Chapter Twenty-Two
“Is Tom home?”
Mrs. Rittenhouse stood in the doorway pale-faced and serious, and looked Rebecca over with a little uncertainty. After all, hers was not a face that she was used to seeing on her porch steps under any circumstances. It must have seemed odd for her to show up unannounced when their whole family was obviously grieving over the loss of a close friend. She put her hands on her wide hips and pursed her lips together in annoyance.
“I don’t think Tom wants to see anyone right now.”
“Can you just tell him that Becca’s here? If he doesn’t want to see me, I promise I’ll leave. No questions asked. But just please let him know I’m here.”
Tom’s mother still appeared a little suspicious. But Rebecca wasn’t above begging, and her desperate pleading was too hard to ignore. Mrs. Rittenhouse disappeared up the stairs with a shrug of her shoulders.
Rebecca tried not to pace impatiently in the foyer as she waited for her to return. She was worried about Tom. She had called his cell phone more times than she could count. She had left voice messages, sent text messages, and emailed him like crazy from the second Carmen had told her the news. Tom seemed to be avoiding all forms of communication with the outside world. And he had every reason. His best friend, his confidant, his ever faithful sidekick was gone. Jay was dead. They had been two halves of a strangely fitting whole all through high school. One existing without the other seemed almost impossible.
Rebecca knew that concern for Tom’s emotional well being was only part of the reason why she had driven halfway across town to his house. It was his physical well being that really concerned her. She hadn’t slept all night, thinking about the message, wondering who might be next on the would-be killer’s hit list. Rebecca wanted to warn Tom. Even if he thought she was crazy, even if it was an unnecessary precaution, she thought that he had to know about the call.
“Hey, Becca.”
Rebecca jumped at the sound of her name. She was surprised to turn and find Tom standing at the bottom of the stairway. She hadn’t really expected him to come down. She immediately forgot the real reason why she had come. She forgot everything when she saw how utterly wretched he looked. All she knew was that she felt obliged to make some kind of effort at comforting him.
Tom had aged ten years since she had seen just days ago. She didn’t think it was possible for someone to look so different after just two days. His once youthful, carefree face was lined with grief. His blue eyes had lost all their sparkle, and were red and swollen. He was so pale that he could have actually given Justyn competition for the role of school vampire. Rebecca couldn’t look at that kind of torment and just turn away. She was propelled forward by her compassion. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t in love with him or that she was pretty sure she was in love with his arch nemesis. It didn’t even matter anymore that she was afraid there might be a murderer on the loose. Tom needed comfort and she couldn’t deny it. Rebecca flung her arms around him with reckless abandon.
He seemed surprised at first. His arms stayed limp at his sides for a full minute, even as Rebecca pulled him close against her. Then finally, he woke from his half trance and returned the embrace. His arms wrapped around her waist, squeezing her so tightly in his desperation that she could barely breathe. She could feel him trembling in her arms, and before long she felt his tears soak through the thin layer of her sweater as his body racked in silent sobs.
“Becca, I . . . I just can’t believe he’s gone.”
There wasn’t really anything she could say. Telling him that Jay was in a better place was ridiculous when all Tom wanted was for his friend to be alive again. Saying that everything happened for a reason was equally mundane and cliché. What reason could there possible be for a seventeen-year-old boy to have his life cut so dramatically short? And what words could possibly ease the pain that Tom must be feeling? Instead of saying meaningless words, Rebecca just let him cry. All the while she patted his back, and ran her fingers through his hair soothingly. It seemed to help calm him down. Eventually the heart wrenching sobs settled into gentle hiccups. When Tom finally lifted his red-rimmed eyes, he even managed to give her the smallest hint of a smile.
“Wow, not much of a tough guy, am I?”
“Grieving for your friend doesn’t make you any less of a man, Tom. It’s okay to be sad.”
He nodded. “I know that. But I guarantee you that wherever Jay is right now, he’s looking down on me, rolling his eyes, and calling me a whole bunch of unflattering names.”
