My laptop sits open on my desk. My wallpaper is a picture of Dallas and me from when we first started dating. Even though I kind of hate how frizzy my hair is and it’s before Dallas got his braces off, this has always been my favorite picture of the two of us. Things seemed so simple back then. It was before Dallas was approached by a manager for his YouTube channel, before I was spending every free moment worrying about getting high enough SAT scores to get into Wash U. Neither one of us even had a job. We’d go to school, come home and study together, and then watch TV or read books.
“I think I might have screwed up big-time, Dallas,” I say.
You got your memory back, huh?
It’s weird how easily I can form Dallas’s responses even though he’s not here. I can practically hear his voice in my head. “Only part of it. I think it means something bad, but what if I’m wrong?”
You’re never wrong.
“Everybody’s wrong sometimes.” I really, really want to be wrong this time.
I close the laptop and Dallas disappears. I need to talk to someone about this—someone who’s alive.
I check the time. It’s almost four p.m. Shannon will be at swim practice until five. This doesn’t feel like it can wait. If I don’t tell someone what I’m thinking right now, I’m going to convince myself that I made the whole thing up in my head—that Ashley Losito upset me by being so aggressive and my memories got mixed up with what was happening in the real world.
I drum my fingertips on my leg. My mom is usually out of surgery by now. She’ll know what to do. If anyone is always right, it’s her. I call her cell phone and she picks up on the first ring.
“Hey, hon. Are you okay?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’m sorry for bothering you at work, but I needed to talk to someone and Shannon is at practice.”
“It’s fine. I’m in my office just entering some surgical notes. What’s going on?”
“What if the accident was my fault?” I blurt out.
“Genevieve!” My mom can make one word cut like a Ginsu knife. “Why would you even say that?”
“I don’t know. Dallas had just gotten that car, so I had never driven it and it was dark and rainy and—” My voice breaks apart as I start crying. I can’t believe Dallas is gone. I can’t believe he’s gone and I don’t remember what happened.
“Honey,” my mom starts. “You were driving and that makes you think you should have somehow prevented this. But that’s wrong. Even if you might have responded differently in your own car, that is not a crime. The man who hit you was drinking and driving. He broke the law, he killed Dallas, and he almost killed you too. He’s the criminal here, okay? Not you.”
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “I remembered part of that night. Dallas and I were fighting at Tyrell’s house. I found out he was going to take a year off—that he wasn’t going to start at Wash U in the fall. I made him leave. He wanted to stay there overnight but I wanted to go home.”
“Oh, Genevieve,” my mom says. “You couldn’t have known what was going to happen.”
I keep going without responding. “Then today this reporter knocked on the door and she was bothering me and she said something and it triggered another memory—Dallas saying, ‘What are you doing?’ He sounded scared, Mom.” I pause. “And I saw the road through the passenger window, but Highway Z is only two lanes, so that would mean I was on the wrong side of the road, only I don’t know why that would be the case. I know it sounds crazy, but I just have this weird feeling that I did something horrible.”
My mom sighs. “It doesn’t sound crazy. It sounds like you want to blame yourself because you were driving and you’re the reason the two of you left the party. But honey, who knows if that memory is even real? Or if it is, it could be from another time when you were passing someone. Bradley Freeman was drinking and driving. You can’t go around telling people you think you might be responsible for the accident, okay? You’ll end up muddying the case against him. Plus, you could get yourself in trouble.”
I think about the nasty comments I’ve read online—the people calling for Freeman to be thrown in jail, or worse. The hashtags dance in my head. #DrunkDriver, #WhiteTrash, #HumanWaste, #Murderer. What would they say about me if it turned out the accident was my fault? Would they call me a #Murderer too?
“But what if he’s not to blame?” I ask.
“He is to blame. I know it’s hard because you don’t remember everything and you want to give people the benefit of the doubt, but there are multiple witnesses who saw him driving recklessly that night. You don’t want to put a drunk driver back out on the streets, do you?”
“I guess not,” I say. My mom is probably right. My brain is making stuff up because I feel guilty about forcing Dallas to leave the party. If only I hadn’t been so insecure that night, thinking every girl he talked to was trying to steal him away from me. #JealousBitch #ControlFreak. Great. My conscience has started speaking in hashtags.
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk to a therapist about this?”
Dr. Chao tried to refer me to one of the outpatient doctors who worked for the hospital, but it felt like he’d be just one more person showering me with sympathy and making me feel guilty about surviving the accident.
“I don’t need a shrink,” I say, my voice wavering. “I just needed my mom. Thanks for listening.”
“Anytime.” Mom clears her throat. “Look. I know I haven’t always been there for you since your father left, and I know I’m gone a lot now, but I’m trying to be better, okay?”
“I know you are,” I say.
“Good. We’ll talk more tonight.”
“Okay. Bye.” I hang up the phone, but the uneasy feeling I had before I called my mom is still lingering.
My mom shows up a little after six p.m., still dressed in her powder blue surgical scrubs. Normally she finishes up her cases, showers, changes into business clothes, and then goes to each of the units to see her currently admitted patients. Mom in scrubs means she’s had a rough day.
