Surprised, I looked over at her. She was gazing straight ahead, her pretty face twisted in disgust. It wasn’t directed at me, though. Not this time.
“Too bad it took me almost nine months to figure it out,” she went on. “I wasted the entire school year on him. Lied to my parents for him. Gave him so many second chances, I lost count. And that’s how he repays me? By going after my best friend?” She undid the braid and flicked her hair off her face. “I confronted him about it the day you told me. He tried to deny it at first, but I could tell he was lying. That made it even worse, you know? He didn’t even have the decency to come clean. He’s a liar and a douchebag.”
We turned onto the paved walking path and slowed even more, grateful for the shade of the trees. When we passed the yard with the tree house, my thoughts spun back to that cold day in November: Justin and me, our legs dangling into the air, the entire neighborhood stretched out before us.
“Yeah, he’s a douchebag,” I said, tearing my gaze away from the decaying boards. “But I’m no better, Aubrey. I liked him, you know, more than I should have. He was your boyfriend, and instead of feeling happy for you, I was jealous.”
She stopped walking and peered up at me. I slid my gaze to hers, expecting shock or anger or the same disgust she’d expressed toward Justin. But she just looked sad.
“I know that, Dara,” she said, and started walking again. Numbly, I followed suit. “I could tell you liked him the very first day, when he came up to us in the cafeteria after you hit Wyatt Greer with the tray. The way you looked at him . . . I’d never seen you act like that around a guy. I knew you were interested in him, but I let him flirt with me anyway.”
“Why?”
She glanced at me. “Because I was interested in him too. For once I wanted someone to look at me like I was fun and interesting, like people look at you. Then I realized he liked me and the rest just sort of happened. I assumed you’d be okay with it—you were always telling me I needed to live a little. But that was just me being selfish.” We stepped out of the shade and into the dazzling brightness of Fulham Road. “So I’m the one who’s ‘no better.’ Not you.”
I was silent for a moment, digesting this. All these months, she knew. She knew, and she never once gave me any clue or called me on it. It amazed me how much we’d held back from each other since Justin entered our lives.
“Then I guess we’re both horrible people,” I said, my voice almost cheerful. The glimmer of hope from before had turned into something brighter than the sun. “Either way, this year was mostly crap. I hate fighting with you.”
“I hate it too.” She shifted to the side, dodging an empty tomato sauce can that had escaped from someone’s trash. It looked like the crows had visited, ripping through the shiny black bags for the treasures within. “Truce?”
Something loosened in my chest and I smiled. “Truce.”
Behind us, the rhythmic sound of feet hitting pavement echoed through the air. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a woman jogging a few yards away, her ponytail bouncing against her shoulders. The street was so quiet, I could hear strains of the music blasting from her headphones.
“I wouldn’t say this year was mostly crap,” Aubrey said, her step lighter now that the tension between us had dissipated. “I made first chair in orchestra, got my license, and lost my virginity. All in all, not a total loss.”
“What about me?” I asked, looking over at her. “What have I accomplished this year?”
She pretended to seriously consider my question, but I saw a trace of laughter in her eyes. “Let’s see. Hmm . . . you got even taller?”
“Wow. So impressive.”
“And,” she said with a giggle in her voice, “you managed not to break your neck while doing incredibly dangerous dares, like walking across monkey bars in your bare feet in the dark. Now that’s talent.”
Laughing, I nudged her shoulder with mine. She nudged me back, her tiny body barely making an impact. Realizing this, she used her hands instead, pushing against my upper arm. And like I’d done countless times before—with her and everyone else—I pushed her back.
I pushed her back.
The next few moments seemed to happen in slow motion. In other ways, they flashed by in a blink. One second, Aubrey and I were standing there together on the sidewalk, tussling like little kids, laughing and carefree. The next, her foot was tangled in the remnants of a ripped garbage bag and she was tumbling backward toward the street, eyes widening as she realized she was falling.
She was falling so fast and so unexpected that by the time it actually sunk in—this nightmare in front of me—it was too late. All I could do was watch. Watch her tiny body land in the direct path of a large gray pickup truck that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Watch the truck’s right front wheel roll over her chest, pinning her underneath for a moment before continuing to the pavement on the other side of her.
I started screaming.
Everything after that happened in fragments, brief flashes of sound and color and awareness:
A woman dressed in running clothes, her ponytail brushing my neck as she held me close and murmured, “Don’t look, honey. Don’t look.”
A man in a red baseball cap, kneeling with his back to me on the sidewalk, his body quaking with guttural moans that sounded almost primal. “I didn’t see her. I didn’t even see her,” he repeated, over and over, his hands pressed to his head like he was trying to squeeze the images back out.
Aubrey’s foot, bare and resting against the curb, and the random, nonsensical thought that popped into my head when I saw it. What happened to her flip-flop?
A voice, talking into a cell phone. Please, please, come quick.
Blood, so much blood, staining the asphalt, soaking into Aubrey’s white skirt, spreading up toward the top half of her body, which I couldn’t bear to see.
Sirens, loud and close.
Me, crumpled on the grass in someone’s front yard, my eyes never straying from Aubrey no matter how hard people tried to get me to look away.
And then the sound of my screams, fading into heavy, shocked silence when I realized what I’d done.
twenty-seven
Senior Year
ON THE FIRST DAY BACK TO SCHOOL AFTER BREAK, I know before I even open the door that Ethan will be waiting for me at the front entrance. I also know what his face will look like—concerned with a hint of irritation simmering underneath.
I’m right on both counts.
“What the hell, Dara?” he says when I stop in front of him. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all weekend.”
I start walking again, willing myself not to cry. He falls into step beside me, and I can feel the frustration radiating off him, a pot of boiling water about to spill over. I can’t blame him. I walked out of his house Friday morning without so much as a note, and aside from one brief text letting him know I was alive, we haven’t spoken since. I’ve been avoiding his texts and calls, even though it kills me to shut him out like this.