This is What Goodbye Looks Like (13 page)

But his voice is soft as he says, “But that’s not the case with this memory, is it? You don’t want to forget whoever I remind you of. Not really.”

No. What I want is for Parker to not be a part of my memory at all. I want for him to never have been driving that night, for him to never have encountered us, for him to still be alive and breathing and safe.

My gut twists as I realize Seth’s getting in my head again. “How’d you know?”

“Because you brought him up, and you wouldn’t have done that if you thought he was better off being forgotten. So he’s not someone who hurt you, but he still makes you hurt. You miss him, maybe?”

“You tell me,” I snap. “You’re apparently the all-knowing one when it comes to my private feelings.”

“If you want your feelings to be private, don’t make them so obvious.”

“I don’t. You’re just weirdly good at reading people.”

“Everyone could read people as well as I do if they’d just shut up for two seconds and listen.”

“You seem to have this all figured out,” I mutter.

“Not at all.” His lips quirk into a hesitant smile. “That’s why I like you, I guess. You’re a puzzle, and I like puzzles.”

“You like me?”

“Of course. It’s hard not to.”

For a single second, I want to tell him exactly who I am, so he’ll cuss me out like I deserve. But my mouth turns traitor and forms benign, worthless words. “Thank you.”

His smile grows a little more. “You know, I changed my mind.”

“You don’t like me?”

He makes that little noise stuck between a scoff and a chuckle, although this time the sound is huskier and sounds a bit closer to a real laugh. “No, not about that. I mean I changed my mind about that project Brie mentioned the other day. The photo project I’m trying to do. You remember it?”

I nod, but then I realize he can’t see my response. “Um, yeah. I remember. You were looking for someone to help you take photos, right?”

“Yeah. And I think you’d actually make a perfect photographer for it.”

“Why?”

“Like I said, you remind me of my brother. And it was his project originally. He was just about to graduate from college early with a degree in Photography, so this was supposed to be his final thesis project. The bulk of it was a thirty-page paper that he already finished and turned it. But then he also had to create a gallery of his own pictures to go along with his paper, and he died before he could finish it, so...yeah.”

Seth clears his throat. “I got a hold of one of his advisers at the university. She said she needs the completed thesis turned in by the end of the semester if there’s any chance of Parker still getting that degree awarded to him. So I lied and told her Parker actually finished the photo part of the project, but I just need a few weeks to pull the pictures off his laptop and get them organized. She extended the deadline until mid-April, but now I actually need to get the rest of those photos taken so I can turn in a completed project.”

My words stay frozen in my throat as snow starts to drift down around us. Ms. Thorne had warned me about Seth’s obsession with this project, and she’d asked me to stop him from working on it. To convince him it wasn’t necessary. But as I stare at his grief-stricken face, pulled tight with anxiety as he waits for my answer, there’s no way I can believe it’s unnecessary.

“We should get back inside,” Seth says, his voice sounding exhausted.

“Why?” I ask.

“It’s starting to snow, and I’m not going to be responsible for you getting frostbite.”

“No, I mean, why do you want to get that degree for your brother? Seth, it’s...it’s not going to bring him back.”

“That’s why I need to get the degree,” he says, his words suddenly desperate and rushed. “Because it was Parker’s dream for years, and he might not be around anymore, but that degree is. He deserves to have his dream survive, even if he can’t.”

“I’ll do it,” I say. The words slip from me before I can think them through, but as soon as they’re out, I realize I don’t even want to take them back. “I’ll help you with the project. Just tell me what to do, and, yeah. I...I’ll do it.”

Seth deflates then, his shoulders sagging and breath heaving from his chest. For a moment, I think I’ve said something wrong, but then he hoarsely murmurs, “Thank you. Really. It means a lot.”

I wonder if I’m finally helping Seth instead of hurting him. Taking a couple pictures will never, ever make up for what I did, but still...it’s obviously a comfort. And I have absolutely no right to deny him any comfort I can offer.

“So are you going to tell me what this project is?” I ask.

He bites at the inside of his cheek. “It’s a thesis project, so it’s definitely not something I can explain quickly. But how about we meet in the library tomorrow and go over stuff properly. At eight-thirty, maybe?”

“Eight-thirty in the morning? It’s the weekend.”

He shrugs, but his tone is unapologetic as he says, “I like mornings.”

“Okay,” I say, giving a reluctant nod. “Eight-thirty it is.”

He nods and pats his leg, silently calling Koda. She comes bounding across the patio, skidding to a stop hardly inches from him. Then she trots over to me, licks my hand, and dutifully goes back to Seth’s side, looking up at him with adoring eyes and a lolling tongue.

I head back inside, leaving behind the cold and the snow, and Seth hovers next to me with Koda guiding him along.

“Sorry she keeps licking you,” he says, absently stroking his dog’s head. “She doesn’t usually do that, you know.”

“It’s no problem,” I say, reaching over to ruffle Koda’s ears. “I like it.”

“I knew you were a dog person,” Seth says, sounding almost smug.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He offers me a vague smile. “It means dogs have good taste.”

Brie waves at us as we step back into the main room, and the others toss out greetings like we’ve been gone for days instead of just fifteen minutes. Cameron suggests getting coffee across the street, and waves around a couple twenties, saying he’ll buy. Judging by Landon’s scowl, I get the feeling he just lost the cash over a pinball game. Everyone starts packing up their stuff and throwing coats back on, and we’re about to leave when a hand brushes my shoulder, the touch a strange mixture of strength and gentleness.

“Thanks,” Seth says softly as the others push past us, heading for the door.

I wait for myself to cringe away from his touch, but instead, a sense of warmth washes over me. “Like I said, it’s no problem,” I say, hoping I don’t sound as confused as I feel. “I’ll bring my camera tomorrow, and we can get started.”

