Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Why couldn’t he have stayed in the car? What did he think he was going to do? Save Sylvie with his bare hands? I mean, fine, this one time, we were watching a TV show, and he was all like, “That’s not how you do CPR.”
I said I figured somebody had looked it up before filming, but Finn started going on about how she’d never break through his sternum in that position. I said they probably wouldn’t have gotten the cleavage shot in the position he was describing. He glanced at the screen and said, “Oh right,” in this disappointed tone, as if the show had failed him by choosing boobs over accurate first aid. Which was weird, because I knew for a fact that he liked that actress’s boobs.
So maybe Finn could have done CPR on Sylvie if she had needed it.
I’m starting my second time around the lake. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been running for even a quarter of a mile.
Still, Finn should have been more careful.
That’s the other thing that pisses me off. He was an annoyingly safe driver. What the fuck happened? Being in his car when it was raining was torture. He was so paranoid about it.
Suddenly, I realize who I should be angry at.
Finn once made us wait forty minutes because Kyle wouldn’t put on his seat belt. Admittedly, Kyle is a bigger asshole than normal when he’s drunk, and it was funny seeing him lose it when Finn said, “I’ll just text my mom that a jerk in my back seat wouldn’t put on his seat belt. She won’t be mad if we sit here all night. Let’s do it.”
But my point is why didn’t Sylvie have on her seat belt?
Until now, the whole “and Sylvie went through the windshield but is fine” thing has kinda run through my brain without being examined.
For that to have happened, her seat belt had to be off, and Finn never drove an unbuckled passenger.
Sylvie says she can’t remember the last few minutes before the accident.
For about six yards or so, I wonder if she murdered Finn, but all the pieces of the puzzle are too random to be orchestrated.
It was evening when he called me. He died around midnight.
Finn would have wanted to find some kind of resolution with Sylvie, and she wasn’t going to let him off easy, so after hours of driving, he must’ve been distracted or tired enough to spin out and hit that median. But why was her seat belt off?
I stop midstep and almost trip but catch myself and pull out my phone. Before thinking about what I’m doing, I pull up Sylvie’s name and type Why weren’t you wearing a seat belt?
I go back to running and let that anger course through me.
Why.
Weren’t.
You?
I let that question be my only thought, over and over again, until the words become meaningless. I keep running until there is no more anger, no more thinking, only my breathing, only telling myself to keep pushing. I keep running, and I keep running, and I just go.
I don’t consciously choose to stop; I think my body must demand it, because I stop short in a way that Finn would remind me was bad for my circulation.
I check the time. I’ve been running for forty-five minutes, and I have four messages from Sylvie.
Forty minutes ago:
I told you. I can’t remember.
Five minutes after that:
I’m sorry.
Eleven minutes ago:
Even if I can’t remember, it’s still my fault.
And a minute after that:
I’m sorry, Jack.
Translation: I’m an asshole.
I stare at her last message, still gulping air. A drop of my sweat drips on the screen and blurs her words. What would Finn say to her?
It was the rain’s fault, I type and hit Send.
She doesn’t reply.
eight
I probably should have called instead of showing up like this. Coach shifts from one foot to the other and glances at the team running around the track.
The team that I’m no longer on.
Something Finn and I have in common.
“Technically,” Coach says, “you’re not supposed to be on campus. Once you’ve graduated, it’s like you’re any other adult, and those students’ parents have entrusted me to not allow some random adult access to their child.”
I stand there, feeling very much not like an adult.
Coach glances at the team again.
I just want someone to yell at me to hustle so that my brain can shut up. I want to use all my effort to make my body do something it doesn’t want to do so that I don’t have to stop it from thinking about things that I don’t want to think about.
“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Coach says. “I’ll fudge the paperwork so that it says you were cleared to be a volunteer this summer.”
He’s using his pregame voice with me, and I feel my spine straighten in response.
“But you need to show me that you understand I’m putting my neck out for you, Murphy. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes, sir,” I say as relief washes through me. This I know. This I understand. This isn’t like recent dinners with Mom and Dad when they want to know what I’m thinking and feeling for the first time I can remember. This is Coach telling me to shape up or ship out. This I know.
I join the team on the track seamlessly.
“Oh. Hey, Murphy,” Ricky says, but no one else speaks. Everyone is focused on their own pace.
I’m part of the crowd. We are one breathing, moving organism, circling the track, again and again.
I breathe in with Ricky and out with Jamal.
My mind is a blissful runner’s blank.
When Coach blows the whistle, I could still run for longer, and my mind remembers that Finn isn’t with us, and I can’t go running without him, but then Coach shouts, “Box jumps!” and all I can think about is how much I hate box jumps.
I hate box jumps.
I really hate box jumps.
Really, really hate box jumps.
Oh, and high knees now? Fuck high knees.
Fuck Coach for saying that we’re doing high knees for four minutes straight.
Four fucking minutes.
The only thing I hate more than high knees are shuttle runs.
Which are probably coming up next, now that I think about it.
How has it not been four minutes yet?
Finn and I used to argue about which was worse, shuttle runs or high knees.
Doesn’t matter though, because we aren’t doing shuttle runs. We’re doing squats.
Fuck squats.
So it goes.
It’s at the end of the day, when Coach yells, “Showers!” that my brain short-circuits. The feeling I had in Alexis’s basement returns, and I’m watching myself.
Finn is dead.
High school is over.
I stand and watch as the kids jog to the locker room. Coach turns and sees me and opens his mouth to yell at me before he remembers. I take a step forward.
“I, uh, think I’m going to head home to shower?” I can’t believe that I’m allowed to say that.
Coach nods. “Do you think you’ll be back tomorrow or next week?”
“No,” I say. “I got what I needed today. Next week, I leave for school, and I’ll have places to run there that don’t…” I was similarly inarticulate when I showed up three hours ago, but he understands this time too.
“The only way out is through,” he says, nodding. It’s something Coach has said a lot over the years, but it’s always been when one guy was surrounded and he needed to push his way out before the ball got stolen.
But it makes sense here and now too.
“Yeah,” I say. “I think I just realized that.”
He claps me on the back once, then makes a face and laughs at how wet my shirt is as he wipes his hand on his jeans.
“Go get that shower, Murphy,” he says. “Go off to school. You’ll find the way through.”
It’s not that I feel better as I drive away, but I feel more hopeful that what he said was true.
nine
A few days later, I take a break from packing my room and see that I have a voicemail.