Rewind to You (17 page)

“Sienna,” I say, “I know we can’t make this right, but—”

“You’re right,” she shoots back, suddenly strong again. “You can’t make this right, Austin. He’s dead, okay? Dead!”

Every angry syllable beats the harsh truth of her words into me. Nothing can be done now. Even if Landon and Evan came forward, their guilt would be difficult—probably impossible—to prove. There’s no evidence they had alcohol in their system. They didn’t even hit Sienna’s car. She swerved. Legally, isn’t she as much at fault as they are? Worst of all, her dad can never come back.

“Where were
you
anyway?” Sienna draws the
you
out with an edge of disdain. It feels like salt water in a deep cut when I realize she’s talking to me. Suddenly, I’m one of them, the third motorcycle that could have been.

“We know we can’t change what we done,” Landon whispers, as though he senses the tension between us as his cue to leave. “I swear, we wanted to fess up long ago, but we backed out.”

“Yeah, we’re sorry,” Evan says.

“Real sorry,” Landon adds. “If there’s anything we can do—”

“You can leave me alone,” Sienna cuts him off.

Landon shoves his hands in his pockets, silenced. Evan turns and Landon soon follows, their footsteps muted by the sand as they leave.

“Sienna.”

“Don’t,” she says.

“I just want to answer your question,” I say. “And then I’ll leave.”

Slowly, her eyes shift to find mine.

“I was supposed to be with them that night, but I stayed home,” I say.

Sienna nods, silent. I want to reach out to her, but her sharp glare tells me that could be a mistake. I step back to leave like I told her I would, but I see her lips part.

“If you’d been there,” she says, raw emotion breaking through her voice, “would you have stopped, or would you have run, too?”

I feel the dull ache of disappointment, wishing she knew me better. Wishing she didn’t have to ask. “What do you think?”

Pain washes over her face. Still, she doesn’t surrender to tears. Yeah, I wish things had happened differently that night. Big time. I wish I could have been there, actually, but I wasn’t.

Sienna refuses to look me in the eye. Her silence is my answer, so I nod and walk away without a backward glance.

“You would’ve jumped in the river after me.” Her voice is barely a whisper, and I pretend I don’t hear.

CHAPTER 25

Sienna

T
aking the steps two at a time, I run inside, letting the door smack shut behind me. I lock it and head for the stairs.

“It’s time for bed, Spencer,” I say, passing him in the living room.

His Xbox controller hits the ground. “No fair! It’s only nine o’clock!”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Did you get in a fight with Austin?”

“No,” I lie.

“Yes, you did. I’m not stupid.”

“Drop it, Spencer.”

“You’d better not screw things up. I like him.”

I pause. My heart twists, wrung out like a used rag. The image of Austin’s face moments ago on the beach comes back to me, his usually clear blue eyes clouded with doubt. “I have a headache. I’m going to bed. Do me a favor, Spence? Play video games in your room until Mom gets back, okay?”

I close my bedroom door, welcoming the solitude. I throw my earbuds in and flip on some music, trying to choreograph something, anything. Nothing comes. I pull the earbuds out, throw them down, and slip between the covers of my bed. My mind succumbs to sleep, but even as I doze off I fear it will be a restless night.

And I’m right.

I toss and turn, nightmares of the Fourth of July drifting in and out of my mind. Details of the accident come back with chilling clarity, details I haven’t recalled until now. The abrupt swerve of the motorcycle next to us, dodging debris in the road. The shot of adrenaline, the sick gut feeling as I overcorrected, and the splitting pain as my head hit the window and everything went dark.

I throw the covers off, feeling a bead of sweat roll down my chest. The faint glimmer of dawn illuminates my bedroom. It’s five o’clock. Feels like I’ve barely slept.

I stumble out of bed, rummage through the closet, and locate the binder in my suitcase. I pull it out, hold it in my hands. This was my tangible way of coping with death, this binder. Mom wasn’t about to admit that any of us needed counseling. Not that I would’ve wanted it.

