Tess Sharpe - Far From You

Macy’s quiet for a moment. She looks me up and down, her blue eyes assessing me like she might a perp. “Could I?” she asks baldly.

My hand tightens around the canister. I shake my head.

“That’s what I thought.” Macy tries not to smile, but I catch it before she slips back into seriousness. “Do you remember what I told you the night we decided you were ready to come back home?”

“You said I was capable of making my own decisions.”

“You’re not a kid anymore, Sophie. You’ve been through too much. And though you’ve made some pretty bad choices, you’ve made some decent ones, too. You got clean—and you stayed clean. I believe that. I believe you. And it would probably be smart to tell you to move on, that letting go of Mina is the right thing to do. But I see it in you, babe, how it’s gonna eat you up if you don’t do something. If you don’t try. Just—” Her phone rings again. “Dammit,” she mutters.

I take advantage of her distraction. “I’ll be careful, I promise. Go to Corning.” I unbuckle my seat belt and grab my bag. “Kick the perv in the balls for me.”

Macy smiles. “That’s my girl.”

Our house hasn’t changed. I don’t know why I thought it’d look different. Maybe because everything else is. But the tasteful leather couches and the cherrywood table between them are still in the living room, the coffee machine in the kitchen half-full, my father’s empty mug sitting next to the sink. Just like any other day.

I go upstairs to my room. My bed’s freshly made, and I run my fingers over the red sheets. They’re crinkled at the edges, which means Mom put them on herself instead of having the once-a-week housekeeper do it.

Thinking about her struggling with them in her heels and pencil skirt, trying to make it nice for me, makes my eyes sting. I clear my throat, blinking fast, and dump the contents of my bag onto the bed before going to take a shower.

I let the water stream over my head for a long time. I need to wash the smell of rehab—lemon air freshener and cheap polyester—off of me.

For three months, I’ve been stuck, stagnant and waiting, behind white walls and therapy sessions while Mina’s killer walks. It hits me all at once that I’m finally free, and I jam the faucets shut. I can’t stand to be inside for another second. I get dressed, leave a note on the kitchen table, and lock the door behind me. The canister of bear spray is safe in my bag.

Macy was right—I’m about to stir up some serious shit. I have no idea why anyone would kill Mina. Which means I have to be prepared for anything. For anyone.

It’s getting late. But he’ll still be at the park.

The good thing about growing up in a small town is that everyone knows everyone. And if you’ve got a routine, you’re usually easy to find.

I walk to the park and get there as the guys playing soccer are finishing up their casual game, shirts versus skins. The sun’s sinking, that dusky time where dark and light are balanced almost artificially, like an old movie, saturated with hazy color. I watch from across the street and wait until a massive, shaggy-haired blond guy in a dingy white soccer jersey and baggy shorts breaks away from the group, heading toward the bathroom, the door swinging shut behind him.

It’s perfect: isolated, with nowhere for him to run. So I seize the moment.

I want to slam into the bathroom, scare the shit out of him, grind his cheek against the dirty tile with my foot until he admits the truth.

Instead, I slip in quietly and lock the door behind me once I’m sure it’s just him in here.

The toilet flushes, and my stomach leaps, part anger, part fear.

He doesn’t see me at first, but halfway to the sink he catches sight of me in the mirror.

“Shit.” He spins around.

“Hi, Kyle.”

“I thought you were in rehab.”

“They let me out.” I step forward, and when he moves away, a sweet feeling rushes through me. Kyle’s huge, thick-necked and solid—more suited for football than soccer—and I like that he’s a little scared of me, even if he’s just afraid that the junkie will do something crazy.

I take another step. This time he manages not to retreat.

But he wants to. I can see the fear in that frat-boy-to-be face.

Fear means guilt.

I pull the bear spray from my purse, unlocking it and raising it to his eye level as I step forward. “You remember that time Adam’s brother accidentally got him in the face with bear spray? We were, what, freshmen? Maybe it was even eighth grade.…Anyway, it’s one of his favorite drinking stories. To quote Adam: ‘That shit stings like a fucker.’”

I tap my finger on the trigger. Kyle tenses.

“When I was in rehab, I had a lot of time to think,” I say. “That’s pretty much all you get to do: think about your mistakes and your problems and how to solve them. But in all that time, I never came up with the right answers to my questions.

“Maybe you can help me, Kyle. Why don’t we start with why you lied to the police about the night Mina died?”

FOUR MONTHS AGO (SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD)

The day after Mina is murdered, my dad drives me home from the hospital. We’re silent the whole way. I want to rest my forehead against the window to let the solidity ground me. But when I lean my temple on the glass, it presses against the arc of stitches. I wince and look to my right.

It’s sunny out. A crisp February day, snow still capping the mountains. There are kids playing in the park as we pass it. It seems strange, life going on now, after everything.

Dad opens the car door for me after we pull into the driveway, but when we get into the house, I hesitate at the bottom of the stairs. He looks at me, concern in his face.

“Do you need help, honey?”

I shake my head. “I’m gonna shower.”

“Remember, the detective should be here in about an hour. Do you think you’ll be ready to talk then?”

They’d sedated me at the hospital. I’d been too out of it to answer questions when the police had come by.

The idea of talking about it makes me want to scream, but I say, “I’ll be ready,” before I labor up the stairs. I almost wish I hadn’t tossed my cane when I was fifteen, because right now I could use it.

I turn the water on and undress slowly in the bathroom, peeling off my sweats and henley.

