Cracked Up To Be

I wasn't holding the leash tightly enough.



"Don't," I tell him. "You're fine. I'll get someone. I'll--"



I stand. I don't have a lot of time. I need--



Chris. Chris can fix this; he's rich.



I run to his house and pound on the door and ring the bell at the same time and it seems like hours before the door actually opens and there he is.



Chris.



"What the fuck--" He stops, his eyes traveling from my face to my hands to my shirt. The parts of me that are red. "Parker, what happened?"



"My dog got hit by a car. I don't know what to do."



He stares at me uncomprehendingly and then Jake appears behind him and gives me this surprised look and Bailey is dying.



"What's going on?" Jake asks.



I don't have time for this. I'm wasting time. I run back down the driveway and they both follow after me, calling my name.



But they quiet when Bailey comes into view.



"Oh God," Chris mutters.



My pulse is in my ears, loud and insistent.



When we get to Bailey, he's still.



"I'm so sorry, Parker," Jake says.



For a second, I think my heart is going to explode.



But then the feeling goes away.



"This engine backfired or something; it really scared him." I stare at Bailey's body. It doesn't even look real. "I wasn't holding the leash tightly enough."



"Did you see who did it?" Jake asks.



"No--I thought there'd be time to do something for him," I say stupidly. I wish his eyes would close. Bailey's. "Sorry for dragging you out..."



"It's okay," Chris says.



"No, it's not. I should really go."



I stand and start heading down the street without looking back at either of them. I want to get far away from Bailey's body. Take a shower. Get his blood off of me. I pull at my shirt. Off of me.



"Parker, where are you going?"



I stop and turn. I hear the question, but...



"Your house is that way." Chris points in the opposite direction.



"I'll get there eventually."



"Why don't you come inside and I'll make tea or something."



"No thanks."



"I know you," he says. "You won't go home." "I can't go home."



"You can stay at my place tonight."



No.



"You have that car show."



"Forget it," Jake says.



Chris holds out his hand.



"Come on."



"I wasn't holding the leash tightly enough."



I don't know why I say it again. They look at me funny. And then Chris takes me by the elbow and the three of us walk up to his house.



I can't feel my feet.



I can't feel my feet and the night has all caught up with me, but I soldier on. The farther I get from the house, the louder the music sounds. A heavy bass line and an earsplitting drumbeat winds its way into the woods from Chris's open bedroom window. And then there's the splashing sounds from the pool and everyone's laughing and talking and shrieking and having a good time.



Because Chris's parties are the best except when they're not.



Twenty-five steps into the woods, I think about lying down or turning back. I can't feel my feet, I can't feel my legs, anything, and my head is barely attached to my neck, but I've got to fix this because I'm supposed to be better than this and what if everyone finds out I'm not.



A few more steps. I hear something and I stop.



"Go to the guest room, take a shower and grab a nightshirt. You know where everything is," Chris says, closing the door behind us. "Come down and we'll have... tea."



"Tea," I repeat faintly. "Do you even know how to make tea?"



"It can't be that hard," he says, heading for the kitchen.



I go upstairs. I sit on the bed in the guest room. I don't even feel like showering anymore. I just want to sit here with Bailey's blood on me while he's splayed out on the middle of the road.



He can't stay there forever.



After a while, I tiptoe down the hall to Chris's parents' bedroom, steal into their bathroom and turn on the light. I stare at myself in the mirrored cabinet. I look really bad. I open the cabinet and stare at the prescription bottles inside.



Chris's mom was a desperate housewife before it was cool.



I grab the bottle of pills that make you happy and let you go to sleep, open it up and empty them beside the sink. I start counting them out, and when I've done that I arrange them in neat rows of six.



I can make out two shapes in the darkness, on the ground. On a bed of pine needles. My heart sinks. I inch forward quietly and hold my breath. If she's fucked him, this is--this is harder to fix. Jessie's fucking him.



"What are you doing?"



My hand jerks into the rows of pills and some of them scatter into the sink. I scramble to prevent as many of them from going down the drain as I can, but it's futile, they all go, and anyway, it doesn't matter.



I start putting what's left of them back.



