Friends Forever (21 page)

Feeling disoriented and confused, Izzie took a cab to Gabby’s apartment. She didn’t take the time to comb her hair or wash her face. All she could think about was Gabby. She rang the doorbell and expected to see Gabby open it and tell her it was a joke. But instead Billy answered, with a can of beer in his hand, and he looked nervous the minute he saw Izzie.

“What happened?”

She couldn’t find the words to say it to him, and she flew into his arms and held him. His arms went around her as he started to cry, and the beer was all over the floor in a pool around them.

“Oh no …,” he said. “Oh no … oh no …” It was all he could say as they both cried and stood there rocking back and forth. He had known the minute he saw Izzie’s face. And finally he asked her how. They were still standing in the doorway, and Izzie gently closed the door and led him to the couch. They both needed to sit down, and she felt like she was going to faint.

“A hit-and-run driver. He was drunk. Some kid from USC.” A wave of rage washed over Billy’s face, and then he dissolved in tears again, and they held each other and rocked back and forth some more. Sean called Izzie a little while later.

“Oh my God …” He was in tears, but all he could think about was Billy. “How is he?”

“Not good. I’m here at Gabby’s with him.” Just saying her name, a rock the size of a fist lodged in Izzie’s throat, and she couldn’t speak for a minute.

“I’m coming home on the red-eye tonight,” Sean told her.

“Okay.” She couldn’t think of anything to say to him. She felt as though they had all been dropped off a building together. She was glad he was coming home. “Did you call Andy?”

“I wanted to call you first. I’ll call him now. Are you okay?”

“No.”
Of course not
. She closed her eyes and clung to Billy, as much for him as for herself.

“Hang in. We’ll make it. We all have each other.” But they no longer had Gabby and never would again. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I want to go home tonight,” Billy said as soon as she hung up. He was crying like a baby.

“The Thomases are coming down tomorrow. Maybe we should wait.” He thought about it and nodded.

“Don’t leave,” he said to Izzie as she sat there with him.

“I won’t. I promise.” She couldn’t have anyway. She needed him just as much. His mother called him, frantic about him, but he wouldn’t talk to her, so Izzie did instead, and she said that she was with him. Marilyn was sobbing as much as Connie had been. It was a communal loss.

Billy slept in Gabby’s bed that night, the one he had shared with her, smelling her on the pillows. He opened the closets and inhaled the familiar perfume on her clothes. He howled like an animal as he held them, and slept with her nightgown wrapped around him, while Izzie slept on the couch.

Izzie and Billy were still wearing the clothes they’d worn at Gabby’s the night before when they met the Thomases at the police station. Judy was devastated and Adam was crying, and Michelle looked like she was in shock. They all were. And they were told that the drunk driver was still in jail.

“I hope he dies there,” Adam said.

They filled out the forms to transfer Gabby. They had already arranged with the funeral parlor in San Francisco to bring her home. They all went to the airport then. Billy and Izzie had packed nothing. All they wanted was to go home, and the five of them took a noon flight. The Thomases had arranged for a car to pick them up, and they dropped both young people at Billy’s house. Marilyn and Jack were waiting for them. Brian was at school, and Marilyn had thought to notify Atwood as well. She thought they’d want to know since Gabby had only graduated seven months before.

Billy folded into his mother’s arms just as he had when he was
a little boy. He stood there and sobbed, as Jack gently patted him, and they led him into the family room to sit down. He looked like an overgrown five-year-old, and not the championship quarterback he had become.

“How am I going to live without her?” he said to his mother. He had loved her since they were five, all his life. They all had. Izzie couldn’t imagine a world without her in it either. It was a devastating loss for them all. They sat and talked for a while, and finally Marilyn took him to his room and put him to bed, and then she looked at Izzie and hugged her.

“Thank you for being there for him.”

“I love him,” she said simply. And then Jack offered to drive her home. Izzie looked terrible, and he could see how she felt. She promised to come back later. Jack drove her to the house, and Jennifer was waiting for her there. She didn’t say a word, she’d been there for hours, knowing Izzie would come home, and she held her in her arms while Izzie cried. She felt like she was dying of a broken heart.

“I’m so sorry … I’m so sorry …,” Jennifer said again and again, and explained that her father had to be in court with a client, or he’d have been there too. Izzie was grateful that someone was home. She had never felt so alone in her life, as now without her best friend.

