CHAPTER 27
Cory
Ten years earlier
The setting sun cast a shadow over her figure, making it impossible to make out her features. But even in black silhouette, she was beautiful. Cory’s pulse raced at the sight in front of him—finally, the girl he’d been thinking of for over a year was just ten yards away. In person. Up close. He started to shout her name like a victory cry but stopped himself. Better to be cool. Better to act like she didn’t affect him much.
He took a few more steps toward her. Hair tied in a knot. Yellow tee just like he remembered.
“Hey, Angela. Haven’t seen you in a while.”
To his surprise, she didn’t startle. Just slowly turned as though she’d been expecting him to show up. Her eyes—the greenest of green even in the moonlight—lit with recognition…or amusement…or anger. They seemed glassy, or maybe the darkness was playing tricks on him.
“When did you get here?” Her question was slightly accusatory, slightly slurred, catching him off guard. “I haven’t laid eyes on you since last summer, and you show up now?” She raised her arms in a dramatic shrug. He couldn’t think of a response. She took a step toward him and stumbled, catching herself against his shoulder. He frowned, steadying her with his hand. She giggled, but there was no humor in the sound. “Don’t look so serious, Cory.” She hooked an arm around his shoulder and tapped the end of his nose. “I’m having a party out here. Lighten up. No one likes a party pooper.”
She was drunk, her words nothing but a string of weird inflections and barely understandable syllables. And her breath…he unwound himself from her embrace and took a step back.
“Why are you drunk, and where did you get the alcohol?” He scanned the area around them, catching the reflected light off a glass bottle partially hidden under a paisley beach towel. He eyed Angela again as she stumbled away from him. An empty beer can lay on the grass by her feet, another near the bank of the pond. It was a virtual liquor store for the underage and irresponsible, provided by…
Anyone’s guess.
“You couldn’t have gotten this by yourself. You’re sixteen.”
“I am?” Her mouth opened wide enough to fit around a beer bong, all fake shock and astonishment like he’d just revealed the biggest secret ever. He didn’t like the sarcasm. Liked her attitude even less, especially after he’d waited all this time to finally see her again. She stumbled backward, her feet failing her as she connected with a rock. She tripped and landed on her backside.
Cory just stared at her, certain she wasn’t hurt, wishing he had stayed home.
In a melancholy mood, he had stopped by the old park to walk around. To think about the future, the opportunities that were beginning to present themselves and what to do about them. He had dreamed of a career in music for years but never shared his secret obsession with anyone—just studied quietly in his room, his parents often wondering if his passion for guitar bordered on an unhealthy obsession. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. All he knew was that he was enraptured with learning new notes and chords, new ways to make his sound one-of-a-kind. He would rather stay in his room than go out with friends, rather pick strings than pick at dinner. Sometime around his fifteenth birthday, his parents suggested he see a therapist. He went once to appease them; much to his relief, the lady assured them that Cory was just a self-driven perfectionist—nothing to be worried about. Thank God.
But worry they did. His mother was a homemaker, his father worked nine to five in construction. No one understood his need for a life outside of Missouri and mundane jobs. Everyone expected his guitar playing to be a phase that would fade with time.
It didn’t. And now he had written a song that some famous Nashville singer wanted to record. Three months earlier and on a whim, Cory made a demo off his song, saved it on a flash drive, and mailed it to a few studios with addresses he’d found online. He never expected anyone to like it. Seriously doubted anyone would even hear it. But someone had done both, and now he had what appeared to be a proverbial foot in the door. Producers wanted to meet with him, people were calling and emailing, and he didn’t know what to do. Worse, he didn’t know how to tell his parents. Seventeen years old, and life was on the verge of taking all sorts of turns he didn’t know how to maneuver.
To buy himself time, he came to the park.
He never expected to see Angela again. But here she was. Same girl, same clothes, same hair, completely different.
“Sss…sorry.” She patted the rock she’d tripped over as though she owed it an apology, then held up a beer can in an exaggerated victory.
Cory tried to grab it from her, but she had surprisingly quick reflexes for a drunk girl.
“Give that to me, Angela. You shouldn’t be drinking it in the first place.” It bothered Cory that he sounded like a prudish middle-aged man, but not enough to back down.
