The Space Between Heartbeats (7 page)

With a sigh, I approach the solid wood and tell myself that I’m vapor and this will work.

“Just do it, Nicole,” I mutter.

Holding my breath, I shut my eyes and surrender myself to the disorienting feeling of falling through the wall and into the hallway outside. I hope the fact that I’m starting to get the hang of this ghost thing doesn’t mean I’m destined to stay one forever.

WEDNESDAY, 3:30 PM

While Dale is stuck in gym class, I trail after my friends, hoping one of them will drop some helpful piece of information about who I left with, or where I was last seen. But all Amber does in biology is stare at Charlie Watson, who I still can’t believe she spent all of study group making out with. He’s so not her type, it’s actually funny. Penny spends the period secretly texting under her desk while Matt draws pictures of exploding frogs in the margins of his textbook.

The final bell rings and the room fills with the sound of shuffling pages as students hurry to pack up their things. Mr. Hinkly is stuffing papers into his bag as he walks out the door with everybody else, as desperate to leave at the end of the day as the rest of us.

As promised, I meet Dale by his locker. He takes his time collecting his stuff, clearly waiting for the halls to empty so he can talk to me. A couple of sophomore girls two lockers down take their sweet time leaving, staring at their phones.

“According to the Where’s Nicole Poll, eighty-eight percent of voters think she’s run away,” says a dark-haired girl I barely recognize.

She looks at her friend with the short pixie cut—Emma, I think her name is. “Have you voted yet?”

“No, I’m about to.” Emma taps at her phone screen. “I’m definitely voting running away.”

“Drue tweeted that Trent handcuffed her to his bed and left her there.”

“Either way, good riddance. She always acted like she owned this place,” Emma says, slamming her locker shut.

I flinch, the words stinging like a slap. I don’t even know these girls and they want me gone.

Dale scowls at them and the girls notice his angry glare as they saunter past him.

“What’s your problem?” Emma mutters. “Freak show.”

“Your friends suck,” Dale says to me as he grabs his bag and throws it over his shoulder.

“First off, those girls are not my friends. And I’d never let Trent do that to me,” I say hotly.

“That’s not what I mean. You’re obviously missing and all your friends have done is start a Twitter frenzy!” He points down the hall. “You heard those girls. Drue’s one of your close friends, right? He’s joking that you’re tied to a bed when he should be out there looking for you. How can you hang out with these people? They don’t care about you at all.”

My eyes burn as I snap back, “That’s the point.”

Dale’s angry expression disintegrates, replaced with confusion.

I sigh. “They’re people I have fun with. They don’t dig too deep.” My friends only care what I’m wearing or who I’m dating. They don’t want to know anything about who I really am and that’s just the way I like it. Or used to like it anyway.

“You know that’s kind of messed up, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” I admit, my voice sounding distant and small.

“You okay?” Dale’s deep gaze is kind. I fight the desire to ask him to wrap his arms around me.

“I’m okay.”

He tips his head toward the door. “Come on, let’s go.”

As we move to the entrance, Dale bumps into Adam, whose broad frame takes up most of the doorway. His blonde hair is brushed to the side, making him look like a schoolboy from the fifties. It suits him, though. As usual, his blue eyes are bright and thoughtful. I’d had a crush on him back in middle school, and I can see why Penny likes him now. I walk beside them as they join the stream of students making their way to the parking lot.

“What’s that?” Dale asks Adam. He’s fiddling with something in his large hands.

“I just met with Ms. Nelson,” Adam says, holding up the folder that the guidance office gives out to every senior. It has information on standardized tests and financial aid. “My dad wants me to try for a scholarship at an Ivy League school, but I seriously doubt I’m good enough. What are you thinking?”

Dale shrugs. “It’s only September. I’m not going to think about the whole college thing until I absolutely have to.”

“Yeah.” Adam forces out an awkward chuckle. “That sounds more fun than studying for the SATs every night.”

“Studying?” I snap my fingers. “Wait a second, he was at study group. You should ask him about it,” I urge Dale. “He might be able to help us.”

Dale slaps his friend on the shoulder. “Are you okay, man? You look kinda tired.”

I roll my eyes. “I said ask him about study group, not how he feels.”

Adam runs his hand through his styled hair. “I didn’t sleep well last night. I kind of . . .” He winces, shooting Dale a sheepish grin. “Went to study group.”

