Chapter 16 #2
I shake my head and refuse to make eye contact. “He’s not coming.”
“Why not?”
I bite my cheek, hoping the sting will distract my tears from wanting to plow down my face. Then, I start shoving my things into my backpack.
Sadie comes back to our table. “Sorry about that.” She pauses, eyes following my erratic movements. “What happened?”
I slide off the bench and brush past her.
Caleb jumps up, following close behind. “It’s her dad,” he whispers to Sadie as he passes her.
Barreling through the door, I march straight up to Caleb’s car.
His hand lands on my shoulder, slowing me down. “Tell me what’s wrong. Please.”
I practically shove his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”
He takes a step back, holding his hands up in surrender. “Okay, I won’t, but please talk to me.”
I take in a ragged breath. Dad was my lifeline at home, but he’s deserted me. He’s making it very clear that everything else is more important than me. “No. Just drive me home.”
“Holding all this in isn’t good for you,” he says.
I scoff. “What do you know? You spend all this time doting on me, and for what? You say you want to help me, but why? Who made that your job?” He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but I cut him off.
“I don’t need you to fix me. All I need you to do is drive me to school.
That’s the only reason I’m doing these ridiculous dates in the first place. ”
All I want is to graduate and leave my rotten life behind.
Caleb trudges toward the driver’s door. “Fine. If that’s really what you want.”
I scramble inside the car as he opens the glove compartment and pulls out our contract.
In one swift move, he rips it in two, letting the pieces fall in front of me.
“I know you weren’t interested in me, but I really thought we could be friends.
” His gaze falters. “I’m done being treated like garbage.
I’ll drive you back home, but . . . this is the last time. ”
My jaw drops. “What do you mean, this is the last time? How am I supposed to get to school?”
He shrugs as he starts to drive away. “I’m sure you’ll find another way. Download an app; pay a driver. At least that way you don’t have to go on any more ridiculous dates.”
My head sways. I feel like I’m lost at sea, and I tug at my sleeves to keep myself grounded. My chest becomes tight, and I have to focus on my breathing to keep it steady. “That’s not fair.”
He laughs, but it isn’t his normal laugh. It’s cold and devoid of amusement. “Not fair? You don’t want to keep up your end of the deal, so why should I?”
The drumming of my heart pounds in my ears, and shivers ripple up my hands. The car starts to close in on me, crushing me without a single touch. Closer and closer, the walls close in around me. I can’t breathe. “Stop the car,” I whisper.
“Why?”
“I’ll walk home,” I say.
“I’m not going to make you do that. It’ll take you at least an hour to walk home from here,” he says, stepping on the gas.
My skin crawls as the car accelerates. Every sound amplifies. The tires on the pavement. The trees swinging in the wind. The birds flying overhead. The fabric of my collar cinches around my throat, and the seatbelt cuts into my chest.
“Stop the car!” I scream.
Caleb slams on the brakes.
We lurch forward.
“Have you lost your mind?” he says, panting from breathing in too much.
I unbuckle.
My heart is racing a million miles a second. “I’m walking home.” I open my door and find the ground with my wobbly legs. I almost stumble, but I don’t want him to see me fall.
“Bec, wait,” Caleb says, reaching out for me, but stops before he gets too close.
“Go.”
“I’m not leaving you here like this.”
“I’m not a child. I don’t need you treating me like one. Now, get lost.” I slam the door closed and step onto the sidewalk.
There’s a torn expression in his eyes, but eventually, he drives away.
I open the door and let everything fall to the ground. I kick my shoes off, letting my feet breathe. My socks are covered in brown patches from my trek, so I pull them off too.
The stairs that separate me from my bed might as well be the Rocky Mountains because my thighs burn with every step up. My entire body is in dire need of exercise, considering how sore I am from just walking for a mile.
When I reach the top of the stairs, I freeze.
Light seeps into the hallway from Ethan’s open door, sending chills through me.
The closer I inch toward his room, the more my heart races.
Mom and Dad’s voices carry out into the hallway, but there’s no logical reason they should be in there.
None of us have stepped into it for three months, not once, and I assumed we had an unspoken rule to keep it that way.
Inside, there are large moving boxes popcorned around the room. Mom is next to his bookshelf pulling books off, and Dad is putting Ethan’s clothes into one of the boxes.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
Mom spins around. “I didn’t know you were home.”
