Page 32 of Demo
He gives me a grin. “She misses you. Wants you to come for dinner again.”
“Tell her I’ll come by soon.”
“Hey, I wanna come!” Dee chimes in again.
“You’re not invited!” Monty retorts.
“You are the literal worst,” she pouts at my side.
This is what I miss. This is what I don’t want Knox to steal from me. My ability to laugh and smile and still use the thing in my skull, despite this hole he bore into the thing in my chest.
The three of us find some garbage on Netflix to watch while we eat junk and open up the cheap wine. Kennedy stays locked in the bedroom, so Monty doesn’t have a canary over dog slobber getting on him.
And although I let Dee and Monty believe they have brought me out of my funk, I can’t help my mind from traveling back in time …
***
The accident Dee was referring to happened about six months ago, when Knox hit a young woman with his truck while she was crossing the street.
He told me he and a couple of coworkers went out after they had to shut down a site early that day due to an electrical short, and he offered to drive his friend Jenny home. They worked together for Knox’s dad for years. She was living with her boyfriend on the other side of the city and on this particular night, as I understand, she had way too much to drink—and was probably high off her ass—so Knox insisted on giving her a ride.
He told me he simply wasn’t paying attention when the woman darted across the street, and he struck her.
I was at home watchingBreaking Badwhen it happened. I remember getting a call from Monty, who had gotten a call from George at the office. A call for a 10-55 with a wounded pedestrian came over the radio, so George—who was the only one in the office at the time—grabbed a notebook and point-and-shoot camera and went to the scene. When he realized the amateur camera wasn’t going to get good nighttime shots, he called Monty to see if he could come out. As soon as Monty arrived, he recognized Knox and called me.
When I first pulled up to the scene, I remember thinking it didn’t look like anything terrible. Knox’s truck was in the proper lane, albeit a little crooked. The ambulance had already taken the victim away, so only police cars remained. But as I parked and walked around the side of Knox’s vehicle, I saw blood on the asphalt. Not far from it I saw Knox sitting on the curb. Elbows on his knees. Hands clasped and fingers entwined behind his head.
He couldn’t look up at me, but he knew I was there. I know he knew I was there.
I could see his back and torso heaving as he sobbed.
I wondered if the ambulance was from the same company Knox’s brother volunteered for, which I later learned it was, much to Knox’s horror.
Jenny had already been picked up by her boyfriend after giving a statement to the officers.
I sank down onto the curb to sit next to Knox, and I rested my hand on his back and my forehead on his shoulder, which made him shudder and sob even more. I just sat there with him. After a while I finally spoke up. “What do we know?” I asked softly.
Knox sniffed and wiped his nose and face on his shirt. “She’s hurt badly,” he said in a ragged voice. “She’s younger than us. She’s—”
And then he broke down into more tears. I pulled him into my arms as best I could as he cried. “God, Lizzie, I didn’t see her!” he shouted. “I didn’t see her!”
“I know,” I said around tears of my own. “I know.”
Eventually a police officer came over and told us we could go. After taking a breathalyzer test, Knox’s blood-alcohol content registered zero, which I thought was strange, since he had been out with friends. The officer said all he knew at that point was the girl was badly hurt, but her injuries appeared non-life threatening.
We went home. He showered. We laid in bed, silent and awake, until morning.
After a day or so I was able to learn from the police department the young woman suffered an injury to her spinal cord and was at least temporarily paralyzed. I dreaded telling Knox, and when I did, a part of him died right in front of me.
Knox has never spoken about what happened that night. Any time I have tried to get him to open up, I could see his pain and automatically backed off.
But he spoke to Jenny about it. I know he did. And I couldn’t be jealous about that because they shared the trauma from that experience, and I was actually glad he had someone he could talk to, even if I wished that person could be me.
But then he fucked her, and I couldn’t be OK with that.
Chapter 10
Ten years ago …
