Letter Twenty-Nine #6
I nodded, tears streaking my face. But when I tried the passenger door, it wouldn’t open. Bree must’ve locked up and taken the key fob with her. Shivering, I leaned against the car and hugged your jacket to my body.
Several minutes later, as I wiped the tears off my face with the sleeve of your jacket, the car unlocked. Bree slung open the driver’s door and climbed behind the wheel. At the sight of her, I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Oh,” she said as I climbed into the passenger seat, then shut the door behind me. “There you are. I was about to leave you here.” She pressed the start button, her fingers trembling as she grabbed the wheel. “I’m guessing by the mascara running down your face that it didn’t go so well.”
“Wait,” I said as she pulled off the curb and peeled out onto the street. “Casey’s in there. He’s looking for you.”
“Fuck him,” Bree said. “You were taking too long, so I convinced those stupid guys at the door to let me in by telling them my name, and a couple of drunk guys cornered me in there. One of them recognized me. ‘Bree Harris. You’re the mayor’s daughter.
What are you doing here? Let me get you a drink.
’ I told them I didn’t want a drink, but they wouldn’t listen. They had their hands all over me.”
“Oh my God,” I said, yanking my seatbelt on. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay!” she yelled. “This happened after I saw you in the back room with Casey. You broke Michael’s heart—and now you’ve broken my other brother. Which is so fucked up!”
I gasped. “You know Casey’s your brother?”
“Michael told me a couple of weeks ago. He said not to tell anyone.”
“What—” I clutched the center console as she sped down a narrow road, then took a sharp right turn too quickly. “Bree, slow down. What do you think about him being your brother?”
“Once the shock wore off, I thought it was great. I’ve always felt this weird connection with Casey, so I thought, Wow, this is actually really cool.
Until I learned back there that he’s in love with you, too.
You have all three of us trapped under your warped little spell.
I mean, what the fuck, Elliot? Do you know how gross that is? ”
I did know. I’d considered the warped nature of this situation a number of times myself.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t…reciprocate your feelings. I thought we were just kissing for practice that summer. I didn’t realize it meant something to you until you flipped out over me being in bed with Michael. I never intended to hurt you.”
“Believe me,” Bree said. “I’m over it. Knowing you’ve been hooking up with both of my brothers obliterated my feelings for good.”
“No. Never at the same time. It wasn’t ever like that.”
“Of course you broke them up, too. No wonder they don’t talk anymore. You have to destroy everything—except the one thing I hoped you’d destroy. Somehow, you missed the mark on that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I told you about my mom wanting Nic to send you away—about our parents sleeping together—so you’d get angry and retaliate. I hoped you’d do something bad enough to make my mom lose the election. She deserved to lose after what she pulled at the beach.”
“Are you serious?”
“You’re so predictable, Ellie. Give you a reason, and you’ll go after anyone.”
“Except I almost got sent away again!”
“Nic will never send you away! No matter what you do! Do you know how many times he’s almost sent you to one of those treatment places?
How many times I’ve heard him and my parents talking about it?
After Michael broke your nose during volleyball that time, Nic was going to send you to Arizona for six months! But he couldn’t do it!”
“Bree. Will you please slow down?” I grabbed the center console again, my back pressed firmly to the seat, my feet digging into the floorboard.
Troubling as these revelations were, I had more pressing things to consider.
“I’m really sorry about tonight.” Voice wobbling, I added, “Maybe I can still fix it somehow.”
“All you do is make things worse! Because of you, I’ll lose Casey after just finding out who he is, our parents will split up—and then what?
I’ll barely have a family left, because you broke it!
You’re a horrible, toxic bitch—just like your mom!
She tortured your dad, and that’s all you’ve done your whole life!
My parents say Victoria broke Nic. My mom says you’re just like her.
You break everything you touch! My dad has this son he’d love to get to know better if he only knew, but you’ve screwed that up, too!
Why is it that you have to chase everyone else away?
Why can’t you leave? We’d be better off without you! ”
“Bree, please,” I begged. “Bree! Slow down. Please—just pull over! Stop!”
But she was wild, Casey. Out of control.
That rage had filled her, had taken hold.
She wouldn’t heed my cries, wouldn’t take her foot off the accelerator, wouldn’t slow down at all.
