Understudy (3 page)

"You won't. We want you to join us," I said, feeling a twinge of guilt because I hoped she wouldn’t.

As if reading my mind, Sara snorted. "Yeah, right. Watching the two of you make out isn't really my description of having fun. And besides, it's your day. Just do whatever it is you lovebirds do and forget that I even exist."  

"Are you sure?" Adam asked, sounding like he genuinely wanted her to go, which only made me feel even guiltier.

Sara rolled her eyes. "Just go!" she exclaimed, playfully pushing us down the hallway. "If you guys feel guilty then just send me a detailed email of your making out escapade!"

Adam smiled sheepishly. "Okay, if you say so. Have a nice weekend!" He held up his knuckles for their fist bump ritual.

"Yeah, whatever," Sara said as she bumped fists with him. "Just take care and be safe, okay?"

I gave Sara a quick hug and she hugged me back.

"Have fun," she whispered. "And I'm serious about the email."

***

It was still raining when Adam and I stepped out of the building.

"You can wait here while I go get the car," Adam offered, since neither of us had an umbrella.

"Why don't we just run to the car?" I suggested.

Adam's eyes widened. "I thought you hate getting rained on?"

"But you love it, and it's your special day," I said, grabbing his hand. I knew it wasn’t enough to match his
grand gesture
, but at least I tried, right?

"Are you sure?"

"I might change my mind."

Adam smiled and next thing I knew, we were running across the parking lot.

Okay, I really hated being caught in the rain, but seeing Adam's face glow with excitement was worth getting wet from head to toe.

"So, where are we going?" I asked, wiping rain off my face with the back of my hand as Adam drove the Jeep out of the school gate and onto the wet road.

"Guess," he said, wiping his forehead.

I was terrible at guessing games, and I knew that he would eventually tell me so I just stared at him blankly.

"You're no fun," Adam grumbled, his eyebrows knitting together. "Would it kill you to try?"

Again, I just continued staring at him as I reached for the seatbelt. I wanted to try, I really did. But my mind came up blank.

"You know how I suck when it comes to guessing games."

He sighed. "We're going to the woods. I just hope this rain stops."

"Oh..." I said, not knowing how to respond.

I loved the woods. It was a special place for both of us. It was where we first met three years ago. I was working on my science project when I got lost. Adam and his family were new to the town back then and they were out camping. Adam found me and I felt indebted to him ever since. Then he went to Highcrest High, we became friends, and the rest was history.

"It's not that I don't want to be in the woods, but, what are we going to do in the woods?" I had dressed up for his birthday, and the last thing I needed was to spend my weekend washing mud off my best jeans and mid-calf boots.

"It's a surprise," Adam said, a smug smile forming on his lips.

"Let me guess. You've prepared some kind of a romantic picnic for us somewhere in the woods."

Adam took a quick intake of breath, and the car swerved to the right.

"Woah, easy," I said, resting my hand on the dashboard as Adam regained control of the wheel.

Adam turned to study my face, his eyes narrowing into slits. "I thought you sucked at guessing games?"

"I do. But it's not as if you planned on doing it anyway."

"Yeah, right." Adam's gaze shifted back to the road, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

The car was silent for awhile, with only the sound of the rain hitting the car's roof and the constant squeak from the windshield's wiper.

"Can I open my present now?" he suddenly asked.

I bit my lip and cringed. I had already forgotten that stupid mix CD.

Adam smiled triumphantly. "Oh, come on!"

"It's stupid, really."

"Let me be the judge of that."

I sighed and fished out Adam's present from my bag. I hadn't even bothered gift−wrapping it.

"A mix CD?"

"I told you it's stupid."

"Quit saying that!" he exclaimed. "Let's just listen to it."

Before I could protest, Adam slipped the CD into the car stereo. Next thing I knew, Snow Patrol's
Just Say Yes
started playing in the background.

"I like this one!" he said.

