Carrie
“Don’t ask my baby anymore questions.” Mother bellows the request so loudly in front of the police officer that I wonder if there are cameras around recording this grieving mother act.
Everything just…happened. Those bodies…
There can’t be reporters around yet, are there? And in the hospital? The staff must keep them away from patients.
That’s what I am, a patient. I look down at my white dress, sandy, wet, and covered in the smudges of blood I got when I checked some of the bodies.
Bodies. I keep saying that word in my head.
“Ma’am,” the officer says to my mom. His tentative breaths add to the nervous energy all around us. I know he doesn’t want to overstep his bounds, but my mother could test Ghandi’s patience. “She is the only survivor that we can talk with. The only other victim with a pulse is unconscious in the ICU, and your daughter seems to have sustained no injuries—”
“Carrie is likely in shock,” a nurse says, handing me a hospital gown. “You change in there and we’re going to check you out, baby girl, make sure you’re okay.” The nurse pats my arm. I should feel upset about what happened. Comforted by the nice touch. I smile quickly and let my face fall as soon as I turn from her.
I enter the room where I’m supposed to change and hear my father’s voice; he’s on the phone. When he spots me, he walks from the room, voice exasperated as he attempts to be both pushy and quiet. “Okay, but I should be able to sue the school for the pain in suffering my daughter was exposed to, or the beach, Parks and Rec, who is responsible here, Larry?” My father is talking to the family lawyer.
Pain and suffering sounds like what I should legitimately be faced with now, but mostly I’m just tired. I want to be home, curling up next to Jeremy’s coat.
My brain wraps around the idea that Jeremy did this. I saw him. I should tell the police, but I know I’m not going to.
This is the first time in my life that I’ve actually considered that I might not be a good person.
The nurse walks in. “Sweetie, if you’d like to take a shower, the officers just need to take a few samples and we can clean all this blood of you,” the nurse says. She speaks softly, like I’m fragile.
I don’t feel like I’m going to break. I don’t feel anything more than tired. “There’s blood on my hands,” I say, stretching my fingers out before me.
For a moment I think about running to the shower and washing off any proof that Jeremy was there. I want to protect him, but something tells me that he doesn’t need my protection. Why did Jeremy kill all those people? Why didn’t he kill me? More importantly, why don’t I just tell them? I did nothing wrong. They think I’m in shock. Maybe I am.
“Bring the officers in, and then I’ll wash this off after they get their samples,” I answer. I look at her without smiling. Maybe the smiling is just too inappropriate for the moment. I’m used to smiling because I think that’s what people want to see.
The police officer that my mother is hounding walks in, my mom in tow like a Chihuahua ready to bite his ankles. Mother is sobbing profusely, giant crocodile tears all over her cheeks, mascara running like a murky black river beneath her eyes. “Hasn’t she been through enough?” she wails.
“They need samples and a statement,” I say.
“Yes, Ms. Winters,” the police officer says slowly. “If you could just tell us what happened, then we could let you rest.” He pulls a curtain and in that brief privacy I’m a specimen they need samples from.
“Okay.” I hold my hands out while they swab and scrape everything they need, take every picture, tag everything, it is all happening in slow motion and very far away from me, at least in my head. When their evidence bags are full, I sit on the bed and the curtain is tugged back.
There’s another cop in the room. I see Mother look at him and adjust her cleavage. That’s a new level of low for her, I think when she walks over to him and starts flirting.
My father reenters in the room, and he doesn’t pay attention to us, just sits in a chair. My mother doesn’t stop flirting. The officer pulls out his notepad, looks at our little family unit, and sighs.
“I remember that I went to the bathroom. Everything was fine when I left, and a few minutes later when I came back, there were bodies everywhere. I checked some to see if they were breathing or had heartbeats. There was a man, he had a mask, I just forgot in the shock,” I offer up because that’s true and it means nothing. I don’t want to say anything about those green eyes, about recognizing him, about him touching me.
About how I saw Laurel’s body.
“I heard Laurel screaming and I went back to her—” I pause before I say, “body.” She’s the only other girl who’s still alive. Not because she’s supposed to be, I figure. When Jeremy saw me, he tossed her aside like garbage. I still remember how the handle of his blade whispered over my skin when he touched me. How I felt his racing heart beneath my palm. “I heard her screaming…I…I didn’t see anything else.” I take a deep breath. “Can I see Laurel now?”
“Yeah, sweetie, let’s take you to her in ICU after you get cleaned up, we’ll get you washed off and then you can see your friend.” I hear sadness in the nurse’s voice. I want to tell her that I’m not upset about Laurel. That Laurel is not my friend. I want to see her because I need to understand why I’m not upset, why I’m not scared, why all I care about it seeing Jeremy again.
I want to understand. Understand my strange reaction, or lack of any real reaction. I want to understand why Jeremy did what he did. I want to understand why I have this attraction to him, and what it means.
The nurse turns. “Give Carrie some privacy,” she insists. My parents look confused for a second, and I think my father actually forgets I’m in the room with him again. My mother shakes her head and stomps out, clacking her heels and tucking her arm around the cop she’s targeting.
When the nurse takes me to the bathroom, I ask to be alone.
Standing in the shower there, I watch the blood drip down the drain, swirling with the water. I touch my face where Jeremy touched me and remember seeing the blood and ocean water on my sandy toes. I clean all the grit off me, but I feel marked. The water, the blood, none of it can wash away Jeremy.