Her stupid laughter turned into a scowl.
“I was just sitting here minding my own business when you showed up. Stay if you want to, but no more lectures.” She put the can to her lips and tipped her head back. Alcohol ran down her chin and splashed on her shirt.
When she swallowed, her eyes locked on something in front of her, her gaze faraway and dazed. The can fell with a thud between her thighs. Cory debated for a second before he sat down beside her. He followed her gaze to a spot near the middle of the pond. Ducks swam in a flock next to a fountain; dozens of them, maybe a few more. He’d never seen so many crowded together in the same place.
“I came here to feed the ducks,” she says in a whisper. “Remember when we used to feed them together, Cory? Last summer? Before you left and never came back.”
An accusation. A jagged blade on tender skin. Except she had it wrong.
“Pretty sure you’re the one who took off. I looked for you for a couple months after, but you never came around. Where did you go?”
She turned her gaze to him but didn’t respond, just pinched her lips together like she was trying to process his words. After the briefest second, her concentration was interrupted by a falling leaf that landed on the ground beside them. She frowned in confusion, puzzled by its sudden appearance, the look of a kid trying to solve an algebra equation with only the knowledge of fourth grade math.
“That was the best summer of my life.” Her words were scratchy, raw, like she had been crying but without any sign of tears. She stared into the distance for what felt like hours, but then her face changed. Just like that, a room darkening shade had been pulled back, light streamed into her windows, and all seriousness gave way to drunken abandon. She brandished the beer bottle like a trophy. “But this is even better, courtesy of my dad. It’s the best present I’ve been given in a long time.” She giggled and emptied the drink by half.
Cory’s ears rang with anger. “He gave that to you?” He tried again to snatch it from her hand.
“Well, sort of.” She held a finger to her lips and whispered. “I took it, but he probably knows by now.” She swallowed more, wiping her sticky mouth with the back of her hand.
“He’s not going to be happy when he finds out.” It seemed like the right thing to say, but didn’t know if the statement was a true one. The little she’d told him about her father had him wondering if the man would care much at all. Well, someone had to care. He snatched the bottle out of her hand and sailed it into the water in one swift movement.
“Hey!” She lunged after it but caught only air and fell to the ground. After a brief groan that he thought might morph into tears, she rolled onto her back and drew her legs up, wild laughter coming from her gut as she rolled from side to side. Anyone else might think her crazy. Truthfully, so did he.
Cory forced his eyes away from the spectacle and onto another open bottle sitting a few feet away. He reached for it, capped it, and tossed in on the ground. It didn’t break. The liquid sloshed back and forth until it settled, smooth as glass. From the looks of things, she’d brought an entire case and was moving toward polishing it off. By herself.
With a sigh, he sat beside her and plucked a blade of grass, running it through his fingers. Scenarios pricked at him, a dried scab he could help mess with. She was acting this way for a reason, he felt it in his gut. Maybe something had happened, maybe it was just a new personality. Turning over what he remembered about Angela, the former crouched, then pounced.
“What’s going on, Angela? And don’t tell me you’re just here to have a good time. No sixteen year old girl comes out here at night to get drunk by herself, not unless something is wrong.”
She stopped moving and stared up at the night sky, eyes as empty as the starless atmosphere. So much laughter, but it all changed to tears. Just like that, a pendulum of wild emotions.
“Nothing.” One word, denial in two syllables. It explained everything.
“Did he do something again?” He knew what he was asking. She knew what he was asking. But sometimes deflecting is easier when the alternative is facing your demons.
“He’s in jail, Cory.” She leaned into him, inches away, hot tears streaking her cheeks like tributaries, her breath nearly rolling his stomach. He didn’t flinch, didn’t wince. He couldn’t afford to make her run again. “I’m sorry about last time,” she said, smiling through the tears. “I shouldn’t have stormed off the way I did.”
He brought his knees up and shook his head. “The fault lies with me. I knew how you felt about being kissed, about being touched, but I did it anyway.”
She sniffed. “I shouldn’t have been so angry with you. If I had known it would be the last time I saw you, I never would have left.” She leaned in to Cory’s neck, lips inches away from his mouth. He forced himself to remain still. He never made the same mistake twice. “I’m not angry anymore. I’m sorry for everything.” Her arm wound around his waist. Her lips touched his neck, but he pulled away. A wounded look crossed her eyes, but she tried again.