We listened for awhile, and Adam drummed his finger against the wheel as the song reached its chorus. He began to sing along with it.

Just say yes,

Just say there's nothing holding you back...

And I finally gave in and started singing with him too.

It's not a test,

Nor a trick of the mind,

Only love.

We were a little off key, but we didn't care. Adam gave me a look that clearly said,
see, it's not stupid!
and I felt a whole lot better.

We were reaching the second chorus when Adam's phone rang. He slid it out from his pocket and when he saw who it was, the smile immediately disappeared from his face. He punched the end button without even answering the call.

"Who is it?" I asked. We missed the chorus.

"It's my brother," he said gruffly.

Of course. There was only one person who could easily shift Adam's mood from sky high down to the far reaches of hell: his brother Eric, his identical twin brother who was his opposite in so many ways. It was easy to forget that Adam had a brother, let alone a twin. Eric was considered the black sheep of the family. I'd only met him twice before their parents decided to send him to an exclusive boarding school in New York. I've never heard of him since, except on some occasions when their parents talked about him when they thought Adam and I were out of earshot. And from what I heard, boarding school had only made Eric worse.

The phone rang again and Adam just glared at it.

"Aren't you going to answer? It's his birthday too," I reminded him as I turned the stereo's volume down a little. "Maybe he wants you to wish him a happy birthday or he's calling to say it to you. Either way, I think you should answer it."

"Right." His expression softened a bit, though his grip on the steering wheel didn't.

He pushed the ‘answer’ button and I held the phone to his ear so he wouldn't have to wedge it between his head and shoulder.

"What do you want?" he asked.

I could hear Eric's voice at the end of the line, though I couldn't understand what he was saying. Not that I intended to eavesdrop.

"No, absolutely not!" Adam said. "I already helped you the last time."

Another pause.

Adam set his jaw as he hastily grabbed the phone from my hand.

"So now it's my problem too?" He was almost shouting now. "You know what? I have an idea. Stop being a pain in the ass!"

He pushed the end button and tossed the phone on the dashboard. His face was red and I noticed that his knuckles were as white as the bone underneath the taut skin.

It had stopped raining and everything was quiet except for the song that was still playing softly in the background. I was about to ask Adam what just happened when the phone rang again.

"Maybe I should just turn it off,” he said.

"What does he want?"

"Nothing important," he said, but he kept on glancing at his phone.

"Just answer it. Maybe he has no one to celebrate his birthday with."

Adam rolled his eyes. “Believe me, he has
a lot
of friends to celebrate his birthday with.” But he reached for his phone anyway. He almost had it in his hand when a bump on the road made it slip from his grasp. I considered bending down to reach for it but Adam waved me off.

"I got this," he said.  Little did I know that those where the last words I’d hear him say.

I always thought that terrifying accidents only happen in movies, but the moment the car swerved followed by a loud crash, I was convinced that terrifying things did happen in real life. And it could happen when you least expect it.

In an instant, whole world stopped. Everything became quiet, except for the music still playing softly in the background.

Just say yes,

Coz I’m aching and I know you are too…

And everything turned black.

Chapter Three

It happened quickly.

I watched as Adam bent down to pick up his phone when something blurred past us. We both jumped, startled, and Adam lost control of the wheel. I pressed my hands over my ears to block out the screeching tires and a blaring horn. Everything after that was a blur. There was a deafening crash and the world turned upside down. Shards of broken glass flew everywhere and I remember squeezing Adam's hand just before my head hit something and I passed out.

I woke up three days after the accident. No one told me what happened to Adam until the day he was buried. When my mom told me the news, I just stared at her.

Her words didn't make sense. How could Adam be dead? He just turned eighteen. Surely, there was a mistake. But the way my parents looked at me gave me all the answers I needed.