That’s when I see it: a smear of red-turned-brown on my knee.

Mina’s blood.

I press my fingers against the spot, my nails digging into my skin until beads of fresh, bright red appear. My fingers are stained with it, and it makes my chest go tight, tight, tight.

Five months. Three weeks. One day. Ten hours.

I breathe in. The air’s steamy from the shower, hot, almost sticky down my throat.

I toe off the sneakers Dad had brought me to wear home. My feet are still dirty. I’d been wearing sandals last night. Along with everything else I had on, they’re probably sitting in a bag somewhere, to be tested for evidence.

All they’ll find is her blood. My blood. Our blood.

My nails dig deeper into my knee. I take a breath, then another.

On the third, I step into the shower.

I let the water wash away the last of her.

When I get out of the shower, I find my mother ransacking my room.

“Are there more?” she demands. There’s mascara running down her face, eyes flecked with red as she rips the sheets off my bed and flips up the mattress.

I stand there wrapped in a towel, my hair dripping down my shoulders, stunned.

“What are you doing?”

“Drugs, Sophie. Are there more?” She rips the cases off the pillows, unzips them, and pokes her hand inside, clawing through the fluff.

“There aren’t any drugs in here.” I’m reeling from the anger that throbs off her like heat.

Mom grabs my jewelry box off my dresser, shaking it upside down. Bracelets and necklaces tumble out, fall in a heap on the ground. She yanks my dresser drawers with enough force to pull them clean out and dumps their contents on the bed.

As she scrabbles through shirts and underwear, tears leak from the corners of her eyes, smearing more black down her face.

Mom is not an emotional person. She’s a lawyer down to her bones. She likes control. Rules. The chaos she’s rained down on my room is so out of character that I just stand there, my mouth open.

“Mom, I’m not doing any drugs.” It’s my only defense: the truth. I have nothing else.

“You’re lying. Why are you still lying to me?” More tears course down her face as she throws open the closet doors. “Detective James was just downstairs. He told me they found OxyContin in your jacket pocket.”

“What? No. No!” Shock penetrates through the numbness that’s taken over me. My eyes widen as I realize that she believes him…as I realize what this means.

“The police talked to Kyle Miller the morning. Kyle says Mina told him that you two were going out to Booker’s Point to score.”

“No!” I’m on a loop, the only word I can get out. “Kyle’s lying! Mina was barely even talking to Kyle. She wouldn’t even pick up her phone when he called!”

Mom looks up at me from the closet, and there’s shame mingling with the smeared mascara and tears in her eyes.

“They found the pills, Sophie,” she says. “You left them in your jacket at the crime scene. And we all know they weren’t Mina’s. I can’t believe this. You’re not even home a month, and you’ve already relapsed. Which means everything Macy did…” She gestures wildly with one of my shoes and shakes her head. “I should have sent you to rehab. I should never have let you go to Macy. You need professional help. That’s my fault, and I’m going to have to live with that.”

“No, Mom. We weren’t out there to score, I swear. Mina was meeting someone about a story she was doing for the newspaper. I’m not on drugs! I haven’t taken or bought anything. I’m clean! My tests at the hospital were clean! I’ve got five and a half months!”

“Stop playing games, Sophie. Your best friend is dead! She’s dead! And it could’ve been you!” She throws the shoe across the room. It thumps against the far wall and scares me so badly, my knees buckle. I crash to the floor, hands over my head, my throat choked with fear.

“Oh God, sweetie. No, no, I’m sorry.” My mother’s face is a study in remorse, and she’s down on the ground with me, cupping my chin in her hands. “I’m sorry,” she says. She’s not just apologizing for throwing the shoe.

I struggle to breathe with her so close. I can’t stand the contact. I push her away, scooting until my back’s pressed against the wall. She stays where she is, crouched next to my dresser, staring at me, horrified.

“Sophie, please,” she says. “Tell me the truth. It’ll be okay. As long as you tell me. I need to know, so I can figure out how to keep you out of trouble. It’ll make you feel better, sweetheart.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Yes, you are,” she says, the ice creeping back into her voice. She draws herself up, standing straight over me. “I won’t let you kill yourself. You’re going to stay clean, even if I have to lock you up.”

She shreds that final thread of naiveté I have. It’s in pieces on the floor, with the rest of my life. My mother tears apart whatever’s left, determined to find the lies, the pills—anything to prove Kyle and the detective right.

She doesn’t find anything. There’s nothing to find.

But it doesn’t matter. Kyle’s words, those pills shoved into my jacket, they’re enough to convince anyone. Even her. Especially her.

Two weeks later, she sends me to Seaside.

NOW (JUNE)

“Seriously, Sophie?” Kyle folds his arms across his massive chest, looking from the bear spray to the door and back again. “You’ve lost it. Put that down; you’re gonna hurt yourself. The ventilation in here sucks.”

He’s probably right. But I keep the can aimed right at him. “You lied to the cops about why Mina and I were at the Point. Innocent people who want their girlfriend’s killer caught don’t do that.”

He gapes at me. “You think I had something to do with it? Are you kidding me? I loved her.” His voice quavers. “Mina’s gone, and it’s your fault. If you weren’t such a junkie, she’d still be alive.”

My fingers tighten around the can. “If you cared about her so much, tell me why you lied.”

Someone bangs on the bathroom door. I flinch, dropping the can. It rolls across the tile floor and Kyle takes advantage of the distraction, jumping for the exit.