“Angela, you’re drunk. I’m not making out with you, not now.”
A flash of temper had him falling backward. He wasn’t ready for her anger, wasn’t expecting the push.
“I’ve already had sex, Cory. Got pregnant even.” She said it like a triumph, the statement coming from nowhere. He doubted she would remember the words in the morning. His stomach rolled. “Making out is for little kids. That’s not what I had in mind.”
“With who?” The question was a loaded one.
The way she looked at him was an exploding bullet. But how? Not if he was still in prison.
Angela began to laugh, then tipped her bottle up. “Relax, Cory. Just a kid from my school. My uncle hasn’t touched me since I was eight.”
He felt sick, disgusted by the visual assaulting him, angry at his rising jealousy that he hadn’t been the one, and suddenly a drink sounded like a good idea. How could anyone do that to a kid they’re supposed to love? How could he be envious of a guy from her school that he’d never even met? Unscrewing the cap from the bottle, he took a long pull. The first he’d ever tried. He upended the bottle again. A warm feeling began to work its way through his chest.
She lay back on the grass and stretched out her legs. “This time, though…don’t know what I’m going do this time. What kind of person gets pregnant twice in the same year?” She speaks with abandon, like she’d forgotten he was there. He took another drink in hopes it might alleviate the sickness climbing up his throat. It rose anyway, so he took another drink to wash it down. The word hypocrite crossed his mind a dozen times. He managed to mentally scratch off all but one, and it kept taunting him.
Hypocrite.
Hypocrite.
He was in the middle of the fifth repeat when she jumped up in front of him and pulled off her shirt and shorts. His mouth went dry at the sight of her in front of him wearing nothing but a flesh-colored cotton bra and boy shorts. She held out her hands to him. Without thinking, he took them. If only that guy could see him now.
“Come on, let’s go swimming.” She tugged him up with her, stumbling backward. He reached out to steady her, all too aware of his close proximity to her bare skin. His vision blurred, the shock of being drunk registered in his mind for a moment.
“We can’t swim here.” His voice sounded funny. He cleared his throat. His eyes stayed on her body. “It’s against the rules I think.”
She tickled his ribcage right above his waist. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe her very effective fingers, but the sensation drove him wild. But then he remembered that she was pregnant. Right? And drunk. Right? And so was he.
Drunk, not pregnant. He started to laugh at his own inside joke.
“I really don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said between giggles. Was he giggling? Boys don’t giggle. Especially not boys with almost record deals.
“Oh come on, Cory. Who cares about a stupid little rule? I want to swim.” Angela sat near the edge of the bank and lowered her feet over the side. With a look over her shoulder, she slipped into the water and waded a few feet out. Water swirled around her waist. She beckoned him again. “Come on, it’s just a tiny pond!” She raised her hands high, sending water spraying upward in a shower of tiny diamonds.
His nerves frayed like a flag whipping in the wind. The pond was more like a lake, and she was swimming further away from him. His nerves escalated. His desire to skinny dip with a beautiful girl also battled for attention.
Still, she was pregnant. Why did he have to keep reminding himself?
“Get out of the water, Angela,” he called. “It isn’t safe, especially in your condition.” His surroundings blurred, making it difficult to see anything but vague movement thirty or so feet out.
“Pregnant girls can swim, Cory!” She was moving too fast, like a toddler trying to keep herself afloat, all arms and legs and water sluicing into her face.
“I wasn’t talking about being pregnant! You’re drunk. Get out of the water!” His feet touched bottom as he struggled with what to do. The desire to join her was replaced by panic. Also he didn’t feel right. Was it possible to be this drunk from one bottle? Sure, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Maybe the allergy medication he’d taken before he came here? It didn’t matter; he felt worse by the second.
To his relief, Angela turned toward him and swam a few strokes in his direction. But then she flipped over and attempted a back stroke. Her limbs flailed, and she went under. Cory jerked forward to go after her, but she surfaced.
“Didn’t mean to do that.” She laughed, her words wet and sputtering. “I’ll come back now. Wait there for me.”
But she turned the wrong way.
“I’m over here,” he called after her. “Turn around and swim this way!”
