Tess Sharpe - Far From You

“Hi, Sophie, this is Tom Wells from the Harper Beacon. I’ve been thinking about our conversation last week. I’ll hope you’ll get back to me; I’d really like to talk about your side of this story. On the record. Give me a call back.”

I frown and delete the message.

You still talking to the detective? I text Trev before putting my phone on vibrate and pocketing it so I’ll feel it. I can’t stop the thread of worry working through my brain. I tell myself instead that it’s a good sign he doesn’t have time to text me.

“You mind if we hang out here for a sec?” I ask as I walk back to Adam. He’s sprawled against my car trunk, his soda in his hand. “Things out there are kind of…”

“I get it,” Adam says.

I hoist myself carefully onto the trunk, my legs swinging. Adam boosts himself up beside me.

“Who was on the phone?” Adam asks.

“Oh, I’m just waiting for Trev to text me. He’s supposed to come by later.”

Adam raises an eyebrow. “You guys finally getting together?” He laughs when he sees the look on my face. “What? Everyone always talked about you two like it was this predestined thing. Why do you think I never asked you out?” He wiggles his eyebrows at me, making me laugh.

“You wanted to ask me out?” I grin and take a sip of soda. “When was this? Before or after Amber?”

“Before,” Adam shrugs, grinning. “I had a big crush on you in second grade. Trev’s lucky.”

I don’t bother to hide my smile. “Well, I’m not dating Trev,” I say. “Trev is…” I try to figure out a way to put it. That feeling that went beyond friends, beyond family, but wasn’t the right kind of love. “Trev is Trev,” I say finally. “And dating…dating is not for me. Not right now, at least.”

“I get that. You’ve got a lot going on,” Adam says. “Concentrating on being healthy is important. You’re going to meetings, right? Uncle Rob said you were at the church the other day.”

“Been talking about it with my therapist,” I say. “He thinks it might be good for me.”

“It’s interesting,” Adam says. “I go sometimes with Matt so he won’t ditch. I dunno, listening to all those stories…It’s like people fuck up all the time, but I think it helps to admit it, you know? To ask for forgiveness? Most of the time, you get it. People are really good at forgiving, if you just ask for it.”

“Some things, though, you can’t forgive,” I say. “Sometimes you do or see things that are so bad.…” I take a long sip of soda, thinking about Matt, about how he’d probably killed Mina, Jackie, and his baby. I think about Trev, and how everything he wanted had been stalled by our secrets. I think about Rachel, finding me on that road, broken and bloody, and never showing any fear. I shake off the thoughts, pasting a smile on my face. “Anyway, Matt’s doing good with the meetings now, right? He looked really healthy when I saw him.”

“Definitely,” he says. “And, I mean, he did a lot of things that were bad. Made a lot of mistakes. My mom wouldn’t talk to him for six months. But Uncle Rob got him clean, got him to work the program, prove to her he was serious.”

“It’s nice that you have him looking out for you,” I say. I pat the phone in my back pocket absently. Trev should’ve texted me by now. Was he still at the station?

“Yeah,” Adam agrees. “He stepped up when Dad left. Helped Mom out with money and stuff. He did so much for me—there wouldn’t be half the recruiters coming to see me play if it weren’t for him.”

“That must be crazy to think about,” I say. “All those ­people, coming to see you. I’d freak out.”

“Yeah.” Adam grins nervously. “But in a good way, you know?”

“You’ve worked really hard,” I say. “You deserve it.” I wish Trev would text me. I take another long drink of soda. My mouth’s dry. I feel too hot all of a sudden. I swing my good leg back and forth and frown when it hits the bumper.

“You excited about senior year?” Adam asks.

“Kind of.” I blink, rubbing at my eyes. I struggle to swallow, and when I try to take a sip, I miss, spilling soda everywhere. My arm feels weird and heavy.

“Easy,” Adam says, taking the bottle out of my limp hand and sliding off the trunk.

I blink again, trying to clear my throbbing head.

“Sorry, Sophie,” he says quietly. “I like you. Always have. You’re a nice girl.”

The words take a second to work themselves into my brain. I can’t concentrate; my eyes droop. I feel like I’ve just done six shots of tequila in a row. “You…what? I don’t…”

I try to get up off my elbows, but my arms and legs are like Jell-O. I can barely feel them.

Drugged. The word floods into me, a too-late realization that breaks through the sluggishness.

“Oh God,” I mumble with numb lips. “No.” I try to get up again and slide off the trunk, but he’s there, holding me up. His face is inches away from mine; I can see a spot on his jaw that he missed shaving.

“No!” I push at him, a solid wall of muscle, as he crowds me against the car. I need something. The bear spray. It’s in my purse. I have to get it out.…If I can just reach it…

“Sophie, don’t fight it,” he says, and he’s so gentle when he holds my wrists together, it scares me more than if he had punched me in the face. I kick out with my good leg, but my bad one is so rubbery that it won’t take my weight, and I sag against him farther.

“I’m sorry, I really am. I didn’t want to do this the first time. I tried to warn you but you just won’t stop,” Adam says. I push at him again, trying to tilt my body to the side as he loops some hard plastic around my hands, pulling at the end of the zip tie, binding my wrists together. “You have that reporter asking questions, you went to Matt, you went to Jack, to Amy. You’re too nosy, Sophie. Just like Mina.”

I open my mouth, cottony and dry from the drug, to scream, but he’s too fast for me. He claps a hand over my lips and shoves me as I struggle against him—when had he opened the door?—and I fall onto the backseat of my car, dizzy as he lets go of my mouth to yank the keys out of my pocket.