“You okay?” I ask tentatively. “I could try to make some dinner?”
“Let’s order out,” she says. “Do you mind calling for something while I shower and change?”
I shake my head. “What do you want?”
“Anything is fine.”
I nod. Anything-is-fine days are the worst days of all. I feel bad for adding to her stress.
I dial a local pizza joint and order a gluten-free pizza, hoping to appease both of Mom’s major dietary preferences after a hard day—healthy food and comfort food. By the time she’s out of the shower, I’m arranging the pizza and a couple of different drinks—sparkling water for me, a choice of heart-healthy red wines for her—on our dining room table.
Mom opens a bottle of merlot with the corkscrew I’ve laid out. She pours herself a glass of wine, takes a seat across from me, and reaches for a slice of pizza. I slide a piece onto my own plate and sip hesitantly at my water.
“So,” Mom starts, her brown eyes studying me carefully. “Are you feeling better about before?”
I nod. “I know you’re right. And I know you just want to protect me.”
“Good. So then do you want to discuss what else happened today?”
“Meaning?” I fidget in my chair, preparing for a lecture on skipping school.
“What’s this about you assaulting Ashley Losito from Channel Five News?”
“Oh, that.” I exhale slightly. “She was being pushy and she was half in the house where I couldn’t shut the door. I just nudged her. Why? Is she mad or something?” I bite into the tip of my slice of pizza.
“I don’t know,” Mom says. “I ran into Mrs. Ernst outside and she mentioned it to me.”
Nosy old Mrs. Ernst, always peeking out those curtains. I swallow hard. “Are the reporters still out there?”
“Yes.” Mom swirls her wine around in her glass, more interested in staring at it than drinking it. She nibbles at her pizza.
“Are they ever going to go away?”
“Eventually, yes. But I don’t know when. In the meantime, you’re going to have to control your temper. Ashley Losito could file charges against you.”
“She touched me first,” I say.
“Yes, but she didn’t push you, did she?”
My eyes fill with tears. I rise from my seat and go to the front window. I peek through a tiny crack in the curtains. The number of reporters has doubled since I got home from school. When Connie was here to shield me from them, they were just an annoyance, but if they’re willing to knock on the door, who’s to say they’re not going to hunt me down on my way home from school? Or even harass Shannon if she comes over to visit? “Why is it okay for them to bother us?” I ask, shuffling back to my seat at the table.
“Because it’s their job,” my mom says softly. “And if Freeman is officially charged with manslaughter, there will be even more of them out there.”
“I don’t want to deal with them, Mom,” I say. “Can I go away somewhere? Stay with Grandma and Grandpa for a while, maybe?” My grandparents are retired doctors who live in a house on Lake Michigan. It would suck to be away from Shannon, but we could text and talk and I could come back once things calmed down.
“What about school?” Mom asks.
“I can finish it as independent study,” I say. “I have all A’s. My teachers won’t care if I turn in my last few assignments from home.”
Mom runs one finger around the base of her wineglass. “Your grandparents are actually going to be spending most of the summer in Kenya doing volunteer work with children afflicted by hydrocephalus.”
“Oh.” Kenya sounds perfect—I’d like to see Ashley Losito and her cameraman follow me there—but I know there’s no way my mom is going to let me jet off to Africa. Still, it makes me think of something I learned in psychology class last semester called “door-in-the-face technique.” Ask for something crazy and then, after being refused, ask for something reasonable in comparison and you’re more likely to get it. “Can I go with them?” I ask brightly. “It’d be a great experience.”
“Out of the question,” my mom says. “You’re still healing, Genevieve. Physically and mentally. You can’t be someplace without reliable medical care.”
“Well, what about Grandma and Grandpa Larsen?”
Mom frowns. “I’m not sure a working farm would be—”
I take in a deep breath. “Or maybe I just could go visit Dad?”
“In Utah?” Mom says shrilly, like it’s farther away than Kenya, like maybe I just asked her to strap me into a spaceship and send me to the moon.
“I know it seems crazy, but didn’t you say most of his neighbors are retirees from Arizona and California? Old people have probably never even heard of Dallas Kade. I could go there and get my mind off everything.”
“I suppose.” Mom picks at her pizza. “Of course there’s always a chance reporters might find you there, but like you said, the accident wouldn’t necessarily be newsworthy to the people of Springdale.”
I push forward while she seems to be seriously considering it. “And didn’t you say Zion National Park is really pretty? Maybe being in nature would be therapeutic.” Rachael works at the park, but I’m careful not to mention her name in front of my mother.
“It is lovely,” Mom says grudgingly. “Let me think about it and then talk it over with your father.”
“Okay,” I say, praying that she decides it’s a good idea. “Maybe a change of scenery would help me heal. It’d be a whole new environment—a fresh start.”
It’d be running away, a voice in my head says.
Maybe, but after everything that’s happened, I think I deserve a chance to escape, at least for a little while.