She tried. She really did. But she kept circling. And went under. And under again.
And under again.
The fourth time, a little circle of water hovered just above her disappearing head. The moon mocked the situation by shining its golden light directly over the spot.
“Angela, that’s not funny! Get out of the water!” He took a few steps toward her, his conscience screaming that was a really bad idea.
He saw an arm, maybe a foot, break through the surface. Without giving himself another second to think, he took off for the middle of the pond, aiming straight for where he’d seen her.
“Swim over here! I’m coming to get you!” After fifteen yards more he dove under, arms spread wide, inhaling gulps of water, searching but not finding. He tried to open his eyes, but the water was too muddy to see through. He slammed his eyes closed just as his leg bumped into something. Soft. Flesh-like? He grabbed for it, only to make contact with a disintegrated tire. Sick to his stomach, he tried not to think about why a tire would be out here. His lungs burned; he needed air. His arm caught against a jagged scrap of metal as he made his way to what he hoped was the surface. Breaking free, he gulped oxygen in three rapid bursts. Eyes burned. Arm throbbed and bled. The world around him spun, knocked off balance by alcohol and terror.
Cory treaded water, spinning from side to side in a frantic effort to find her. No bubbles appeared at the surface, not a single ripple to suggest her whereabouts.
Where was she?
WHERE WAS SHE?
“Angela! Angela!” He screamed her name. Two times. Twenty times. Fifty times.
Three minutes ticked by.
Then five.
He read somewhere that a person could live up to thirteen minutes without oxygen.
Or was it three?
He called her name again. Spun around again. Searched under water again.
Nothing.
Cory swam back to shore and pulled himself over the bank, rivulets of water streaming off him like tears from a thousand sobs. He was hot. He was cold. He was scared. He was numb. His stomach heaved with failed responsibility. He threw up in the grass. He threw up again in his mouth. Flat on his back. Prone on his stomach. There was no up or down, no back or forth, no wrong or right.
Just failure.
Complete and utter loss.
Worse, he didn’t know what to do.
Run home? Find help? Call the police? Call his mom?
He reached for his cell phone and flipped it open.
Kyle.
It was Friday night and his brother was in Springfield with friends. If anyone would know what to do, it would be him.
Kyle answered on the third ring.
Five minutes later, he ran up to a sobbing Cory and paced the ground in front of him. All Cory could see were feet. Blue sneakers with three white stripes pacing back and forth, back and forth.
“Did you find her?” Kyle was out of breath. Or out of his mind. The way he alternately gripped his hair and bent at the waist made either a possibility.
Cory shook his head and sobbed inside his hands.
“I’ve looked everywhere. She just…disappeared.”
Cory looked up as Kyle walked to the water’s edge and yelled out. “Hey! Hey!” He didn’t know her name because Cory had never used it out loud before. Kyle’s voice reverberated over the water once, twice, three times.
Nothing happened.
The chaos settled around two panic-stricken boys until nothing was left but an eerie, black stillness.
“What should we do?”
For a long moment, Kyle didn’t move. Just stood rigid and unmoving, both feet now planted on the concrete ledge. Cory could see the war raging inside him from here. He was set to enter police academy on Monday, on the verge of a life dedicated to honor, integrity, and pursuit of truth.
And Cory needed him to lie. To cover up. To stay quiet. To break his pledge before he even had a chance to uphold it.
Finally, his brother turned around. Cory would never forget the angry look in his eyes.
“We should leave. Get your shoes and shirt and get in your car. Can you drive yourself home? Because leaving your car here isn’t an option.”
Cory nodded. Driving sounded torturous; the alternative sounded worse. He followed Kyle to the parking lot, his thoughts a jumbled mess of guilt.
Would he be in trouble? Would Kyle be in trouble? Would Nashville lose interest? Would Kyle get kicked out of school? Would they go to jail? Could they go to jail for something like this?
Definitely yes.
Definitely no.
Slowly a thought worked its way through his mind, chased by an oppressing amount of shame. It’s a funny thing, the dangerous cocktail of guilt and panic and disgrace. When mixed together, they always make room for rationalizing, and one of them always looks for a way out.
Cory looked behind him. Scanned the park. And slowly exhaled, feeling the erratic rate of his pulse gradually subside.
