One Moment (14 page)

“Do the cops think I’m faking or something?”

Dr. Guest’s eyes pulled tight. But it was only for a second. And then she picked up her pen. “Why would you ask that?”

I shrugged. “They’re calling this an official investigation. Questioning all of us. Searching through Joey’s private stuff. And they sent me here to be evaluated. I just wondered, is all.”

“Now is not the time to worry about any of that.” Dr. Guest scratched something on the page of her notebook without looking down. “Today, let’s just get comfortable with each other.”

I sighed. Wove my fingers together and squeezed tight.

Dr. Guest straightened herself and looked me right in the eyes. “You said that you don’t want to be anywhere anymore. Does that mean that you’re thinking of hurting yourself?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. If only it were that easy. “No.”

“Good. That’s very good.” I heard the pen scratching on the paper again and opened my eyes. “Why don’t you tell me a little about Joey.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. But then the prickly feeling came back. The one that had been lurking beneath the surface of my skin since that day at the cliff. I closed my eyes for a beat, shoving that awful feeling away, and focused on Joey. My Joey.

“He was amazing,” I said. “Beautiful. And a little crazy.”

Dr. Guest grinned.

“He loved music, and his truck, and being outside. Oh, and baseball. But he could play any sport. He was a natural athlete. Actually, when I think about it, he was kind of a natural at everything. Life—it just seemed to come easy for Joey.”

As soon the words were out, I wanted to capture them. Shove them back inside. Because thinking about his life brought me right back around to his death.

“What, Maggie? What about saying those things made you catch yourself?”

“I think about it all the time,” I said, looking down at my hands again. “That day. Focusing on what I remember, trying to find the rest. But I don’t get anything new.”

“That’s very brave of you.” Dr. Guest sat back in her chair and nodded. “Many people in your situation would probably prefer to keep it all buried. But I believe that finding those memories and dealing with your emotions will help you move on more successfully. Facing what happened is the best way to keep this from weighing you down for the rest of your life.”

I squeezed my hands tighter. Looking down, I saw that my fingers were white. “Even if I remember everything, it’s going to weigh me down,” I said. “I feel like it’s pulling me under.”

“I’m on your side, Maggie.” Dr. Guest leaned forward again, wearing those pleading eyes. “I need you to trust me.”

And that was all it took.

Flip. Dip. Trip.

I was back on the cliff top. Looking into Joey’s eyes. There, right in front of me, I could see his freckled nose, the wisps of damp hair clinging to his forehead, the way his smile tilted to the left.

I wanted to reach out and grab him. But I blinked, and he was gone.

It was just Dr. Guest and me in the too-cool office with the whistling sound of the air-conditioning drowning out the heavy cadence of my breathing.

Dr. Guest stood and stepped around the table. She sat next to me slowly, as if I was a wild animal that she might scare off. “Maggie. Can you tell me what just happened?”

“I was back. At the cliff top.”

“And how were you feeling?”

“Scared. Terrified.”

“Of what?”

“Jumping. I’m afraid of heights. Like, pass-out afraid.”

“Okay. This is good, Maggie. What did you see? Hear? Smell? Tell me everything.”

“It was just a flash.” I blinked and saw him again.

“Can you try to describe what you saw?”

“Joey.” I could barely hear my own voice. Dr. Guest moved closer. She smelled like peaches. “Joey’s face. He was smiling.”

“Do you remember anything else? Even if it doesn’t seem to fit, did anything else come with that vision of Joey?”

I shook my head. But I was lying. I heard him loud and clear. His voice washed through me like a warm and tingly wave.

You trust me?
he’d asked.

I had.

Oh, I really always had.

10

All We Have in Common

“Have you heard about the cliff?” Shannon asked, rocking slowly back and forth on the recliner in her basement. “I saw on Facebook that a bunch of people went out there the other night, and—”

“I don’t want to talk about the cliff,” Adam said, leaning back on his bar stool, running his fingers along the stubble of his chin. I wondered when he’d shaved last. If he’d even bothered since the funeral, two weeks ago. The usual golden shimmers had turned a dark brown with the length. Somehow, in the last three weeks, he’d aged about ten years. I felt like I didn’t even know him anymore.

Shannon slid her legs down the front of the chair and leaned forward, looking right at Adam. “I was just going to say that people have been taking flowers and notes and stuff there. I saw a picture.”

“That’s kinda creepy,” Pete said.

