One Moment (13 page)

After about thirty minutes, we hit the town just south of ours, Bradyville, which was smaller than where I had grown up. The first houses we encountered were older, and a few leaned, almost like they were drunk. Bradyville is a farm town, and as soon as we crossed over the county line, I lowered my window. I had always loved that Bradyville seemed to be drowning in the scent of hay, so I focused on the sweet, comfortable feeling it brought me. When we passed by a park, I stared at the kids hanging off the playground equipment, their laughter filling the air, chasing the silence out of our car.

I was okay for those few moments, while my mind drifted from one thing to the next, because none of it had to do with Joey. Or the cliff top.

But then I saw the high school. And I remembered my last trip here, less than two months ago, when I’d had to take the ACTs in a musty-smelling science room because I’d been sick the day they had them in town.

I’d stood against the wall next to the double doors of the high school’s entrance, rain falling all around me, slamming into me with sweeping gusts of wind. Trying to avoid being soaked, I pressed my back against the scratchy red bricks but still ended up looking like a drowned and droopy version of myself. Which was the last thing I wanted, because Joey would pull up and see mascara running down my face, like I’d been standing there crying over him.

I was tempted to jump out into the rain, to look up at the sky and scream. But the sky hadn’t deserved my rage. Neither did the little red Ford Taurus my grandmother had sold me for one hundred dollars, which was in the shop getting a new transmission.

My anger was all directed at Joey, who was late-squared picking me up.

Since my cell died during the first break in testing, I didn’t have a way to check my messages. I used another girl’s phone, calling Joey three times as the sky darkened overhead and rain began to fall. But the connection just rolled me over to his voice mail. When the girl’s father came to pick her up, I was left completely alone.

I stood in the rain, shivering, feeling like a fool, wondering what to do.

I was seconds from walking two miles to the nearest convenience store to call my mom for a ride when Adam’s light blue Oldsmobile pulled into the front lot of Bradyville High School. I was as surprised to see him as I was grateful that he had come. I hopped into the front seat, shaking from the cold and my anger at Joey. Adam threw a towel at me, and I wrapped it around my shoulders to warm up.

“Where is he?” I asked.

Adam just shook his head, his lips pinched tight. “Dunno.”

“Whaddo you mean, you don’t know?” My teeth chattered as I looked at Adam. “You’re here instead of him, so I know you guys talked. Is he still fighting with his mom? Did she take his phone?”

Adam’s body was tense, rigid. “Something like that.”

“Well, I don’t see why she wouldn’t let him at least answer his phone to make sure I’d get home okay. I almost walked two miles in this shit to use a pay phone because my cell died and—”

“He’s just a guy, you know?” Adam looked at me, his eyes sparking in the dim light.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You put him up on a pedestal, like he can do no wrong. Trust me,” Adam said, “he can.”

“I know he’s not perfect.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

“This isn’t his fault,” I said. “His mom’s a freak about his curfew. He was, like, three minutes late and she totally flipped her shit. Joey has never done anything like this before.”

Adam grunted.

“What?” I asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’s never done
anything
like this before? What about homecoming?”

I snorted, flinging my hand in the air, dismissing the long-ago memory, which I had shoved from my mind as soon as Joey had explained himself. “That wasn’t his fault. His mother made him go to his grandparents’ that night, and—”

“Right. I remember.” Adam shook his head. “And Joey forgot his phone in the rush to leave, so he couldn’t call you to explain anything.”

“His grandfather had a
stroke
, Adam. I was probably the last thing on his mind.” I slid lower in my seat. “Besides, he did call me.”

“Yeah. At, like, eleven o’clock. When the dance was almost over and you were still sitting in your house waiting for him.” Adam looked out the windshield, his eyes squinting as he tried to focus on the road through the thick wash of rain that the wipers couldn’t keep up with.

“If I recall correctly, we had the best pizza of our lives that night.” I poked Adam in the arm. He elbowed my hand away.

“It was okay.”

“Okay?” I asked. “It was the best. Really.”

“Just because it was hand delivered by the biggest stud in town.”

I laughed, the sound rushing out of me.

Adam looked at me and grinned. “The studliest stud.”

“M-hmm.” I poked Adam again, glad that a smile had lit his face. “If you’re such a stud, why’d you drop your date off before midnight, huh? Most studs would have been getting it on until dawn.”

Adam shrugged. “I felt bad for you.”

“Liar.”

“I did.” Adam looked at me, his eyes tight. “I felt awful when you called looking for him. You’d spent the whole night all dressed up alone in your basement, wondering where he was.”

“Well, it was still nice of you.” I twisted my wet hair behind me and tucked it into a bun so it would stop dripping down my back.

“Yeah. It was.” Adam looked at me and rolled his eyes. “It was also nice of me to stop and get your favorite treat to make you feel better after waiting so long today. Three devil’s food from Bozie’s Donuts. I even grabbed you a hot chocolate. Thought you might be cold.” Adam passed me a steamy cup of hot chocolate, and I sipped from the plastic lid. The foamy top was sugary sweet, and the drink was the perfect temperature after Adam’s long ride into Bradyville, warming me from the inside out.

“Well,” I said, “if anyone’s in the running for perfect, I’d say it’s you.”

Adam finally smiled. “You just remember that, girl. You hear?”

