As a reporter, I try to consider the greater good, not just the issue and the people involved. You hear that journalists break a story using the defense that the public has a right to know. In truth, the public doesn't give a flip about most stuff. The public is often clueless and uninterested until newshounds make them interested. So before I break a big story—and I've only broken two in my career—I weigh the consequences.”

He pauses, looks at me. “Too much information?”

I shake my head.

“You sure this is just about a paper?”

Heat skitters up my cheeks. “Of course, Dad.” He tousles my hair, looks serious again. “On the other hand, sometimes a person just has to do the right thing. No matter what the consequences. And that's a question for your heart, not your brain. Journalists have a moral obligation—well, every citizen does. You understand this.”

Doing
the right thing
will change a lot of lives forever. And it will make my father hate me.

I'm parked in front of the long-term care facility where Analise is living. I don't even remember driving here. I just look up and here I am. My heart is pounding and my mouth is dry. I tell myself to drive away, not to get out and go inside. I lose the battle with myself. I guess I've known for a long time now that I have to see her.

At the reception station, I almost chicken out.
What am I thinking?
These places have security. People can't just walk in off the street and expect to be allowed in. Behind the desk, an older woman is on duty, and I tell her who I'm here to see. She confesses that the regular receptionist is out sick, that she's a temp, but that she knows only certain visitors are allowed in Ms. Bower's room. She picks up a clipboard. “Your name?”

“Amy Cartwright.” I lie—something I'm getting very good at these days.

“Yes … here you are.” She smiles and hands me a visitor's tag.

“I—it's been a while since I've visited. I'm sorry, but I don't remember her room number.”

She tells me and I hurry off, checking numbers beside open doors and hoping no one will stop me. When I find Analise's room, I stop to catch my breath. I can't slow my racing heart. My feet feel heavy, and it takes all my courage to step inside the room.

S
omeone's in my room that I don't know. Occasionally a new nurse will come in, but I sense that this person isn't part of the medical staff. I know because this person is afraid. I smell the fear. Over time, I've learned to filter the emotions of others so as not to be overwhelmed by them. The girl in my room is full of emotion, but fear is the one that washes over me, like a light turned on in darkness.

Tentatively I reach out to better know her. I sense her, but she can't sense me. Only those closest to me seem to feel when I'm present, when my mind is alert and aware. But this girl is a stranger. And she's crying. Am I so hideous? The ones who love me see me through different eyes, but strangers, well, they see me as I am … a body curled on a bed, with eyes that open wide, close, flutter, but see nothing. All that I “see,” all that I
know, I gather with my mind, the conscious part of me, which I'm learning to control.

I wonder if she'll come closer to the bed. She doesn't. Slowly her fear morphs into pity, and after pity, remorse. How odd. Why remorse? I soak my consciousness into hers and am astounded. She's had a car accident. No. She has knowledge of a car accident. She has knowledge of
my
accident! The revelation hurls me backward, as if I'd hit a wall and bounced. She knows something! Why has she come? To check me out? To see for herself that her secret is forever safe because I'm in a coma?

Her emotions are raw, yet also tender. I want to speak to her, ask her questions. I have no voice. I have no hands to reach out and take hold of her. And I'm slipping away too. Oozing back into the nowhere place where I sleep when my consciousness can no longer assert itself.

My body thrashes on the bed and the girl stifles a scream and flees from the room.

Again I am alone. And my enemy is free.

This has been the best week of my life. And for the first time, I feel that I can do no wrong in my old man's eyes. He's proud of me! I never thought I'd see the day. Every campus we visited, every coach we talked to, was better than the one before. They want me, all of them, and just because I can throw a baseball. We're on the plane, flying back to Asheville after a layover in Atlanta from the West Coast.

“I like Southern Cal and UCLA,” I say, not that he asked my opinion.

“No decisions until your offers from the Carolinas come in.”

I want to leave the Carolinas, but I know this isn't the time to make my case. “I still have to finish out the high school year.”

“I'm not sure you should. What if you get injured? No need for you to take too many risks with
your arm. This is just high school. You've got years of games ahead of you.”

I panic. Playing ball is the only reason I get up and go to school every day. “I can't let Coach and the team down,” I say. “We have a shot at State. It would be nice to win that. It'll look good on my resume.” I'm smart enough to use his lingo.

He looks thoughtful. “It would be nice. I'll talk to your coach. Maybe you can play, just not too much.”

I feel like I've dodged a bullet.

“Want a beer?” Dad asks.

“You'd let me have one?”

“Come on, son. It's not like I don't know you drink the stuff.” He takes a sip of his second bourbon and water since takeoff. “The trick,” he continues, “is to know how to hold your liquor. And to not do stupid things when you drink.”

My stomach knots.
What's he saying?
“Such as?”

“Oh, I don't know … maybe like racking up your mother's new car by hitting a deer.”

The way he says it turns my blood ice-cold. Laurie wouldn't have said anything to him, would she? “It was an accident,” I say, wishing I had his bourbon.

He looks at me hard, like he's weighing just
how much to say, like he's waiting for me to spill my guts about the night of the accident. Like I won't.

“According to the body shop where I took the car, the deer had green paint on it.”

I feel like heaving, but I keep silent. Finally I say, “There were a lot of cars parked all over the yard at the party. One probably backed into Mom's. It was dark. I didn't look for damage before I drove off.”