Tess Sharpe - Far From You

I step even further away from him, a flinch I can’t control. He’s too wrapped up to notice the hurt I’m throwing off. Or maybe this is what I’ve pushed him to, this kind of heart twisting that once was Mina’s specialty.

“I’m doing this for Mina. Do you really think Jackie’s still alive, after three years? That bastard in the mask killed her. And then he killed Mina because she was too close to finding him out. He has to pay.”

“Yes, he does. But that’s what the police are for. You’re gonna get hurt if you keep this up,” Trev grits out.

I take a deep breath. “I’m not Mina. I’m not going to keep secrets. I’ve got Kyle and my friend Rachel helping out. But to get the police to listen to me, I need proof Mina was looking into Jackie’s disappearance, that she was being threatened because of it. You and Kyle didn’t find the ­killer’s warning notes, did you?”

Trev shook his head.

“So I have to put together a list of people who knew Mina was investigating Jackie and then narrow it down to the likely suspects.”

Trev runs his hands through his hair. “This is insane.”

“What else am I supposed to do? I can’t sit around and hope that the cops will figure it out. I understand that you’re trying to move on or whatever, but I can’t do that. Not yet.”

It’s exactly the wrong thing to say to him—I know it before the words are out of my mouth. His gray eyes widen, and his cheeks flush beneath his tan.

“Move on?” He spits out the words like they’re poison. “She was my baby sister. I practically raised her after Dad died. I was supposed to be there when she got what she wanted out of life. She was supposed to be the aunt to my kids, and I should’ve been an uncle to hers. I wasn’t supposed to lose her. I would’ve done anything for her.”

“Then help me!” I snap at him. “Stop yelling at me and help me already. I’m doing this with or without you, but I’d rather do it with you. You understood her.”

“I guess I didn’t understand her at all,” Trev says, and it hits me all over again that Trev didn’t just lose Mina. He lost me, too—this shining, bright idea of a me that never was.

I want to touch him, to comfort him somehow, but I know better. I settle for going toward him a few steps, close enough to touch.

“You understood her,” I say. “As much as anyone could, you did. She loved you, Trev. So much.”

Trev had been Mina’s favorite person. Her second confessor, after me. I think, if I hadn’t been at the center of this, she would’ve told him the truth about herself.

Maybe he would have made it easier. If she could have basked in his acceptance, it might have given her enough strength to break free.

I don’t know. I can’t ever know. Thinking about it is maso­chistic, like the hours I spent in rehab, spinning a perfect version of our lives, where she tells everyone and it doesn’t matter, a future filled with prom dresses and slow dances and promises that never get broken.

When he looks at me, I feel exposed. For the first time since I’ve come downstairs, I’m acutely aware of how little I have on. How bright the hall lights are, and how my scars shine white and pink.

There’s a clicking sound, and Trev steps forward, away from the front door just as my dad opens it.

There’s a long, uncomfortable moment when Dad’s eyes flick over my face, tear-stained and too red, to settle on Trev, looking just as bad.

“Trev,” Dad says, and it’s like he’s seven feet tall instead of five foot eight.

“Mr. Winters,” Trev says.

I shift from foot to foot, clenching my fists at my sides to keep from scrubbing at my face.

“Sophie, is there a problem here?” Dad asks, still not taking his eyes off Trev.

“No,” I say. “Trev was just leaving.”

“I think that’s for the best,” Dad says.

Trev nods. “I’ll just— Well, good-bye, Sophie. Bye, sir.”

The door’s barely shut behind him before Dad is turning to me, opening his mouth. “Just a second,” I tell him, and I slip out the front door after Trev before Dad can stop me.

He’s already walking down the path.

“Trev!” I call.

He turns.

From where I stand at the bottom of the porch steps, it’s like an ocean between us, this new knowledge that stretches us so far from each other.

“The interviews,” I say, lowering my voice. “The ones that Mina did about Jackie. They’re recorded.”

His eyes widen, and he takes a step toward me almost automatically.

“I can’t listen to them alone,” I confess.

Trev nods. “Tonight?” he asks.

Relief, sweet and simple, rushes through me.

He’s always giving me what I can’t ask for.

“Tonight,” I say.

THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO (FOURTEEN YEARS OLD)

“I can do it myself,” I say, clutching the bottle of vitamin E oil.

“No offense, but your hand still looks like raw hamburger.”

Mina is not patient or soft. She grabs the bottle, ignoring my protests. It’s normal, her being bossy and my falling into line, so I shrug my robe off one shoulder as she settles behind me on my bed.

I bite my lip, looking down at the carpet. I can feel her eyes on my shoulder where metal dug into the skin, mangling it. Her fingers don’t linger as she gently smooths the oil over my scars with determined efficiency. “This stuff smells like my grandma.” She gets up and moves to my front.

“Lavender,” I explain. “Mom got it at that natural health food store in Chico. Here, let me.” I try to grab the bottle away from her, but she dangles it out of my reach. “Nice,” I say. “Way to taunt the gimp.”

“I dare you to call yourself that in front of your mom. She’ll flip.” Mina smiles wickedly at me.

“She’d probably just send me to the shrink for another six months.”

“She means well. That whole week you were in coma-land, she was freaking out. Soap-opera style. It was intense.” Her fingers trace over the top of my shoulder, the new rough landscape that my body has become.

“She keeps acting like things are going to go back to normal.”

“Well, that’s stupid,” Mina says. “Things are different. But it doesn’t mean they have to be awful.”

