Tess Sharpe - Far From You

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Sophie, I’m so sorry.”

He buries his face in the sheets next to me, and I don’t have the strength to lift my hand to touch him.

“’S’okay,” I whisper. My eyes droop as the morphine kicks in further. “Not your fault.”

Later, they’ll tell me that it was his fault. That he ran a stop sign and we got T-boned by an SUV going twenty above the speed limit. The doctors will explain that I flatlined on the operating table for almost two minutes before they got my heart started again. That my right leg was crushed and I now have titanium rods screwed into what little bone remains. That I’ll have to spend almost a year walking with a cane. That I’ll have months of physical therapy, handfuls of pills I have to take. That I’ll have a permanent limp, and my back will cause me problems for the rest of my life.

Later, I’ll finally have enough and cross that line. I’ll crush up four pills and snort them with a straw, floating away in the temporary numbness.

But right now, I don’t know about what’s ahead for us, him and me and Mina. So I try to comfort him. I fight against the numbness instead of drowning myself in it. And he says my name, over and over, begging for the forgiveness I’ve already given.

NOW (JUNE)

My mom’s car is in the driveway when I get home. As soon as I open the door, I hear heels, brisk and sharp against the floor.

She’s immaculate, her straight blond hair in a slick bun. She probably came straight from court; she hasn’t even unbuttoned her blazer. ��Are you all right? Where have you been?” she asks, but doesn’t pause for me to answer. “I’ve been worried. Macy said she dropped you off two hours ago.”

I set my bag onto the table in the foyer. “I left you a note in the kitchen.”

Mom looks over her shoulder, wilting a little when she sees the notebook paper I’d torn off. “I didn’t see it,” she says. “I wish you would’ve called. I didn’t know where you were.”

“I’m sorry.” I move toward the stairs.

“Wait a moment, Sophie Grace.”

I freeze, because the second Mom gets formal, it means trouble. I turn around, schooling my face into a disinterested mask. “Yes?”

“Where have you been?”

“I just went for a walk.”

“You can’t leave whenever you like.”

“Are you putting me under house arrest?” I ask.

Mom’s chin tilts up; she’s ready for war. “It’s my job to make sure you don’t fall back into bad habits like before. If I have to restrict you to the house to do that, I will. I refuse to let you relapse again.”

I close my eyes, breathing deeply. It’s hard to control the anger that spikes inside me. I want to break through the ice-queen parts of her, shatter her like she’s shattered me.

“I’m not a kid. And unless you plan on staying home from work, you can’t stop me. If it’d make you feel better, I can call you to check in every few hours.”

Mom’s mouth flattens into a thin slash of pearly-pink lipstick. “You don’t get to make the rules, Sophie. Your previous behavior will no longer be tolerated. If you step one toe out of line, I’ll send you back to Seaside. I swear I will.”

I’ve prepared myself for these threats. I’ve tried to examine every angle Mom might come at me from, because it’s the only way to stay a step ahead of her.

“In a few months, you won’t be able to do that,” I say. “As soon as I turn eighteen, you can’t make any medical decisions for me. No matter what you think I did.”

“As long as you live under my roof, you’ll follow my rules, eighteen or not,” Mom says.

“You try to send me back to Seaside, and I’ll leave,” I say. “I’ll walk out that door and never come back.”

“Don’t threaten me.”

“It’s not a threat. It’s the truth.” I look away from her, from the way her hands are shaking, like she’s torn between holding and hurting me. “I’m tired. I’m going up to my room.”

She doesn’t try to stop me this time.

I haven’t been allowed a lock on my door since forever, so I shove my desk chair against it. I can hear Mom climb the stairs and start to run a bath.

I shove all the clothes off my bed, taking off the sheets and blankets and pillows, too. It takes me three tries to flip the mattress, both my legs shaking at the effort. Panting, I finally succeed, my back protesting all the way. I step over the pile of sheets and blankets and pull a notebook from my bag. There are loose pages stuck between the bound ones, and I shake them out on top of the mattress before going over and grabbing tape and markers from my desk.

It takes only a few minutes. I don’t have much to go on—yet. But by the time I’m done, the underside of my mattress has been turned into a makeshift evidence board. Mina’s junior-year picture is taped underneath a scrap of paper labeled VICTIM, and the only picture I have of Kyle is taped under SUSPECT. The picture’s an old one from the Freshman Fling when all our friends went together. Mina and Amber and I are crowded to the side, laughing as Kyle and Adam are caught midshove and Cody looks on disapprovingly. We look young, happy. I look happy. That girl in the picture has no idea that her entire life’s gonna get trashed in a few months. I circle Kyle with my Sharpie before moving on. To the side of the picture, I tape my list, the number one question: WHAT STORY WAS MINA WORKING ON?

In smaller letters, I add: Killer said “I warned you.” Were there threats before this? Did she tell anyone?

I stare at it for a while, imprinting it in my head before I turn the mattress right side up and remake the bed.

I peer out into the hall, checking to make sure Mom’s still in the bathroom. Then I grab the cordless—tomorrow I’ll ask her if I’m allowed a cell phone—and take it into my bedroom.

I punch in a number; three rings before someone picks up. “Hello?” says a cheery voice.

“It’s me,” I say. “I just got out. We should meet.”

THREE MONTHS AGO (SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD)

It takes only a few days at Seaside for it to really sink in: Mina is dead. Her killer’s running free. And no one will listen to me.