"Why don't you tell me what you think I'm doing?" I ask.



"I don't even want to say it." I rub my hands on my shirt.



"I just wanted one to sleep. Your mom has the good stuff."



"A whole bottle is hardly one."



"I wanted to pick the right one."



"Oh, duh. I should have known."



"I--" I force myself to look Chris in the eyes. "I have to take that shower."



"Fine. But if it takes longer than ten minutes I'm coming back up to get you."



I take the shower, but I make sure it's a long one just to see if he'll come in. He doesn't, like I knew he wouldn't. Because the air is different now. I'm far away from the pills and they're far away from me, but Bailey's still out on the road, dead, not far away at all, and he can't stay there forever.



I come out of the bathroom and change into one of the nightshirts they leave for the guests and wrap myself up in one of the guest housecoats.



And then I put on my best face and head downstairs.



"--But we have to move him," Jake's saying. "Should we get Parker?"



"She's upset. We could do it for her," Chris says. Pause. "I don't know. Maybe she wants to be there for it. Maybe we should get her."



Silence.



"Well, which is it?"



"I don't know," Chris says again. "I hate this."



It gets heavy quiet. I sneak out the back door, putting as much distance as possible between me and the house. I thought I knew why I was coming out here, but now, between the road and woods, I'm not so sure.



I head for the woods.



It's extremely quiet. No matter how close I get to all the trees, even memories of sound are hushed by the death out on the street.



And then I'm in the woods. In them. Just far enough in.



I get down on my hands and knees and start brushing pine needles aside. Maybe the bracelet will show up again. Maybe I'm supposed to lose it every so often and then I'm supposed to find it again and Bailey was supposed to die because it's here for me, like it was before. And then I can wear it around my wrist, for both of them--



Bailey.



I can't do this. What am I doing?



I leave the woods and make my way to the road, to do what I should've done in the first place. He's still there, all broken and stiff, and I think I hate him for it. I kneel in front of his body and rest my hand on his chest, hoping for a heartbeat even though I know there won't be one.



Or maybe...



I rest my head against his chest and listen. His fur is scratchy and unpleasant against my skin, not soft like it was, the blood on it caked and flaking.



I close my eyes and I really listen.



Come on, Bailey, you stupid dog.



Come on.



Please. "Parker?"



It's Jake.



"My dog's dead," I say. He kneels beside me, but he doesn't say anything, so I keep talking. "I knew this would happen."



"You couldn't have predicted that car."



"Yeah, I could have," I say. "Because that's what I do to people. And now dogs. I just fuck them up. And it's always spectacular how I do it, too. But--maybe not before. I wouldn't have predicted it before. But now I can."



He stares at me, concerned. I feel off my head.



"What do you mean?" he asks.



"Before I thought I was above letting these kinds of things happen, but now I know that's not the truth. Now it's just a matter of time before they do. And I knew if Bailey--" I gaze at my dog's prone form. He was my dog. "I knew it would end like this. And here we are."



"Here we are."



"It shouldn't upset me that you guys are done with me," I say. "Because that's what I want."



"Really," Jake says. "That's what you want?"



"Yeah. I just forget it sometimes, I guess. I don't know."



"You don't know?"



"You're echoing everything I say." I meet his eyes and I can't believe how it wasn't that long ago he was just this new kid and I kind of scared him and somewhere along the way I got lazy and let him get close, so I guess that means he'll get hit by a car or something, too. "I like certain things a certain way or it's not right. But I've been forgetting."



"I'm sorry," he says.



"But he was a good dog," I say after a minute, running my hand over Bailey's head, the way he liked it when he was alive. Alive. I swallow. "And I have to move him. I can't leave him here."



"Parker, I can..." He hesitates. "Do you need help?"



My answer gets stuck in my throat and stays there, never passing my lips.



It doesn't matter.



Together, we move Bailey off the road.



TWENTY



Mom decides we should bury Bailey under the maple tree in the backyard. She asked me what I thought about it and I said I didn't care, but she just kept at it and kept at it and I just wanted her to shut up, so in the end I had to remind her about the time I told her I couldn't have cared less if Bailey died, and it worked. She shut up.