“It was you.” I croak out. I have to say it. I need to hear it.

Leaning over me, he says, “It was me.” A quiet confirmation, an almost relieved revelation, the last words I hear before he slams the car door shut and I pass out.

FOUR MONTHS AGO (SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD)

“Seriously, this is creepy. What are we doing here?”

Mina leaves the keys in my car so the lights will stay on. I get out, shutting the door as Mina props herself up on the hood. Her hair is illuminated by the headlights. She looks unearthly, almost glowing, and I’m struck by it for a moment, half forgetting that I’ve asked a question.

“I told you, it’s for the Beacon.”

“Mina, the only people who come out here are tweekers and couples who don’t mind screwing in a backseat.”

I skirt the edge of the cliff. The drop down is an endless gape of darkness. My leg’s stiff from being in the car. I stretch it out, nearly overbalance.

“It’ll just take a few minutes. Get away from the edge, Soph.”

“I’m feet away from the edge.” Okay, maybe only about a foot, but still, plenty. “What is so important about this story? Amber’s going to be pissed that we’re late.”

“I’ll tell you later. After I figure…After I write it. Seriously, get away from there. I just got you back from your aunt; I’m not gonna let you fall off a cliff. Come over here.”

She snaps her fingers, and I stick my tongue out but walk away from the edge so I’m closer to the car. “You should at least entertain me until your Deep Throat or whoever shows up.”

“I’m so proud of you for that reference.” Mina places a hand against her chest dramatically, wiping away pretend tears with the other.

I kick dirt at her and she squeals, scrambling farther up the hood until she’s pressed up against the windshield. “Okay, I’ll tell you,” she says solemnly. “But you have to promise not to breathe a word.” She looks to her left, then her right, before leaning forward and hissing: “Alien takeover is imminent.”

“Oh no! The little green men are coming!” I fake a gasp, and she beams at me for playing along.

I hear the crunch of footsteps before she does, in that last brief moment when everything is still okay.

Mina’s sitting on the hood, so her back’s to him. I’m facing him, and at first, it’s too dark to see something’s wrong.

Then he steps into the beam of the headlights, and I realize two things in quick succession: the person—a man—coming toward us is wearing a ski mask.

And he has a gun pointed at Mina.

“Mina.” I choke on her name. I have no air; it’s all been sucked out of my lungs. I grab her arm, drag her off the hood of the car.

We have to get away, but I can’t run—I won’t be fast enough. He’ll get me. She needs to leave me behind. She needs to run and not look back, but I don’t know how to tell her this; I’ve forgotten how to speak. I almost fall as her shoulders knock into mine. Our hands grasp as her mouth drops into an O, her eyes fixed on the man as he advances on us.

This is happening. This is actually happening.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

He stops just a few feet away, saying nothing. But he points to me and gestures with the gun, his meaning clear: Get away from her.

Mina’s nails dig into my skin. My leg shakes; I lean against her, and she takes some of my weight.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Mina whispers between quick, staccato breaths.

“There’s cash in our purses.” I falter over the words. “Keys are in the car. Just take it. Please.”

He stabs the gun at me again, quick and angry.

When I don’t move, he strides forward. He seems impossibly huge in that moment, coming toward us. Terror seizes me so quickly, so harshly, so unlike anything I’ve ever known, that if I could, I’d shrivel beneath the weight of it. Mina whimpers and we stumble back, still clinging to each other, but he’s too fast. I’ve been so distracted by the gun that I don’t see what he has in his other hand before it’s too late.

The rebar connects with my bad leg, smacking the twisted bone. I yell, a wretched, cut-off sound, and I collapse belly-first onto the dirt. My fingers scrabble at the ground, dig in. I need to get up.…I need…

“Sophie!” Mina starts toward me, and then she screams as the rebar swings into my line of sight and glances off my forehead. My vision blurs, my skin splits open. Pain, white-hot, stabs through my skull, wetness trickles down my face, and the last thing I see, hear, feel, is him raising that gun, speaking muffled words behind a mask, then the sound of two shots, fired one after the other, and a warm splatter: her blood. It’s her blood on my arm.

Then there’s nothing. No shooter. No blood. No Mina.

Just dark.

NOW (JUNE)

My eyes are heavy. It takes a huge effort to open them. I blink, trying to focus on the gray blur in front of me.

Upholstery.

We’re driving.

Adam’s driving. Speeding down the twisting road that goes around the lake.

Adam killed Mina.

And he’s going to kill me.

I have to stay awake. I blink rapidly, struggling to sit up.

Everything tilts crazily, making me dizzy, but maybe if I get upright, I won’t feel like puking.

Ten months. Five days.

Ten months. Five days.

I can do this. I’m a drug addict. I’m supposed to be good at this. I just have to fight the high. This is nothing.

It has to be nothing. I have to think—I need to get out alive. They’ll never know it was him, they’ll never catch him, if I don’t.

“Come on,” says Adam angrily.

Breathing quietly, I sneak a peek at the front seat. Sweat’s pouring off his forehead as he punches Send over and over on his phone. No one’s answering, and the third time, he finally leaves a voice mail: “I need you to come, okay? Just no questions. Meet me at Pioneer Rock. Now. Please.”

Who’s he talking to? Who’s going to come? Matt. They’re in it together.

I swing my legs so my feet touch down on the floor mat. I’m starting to feel less dizzy now that I know I’m messed up—whatever he dosed me with is starting to lose its edge already. I didn’t drink enough.

Adam’s focused on the road, and I scoot until I’m sitting up, close to the door. I can’t tell how far we’ve gone from the beach; the lake is miles long, nestled in hundreds of acres of dense forest.