Jennifer ran a bath for her, and sat with her while Izzie talked about Gabby, how much she loved her and the things they’d done when they were little, the pranks they played at school. And then Jennifer made her lie down, but she couldn’t sleep. She got up and went into the kitchen, and they had something to eat. And then
Jennifer drove her back to Billy’s. Izzie hadn’t been to see Sean’s parents yet, and she wanted to, but she wanted to check on Billy again first. And when she walked in, Sean was there, and he pulled her into his arms and held her tight without saying a word.

“You’re okay, Iz.… You’re okay …,” he crooned at her, and she pulled away to look at him and shook her head.

“No, I’m not.” And he wasn’t either, but it was the best they could do. Billy was sleeping by then, and Sean went with her to see the Thomases, and then they went back to Sean’s house. They went up to his room and lay on his bed. He said that Andy was coming for one day for the funeral, but he couldn’t come for longer, he had exams. But he would be there.

“I’m worried about Billy,” Izzie said softly, as she lay next to Sean.

“I’m worried about all of us. I think our generation is cursed. All you ever read about are kids our age who are shot and killed, die in car wrecks, or kill themselves, or do drive-by shootings and kill fifty people. What’s wrong with us? Why does this shit happen?”

“I don’t know,” she said sadly. She’d never thought of it before, but there was something to what he said. They were a generation at risk, in a very high-stakes game.

T
he funeral was beautiful, with enormous white flowers everywhere. It almost looked like a wedding and was a little over the top, but somehow it seemed right for Gabby. The Atwood choir sang “Ave Maria” and “Amazing Grace,” and Izzie sat between Sean and Andy, with Jeff and Jennifer in the row behind them. Billy sat with Gabby’s parents and Michelle, crying like a child. They almost had to hold him up when the casket was carried out of the church. Jack went to walk beside him, as Billy walked out of the church with Michelle. Everyone knew it was a turning point in Billy’s life, and surely not a good one.

They all went to the Thomases’ afterward, along with hundreds of people. Everyone who had loved her was there, and Billy was visibly drunk an hour after he arrived. It upset everyone, but Marilyn would talk to him later. Marilyn and Jack took him home and put him to bed. It had all been too much for him. He’d been talking all day about dropping out of USC and forgetting football. Jack had called the coach and explained the situation. They were going
to give him compassionate leave for as long as he needed, and it looked like it might be a long time, but it was too soon to tell.

Sean and Izzie sat in the Thomases’ garden with Andy. It was chilly, but they wanted to be out of the crowd. Andy was taking the red-eye back to Boston that night.

“I just can’t believe this,” he said, looking stricken. “First your brother,” he said to Sean, “and now Gabby.” And they all knew that unlike Kevin, she had had no risk-taking behaviors—all she had done was step into the street to hail a cab.

“Where do we go from here?” Izzie said bleakly.

“Back to school, to our lives, to do it better, to live a life they’d be proud of,” Sean said. It sounded idealistic, but he believed it.

“What about us?” Izzie asked in a whisper. “What do we believe in now?”

“Ourselves, each other. The same things we’ve always believed in.” Izzie nodded, but she was no longer so sure. It had been a brutal blow to all of them. It was hard to go on after something like this.

“When are you going back?” Izzie asked Sean with worried eyes.

“In a few days. I want to hang around with Billy. I don’t think he’s going back to school for a while.”

“On the plane home, he said he wanted to drop out and give up football, that it has no meaning for him without her,” Izzie told him.

“Give him time,” Sean said quietly. “He’ll never totally recover from this, I suspect, but he’ll learn to live with it. Like my parents with Kevin. He can’t give up at nineteen.” But they knew he
wanted to right now. “We just need to keep him from going nuts.” And he was capable of it—they knew that too. His response to the funeral had been to get drunk immediately afterward, just as it had been after his mother got married. It was an easy way out, and one his father had taught him early on. Sean wanted to tell him it was not an option. He’d probably need to be reminded of it again, by all those who loved him. For a while, it would be an appealing anesthetic, but sooner or later he’d have to face life sober again, if he wanted to have a life.