“No, not that. Well, yeah, thanks for that, too. But thanks for not calling me crazy for wanting to finish Parker’s project.”

He offers me a small, soft smile that’s a thousand times more sincere than the one on my lips. If there’s anything insane about him, it’s that he still manages an expression that genuine when he’s in so much pain.

“You’re not crazy,” I say. “You just care.”

“Sometimes I think they’re the same thing,” he murmurs, his smile falling away.

I nod slowly. “Sometimes I think you’re right.”

Before he can make me explain, I follow the others outside, holding my breath as I brace against the inevitable surge of cold.

Chapter Thirteen

I’m exhausted by the time we get back to our dorm, but Brie somehow still has enough energy to hurry off to a late-night study group for her French club. She’s just like all the other students here—never still, always productive. It’s dawning on me that I don’t stand a chance of maintaining my top-of-the-class status, and a year ago, I would have been crumbling into a panicked mess. Now it hardly seems to matter. If my GPA is doomed anyway, it at least gives me an excuse to focus on Seth’s project.

It’s nine o’clock when Brie leaves, and our room is eerily quiet as soon as the door closes behind her. The memory of my sister’s scream keeps cycling through my mind, piercing the silence every time I glance over at the camera resting on my nightstand. It’s been sitting there all week, and it looks just the same as always—black frame, torn shoulder strap, cracked lens and digital screen. But the damage is minimal, and as I hesitantly pick it up, I flick at the camera’s power button. The broken screen stays dark, but I know it would light up if I’d just give the battery a short charge.

If I’m going to help Seth with his project, I’ll have to get my camera fixed. Brie mentioned that there’s a photography shop in town, but the thought of handing it over to a careless stranger for repairs makes my stomach clench. Camille gave me this camera, and she was so proud of her gift, and it was so perfect, and...

I couldn’t deal with losing it. It’d be like losing a part of her.

My fingers absently trail over the little memory card socket, and I flip it open. The card’s still in there, the same one from the night of the accident. I have dozens of pictures stored on here from our family reunion, images of smiling relatives and the huge feast my aunt and uncle cooked for dinner.

There’s also the video.

After the accident, when the hospital finally released me, the first thing I did was check to see if the video survived the wreck. I remember holding my breath as the files from the memory card downloaded onto my laptop, one after another. I silently wished for an error message to pop up and tell me that the files had been corrupted, that the memory card had been ruined by the impact. But then the video popped up on my screen, the last and most recent file on the memory card.

“Begin Playback?”
my laptop had asked me. I started the video, making it through only a few seconds of dim, shaky footage before I exited out of my file-viewing program. It was long enough to confirm that the video was intact and could provide solid evidence, but I couldn’t stomach watching any more.

I already knew what the rest of the video would show. It’d been a simple idea, maybe even a smart one if things had worked out. My mom always claimed that she could drive fine even when she was drunk, and that night, I had been determined to get proof of how bad she actually was. So I’d discreetly trained my camera’s focus on the road and set it to video mode. It had started recording right away, capturing the sight of the swerving road and the sound of my mom mumbling hasty apologies.

In the morning, when the alcohol was out of her system, I’d planned to show her the video. I was sure it would shock her into a true apology, make her promise to never drive drunk again and go into rehab. And maybe she’d even follow through on those promises this time.

Then a beat-up Honda Civic had appeared, its chipped paint glistening in our headlights.

Parker Ashbury had been singing along to the radio right before we hit. That was the one glimpse I got of him before his expression twisted with horror—in the seconds before he realized we were about to collide, his lips had been curved in a smile as he sang the lyrics of a Mumford and Sons song. When the brakes stopped squealing, and the metal stopped screeching, the crackling radio of the wrecked Civic kept spitting out the chorus of that song. If there’s one sound in the world I’ll never forget, it’s that one—the lyrics of the cheery folk song mixing with the gurgling of Parker’s last breaths.

I stare down at the memory card in my hand, gliding my fingertip over its smooth surface. As soon as I realized the video was intact, I’d decided getting rid of the evidence was the best option. But when I unplugged the card from my laptop and got ready to put it through Dad’s paper shredder... I couldn’t do it. Days passed, then weeks, then months, and I still couldn’t bring myself to destroy the card once and for all. So I put it back in my ruined camera and kept it hidden.

Sometimes I want to think I did the right thing, but I know it’s just another lie. The right thing would have been to press the memory card into the hand of the nearest police officer. If I’d just turned in the card to the authorities, if they’d just seen the video, if they had solid evidence of what actually happened...

Then an innocent boy would still be dead, and my sister would still be trapped in a coma, and I’d still be stuck with ruined legs. Everything would be exactly the same, except my mom would be sentenced to prison. I did the right thing. I had to protect her.

Even if she wouldn’t protect me.

I clench my fist around the card, letting the sharp edges dig into my palm. For one bizarre moment, I have the urge to slip it under Seth’s door so he can see his brother’s last moments and know the truth. But that idea is crazy on too many levels to count, especially since Seth can’t even see anything at all.

I fall back on my bed and stare at the ceiling. The accident cycles through my mind a dozen times over, first fast, then slow, then fast again. Always the same crushing impact. Always the same gut-wrenching scream. I know better than to try squeezing my eyes shut against the images—the darkness just reminds me of that night on the road, and how it’d seemed so still in the moments before the crash.

I’m going to have to get a new memory card, I realize. This one I can hide somewhere, but there’s no way I can use this same card to store the pictures for Parker’s project. That’d just be sick. Well, pretty much everything about this situation is sick, but it’d be sicker than usual.