Brynna wagged her head, the stink of chlorine in her hair making her nauseous. “Do you think Darcy hates me?”
“I don’t hate you, B,” came a voice from the back of the locker room. “You can tell us what’s going on.”
Brynna looked at the faces of her new friends, both drawn, both concerned. She wanted to talk—but what could she say? My best friend is dead, really dead, because of me. I thought she was alive, was after me, but it was all in my head. I saw her in the pool today, but it was all in my head…
She pressed her palms to her ears as if she could quiet the chatter that kept going, the constant stream that told her she was crazy, crazy, crazy, and broken, that she would never be fixed, that she would always pay. Her own mind was her enemy, splashing up pictures of Erica, bringing up that moment, that night, the dare.
“I don’t know,” she said thinly. “I just—I thought Darcy was someone else.” It felt like a betrayal to Erica, but it was all Brynna could say to keep herself afloat.
Her mother arrived with that same pinched look that Brynna knew from before—the one that was constantly worried, constantly blaming herself for the things her crazy daughter did. Brynna wanted to reach out and pat her shoulder, to tell her mother that none of it was her fault, but she couldn’t. Her limbs felt stiff and immobile and she rested her head against the cool glass of the passenger window as her mother drove her home in silence.
When they reached the house, Brynna made a direct line for the door and from there toward the stairs, but her mother stopped her, her hand tight on Brynna’s.
“Honey, was this about Erica?”
A maniacal giggle gurgled up and Brynna fought it back. “Of course it was about Erica,” she wanted to scream. “Everything is always going to be about Erica.” But instead she stayed silent.
Her mother rubbed her hand. “That’s over now, Bryn. Erica is going to be laid to rest. She’s at peace.”
She smiled as though she actually believed it, and Brynna nodded then shook her hand free and headed up the stairs. She washed the chlorine stink out of her hair then slipped into her bed, pulling the comforter up over her head. She wanted the darkness. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to be wherever Erica was if only so that Erica would stop coming after her, would stop making her feel so goddamn crazy.
Even if that meant she had to die.
Brynna kicked off the covers and went to her bathroom, yanking open the medicine cabinet. She pawed through everything in there—some old makeup, a few boxes of Bioré pore strips, and some hair gel—but there was nothing there that would soothe her. She stepped into the hallway, hearing her mother popping off plastic take-out lids. Brynna crossed the threshold into her parents’ room and went directly to their medicine cabinets.
Her mother’s was stripped clean other than a box of hair dye and some Tums; her father’s had even less.
“There’s got to be…” she muttered under her breath while pain pounded a steady drumbeat against her skull. Brynna went through the bathroom drawers and found exactly two aspirin in a tiny pillbox. She popped them in her mouth and chewed, liking the bitter taste of the chalky things as they splintered under her molars. She dug in the same drawer and came out with a bottle of Nyquil, the safety seam already broken. The warning on the bottle said everything Brynna wanted: extreme drowsiness.
She could sleep.
If she could sleep, she couldn’t feel Erica. She couldn’t feel crazy. She couldn’t feel anything at all. She twisted open the cap, tilted her head back, and drank every last bit.
???
“Brynna! Brynna! B!”
A boy was saying her name. He was touching her too, his fingers pressing hot spots onto her bare shoulders. She smiled at him and tried to speak, but her tongue was stuck up against the roof of her mouth and it was so heavy, too heavy. She didn’t need to speak though, because he saw her and she could see him too. Sandy hair, bright eyes, fuzzy all around the edges.
“Brynna, can you hear me?”
There was a shriek, like seagulls, and the sun was too warm, making Brynna break out into a damp, cool sweat, but she nodded her head because she could hear him. Her head felt heavy too. Heavy and oversized and nodding, it took monumental effort and shot another round of heat, another round of beaded sweat at her hairline and above her upper lip. She wondered who the boy was.
She told him she was going to close her eyes. She heard her own voice even though she couldn’t feel her lips move, and she knew, somehow, that the boy agreed with her and would keep her safe. She told him her stomach hurt. He told her it would be okay.
THIRTEEN