“Ah. Late night?” Dale asks, clearly trying to sound casual.

“Yeah, sort of. I just needed a breather. Dad was out and Mom was feeling generous,” Adam says. “Don’t tell him, okay? You know how he gets.”

That was an understatement.

“Of course.” Dale fishes his car keys out of his pocket. “Secret’s safe with me.”

“Thanks. I’ll catch you later.” Adam gives Dale a wave and heads toward the bus stop.

“Stop him,” I yell at Dale. “Ask him more about last night.”

Dale jerks at my snappy voice and calls after Adam, “Hey, wait! Do you want a ride?”

Adam squints through the sunlight at Dale’s beat-up car. “You sure? That’d be awesome, thanks.”

Adam jogs over to the car and opens the passenger door.

Dale opens the door to the backseat and throws his backpack in, giving me time to scoot in. Up front, Adam wrestles with the ancient seat belt that keeps locking before it can get halfway around his waist. He tries two more times before finally pulling the belt over his large chest and snapping it into place.

The car revs to life and Dale swings out of the parking lot. Adam rolls down the window and we all wince at the high-pitched screech.

“Sorry, man.” Dale grins. “Had to save for this baby on my own, so it’s . . . an in-betweener.”

“Nah, it’s cool.”

Adam is polite, like he always is, as we bump our way toward the Hutton home.

“So, the party, huh. You have a good time?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Adam looks out the window and clears his throat. “We just hung at Matt’s place, down by the lake. Not totally my scene, but it was kind of fun.”

Dale shifts gears to accelerate up the hill. “You see Nicole there?”

“Way to play it casual, Dale.” My tone is dry and sarcastic.

He sends me a silencing look through the rearview mirror.

“Huh?” Adam turns back to Dale.

“Nicole Tepper, was she at the party?”

“Oh, yeah, of course she was.” He chuckles, then looks pensive. “She was nursing a beer by the fire most of the night. She seemed kind of quiet. You know, for her.”

I gaze out the window, glancing at the various log cabin homes flashing past us, my mind desperately scrambling for reasons why I hadn’t played my usual role as life of the party.

“I don’t suppose you saw her leave?”

Adam chuckles, lightly bumping Dale in the arm. “Why are you so interested, man? You know she’s with Trent.”

Dale rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I know that. I guess I’m just curious. It was hard not to overhear the gossip today.”

Adam’s smile fades, a look of worry cresting over his expression. “Yeah, that was kind of weird, but you know how dramatic Penny and those girls can be. You don’t actually think it’s real, do you?”

Dale clears his throat and shrugs. “Could be. I mean, what if they’re all wrong and she hasn’t run away?”

Adam’s face pales, his bright eyes stormy with concern. “That’d be awful. Maybe I should ask my dad about it.”

Dale presses his lips together before finally croaking, “Might be a good idea.”

Adam nods. “There’s no harm looking into it, right? As long as he doesn’t find out where I was last night.” Adam gives Dale a sheepish grin.

“I’m sure you can get around that part.”

“Yeah, it’ll be okay. I’ll ask him when he gets home from work.”

Dale nods, clearly relieved that Adam is taking things a little more seriously. “So, do you remember who she left with?”

“Uh, let me think.” Adam rubs his nose and squeezes his eyes shut. Then they pop open. “Wait, I do remember seeing her leave. She walked off with Lauren.”

“Lauren?” I gape. “Of everyone there, why would I leave with
Lauren Peters
?”

Through the rearview, I can see Dale quickly cut his eyes toward Adam. “Are they friends?”

Adam shrugs. “I think so. They hang out together at school.”

“Yeah, but not because I
want
to,” I mutter.

“Nicole was a little trashed.” He tips his head thoughtfully. “I think Lauren was trying to help her get home.”

“Lauren?” I explode. “There’s no way she’d help me do anything.” But then I remember Lauren’s words to the group earlier that day: “Maybe she’s dead.”

The pieces come together in a rush. What if we
did
leave together? She’s always been jealous of me; what if something happened between us last night? What if those scratch marks on her neck had been my doing? I was blackout drunk and she saw an opportunity to get rid of me. With me out of the way, she could have Trent all to herself.

“We have to talk to her as soon as possible,” I tell Dale. “Stop driving like a grandma so we can ditch the nerd and find Lauren. Hurry up.”