Rebecca had to smile. Knowing Jay, that was probably true.
Tom did this best to collect himself. He wiped his eyes and nose on the sleeve of his shirt before leading Rebecca into the kitchen. He poured a couple of glasses of ice tea, both of which sat untouched and glistening with moisture on the table as they stared off into space, each lost in their own thoughts. After several minutes of deafening silence had passed, Tom finally spoke.
“So, how did you find out? I didn’t expect the news to spread so quickly.”
Tom wasn’t taking into account that besides living in a small town where everyone knew everyone else’s business, Rebecca also happened to be best friends with the queen of gossip. If there were news, good or bad, exciting or mediocre, Carmen would be the first to find out. And ultimately Rebecca was the next to find out whether she wanted to or not.
“Carmen called me last night. Debbie’s dad owns the tow truck company that . . . um . . . .” She had to clear her throat. “That took the car away.”
Tom nodded. He voice was controlled but his face had turned a few different shades of green. “So you know what happened?”
“I know there was an accident.”
“An accident?” He laughed, just a little bitterly. “Stupid, reckless moron. Jay was always driving like a maniac. I should have known that eventually he would drive my truck straight into a telephone poll. You know, it’s funny. I can almost hear his voice in my head, giving me a whole bunch of lame excuses about how it wasn’t his fault. Like, ‘Dude, an entire family of cattle ran out in front of me’. Or, ‘I was blinded by the lights of this giant UFO.’ Sure, I would have been angry as hell at him for totaling my truck, at least at first. But I would have forgiven him eventually—especially once it hit me how lucky he would have been to be alive. I mean, who really cares about some stupid car, right? I’d never drive again if it meant that Jay . . . that he was still . . . .”
Tom lost it again. All trace of the composure he had fought so hard for was gone. He buried his head in his hands to hide the tears he had thought had finally run dry. Rebecca reached across the table to gingerly touch his hand, unsure that he even remembered that she was still there or if he wanted her to touch him. She didn’t even realize that tears were trickling down her cheeks as well until she watched them slip onto the table and absorb against the cloth mat.
“Tom, I’m so . . . so sorry.”
“It was my truck. It should have been me.”
Rebecca was horrified by the thought. “Don’t say that! This wasn’t your fault. None of this was your fault. It wasn’t you . . . it was . . . .”
Tom looked up at her with grateful, watery eyes, and Rebecca couldn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t tell him whose fault she thought it was. She couldn’t tell him the main reason she had come was because she suspected that Jay’s accident might not have been an accident at all. And it wasn’t only because she was unsure of the killer’s secret identity that she held her tongue. She couldn’t give Tom anything else to torture himself about. He had enough to deal with.
Besides, maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was another coincidence in a long line of coincidences. Maybe the caller had heard about Jay’s accident through the grapevine and had worked in into their threats to make it scarier. Surely if there had been foul play involved, the police would have realized it. Right? There would have to be some trace of tampering or some proof that someone had run Jay off the road. Didn’t they always find a dozen clues to lead them to the perpetrators on detective shows like CSI? Real life crime scenes couldn’t be any different. It must have been nothing but an accident. A horrible, horrible, accident.
It seemed like the logical conclusion. But there was nothing logical about the panic stricken tightening in her chest every time she remembered the threatening voice. There was nothing logical about the pain Tom was feeling over the loss of his best friend. The whole thing was a terrible situation, whether Jay’s death had been intentional or not.
“It really means a lot to me that you came here today,” Tom told her.
He squeezed her hand. Then suddenly and without warning, he leaned over the table and kissed her. It took her by surprise, and she knew she should have pulled away. She knew she was giving him false hope. But he was already hurting. How could she deny him this small bit of human comfort? How could she hurt him even more by turning away from him in his time of need? The answer was that she couldn’t. Rebecca let him kiss her, and told herself it would be for the last time.