“A lot of things happened while you were gone. Things you know nothing about. So before you decide to rip my best friend apart again, maybe you should know about at least one of those things.”
Her arm closest to the driver’s side door reaches out and she presses a button that turns her headlights back on, flooding the area in front of us with bright light. My heart starts thundering in my chest and my palms start to sweat, but I don’t really know why. The image in front of us that is suddenly on display thanks to her headlights makes me cringe. I’ve seen things like this before, similar displays on high school lawns—a mangled vehicle with a sign warning students not to drink and drive or not to text and drive. An excellent scare tactic for new drivers so they know what could happen if they make stupid choices.
Something about the image in front of me tugs at the back of my mind and my hand blindly reaches for the door handle and I push it open. My eyes never leave the crushed pile of metal and glass as I unfold myself from the car, move around the door, and walk slowly across the asphalt, unable to stop until I’m just a few feet away from the wreckage.
My heart is beating so fast I wonder if Meredith can hear it as she gets out of the car herself and I hear her heels clicking on the ground until she stops right next to me and we both stare at the image in front of us. The car, if you can even call it that anymore, is just a pile of twisted metal with the driver’s side door completely collapsed in on itself. I can only assume whoever was driving this thing wrapped it around a tree with the way the vehicle is now in the shape of a U. All the windows are gone, save for a few jagged pieces of glass still attached to the door frames and the roof has been completely peeled back like someone took a can opener to it.
I walk closer, my feet leaving the asphalt and stepping onto grass, my hands starting to shake when I see something stuck to what’s left of the back bumper. It’s scratched and faded and detaching at the edges but I know what it is. I know what it says and I should know, since I put it there before she left for New York for her audition.
Dance Your Ass Off!
A stupid little bumper sticker I found. A cheesy gift I gave her to make her smile and take away her nerves about her audition. She threw her head back and laughed that beautiful laugh of hers that always made my stomach drop like when you go down the first hill of a roller coaster. She jumped into my arms, wrapped her legs around my waist, and told me it was perfect. Made me walk over to the back of her car, with her still clinging to me, while I slapped it on the bumper. Then I opened the backseat and tossed her inside with a squeal, following right behind, climbing on top of her and getting rid of her nerves another way.
My scalp tingles with sweat and my stomach rolls with nausea as I stare at what’s left of the red Honda Civic in front of me. She was so proud of that fucking car that was five years old and had a hundred thousand miles on it when she bought it. And I was so proud of her for refusing to use any of her mother’s money to buy it, waiting tables in the next town over so her mother wouldn’t know, working her ass off in between preparing for the audition and spending time with me, just so she could save enough to get it on her own.
I hear a noise in the quiet night, and realize it’s coming from me. I can’t stop the grunt of pain that flies out of my mouth thinking about her being in that car when this happened to it. There’s nothing left of that fucking red Honda Civic that I always made her let me drive and always loved pulling off somewhere secluded so I could hear her shout my name and listen to her loudly proclaim how much she loved me. We could do and say whatever we wanted in that car, however loudly we felt like it, without me having to sneak her into the apartment I shared with Kat after she’d gone to sleep or creep into an empty tack room at the stables without anyone seeing us.
“After the accident, the high school called and asked if they could use it for this display. She wasn’t drinking and driving or texting and driving or any of that shit, but the car was enough of a mess to get the point across to their students,” Meredith tells me quietly.
Being tortured and beaten for five years hurt like a bitch, but this is worse. This hurts deep down into my soul and it feels like someone is reaching into my chest and pulling my heart out with their bare hands.
“When?”
I choke the word out roughly, not wanting to know when or how or why, but unable to stop myself from asking. I feel my body swaying from side to side as I stare at the twisted metal and broken glass and the driver’s side door that is so bent it’s a wonder she’s still standing and breathing.
“The night you left.”
Meredith’s words hit me like a bullet to the gut and I have to press my hands into my hips and lean forward before I throw up.
“She got the acceptance letter from Montclair Dance Company and the first thing she did was drive to your apartment,” Meredith continues, oblivious to me dying inside right next to her while I listen to her talk and hear the words I said to Shelby earlier, screaming through my head.
“Best thing about you right now, at least you still have the most beautiful damn legs I’ve ever seen. Too bad you chose to stop using them.”
“Your sister had no idea what she was doing there, didn’t know anything about the two of you. Knew you’d left a letter behind for Shelby and assumed it was a letter of resignation from the stables,” Meredith goes on. “Handed that piece of shit good-bye letter over and shut the door in her face. It was raining pretty hard that night, and she was upset. She’ll tell you until she’s blue in the face it was all her fault. She’d been crying, she wasn’t paying attention, she was going too fast, but that’s bullshit. There’s only one reason she was crying and not paying attention.”
Because of me. Because of me and that fucking letter I wrote her. No good-bye, no real explanation, if I wanted my sister to finish college and continue to have a roof over her head, and Shelby to have her dance career, I just had to leave and forget the police report I’d seen. I had to make it so Shelby wouldn’t ask questions and she wouldn’t try to come after me. Telling her I was in love with someone else was the only way I knew how to guarantee that. The only way I knew for sure that she would hate me and want nothing to do with me, move on with her life, forget about me and have the future she’d always dreamed of.
I’d rather be anywhere but here right now. I’d rather be back in that hellhole getting the shit kicked out of me than standing here in front of the wreckage I made of Shelby’s life.
“She hydroplaned, lost control of the car, and slammed into a truck. The force of that collision sent her off the road and slamming into a tree,” Meredith explains.