I went through all the stages of grief listed on the Internet—shock, guilt, denial, and more. I see that now. Obsessed with finding who was to blame, I slipped into a raging roller coaster of emotions, particularly anger. Soon, the inexhaustible feeling of hopelessness began to scare me.

Depression
.

It freaked me out. I wouldn’t let myself go there. So I suppressed it all, and with time I convinced myself I’d come to terms with everything.

I caress the leather and open the cover. The accident flashes back with haunting detail. Newspaper clippings, pictures of the accident, a program from the funeral, a photo Haylee took of me and Dad at the dance performance before the accident, and more. I thumb through the remnants of his life. I haven’t looked at this binder for months, and now I remember why. Even now, a cold sweat creeps to the surface of my skin.

I spent hours and even days looking at these pages, crying over the last words I wish I could have said:
I love you
, a simple
Thank you
, but most of all
I’m sorry
. My heart beats like an angry mallet against my chest. I try to take a calming breath, but I can’t get enough air. Finally, any resolve I have to stop this fainting spell crumbles. Why should I even try?

And why on earth did I bring this binder to Tybee? I should be over the accident, beyond tears, moving on. The binder begins to shake in my trembling hands, and a blinding light replaces everything in front of me, whisking me away from my closet in one clean sweep.

Thunder cracks in the distance, sending a tremor through the ground. The bright light gives way, and I blink my eyes, confused. I whirl around, searching for my dad, for the garden. Sand digs into the palms of my hands. I feel a wave of shock and then excitement when I realize where I am—what moment I’ve rewound to.

Austin glances around, his dark hair tousled from gusts of wind.
It worked.
It really worked.

Austin smiles at me, his eyes striking a vivid blue under the darkening sky.

“
Austin
?” I hear the disbelief in my voice.

“I said, okay,” he laughs, his heart-stopping smile erasing painful thoughts of his friends and their motorcycles. Erasing everything but me and him.

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, I’ll remember this moment,” he says. “I promise, I won’t forget.”

Lightning splits the sky. Austin’s thumb brushes across my lips. Everything is as it was the day I made the pact with Austin, hoping I could choose the moments I rewind to. Perhaps I
can
select that pool of memories. Like drawing numbers from a hat. Here we are again, on the beach with a storm bearing down on us. Same storm. Same first kiss.

I smile, stunned. I can’t stay mad at Austin, even if I want to. He makes me want to live again, really live. Like the moment with my dad I rewind to, this moment will slip by in a flash. So I push astonishment aside and sink into Austin’s arms.

A sheet of rain pours down, cold and refreshing. Austin and I run for cover. I laugh, happy to relive this, hoping I relive it a million times, the moment Austin and I first kissed. He pulls me into the warmth of his arms, our lips finding each other, and for one brief minute that ends too soon, everything in my life feels right.

CHAPTER 26

Austin

I
don’t think twice about it. When I get her text, I bolt out of bed, slip on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and jump on my motorcycle. Forget the morning workout. Somehow, I’ll be ready for football this fall.

I speed down the street, annoyed with traffic. I start weaving through cars. Shouldn’t drive like this. I hate this feeling, like I’m walking on a tight wire. One wrong step, one wrong turn, and all my plans for football could crumble. So much is expected this fall, I can’t get injured.

But I couldn’t sleep last night—couldn’t
sleep
. I always sleep. But there I lay in bed all night, thinking about how things went down with Sienna.

I park my motorcycle and jog across the street to the beach. Scan the horizon. I grab my cell from my pocket and pull up the last message.

Meet me by the pier?

I look up, shielding my eyes from the sun, and I see her.

She starts jogging toward me and so do I, the small outline of her figure in the distance coming slowly into focus. A smile lights up her face as we meet, and I wrap my arms around her.

“You got my message,” she says. I hold her, kiss her forehead.

She pulls back. “I’m sorry, Austin. I was so angry.”

“You had a right to be.”

“I took it out on you. I—”

I kiss her before she can say more. “Seriously, you have nothing to be sorry about,” I say, our lips a breath apart.

“But your friends—”

“They deserved a whole lot more flack than you gave them.”

“Are they gone?”

“They will be, soon.”

She wears a thoughtful frown. “Can you tell them for me? Can you tell them I forgive them?”