“I feel awful, sometimes,” I whisper. “I mean, look at me.” I hold my arms out, my robe slips all the way off my shoulders, and the scar on my chest, a raw split of skin, is even uglier in the light. “I’m gross. And it’s not like things are going to change. She needs to realize that.”

“Oh, Soph.” Mina practically deflates. She sits down next to me. “What happened to you was horrible,” she says. “Beyond horrible. And it isn’t fair or right that Trev and I came out of it fine and you…” She trails off. “But gross?” She presses her hand against my heart. Her thumb brushes up against the edge of the scar on my chest. “This isn’t gross. You know what I think when I see this?”

I shake my head.

Her voice drops. She’s whispering, a secret for just the two of us: “I think about how strong you are. You didn’t stop fighting, even when your heart stopped. You came back.”

The unspoken “to me” hangs between us. We both hear it, but neither of us is brave enough to say it.

“You don’t…you don’t ever wish they hadn’t saved you, right?” Mina asks. She’s staring hard at her hand, like she can’t bear to be looking in my eyes if I give the wrong answer.

I can’t tell her the truth. She’d be almost as scared of it as I am.

“Of course not,” I say.

The truth?

I don’t know.

Maybe.

Sometimes.

Yes.

NOW (JUNE)

When I get back into the house, Dad is waiting in the hallway.

“What was that about?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Sophie, you’ve been crying.” He reaches out, and I move away when his hand makes contact with my cheek. “Did Trev say something—”

“We were talking about Mina,” I interrupt. “I got sad. Trev wasn’t—I was just sad.” I rub at my arms, stepping farther away from him. “What are you doing home? Did you forget something?”

“Your shots are today,” Dad says. “Didn’t your mother tell you?”

“Oh. She did. I forgot.”

“I thought I’d take you.”

I can’t stop the hesitation that passes over me, and I can tell he’s hurt by it. It’s the barest flash in his lined face, but it’s there.

I remember, suddenly, all those days he took off work so he could drive me back and forth to physical therapy. How he’d sat in the lobby doing paperwork while I bullied my body into working better. How he’d always wrapped his arms around me afterward.

“Sure,” I say. “I’d like that.”

On the drive to the doctor’s office, we talk about ordinary things. About the soccer team that Dad’s dental office sponsors, how he’s thinking about retiring from assistant coaching because Mom wants him to take swing dancing classes with her.

“Have you thought any more about college?” Dad asks as we pass the post office.

I glance at him. “Not really,” I say.

I can’t. Not yet. There are things I have to do first.

“I know how hard it’s been for you, honey,” he says. “But this is an important time. We need to start thinking about it.”

“Okay,” I say. Anything to get him to stop.

Dr. Shute’s office is in a brick building across from the railroad tracks, and Dad pauses a second before getting out of the car, like he’s sure I’ll snap at him the way I did when he took me to therapy with David. So I stand outside the car, wait until he gets out, and we’re both quiet as we walk inside.

He stays in the lobby when the nurse leads me back, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from asking him to come with me. I tell myself I don’t need him to hold my hand, that I’d learned how to handle getting the shots solo at ­Seaside. I’ve learned to depend on myself. I sit down on the exam table and wait.

The door opens, and Dr. Shute pops her head in the exam room and smiles at me, her red glasses hanging on a beaded chain around her neck. “It’s been a while, Sophie.” After a minute of small talk and a rundown of my pain level, she leaves so I can get undressed. I take my shirt off, lying facedown on the exam table in my bra. The table is cool against my belly through the crackly paper, and I dig into my jeans pocket and come up with my phone as Dr. Shute knocks and comes back inside. I page through my music and put in my earbuds, letting the sound warp my senses. I press my forehead into the cradle of my arms, concentrating on my breathing.

“Let me know when you’re ready,” Dr. Shute says. She knows the deal, knows I can’t stand to see the long epidural needle, knows how freaked out it makes me—that even after all this time, after all the surgeries, I can’t handle a stupid needle sinking into me.

I’ll never be ready. I hate this. I’d almost prefer another surgery.

“Okay, do it,” I say.

The first one goes into the left side of my spine, in the middle of my back, where the pain is the worst. I breathe in and out, my clenched fists crumpling the paper liner set over the exam table. She moves down, three more on my left side, ending deep in my lower back. The long needles pierce through me, the cortisone pushes into my inflamed muscles, buying me some time. Then four on the right side. By the time she’s moved to my neck, I’m breathing hard, the music fuzzy in my ears, and I want it to stop, please, stop.

I want Mina holding my hand, brushing my hair off my face, telling me it’ll be okay.

On the way home, Dad pulls into Big Ed’s drive-through and orders a chocolate–peanut butter milk shake. It’s exactly what I need at that moment, and tears well up in my eyes when he does it without being asked. It’s like I’m fourteen again. I never thought I’d want to go back there, to the days of physical therapy and canes, floating on a cloud of Oxy, but I do. Because then, at least, she’d been alive.

When Dad hands over the shake, he meets my eyes, not letting go of the cup. “Are you okay, honey?” he asks, and I want to hide inside the concern in his voice.

“I’ll be fine,” I say. “Just stings a little.”

We both know I’m lying.

ONE YEAR AGO (SIXTEEN YEARS OLD)

“I hate you!”

I duck just as a shoe comes flying out of Mina’s room, closely followed by Trev.

“Jerk!” Another shoe sails down the hall, and Trev barely looks at me as he stalks past, his face stormy. He yanks the back door open and charges outside, leaving the door swinging on the hinges.