As we hurtled down a street lined by brownstones and trees on both sides, I spotted a dark figure up ahead, crouched down low, close to the pavement, as if someone were tying their shoe.
I grabbed Bree’s arm, screaming at her to stop. She slammed on the brakes, but not soon enough. The headlights spotlighted the man for a split second, no time to move, before Bree struck him, a sickening thud mixing with the sharp screech of the breaks.
Not one thud. But two.
The first thud, when she hit him. The second, I don’t like to think about. That second one still haunts me.
A scream—hers or mine, I can’t be sure. Can’t remember.
We went deathly silent, gaping at each other, her blue eyes wide. Impossibly wide. Scared.
I flung off my seatbelt and jumped out first, scanning the street. I wandered out in front of the Range Rover, eyes frantically darting over the empty pavement.
Bree joined me, walking slowly, hands dangling by her side, face paling when she spotted the blood. Garish red streaks marred the grille of the car.
“Where is he?” I yelled, not thinking, too shocked to think rationally. “Where the fuck is he?”
Bree stared, unmoving. Unresponsive.
I dropped to my knees in the middle of the street, looked under the car, and there, Casey. There he was.
I sprang up. “Call 911,” I said, brushing past her.
I rounded the car and dropped to my knees again, rocks digging into my knees through the leggings, digging into my palms, pressed flat against the pavement.
The man lay trapped underneath the car, crumpled in a way that made my stomach turn, a black pool of blood spreading beneath him, oozing out fast. He was alive—but just barely.
I’d seen enough movies to know the sounds coming out of him—coughing, wheezing, gurgling—weren’t good.
“Hey,” I said. Didn’t know what to say. He turned his head.
Eyes dark. Shining. Looking at me. Arm turned at a weird angle, up by his face.
More blood. Pooling too fast. I glanced back at Bree, who still hadn’t moved.
She just stood there, frozen in horror, ghostly pale and trembling.
“Bree, hurry! Call 911!” I looked under the car again. “Just hold on. It’ll be okay.”
But it wouldn’t be okay. That was a lie, too. His blood trickled across the pavement, shimmering as it reached me, the sharp metallic smell of it burning my nose.
We were perfect strangers, Casey, but I’ll remember that man’s face until the day I die.
The wide-eyed shock.
The reality setting in, the panic.
The last thing he ever saw was me, staring back at him, and just before he took his final breath, a flash of something I’ll never forget: terror.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: Wait a minute. This can’t be right. It wasn’t Bree driving that car. Bree wasn’t there at all.
Because, to your knowledge, she wasn’t.
But this is the truth, Casey. This is the bomb.
Bree’s the one who killed that man.
It should’ve been Bree sitting here, in my place, all along.
That night, you searched the Phoenix House high and low. You called Bree’s phone, but she didn’t answer. Hours later, you were told she left the party on foot, and Hal picked her up. You were led to believe I sped off into the night after you said those awful things to me, leaving you both behind.
I confessed to the crime. I claimed sole responsibility for taking that man’s life. Multiple times, I looked you in the eye and told you I did it. I killed a person. I’ve even written it in these letters. I’ve called myself a killer.
But I lied about that, too.
Lied about all of it.
For once, I wasn’t responsible.
And yet, ultimately, it felt like I was.
I hadn’t stayed home and waited like you asked. I’d dragged Bree to that party. I’d broken Bree’s heart—broken yours and Michael’s, too.
I’d broken everything—including that man. His name was Daniel Prichard. Just thirty years old. A beloved high school history teacher. His students called him Mr. P.
Daniel Prichard was the teacher they’d featured on the local news the night of the election.
He wanted his students to witness that historical moment in person.
A woman, finally named mayor of our great city.
“I don’t just want them to learn about history,” he’d said. “I want them to be part of it.”
And they were, thanks to him.
Daniel had attended many of Libby’s rallies. On that monumental night she’d won the election, he’d stood in the same room with the girl who’d end his life prematurely just four months later.
Talk about a cruel twist of fate, right?
But maybe the cruelest twist of all was this: Daniel had a wife who was pregnant with their first child when he died. She gave birth to a baby girl six days after his death. A baby Daniel never got to meet. A child he’ll never get to know.
I didn’t know any of that at the time, didn’t recognize him as the teacher from the election when I watched Daniel die. I only remembered when I watched the local news replay his interview on TV two days later.