“It wasn’t Tina who put Romy on that road. It was Brock.”
I’m still, rewriting a night. The one thing I thought I knew—I didn’t. I take Tina out of the picture, I put Brock in her place. He put me on that road. What does that mean? I was in his car? His arms? The idea of him, carrying me to his car—
“It was a practical joke,” Turner says. “Romy was unconscious and unresponsive the entire time. When he came back to the party, he told Tina what he’d done and Tina told Penny. Brock eventually decided he’d go back to the road and bring Romy home.”
“Bring me home,” I say faintly, because Turner says it like it could be true, that Brock would grow a heart, come out to that road and bring me home. But he hasn’t seen Brock look at me before, hasn’t seen me on the track with him before …
“Penny had the same idea. She went out to bring Romy home and arrived at the road shortly after Brock did.” Turner struggles to stay businesslike in tone. “The two had an altercation. Brock claims he can’t remember exactly what transpired, but her death was accidental. He panicked and disposed of her body. The morning we found Romy, Brock asked Tina to cover for him to rule out any possible connection between the girls’ disappearances. He wanted to make sure we looked elsewhere.”
I step back. “Tina knew—”
“Tina did not know Penny was dead. Tina thought Penny disappeared on the way to her mother’s house, just like everyone else,” Turner says. “And when we recovered the Vespa, we brought her in for questioning. She told us the truth. And then we brought Brock in…”
The kitchen falls silent, weak light streaming through the window. I stare at it, I stare at it while this simple truth fills me. She came back.
She came back for me.
He killed her for it.
My breath escapes me. They look at me and I turn from them, seeing all the things they can’t see. Things I haven’t said, never said.
“Romy,” Mom says.
Rape me. He put something in my drink. My lipstick on my stomach. My lipstick in his hand and his hand pressing it into my stomach. His hands. My shirt, still undone after the lake? Laid wide open for him. Rape me.
“He was going to rape me,” I say.
“What?” Turner asks.
Mom and Todd are silent from the shock of it, I feel their shock, but Turner lets his fury come first, no listening, no processing—just a demand for more, from a place that doesn’t believe what just came out of my mouth but she came back for me and she died for it. I turn back to them and I don’t want to say it because I don’t want it, I didn’t ask for it—
But she died for this.
“I know—” My voice breaks. “When I woke up on the road, my shirt was unbuttoned and my bra … was undone and … rape me was written on my stomach in lipstick. Brock did that to me.”
The sound my mother makes is one I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to forget. You know what the hardest part of being a parent is? It was never supposed to be this.
“No.” Turner shakes his head. “You didn’t tell us this. Your shirt was open and you were written on? How come Leanne didn’t report seeing any of that—”
“I did my shirt back up before she found me.”
“Oh, really? And you think there’s no chance this happened at the party? I wasn’t going to bring it up in front of your mother, Romy, not at the time, but I have several accounts of you taking your shirt off there—”
“Levi, I’m warning you,” Todd says.
“Brock brought GHB,” I blurt out. “He drugged me.”
Turner’s mouth falls open. I know he doesn’t believe me, I know this, but I’m desperate for him to understand what was taken from her, the why of her being dead. For her—for her, he has to understand.
“How do you know this?” he asks.
“He was handing it out at the party. He gave—he gave Norah Landers some. But I think that he drugged me—”
“You think.”
“I don’t remember drinking. I don’t remember drinking once that night.” I close my eyes briefly. “He was planning to rape me—”
“Why would he ever—”
“Because he knew he’d get away with it, like…” This. This is why she’s gone. “Like Kellan did.”
Mom is crying, her hands over her mouth, and Todd, he’s pale. But Turner—
Turner laughs.
“Oh,” he says softly. “I see how it is.”
Two girls on a road.
“She saved me.”
“No,” Turner says. “No—”
“She saved me—”
“No,” he says, and he stands and I step back. “Alice, you want to do something about your daughter. I have never seen anyone so desperate for attention in my life.” He stares at me with such hatred and disgust and he tries to make me wear it. “You want to make Penny’s death about your lies—” I step back again. “Your lies about my son. I will not let you do it—I won’t—”
“I’m not—”
“You’re lying, you—”
Todd slams his hand on the table. “Don’t call her liar—”
“Romy,” Mom says. “Romy—”
“Where does she think she’s going?”
Going. I’m going. I push through the door and the screen door and step onto the walk and then they’re following after me, and I hear my name at my back.
“Romy—”
And I run.
I run and I see Penny—
I see Penny, sitting in a booth across from me and I see her and she says—
No. I focus on my pulse. I breathe hard, forcing the air into me and I run and I see Penny, sitting in a booth across from me and she says—
I want to talk to you and then I’ll leave.
No, no. I don’t have to hear this because you’ve already left, Penny. You’re gone. You traded your life for a girl who was already dead and I’m sorry you gave up everything for her, but I can’t listen to you now.
Sweat coats my skin. My shirt clings to my back. I run and I see Penny, sitting in the booth across from me, and I don’t know what I can give her for what’s been taken away.