They were the only two people here.
In the solid hour he’d been here with Angela, the only thing he’d seen was a pinprick stream of a flashlight shining in the distance. But that was in the beginning. The light went out right away. He was sure of it.
He stood on shaky legs and brushed himself off, bits of grass and mud and sludge clinging to him like remorse in a wearable layer. Sand and grit packed tight under his fingernails. They hurt, but he didn’t try to dig any out. Sometimes physical discomfort serves as punishment, sometimes as a reminder.
His old Honda Civic seemed a million miles away as he walked toward it. He wore iron shoes, lead pants, a metal chain-link heart. With one last look over his shoulder, Cory climbed inside the car and started the engine, not even bothering to protect the seats from his wet body. A shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature worked its way up his spine, shaking him with a violence reserved for babies with horrible parents.
Babies.
He shook his head to clear it, then followed his brother as each drove east on autopilot. A tug of war ensued between remembering and forgetting…guilt and oppressive guilt…fault and mental death sentencing. Still, he drove, looking neither right nor left the entire way home. Angela’s image played through his mind—the drinking, the sad confession, the teasing sound of her voice when she asked him to swim. He could have stopped her. He was distracted by her nakedness. Hormones trumped logic and look what happened.
What kind of person was he?
Somehow he made it home and with Kyle’s help slipped inside the laundry room unnoticed. He peeled off his clothes and tossed them into the washing machine. His mother would question him in the morning; he’d never done a load of laundry in his life. Grabbing a fresh muscle tee and gym shorts, he balled them in a fist and tiptoed into the bathroom. The shock of the overhead lights stung his eyes, but not as much as the sight of himself. His face was streaked with dried tears, pond filth, and algae. Mud caked his hair, blood had dried in vein-like streaks down his right arm.
“Get in the shower, and scrub yourself completely clean. Under your fingernails, between your toes, all of it,” Kyle whispered. “Hurry up, but be thorough about it.”
Kyle exited the room, and after waiting a minute for the water to heat, Cory climbed into the shower to remove the evidence. He scrubbed his face and hair, stifling a scream when soap ran into the cut. The gash was deeper than he’d imagined, but he wouldn’t ask for stitches. Blood flowed from the wound again, but still he kept scrubbing. The mud, the scum, the filth slid down the drain; the memory didn’t go with them, not in the way he had hoped.
Cory flipped off the water and reached for a towel, taking another second to examine the cut. It dripped with blood, one drop landed on the floor. Pulling open a drawer, he peeled the backing off a large bandage and slapped it over the wound. Breathing a little easier, he walked to his bedroom and buried himself under his blankets.
By the next afternoon, the secret was out. The five o’clock news blew his cover, announcing that a teenage girl had drowned the night before in a local pond. Earlier that morning, her lifeless body was pulled from the water. Her parents were grief-stricken, yet no witnesses had come forward to assuage their sorrow. Alcohol was the main suspect of death. Drowning under the influence, it happened all the time.
By that night, Kyle was barely speaking to him.
Cory was bent over the sink, vomiting into the garbage disposal when his brother walked in and found him. Fitting. He’d disposed of everything else, at least this time things would be convenient.
“Get a hold of yourself. None of this ever happened, do you understand me?”
Cory nodded, quick and obedient.
“I’m going to be a freaking police officer, for God sakes. If this gets out…”
“It won’t,” Cory vowed.
And it didn’t.
Nothing was ever discovered. Nothing about their lives ever changed.
Except for their relationship.
One month after the accident and with permission from his parents, Cory stood in a tattoo parlor, choosing a large chain pattern that wrapped around his arm. The cut had healed, replaced by a jagged scar. The ink was a relief over a sin that needed camouflaging.
Six months later—two days after his eighteenth birthday—Cory left home. The decision was an easy one. The music world was calling.
He answered and never looked back.
But the fame thing only made it worse. While Kyle struggled as a single father to raise a daughter on an officer’s salary, Cory shot to stardom and never had to worry about anything. Not money, not women, not time.
It all came easy.
Everything but the self-respect.
That was as elusive as peace.
In the years since the accident, Cory had become quite skilled at burying the memories in that murky hometown pond.
If only they wouldn’t keeping coming back to life.