I shake my head, looking around with my hands pulling my hair. This is wrong. We shouldn’t be in here. As long as we never open the door, we can tell ourselves that Ethan is still alive. That he’s just in here hiding. Stepping into the room ruins that. It makes his death too real.
I can’t deal with this right now.
Tears fill the corners of my eyes, and there’s no stopping them from spilling over.
“Stop!” I scream. I run over to Dad and rip the clothes out of his hands, shoving them back into Ethan’s open drawer.
Dad gently puts his hands on my shoulders. “Becca—”
“No!” I shake him off. “Put it back!” My lip quivers, and I toss more of his clothes out of the box. Shirts and pants fly around the room.
Mom hugs the book in her hands to her chest. She takes a step closer to me, her voice cracking when she speaks. “We needed to—”
“No!” My voice is hoarse. “You didn’t need to do anything!”
Mom locks eyes with Dad, searching for help.
“This is what you needed to do?” I scream at Dad. This horrifying scene is what replaced our trip to the movies? “You stood me up for this?”
“Becca, that’s not what happened,” he says.
His words fly over my head. The room is swaying, and I can’t see anything through my tears. My head becomes so heavy I start to wobble, and it takes everything I can muster to stand up straight. Still, I go to the next box, dumping out everything inside.
A shiny black cell phone hits the floor, and my heart drops. I freeze.
Its cracked screen mocks me. You killed your brother.
The truth is that the accident was my fault.
Ethan had turned up the music.
It was too loud.
I turned it down.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “It’s not that loud.” He turned it back up.
I rolled my eyes and turned it down again.
He turned it back up with a teasing smile.
“Fine,” I said, taking his phone to turn it off.
“Hey,” he said, reaching for the phone.
I held it out of reach.
His eyes darted around. Then, without warning, he unbuckled himself.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Getting my—”
A car slammed into his door. Glass shattered around him. His body was violently thrown against the dash, and then back into his seat.
I screamed as my head whipped to the side, colliding into the airbag like a sack of rocks. My heart raced. It took a moment for me to snap back to reality. To realize that it wasn’t a sick dream.
Ethan’s hand twitched, but his eyes were closed and blood dripped from his forehead.
“Ethan!” I yelled.
My chest burned. I breathed in so much air that my hands started going numb. Still, I reached over to shake his shoulder. “Ethan, wake up!”
He didn’t move.
I cupped his bleeding head in my hands. “Open your eyes!” I screamed. “Please! You can play the music as loud as you want. Just open your eyes!”
He stayed lifeless.
“You can’t die! I need you! Open your eyes!”
It didn’t matter how much I begged, he didn’t move.
Sirens and flashing lights showed up in an instant. Before I knew it, paramedics were opening my door.
“You have to help my brother! Please,” I cried. “He’s bleeding, and he won’t wake up.” My words come out slurred from my sobs.
“We’re doing all we can,” the paramedic said.
“Tell me he’ll be okay.”
She moved to help me out of the car.
I squirmed away. “Tell me! Tell me he’s going to be okay, or I won’t get out!”
“I need you to remain calm. We are going to help your brother,” she said.
“No! You don’t understand. I need you to promise me he’s going to be okay!” My head felt light and dizzy.
The paramedic looked at Ethan, and her gaze fell.
That’s when I blacked out.
I deserve to be dead.
Not him.
And I never got to tell him sorry.
I try to shake the memory away because it’s physically painful.
Tears pour out of me in violent sobs. I stagger back, running into Ethan’s dresser. My eyes are glued to the phone in horror. My breath is sucked out of me, and my chest heaves as I gasp for air.
“Let’s talk about this,” Mom says.
I shake my head. “We were fighting over the music, and I—I can’t . . .” I’m suffocating.
Dad’s expression changes. “You what?” He moves closer to me, hands on my shoulders.
I can’t breathe. I have to get out of this room. Before I have time to think, I take off running.
“Becca!” Mom calls after me.
I don’t stop. I run down our stairs, not even taking the time to properly put on my shoes. I don’t stop running until I’m outside, pounding on Caleb’s door.
My fist hits again and again and again.
I don’t know why, but at this moment, he’s the only person I can run to.
The door flies open, and Caleb is there. Every ounce of anger from earlier melts away from his eyes when he sees me. “What’s wrong?”
I collide into him, burying my face against his chest to muffle my sobs. He staggers back, but I cling to him. His heart speeds up.
And, after a brief hesitation, his arms wrap around me tightly, holding me together.