Dale grips the wheel and glances at Adam. “So you used to hang out with Nicole when you guys were younger, right?”

I lurch up toward the middle console. “What are you doing?”

“Yeah,” Adam shrugs, a wistful smile playing on his lips. “In middle school.”

I grip my knees, my nails digging into my flesh. “I already told you that, Dale. You don’t need to know more.”

“So, what’s up with her? Was she always like this?” Dale smiles as the car groans up the final stretch of the hill.

“Always like what?”

“You know, outspoken, irritating, bossy . . .”

I punch Dale as hard as I can. My fist goes straight through his shoulder, but he shivers, which feels like a victory.

Adam chuckles. “No way. I mean bossy, sort of, but she used to be awesome. There was this massive group of us and we used to do everything together. Nicole and Derek, he’s gone now but they used to be like the ringleaders and they’d always be organizing us all. I remember this one summer she convinced her mom to buy a gazillion water balloons and made us all dress up like soldiers. We had an all-out water war in the forest just behind her house. It was the most fun I’d ever had.”

Dale’s smile is broad as he chuckles at the story. Tears burn my eyes as I clearly remember laying low in the bush with my ammo, just waiting for Derek’s team to run past me.

“So what happened?” Dale asks.

Adam glances at him. “You don’t know the story about her family?”

Dale shakes his head, shifting gears as we start cruising down the other side of the hill.

“Shut up, Adam,” I murmur, but he can’t hear me.

Adam sighs, the corner of his mouth rising with a forlorn half smile. “Nicole had a little sister, Jody. She was this cute button of a kid with blonde curls and a constant smile. Pure sunshine, you know?”

I squeeze my eyes closed, wishing I could cover my ears.

“Nicole adored her. Everyone did. One day she . . .” Adam clears his throat, looking down at his lap.

Don’t say it. Don’t tell him, Adam.
I want to scream the words aloud, but it won’t do any good.

“It was really bad,” Adam says quietly. “She fell out of a tree and broke her neck. It was horrible.”

My ears start ringing and I slump back into my seat, my arms hanging dead at my sides. Images pound through my head, merciless and horrific. Jody yelling my name. Her lifeless body crumpled at the base of the tree.

“She was only nine.” Adam wraps up the story with the torturous ending that will haunt me forever: “Nicole was the one who found her.”

“Whoa, that’s so intense.” Dale’s knuckles are white as they grip the wheel. His gaze jerks to the rearview mirror. His surprise is unmistakable, as is the sympathy and grief in his eyes. I turn away, not deserving his kindness. Adam knows only half the story, and Dale wouldn’t look at me like that if he knew everything that happened.

“She’s never been the same since. She went into hiding over the summer and then when she got to high school she started hanging out with . . .” Adam sighs, shaking his head like a disappointed parent.

Dale fills in the gaps. “The Trents of the world.”

“Pretty much.” Adam nods.

The car fills with the type of silence that always follows tragic news, the silence that followed me around for an entire summer until I could no longer bear to be around my old friends, around the stares and awkward pauses and their hollow condolences. Around people like Adam and Derek who knew what I’d been through, but didn’t know how to be around me.

This was the beauty of my new friends, and what I couldn’t articulate to Dale earlier. Amber and Penny didn’t ask me how I was. They didn’t come to my house and remember how Jody used to spy on us, or twirl through my room in her pink princess dress. They didn’t look at me and my family and see what was missing. They looked at me and admired my newest skirt or gushed about how beautiful my mom was. They envied my freedom and appreciated that I was always up for an adventure, not realizing that it was my desperation to get out of my house that made me game for anything.

I keep my eyes on the window, watching the world slow to a stop as Dale pulls into Adam’s driveway.

Dale jerks up the parking brake, and Adam opens his door. “Do you think she’s run away?”

Adam pauses. “I don’t know, man. If it means she’s safe and alive, then I kind of hope she has.” He lets out a soft sigh, his forlorn expression breaking my heart. “If there’s anyone with a really good reason to split, it’s Nicole.”

And in that moment, I realize that I
have
been running away. Not from home, but from myself. From my family, my old friends. Each decision has led me down a path that ended somewhere in the woods of Big Bear. And now I’ve run so far from everyone and everything that matters that I’m not sure I’ll be able to find my way back.