Her words hit me from the side, unexpected. “They don’t deserve that.”

“But it’s what my dad would have wanted.” She heaves a deep sigh. “It’s what
I
want. Tell them for me, okay?”

I sense her mind is made up. Impressive. Hard to believe, really. Seeing her contented smile makes me think twice about what I would have done in her shoes. “Sure, I’ll tell them.”

“And Austin?” she asks, making sure she has my attention. “One more thing.”

I clasp my hands at the small of her back. She hasn’t even voiced the question, yet I already know I’ll do anything she asks. Pathetic. I’ve turned into one of those lovesick puppies we all used to make fun of in the gym. “What is it?”

She bites her lip, thinking. Finally she looks up and meets my gaze. “Take me to see that professor?”

CHAPTER 27

Sienna

P
erforming onstage is one thing, but this? I look up as the professor takes a seat across from me. This kind of spotlight I hate. But fainting in the closet five days ago made me realize, once again, that I have . . . issues. No way to put it lightly. So here I am. Ready.

Brian is covering for me, again. My mom thinks I’m playing the weekly Friday morning volleyball game on the beach with him and his friends and having lunch at his house afterward, not sitting across from Dr. Diane Kovac, a University of Florida professor in the Department of, yep,
Mental Health
Counseling. Maybe I’m not so ready for this after all.

She situates herself in the rocking chair, eyeing me over rectangular glasses. I divert my gaze, glancing around the living room. Professor Kovac took a weekend trip to St. Simons Island, Georgia. She insisted we come to her condo, which was a much shorter drive for us anyway.

So I straddled Austin’s motorcycle, and together we made the hour and a half drive down Georgia’s coast to this quaint little island. I almost wish we had driven to Florida, so I could see the campus where Austin will be spending all his time. I feel a sliver of remorse (and a healthy dose of envy) thinking about the life he’ll have this fall without me in it. And all the girls that are bound to flock his way. Not cool.

“So,” the professor starts, pulling my thoughts back. “Austin told me you’ve been having dizzy spells of one sort or another.”

I straighten up, an effort to hide my nerves. “Yes. Thank you for meeting us so last minute, Ms. Kovac.”

“Dr. Kovac,” she corrects me with a flourish, her thin lips pulling into a tight smile. Sheesh. “Well, let me start by telling you what I do. I am a professor of behavioral health. I can’t make any official diagnosis, and I can’t give you any prescriptions. But I hope to help you find the cause of your fainting so you can go from there.” She pauses, flashes a nominal smile. I barely have a chance to nod before she pushes on. “Tell me, when was the first time you fainted, and how many times have you fainted since?”

I briefly mention the first time, nearly three weeks ago, as well as the subsequent times I fainted, a total of five.

“And you have no prior history of fainting or seizures?”

“No.”

“Do you tremble or have convulsions while you are passed out?”

I stare at her blankly. Convulsions? How am I supposed to know if I convulse? In fact, I’ve never even thought about it.

“Yes,” Austin answers for me. I look over sharply. He slips his hand into mine and offers it a reassuring squeeze. “I’ve been there three of the times she passed out. Each time she was shaking. A little.”

Dr. Kovac jots something down on a notepad. “I see.”

I watch her silently taking notes, feeling like a patient in an operating room with my chest cut open, doctors poking around inside muttering “I see” and “Hum, how interesting,” without bothering to explain. “What does that mean?”

Dr. Kovac looks up at me above the rim of her glasses. “It means, most likely, you are having seizures of some type.”

Suddenly, I feel sick. “Seizures?”

“Let me ask you something, Miss Owens.” The way she addresses me by my last name only feeds my unease. I remind myself she’s a professor, not a therapist who’s trained to make patients feel comfortable. “Do you have any history of epilepsy in your family?”

“No.”

Her brows pull together as she jots a few notes. “Do you remember the minutes and even seconds preceding your seizures?”

“Yes,” I reply. Do I tell her everything, how each time before I fainted I was reminded of my dad and the accident?

“How do you feel before you pass out? Do you experience any difficulty breathing, for instance?”