Nothing has ever made less sense.

So I sit in my room, on my cramped little bed with its polyester sheets. I go to Group and am silent. I sit on the couch in Dr. Charles’s office with my arms folded, staring straight ahead as she waits.

I don’t talk.

I can barely even think.

At the end of my first week, I write a letter to Trev. A pleading, cramped soliloquy of truth. Everything I’ve wanted to say for so long.

It’s returned, unopened. That’s when I realize I’m all alone in this.

There is no one who believes me.

So I force myself to think about it, tracing back every second of that night. I ponder possible suspects and motives, both logical and wild.

My head is filled with one sentence, an endless loop of the words he’d said right before he shot her: I warned you. I warned you. I warned you.

I let it push me forward, hour by hour.

I still don’t talk to Dr. Charles.

I’m too busy planning.

On my fifteenth day at Seaside, my parents are called in for the first family therapy day.

My father hugs me, enveloping me in his husky arms. He smells like Old Spice and toothpaste, and for a second I let the familiarity of it comfort me.

Then I remember him throwing me in the car. The look on his face as I begged him to please, please believe me.

I stiffen and pull away.

My mother doesn’t even try to hug me after that.

My parents sit on the couch, relegating me to the slippery leather armchair in the corner. I’m grateful that Dr. Charles doesn’t make me sit between them.

“I brought the two of you in early,” Dr. Charles says. “Because I think Sophie is having some trouble expressing herself to me.”

My mother pins me to the chair with her gaze. “Are you being difficult?” she asks me.

I shake my head.

“Answer me properly, Sophie Grace.”

Dr. Charles’s eyebrow twitches in surprise when I say, slowly and clearly, “I don’t feel like talking.”

My parents leave frustrated, only a handful of words spoken between us.

Nineteen days in, I get a card. An innocuous thing with a blue daisy on it and the words GET WELL SOON in big block letters.

I flip it open.

I believe you. Call me when you get out. —Rachel

I stare at it for a long, long time.

It’s weird what three words can ignite inside of you.

I believe you.

Now I’m ready to talk. I have to be.

It’s the only way out of here.

NOW (JUNE)

Mom is gone by the time I wake up the next morning. On the kitchen table she’s left a note and a new cell phone.

Call me if you’re going to leave the house.

After I make some toast and grab an apple, I call her at the office.

“I’m going to the bookstore, then maybe get some coffee, if that’s okay,” I say after her assistant’s transferred me over.

I can hear a printer and some chatter in the background. “All right,” she says. “Are you going to take the car?”

“If I have permission.” It’s a deadly little dance we’re doing, circling around each other with closed-lipped smiles, careful not to bare our teeth.

“You do. The keys are on the rack. Be home by four. Dinner’s at seven.”

“I’ll be home.”

She hangs up with a perfunctory good-bye. I can hear the strain in her voice.

I put it out of my head and get the keys.

Stopping by the bookstore, I buy a paperback, mostly so I’m not telling Mom a flat-out lie. Ten minutes later, I’m pulling onto the old highway, heading north, out of town and into the boonies.

There’s no traffic this far out. Just a truck here and there on the narrow two-lane road that cuts between summer-bleached fields and red-clay foothills studded with oaks. I roll the windows down and turn my music up loud, like it’s enough to shield me from the memories.

The house is at the end of a long dirt road riddled with potholes. I maneuver around them, making slow progress as two big chocolate Labs bound out from the back field, tails wagging.

I park in front of the house. As I get out, the screen door bangs open.

A girl my age in polka-dot rain boots and Daisy Dukes runs down the stairs, her red pigtails bouncing. “You’re here!”

She gallops up and wraps her skinny arms around me. I return the hug, smiling as the dogs circle us, yelping for attention. For the first time since Macy dropped me off, I feel like I can breathe.

“I’m really glad to see you,” Rachel says. “No, Bart, stop.” She yanks the dog’s muddy paws off her shorts. “You look good.”

“You too.”

“C’mon inside. Mom’s at work, and I made cookies.”

Rachel’s house is cozy, with multicolored rag rugs scattered over the cherrywood floors. She pours coffee, and we sit across from each other at the kitchen table, bowl-sized mugs warming our hands.

Silence spreads over us, punctuated by sips of coffee and the clink of spoon against ceramic.

“So…” Rachel says.

“So.”

She smiles, a big stretch that shows all her teeth, so genuine it almost hurts. I don’t think I can even remember how to smile like that. “It’s okay that it’s weird right now. You’ve been gone a long time.”

“Your letters,” I say. “They were— You have no idea how much they meant to me. Being in there…”

Rachel’s letters had saved me. Full of random facts and going off in three directions at once, they’re a lot like her: scatter­brained and smart. Her mom had homeschooled her since she was a kid, which is probably the only reason we hadn’t met until that night. Rachel’s the kind of person you notice.

I trusted her. It had been this instant, instinctual thing. Maybe it was because she found me that night. Because she was there when no one else was, and I needed that when everything had been taken away. But that’s only part of it.

There’s a determination in Rachel that I’ve never seen before. She has conviction. In herself, in what she wants, in what she believes. I want to be like that. To be sure of myself, to trust myself, to love myself.

Rachel had stuck around when she didn’t have to. When everyone else, everyone who’s known me forever, had turned their backs. That means more to me than anything.