I wasn't able to attend his funeral, and I don't think I would have even if I could. Why would I? Wasn't it enough that he died because of me? Wouldn't it be cruel to remind his parents that I survived and their son didn't? I knew they were not the kind of people to think like that, but I couldn't help it. Not when I knew that I had the chance to prevent the accident from happening.

The doctor told us that the reason why I survived the crash was because I was wearing a seatbelt, and Adam wasn't.  I got off with some broken ribs, bruises and a minor concussion, but other than that I was fine, though I was sure that I would never be normal again.

I didn't cry. I expected myself to, but tears eluded me. The doctor said that I was probably in shock. That it was my mind's way of protecting me. I agreed with him, though I believed that the reason why the pain hadn't got to me yet was because I still hadn't truly acknowledged the fact that Adam was gone. I couldn't.

People from school came to visit me. Sara visited me, as well as some of my relatives. It was a series of blurred faces, of different people telling me the same thing. Mom told me that Adam's parents visited me too when I was still unconscious, and that they were happy that I survived. I wasn't.

People began asking me about the accident as soon as I was discharged from the hospital. I told them I couldn't remember, though every time I closed my eyes, everything was as clear as day. There was a big difference between remembering and hearing it out from my own lips. Saying it aloud would have made it real, and I wanted to believe that it wasn't. That perhaps I just dreamt it all.  That I would wake up one morning and everything would be back to normal. Adam would come pick me up for school and I would tell him all about the silly dream of us being in an accident and how he died. He would've found it funny.

I was allowed to sit out the remaining month of the academic year, which also meant that I missed prom. Not that I had any intention of going. Not when Adam wasn't around to pin my corsage and tell me how beautiful I looked in my dress.

I spent my days in my bedroom with Mom and Dad constantly checking up on me. I felt bad for them, especially when they were being extra nice to me. Sara visited once in a while but she would end up crying her eyes out and I'd be the one to console her. I wanted to cry. I wanted to drown the pain with tears, because I knew that the more I prolonged the inevitable, the more painful it would get. Pain is like a one-sided relationship. You fight very hard to break away from it, but it clings to you like a psychotic ex.

I wanted to talk to someone. To share the things that troubled me. I would grab my phone and dial the number I knew by heart. No one answered, no one would. But I still waited ring after ring, hoping that Adam would pick up and I'd hear his voice again. He didn't have voicemail.

It took exactly twenty−seven days before the pain finally set in. I knew because I was counting. That day, I woke up with a phantom hole in my chest and the tears wouldn’t stop flowing.

He was gone. I would never see his smile, hear his voice and feel the warmth of his skin against mine. He was gone and everything we shared would turn into memories that would eventually disappear like it never happened. He was gone and it was all because of me.

Mom and Dad rushed to my room, asking me what happened. They asked me if I was in pain and I nodded. They asked me where it hurt.

Everything hurt, I wanted to say. But it wasn't enough. There were no words or numbers that could accurately describe or measure the amount of pain I felt.

Mom wrapped her arms around me, holing me as I broke into pieces, thinking about the list of things I shouldn't and should've done to prevent the accident from happening.

I shouldn't have let him reach out for his phone, I should've told him to fasten his seatbelt when I fastened mine, and I shouldn't have told him to answer his phone.

I felt an awful lot of guilt and anger for the last one. Thinking about it, it was Eric's fault too. He shouldn't have called. None of this would've happened if he didn't call Adam.

Did he go to the funeral? Was he even aware that he was also responsible for his brother's death?

I had never hated anyone so much in my life before, though the hatred I felt towards Eric wasn't enough to overshadow the pain of losing Adam.

Weeks went by and I spent my time either sketching abstract objects in paper, or staring blankly at the paper. Nothing made sense at that moment. I felt detached from everything, like my body was there but my mind wasn't.

"The world won't stop spinning just because Adam died. You need to live," Dad said one night during dinner, exactly forty two days after Adam's funeral. “He’d want you to.”

"She needs time," Mom said, coming to my defense. She always did.

"She needs a reality check."