Izzie and Sean stayed for the rest of the week and spent time with Billy, Michelle, and Gabby’s parents. Brian was with Michelle in all his spare time. Izzie and Sean tried to comfort everyone and finally each other. Every time she thought of it, Izzie realized that she’d never see Gabby again and couldn’t imagine life without her. It was a horrifying thought, and eventually she melted into Sean’s arms and just cried.

“I wish you weren’t leaving,” she said softly.

“I have to. I’ll come back soon. You could come to D.C. to visit me some weekend. You’d like it. It’s not a bad place.” But they were all busy with school, and their obligations. She realized she was going to have to babysit Billy a lot in the coming months if he went back to school, but she was willing to do it. And Sean said he’d come out and see him too.

Billy didn’t come back to L.A. for a month, and Izzie was busy with school then, but she checked on him constantly, called him several times a day, met him for dinner at her school cafeteria or his. She went for walks with him, forced him to do his homework and helped him with it, and put him to bed when he’d had too
much to drink. All they could hope was that he would find his way again, and finally by June, at the end of the school year, he felt a little better, and he went home. Izzie had gotten him through, and he was well aware that he couldn’t have done it without her. He told Sean she was a saint, and Sean repeated it to Izzie.

“Not exactly, but it’s nice of him to say.”

“I know better, of course, but I didn’t want to destroy his illusions. Mother Teresa you’re not. I remember the bottle of my parents’ wine you stole in Tahoe.”

“I paid you back for it!” she said, embarrassed. But at least he didn’t know she’d had a one-night stand with Andy. They didn’t refer to it anymore, and Izzie had heard from Andy a few months earlier that he had just met a girl he really liked, also in pre-med.

None of them had important plans for the summer, although Sean was working for his father again, and Izzie was planning to take a class at USF. They had promised to attend the sentencing of the drunk driver who had killed Gabby. They were all going to L.A. for that, and Judy had involved Mothers Against Drunk Driving to make sure that the “killer,” as she referred to him, would serve a maximum amount of time in prison. He had already pleaded guilty, and his lawyer had arranged a plea bargain with the DA. He was not supposed to do more than a year in prison, and five years on probation. The Thomases were outraged by how little time he was going to serve, and had sent a flood of letters to the judge. Representatives of MADD were going to be in court.

Izzie, Sean, Billy, and Andy flew down to L.A. together, and all the parents of the group went down as well. This time even Robert Weston, Andy’s father, went. They stayed at the Sunset Marquis in
West Hollywood, and they all arrived promptly in court the day of the sentencing. They sat quietly in the courtroom, waiting for the judge to walk in, and stood up when he arrived. The defendant walked in with his attorney and his parents moments later, and Izzie couldn’t stop staring at him. He looked fourteen, and was only eighteen years old. He didn’t look like a killer, but a child. And his mother was weeping silently as his father held her hand, right behind where their boy sat. As she looked at them, Izzie realized again how many lives had been destroyed by what he’d done, starting with his own, and then Gabby’s, and all their parents’, and Gabby’s friends’. It was tragic to watch.

The district attorney read off the charges, and the plea bargain that had been struck, with the conditions and length of sentence. James Stuart Edmondson had pleaded guilty to manslaughter and criminal negligence, and had expressed deep remorse to the probation department and the district attorney. The DA discussed the possibility of his going to rehab for a year instead, and the judge said it was out of the question. He had caused the death of an eighteen-year-old woman. The judge looked extremely stern and asked the defense lawyer and district attorney to approach the bench. They conferred for a moment, and the judge nodded. And then he asked if the victim’s family would like to make a statement.

With his own attorney at his side, Gabby’s father came forward, wearing a dark blue suit and a somber expression, while Judy cried openly, as did Michelle, and Billy looked so distraught that Sean and Izzie thought he was going to faint or attack someone.

Adam Thomas made an impassioned speech about his daughter,
how beautiful she was, how beloved, how successful, the future she had ahead of her. He held out a photograph of her that almost ripped Izzie’s heart out. And he even mentioned her relationship with Billy and the fact that they would have gotten married and had children. He mentioned everything that would never happen now because James Edmondson, who looked like a child himself, had gotten drunk and killed her. His attorney claimed that he hadn’t had a drink since, and it had been unfortunate freshman behavior that had turned to tragedy when he got behind the wheel of a car after drinking.