I stare at the asphalt. “I, um … just wanted to … you know … see if you were OK.”
She makes an ugly rasping sound, and I look up quickly, worried that she might be choking, and then I realize she is doing some sort of twisted pantomime of a laugh, and it is nothing like the laugh I know.
“OK? If I’m OK? What do you think? Are you OK? Seriously. Am I OK?” She makes that sound again, the one that isn’t a laugh, the one that sounds like she’s spitting out the broken parts of herself on the ground.
“I’m not OK,” I say, so quietly I think that maybe she didn’t hear me. “And I know you aren’t OK. I thought … I thought…” This was so stupid. Marcus isn’t the person I thought he was. Maybe Monica isn’t either. The Monica I knew wouldn’t stare at me with dead eyes and make me uncomfortable.
“You thought what?” Her voice is so full of venom I’m sure that when I look back up I’ll see Heather Parker behind her, and Monica won’t be Monica at all but a ventriloquist’s dummy.
“Nothing,” I say, turning so she can’t see my face. “I thought nothing.” I don’t want to pass her, so I push myself between her pickup and the SUV next to it, but the space is too tight and I can’t fit through it and now I have to turn around. I turn and nearly step on Monica. She’s right next to me and she’s biting her lip and her fists are balled up in her sweatshirt. Marcus’s sweatshirt.
“Wanna go get some ice cream?” she says.
CHAPTER 15
I try not to think about the last time I was in Monica’s car. It is too painful. When she puts the keys in the ignition, I can’t help but notice her hands are shaking.
“I didn’t think I’d be able to drive. After seeing the accident,” she says in a conversational tone. As if she’s telling me she has a hair appointment. I don’t say anything. I can sense she wants to talk.
“But what else am I gonna do? Take the bus? Take MARTA? My mom let me stay home for four days, but then it was back to school. Back to life. ‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ she said…”
I inhale so sharply she glances over. “I don’t think that,” she says. “But you know my parents…”
“No, I don’t,” I say, looking out the window. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. “I’ve only met them a few times.”
“I don’t think that! This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Do you understand that? And it isn’t ever going to get better. It’s a nightmare. No, it’s worse than a nightmare. Because you can wake up from nightmares. It’s like my whole life has been some sort of dream and now I’ve woken up and all I want is to go back to sleep, back to how things were, but I’m never going to. He killed two people, Wing! Two people are dead and it’s Marcus’s fault. And he’s … he’s whatever the hell he is right now. What am I supposed to do? All I want to do is be with him and I can’t. I can’t.” She hits her steering wheel. “It’s so unfair. Why did this happen? We had plans, you know. We had plans.” She’s crying now but I don’t think she notices and her tears keep falling and there’s snot running down her upper lip.
“Typical Marcus,” she says, and the bitterness in her tone makes the air taste like burnt toast. “Royally screws up and can’t handle the consequences so goes into a goddamn coma.” She slams on the brakes at a red light and I wonder if maybe she shouldn’t be driving. If maybe she should be on some kind of medication. Because this Monica, this is a stranger. A crazy stranger.
“Do you know how people look at me now? Like I’m somehow involved. Like I’m just as much to blame for Michael’s and that woman’s deaths. Like by being with Marcus, it’s just as much my fault.”
“Are you still with him?” I venture. She turns the car into the strip mall parking lot.
“Of course I’m still with him! Look, we weren’t married yet, but I’m his girl, all right? For ever.” She holds up her right hand, brandishing the ring he got her for her last birthday. “I didn’t go through all the shit that we’ve been through to not be with him.”
“What are you talking about? You two … you two have the perfect relationship.” I almost slip and say that they had but catch myself at the last second.
She makes a sound like a horse neighing. It’s a sound I’ve never heard her make.
“Oh yeah. Like when he hooked up with Carla Torres. Twice. And then when I found out, the bitch wanted to fight me. Me! Like I did anything to her.”
“Oh,” I say. I wouldn’t want to fight Carla Torres. There are rumors that she brings a blade to school.
“It was awful. But I love him and so I forgave him. And then he goes and does this!”
I feel the old defensiveness waking up inside me. “He didn’t do it on purpose,” I say.