Travis
I studied Kylie as she sat across from me in the same booth I'd shared with Ronnie weeks earlier. It had been the only open table when we'd gotten there.
The nineteen-year-old finally looked her age. The heavy makeup she'd once paraded around in was gone. She'd traded mini-skirts for blue jeans. Her hair was cut to shoulder length instead of cascading down her back in giant curls.
The biggest change, though—she was sober.
"I still feel terrible about the last time I was here." She ran her finger over the rim of her water glass.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. "That wasn't your fault."
"Maybe not directly, but it would never have happened if I hadn't shown up here the way I did."
"The only one responsible for my drinking is me." They were words John had encouraged me to repeat over and over when he'd first started meeting with me. Part of recovery had been accepting the blame instead of making excuses. Kylie wasn't responsible for my relapse.
"I guess I'd better start thinking that way, too, huh?"
"It wouldn't hurt." I took a gulp of my own water. My next question pained me. "How are things at home?"
"Everyone is already acting like nothing ever happened."
"What about your parents?"
"They're the worst of all. Travis, they took his pictures down."
"What?" Shock projected my voice louder than I'd intended.
"I woke up one morning and all of them were gone. And my mom won't talk about it, of course. When I tried to ask her about the pictures, she just turned and left the room. It's like everyone just wants to pretend that everything is fine and nothing has changed."
"But everything has changed."
"Exactly."
Kylie's hand left her glass and started tracing patterns across the table. She was nervous. I didn't blame her.
"When your accident happened, everyone was so worried about how it would affect the rest of us. None of us really cared what happened to you or Ronnie, not unless it ruined our fun." She winced. "It's different when it's you, isn't it? Now that the tragedy is mine, worrying about whether or not my friends will get to keep partying seems like such a foreign concept."
"For some of them, that's all they have," I reminded her.
"I used to think that was all I had, too. Funny how that perspective changes when you lose something far more important."
"Nathan was a good guy," I said, trying to be polite.
Kylie knew better. She barked out a short laugh. "No, he wasn't. He was terrible. Selfish and cruel. He was my brother, though. Sometimes I hated him, but I never wanted him to die." She cleared the emotion from her throat. "He never should have gotten in that car."
It was a story I knew all too well, only with two vital differences. Ronnie had begged me to take her home until, in my drunken stupor, I'd agreed. Nathan had gotten into his father's shiny new convertible purely for a joy ride. The other vital difference? Ronnie and I had gotten lucky, striking the telephone pole at just the right angle so that the only casualty was Ronnie's broken arm. Nathan hadn't been so lucky. They'd found the car at the bottom of the lake two days later.
"No, he shouldn't have. I can only hope that maybe some of the others will take it as a warning to not be so careless."
Kylie sighed. "I'm not so sure about that. Our hometown… there are serious problems. And no one wants to talk about them, which means nothing is getting better."
"You should get out of there."
"Do you think it would really make a difference?"
"It did for me."
"That's true." She glanced around like the pizza parlor might have all the answers for her. "But you were already so different from us even before you moved."
"Because I wasn't filthy rich?" I smirked.
"That's not what I meant." Her cheeks flushed. "It's just, you seemed destined to get out. You weren't stuck in that cycle of shit like the rest of us. Ronnie, too. That's why I always assumed the two of you would work things out."
I toyed with the stack of napkins on the edge of the table. "Speaking of Ronnie—"
"She's here."
"You knew she'd moved here? I didn't think the two of you kept in touch." It wasn't like Ronnie had been the biggest fan of Kylie and her friends.
"No, like, she's right there." Kylie pointed and I turned.
Ronnie was standing in the entrance of the place, staring at our table with confusion. She seemed stuck choosing between approaching or fleeing.
"Shit."
"Yikes," Kylie muttered.
Noticing that we'd caught sight of her, Ronnie reluctantly moved towards our table. I kicked myself for not thinking to warn Kylie about the possibility. I'd mentioned to Ronnie about stopping by the pizza place, but I hadn't mentioned with who. I'd just assumed she'd be tired and heading home after work. When Ronnie reached our table she stared down at us, her discomfort obvious.
"Kylie? What are you doing here?" Her eyes drifted over to me. "Travis, what the hell is going on?"
I slid over in the booth. "Why don't you sit down, Ronnie." She stared at me. "Please," I pressed.
She slid into the booth, sitting on the very edge as if she still might bolt at any moment. I tried to rest my hand comfortingly on her thigh, but she flinched. I moved it away.
"What are you doing here?" she asked Kylie again.
Kylie looked nervously at me. "She's visiting," I answered for her. It wasn't really my business to explain all the details of why she was there. Ronnie twisted so that she was staring at me. She was waiting for me to say more, I realized. "She needed someone to talk to about things going on at home."
"Well isn't that… cozy." Ronnie jerked herself up from the table. "Well, I'll leave you two to it, then."
"Ronnie, it's not like that. We're just talking."
"Right," she huffed.
"Nathan is dead," Kylie blurted out.
All the blood drained from Ronnie's face. Her mouth fell open but no words were coming out.
"We were having a party and he, uh," Kylie's eyes found mine. She cringed as she said the next part, "He was drunk and decided to take our dad's new car for a spin."
"He wrecked?" Ronnie's voice broke.
"At the bottom of the lake."
Ronnie's eyes found mine but they were so unfocused I wasn't sure if she was actually seeing me. I could only imagine what she was thinking. We'd met at the lake. And we'd parted after our own car accident. It was all a little too close to home for us, literally and figuratively.
"When?"
"About eight months ago."
"Eight months?" Ronnie's breath caught. "You knew all this time and didn't mention it?"
"I thought I'd tell you when we talked about our own crap." Except that had never actually happened.
Our table fell silent. I didn't want to press Ronnie about it. I still remembered how hard I had taken it. Nathan was the one who'd thrown all the parties when we were in high school—and apparently, he'd continued doing so up until his death. It was his house we'd left from the night we'd had our accident. I wouldn't have called Nathan a friend, exactly, but he was someone we'd spent a lot of time with.
"Was he alone?"
"Yeah. It was just him," Kylie answered softly.
Ronnie nodded slowly. "Good. That's good."
"I just came back here to check in. I felt so bad after Travis relapsed the last time I came so I…" Kylie's words trailed off as Ronnie's whole face fell.
I stood and reached for her but she was backing away. "Ronnie, wait."
"All that shit about being sober, about you not drinking anymore, that was just all one big lie?"
"No," I croaked. "It's the only slip-up I've had since we were eighteen." She was shaking her head at me. "I'm sober, Ronnie. I didn't lie about that."
"I have to go." She turned and fled.
"Are you gonna go after her?" Kylie asked.
"No."
"Uhm. Why not?"
I sat back down across from Kylie and took a long drink of my water.
"Travis, why aren't you going after her?"
"She's not ready to stop blaming me for everything. Until she comes to terms with that, I can chase her all I want but she'll keep finding reasons to run."
"I'm sorry I came here like this. I just needed to talk to someone who gets it. I never would have come if I'd realized it would cause problems for you."
"They're not problems you caused." I let out the sigh I'd been holding. "The problems were already there. Ronnie and I were both just doing a really good job of pretending they weren't. I guess we're really not all that different from the people back home, after all."
And that was the worst part.