Page 45 of What You Left Me

21

The parking lot is full. Spencer’s 2002 Dodge Caravan sits a little crooked from a hurried park job. White with black detailing, like a color-inverted orca, the White Whale calls him over, oval headlights keeping constant eye contact.Why aren’t the eyes of a killer whale where they look like they should be?Spencer wonders to himself. Then he laughs.

It doesn’t matter. Everything is perfect. He is free.

He climbs into the driver’s seat. Fly gets in on the passenger side. The two amigos are supposed to be on a joy ride inside the White Whale, just like they’ve been doing since the end of sophomore year when the driving gods finally let Spencer pass the driving test, and he talked his dad into letting him inherit this beautiful beast, which had been rusting in their driveway since his mother’s death.

But Fly isn’t having it. “Spits, come on,” he says. “We don’t have to do this.”

Spencer ignores him. He takes two travel-size bottles of whiskey out from his glove compartment. He bought them with his fake ID a few hours ago, making him late to his own graduation. The guy at the liquor store didn’t even pretend to care that he was supposed to be a twenty-nine-year-old Floridian named Josh. He passes one to Fly and takes the other for himself.

Spencer chugs his back in less than four seconds: a new record. His tiny bottle clanks against the black tar of the parking lot as he tosses it out the window. He’s never done this before. Left evidence on school property.

It doesn’t matter now. Everything is perfect. He is free.

“Spitty, listen,” Fly says. His voice cracks under the pressure of his own intensity. “I’m trying to wake up. You can’t keep bringing me here. When that car hits me over and over,I feel it.” He throws his full whiskey bottle out the window. “This is all a dream, Spits. Think of something else. Think of us in Chris’s kitchen trying to teach his grandparents how to use Snapchat or something.”

Spencer revs up his engine and throws the gear into drive.

He’s got the windows down. No music. No need. The sound of high school ending is the best sound in the entire world. There are no other cars on the roads around the school, so Spencer presses down on the gas pedal. He looks over, disappointed to see that Fly doesn’t have his hand out the window. He’s not wiggling his fingers around to grab the niceness, as if it can be held. He’s not saying, “By the way, that girl’s coming tonight.” He’s not doing what he’s supposed to do.

“You’re really missing the point,” Spencer tells him. “Don’t you know I was joking when I threw that paper airplane? You didn’t actually have to ask that girl to come. Will you ever learn to take a goddamn joke?” Spencer presses harder on the gas pedal. The adrenaline will wake Fly up. Make him remember that it doesn’t matter. Everything is perfect. They are free.

“You don’t mean that,” Fly says.

“Oh really?” Spencer answers. “And how do you know?”

There’s a small black blur behind Fly. Spencer thinks it’s a bug. Maybe it’s a bird. It could be a car.

A car.

It’s a car.

Spencer can’t get his mouth to catch up to his mind. The words, “Fly! Look out! Look out!” come out eventually, but it’s far too little and way too late. His foot jumps over to the brakes on instinct, every ounce of energy inside his wormy body channeled into his right foot.

The car smashes into the passenger side. Into Fly. Forward and sideways forces combine to slam Spencer into his airbag and door. His head collides with the heavy pillow of the bag and the glass of the window, breaking his nose and jumbling his brain. He can find only one thought.I killed my best friend.

Crash. Smack. I killed my best friend.

Crash. Smack. I killed my best friend.

Spencer’s head hits the airbag over and over, the point of impact replaying on a constant loop.

22

Again and again and again and again, the other car devours my arm and my leg. Smushes my guts. Pulverizes my lungs. Shatters my body and rearranges the pieces into something unrecognizable. Every time my bones get crushed, the shock of the pain doesn’t shut me down. Wanting to stop Spitty’s dream becomes the only thing strong enough—real enough—to keep me from surrendering to the hurt.

Still, crash after crash, I can’t change a thing. It’s like his dream and his memory are welded together into something more powerful than I know how to handle.

• • •

The lights in the hospital cafeteria are so unforgiving that every dark circle and blemish seems to be not only obvious, but accentuated. It doesn’t help that everyone’s already wearing sour looks. Spencer’s breakdown cast a fog over us, made worse by lack of good sleep.

We carry our trays of food and find a table. It isn’t difficult—the hospital’s not very busy and the cafeteria has just opened for the day—but still we choose a corner, as if the lights will be kinder to us there.

“I’m absolutely starving,” Brooke announces, trying to kick-start a conversation.

“Me too,” I say, both because its true and I don’t want to leave her hanging.