I was preparing my application for early decision to UVA.
Two weeks ago the cast had come off my arm. There was only a twinge of pain in my ribs every now and then, and I was able to sleep on my side now. I was breathing normally. Only a little over two months since the accident and...
And people were already forgetting.
Life was moving on.
Talking to Dr. Perry about what happened the night of the accident, how I’d suspected Cody had too much to drink but still got in the car, had lessened some of the suffocating weight I carried but not all of it.
When I told him that I had finally listened to the messages and read the texts, he’d told me that was progress. I was making some of the right steps, but there was still no sudden awakening or clarity after rewinding the night of the accident and actually forcing myself to come face-to-face with the decisions I’d made.
I’d had two choices that night.
And I’d made the wrong one.
Dr. Perry had said, in the session on Wednesday, “Some people may try to say or may even believe what happened that night in August cannot be blamed on anyone but Cody because he was behind the wheel. They may even say that all of this has nothing to do with blame, but that’s not the actual case. Do you know why?”
“Why?” I’d asked.
“Blame isn’t about making someone feel terrible about their actions, and it’s not about hurting the person’s feelings. Actions and inactions have consequences. If we did not accept responsibility or blame for them, then we’d be at risk of repeating those actions,” he’d explained. “Everyone who was there, who saw you all leave, who knew that they had been drinking, and even the parents who allowed the drinking to occur. But it is also partially your fault.”
Partially.
Not completely.
But partially.
Partially didn’t feel any different from completely, but what he said at the end of the session, what he’d reiterated the following Friday meeting, was that I was not the only one who was partially responsible. And it stuck with me.
It wasn’t like things changed. Like there was some magic switch thrown and I was suddenly okay with everything. If anything, things were more real, the memories sharper and more clear.
But then, after that Wednesday session, the nightmares started.
I was back in the car again, being thrown side to side. Sometimes I dreamed that I was in the driveway and I hadn’t gotten in the car, but I knew what was going to happen to my friends. It felt like my feet had been cemented to the ground, and I kept telling myself to go get someone, to warn everyone that they were about to die, but I couldn’t move. I was frozen until I woke up, gasping for air. Many nights I came to, throat raw, with Mom clutching my shoulders. Only then would I realize I’d been screaming.
Dr. Perry had been right. I guess those fancy degrees attached to his name had a lot to do with it. I was still traumatized from the accident, from the memories I kept to myself, and talking about them pushed the accident to the forefront of my thoughts.
And I did a lot of talking.
The session on Friday and the following Monday were basically lessons in exposure therapy. Rewind. Relive. Each time it got a little easier to say the words I needed to, but by the next Friday, something finally clicked into place.
My friends were dead.
They really were dead, and no amount of guilt was going to bring them back. Nothing was ever bringing them back or undoing what strangers and friends alike now thought of them. Nothing was stopping the suits being brought against Keith’s family or the pending legal charges. Nothing was stopping the lawyers from contacting me and Mom every other week.
At the end of that session, my face hurt from the tears I’d tried not to let fall but couldn’t stop. I had to hide my face throughout the rest of the afternoon because it was so obvious that I’d spent the morning sobbing.
Dr. Perry had been so right about grieving.
I hadn’t truly begun the process, so blinded by the trauma of the accident and consumed by the burning guilt. I hadn’t let any of them go. Hadn’t even truly begun.
Those days, those weeks, were hard. Focusing on classes became difficult for a whole different reason. I missed them—missed Megan and her hyperactivity, missed Cody and his arrogance, Phillip and his sarcasm, and Chris and his goofiness.
And I missed my friends who were still here. I missed them terribly.
Dary was still desperately trying to make everything normal, and Abbi hardly spoke to me at all.
Seeing my friends start to move on while I was still stuck on the cliff, half dangling off, wore on me. They were racing ahead, while I was still on the first leg. Dary and Abbi talked about the homecoming dresses they’d bought over the weekend, a trip I’d been invited to but had begged off. They were so...normal, so everyday, and I was so not, because I was stuck in the welling grief that I was just now experiencing.
And, oh God, I missed Sebastian so much.
Things were rough between us. He was around, but things weren’t like they had been. He still sat at our table at lunch and talked to me. He didn’t ignore me or pretend that I didn’t exist, but every interaction with him was superficial. His guards were up, walls intact.
Nothing was the same.
I’d hurt him.
I’d hurt myself.
And he didn’t even know the full extent of it.
My heart had felt like it was going to fall out of my chest when Skylar had shown up at our table on Monday. He was sitting with Griffith and Keith, who was, like usual these days, right beside Abbi. I once tried to ask her if they were seeing each other, and she’d just shaken her head at me like I should’ve already known.
But at that moment I wasn’t thinking about it, because I could hear Skylar’s laughter and Sebastian’s deeper chuckles and that drew my attention.
That’s when I fell in love with you.
Sebastian had nodded at something she said, and then slowly his head turned in my direction. Our gazes had met, his shadowed, and then he looked away, his jaw clenching down hard. Skylar laughed again.
He said he loved me, but it appeared he was also moving on. Moving right back to Skylar, and her pretty smiles and clean conscience.
*
After school on Tuesday, I was dragging myself across the parking lot out to my car. I’d gotten there late that morning, so I was all the way in the back of the lot, near the football field. The sun was out, warming what would normally be a cooler autumn day, and I was thinking about how this was perfect weather for practices. Coach Rogers liked to have us run on the track at the end, and it was so much easier when you didn’t have the hot summer sun beating down on you.