“Only if we can blast a song of my choice.”

Adam threw his head back and groaned. “No.
Please
, no.”

“I deserve it,” I said. “I stood there for almost an hour not knowing what the hell was going on.”

“Fine,” Adam said, leaning toward the windshield as several gusts of wind rocked the car. “Blast your crappy music. Scream at the top of your lungs. See if I care.”

“You rock, Adam.” I leaned forward then, ruffling Adam’s rain-stained hair. From the corner of my eye, I caught him watching as I hooked my iPod into his system and twisted the dial. I wondered what he was thinking. But just for a moment. Then the fearless sound of “Forget You” by Cee Lo Green surged through the car and carried me away.

“So, Maggie, today’s session will be for us to get acquainted, and to set some goals for your treatment.” Dr. Guest sat back in her swivel chair and tipped her head toward me, strands of auburn hair escaping her loose bun and falling to frame her face. Her legs were uncrossed, and her hands lay still on top of the open notebook on her lap.

I looked around the office, reading the framed degrees that certified Dr. Patricia Guest as a licensed professional clinical counselor and a doctor of psychology.

“You’re just about to finish up your junior year of high school, right?” Dr. Guest asked.

I nodded, sliding down the seat of the brown leather couch.

“And I hear that you have a very tight-knit group of friends.” Dr. Guest smiled. My eyes flitted from hers to the tray of snacks on the coffee table between us. Did people really have the stomach to
eat
during these sessions? I couldn’t believe that a handful of peanuts and M&M’s made a person feel safe enough to open up.

“Let’s start by going over some of the forms you completed for me.” Dr. Guest lowered her voice. She suddenly sounded like a real person. “You mentioned that you don’t really want to be here, Maggie. Can you tell me a little more about that?”

“Don’t take it personally,” I said as she stared at me, her eyes searching every flicker of movement that my body made. “I don’t really want to be anywhere anymore.”

“What about your friends? Does spending time with them give you any sense of security?”

I sighed. Tried not to think of Adam, all the voice messages and texts he had ignored over the last week. But he was there, mixed in with everything else, and the thought of his absence, once again, stirred a feeling of uncertainty in my chest.

“We’re all just trying to deal,” I said.

Dr. Guest pressed her lips together and gave me a slow nod. “It can be very difficult, finding balance at a time like this.”

I looked up at her, wondering how, after spending only five minutes with me, she’d hit on my biggest fear in life—never being able to balance everything out. Finding my lost memories and dealing with what had happened on the cliff. Living this new life without ever seeing or talking to Joey again. Blending the old version of Adam with this new, out-of-reach person he had suddenly become. None of it seemed possible. And that scared me more than anything ever had.

“You described your feelings, here, Maggie.” Dr. Guest looked down at her notebook, shuffling through a few loose papers, and I caught a glimpse of my handwriting, the ink from the teal pen I’d used to scribble answers to all of those questions. “Shock is definitely a normal reaction to losing a person you love. And this fear you mention? Can you explain that for me?”

“Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to do the explaining?”

Dr. Guest smiled. “I’m here to guide you, Maggie. But I can’t do that if we don’t have a dialogue.”

“Right,” I said, taking in a deep breath. “So, the fear? It’s just there”—I placed a hand on my chest and pressed it against my cotton shirt—“all the time.”

“Fear about what, exactly?”

“Everything,” I said. “But mostly just the realization that all it takes is one moment for your entire world to turn upside down. One wrong decision, and it’s over.”

“I understand, Maggie. This must be a terribly difficult thing for you to process. The trauma of losing someone you love, being there to witness the event, it can—”

“But I don’t remember anything,” I said. “So it’s not like I actually
witnessed
it.”

Dr. Guest sat forward, her elbows propped on her knees, keeping the notebook in place. “Yes, Maggie, it is. You might be repressing the memory, but you were there. Everyone places you at the top of the cliff. You, yourself, even say that you remember climbing the trail with Joey.”

I flinched at his name. I wanted to stand up and run. Forever.

“So, what? I have a classic case of memory repression?”

“That’s what we’re here to figure out.” Dr. Guest smiled. “You’re not alone, Maggie. I’m here to help you through this.”

“What if I don’t want your help?”

Dr. Guest shrugged. “The police requested that you be evaluated. It might take some time, but I’ll determine your diagnosis, and we’ll go from there. I’m here for the long haul if you need me.”

“Diagnosis? Like I’m sick?”

“Why don’t we stop trying to label everything and just talk?” Dr. Guest flipped through the forms again, my words swimming together to create a teal puddle in her lap. “You say here that your main goal is to remember what really happened on the cliff top. Is that still the case?”

I sucked in a deep breath and looked her right in her blue-gray eyes. I was shaking. My hands. My legs. I wanted to find my lost memories, but I didn’t want to do it this way. I just wanted to be in my room, shoved deep in the cave of my closet.

“How do you … you know, do that with someone? Find memories that have slipped away?”

Dr. Guest leaned back in her chair, her hands falling over the paper that was dripping with my words. “There are several methods, and we can discuss them to see which you might be most comfortable with.”

Sitting there, talking about my memories, wondering what we would do with them once they were found, I was suddenly hit with a question. One that had been bouncing around in my mind since I’d stood up from the table in the police station and walked away from the two detectives. And I had to know the answer.