“It’s nice, though.” I leaned back on the couch. “In a slightly creepy way.”

Pete sat on the floor in front of me, crossing his legs and pulling his dreads back with an elastic band. He tucked his caramel-colored acoustic guitar against his body, strumming his fingers slowly across the strings, spilling a calming melody into the air around us. “It doesn’t feel real yet. I half expect him to rush down the steps and laugh at us for being so freaked out.”

Tanna looked up from the vodka and Hawaiian Punch drinks she was mixing at the bar. “It’d be nice if this was just one of his pranks.”

“Can we
not
talk about Joey?” Adam asked. “For one freaking night?”

I stared at the looping strands of carpet, so soft on my bare feet that I felt like I could melt into the ground. Pressed myself farther into the back of the couch, gripping my hands in tight fists. I started counting: seconds without Joey, the ways Adam seemed to be changing, all the things Joey would never have the chance to do. I allowed the simple
one, two, three
to take over, to crowd out everything else.

“You okay, Adam?” Tanna asked as she rounded the corner of the bar holding two glasses filled with her special, pink-tinted drink. She crossed the room, handing one of the glasses to Shannon and the other to me, her hair spilling over her shoulder.

“I’d be better if we could just move on,” Adam snapped.

“I don’t get it,” Pete said. “You just want to erase him? Like he never existed?”

Adam snorted. “Something like that.”

“That’s cold, man.” Pete gripped the neck of his guitar, his fingers tight across the strings. “We’re talking about a guy who has been like a brother to you most of your life, you know?”

Adam looked at Pete, but didn’t say one word.

“This is the kid who traded his favorite baseball card to get you a video game for your birthday in sixth grade,” Pete said. “The same guy we’ve played basketball tourneys with every Friday during the summer since middle school. And let’s not forget Independence Day.”

“Aw, man,” Adam ran a hand through his hair and squeezed his eyes shut, “why the hell are you bringing that shit up?”

“Because, for some reason, it’s like you’ve forgotten who he is.”

“What’s so important about of the Fourth of July?” Shannon asked, looking from Pete to Adam. “Haven’t we spent all of those together since, like, birth or something?”

Adam and Pete exchanged a glance, and I thought I saw the shadow of a smile creep across Adam’s lips. Tanna slid a glass across the granite countertop into Adam’s open hand, the pinkish liquid sloshing over the side, and then grabbed the remaining two. She sipped one as she took the other to Pete and sat cross-legged next to him on the floor.

“I’m talking about a different kind of Independence Day,” Pete said. “It’s been our secret since the year we found the Jumping Hole.”

“Care to share?” Tanna asked, laughing. “I mean, you can’t just tease us with something like that.”

“You do the honors.” Pete tipped his head toward Adam.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Adam said with a shrug. He’d seemed to soften some with the memories Pete had brought up, and I hoped that our plan was working.

“Must’ve been kind of a big deal,” Tanna said. “I thought there were no secrets with us.”

Adam sighed and looked up, focusing on each of us before he spoke. When his eyes met mine, I felt something crack open in my chest, and the full weight of everything we’d lost hit me again. It happened like that—a song or a scent, the sad look in someone’s eyes—something simple and seemingly innocent brought the feelings rushing in, like that day at the cliff was happening all over again. Then the fear sliced through me, the terrible fear that nothing would ever be the same again. Not just with Joey, which had obviously changed forever, but with all of us.

I took a deep breath, focusing on Adam’s lips, waiting for his words to wash away the sting of my fear.

“We found the Jumping Hole that summer between seventh and eighth grades,” Adam said, his voice soft. “It was me, Pete, and Joey, remember? Being there, so far from everything, just gave us this sense of total freedom, so we decided to claim July thirteenth—the day of discovery—as
our
Independence Day.”

“There’s a tradition, too,” Pete said with a smirk, “but that’s top secret. We took an oath, swearing we’d never tell.”

Adam shook his head. “I don’t see why it matters now.”

“Don’t you get it?” Pete asked, leaning toward Adam. “It’s up to us to keep him alive.”

“I’m just not into it.” Adam shook his head. “I don’t think I can, bro.”

“Why?” I asked, anger flaring through every inch of me. I’d felt like we were getting somewhere, and then Adam trampled all of my hope in the same moment that he trashed Joey’s memory. “It’s not like he ever did anything to you.” My voice was cold, my words sharp.

“You’re right, Maggie,” Adam said. “He never did anything to me.”

“So why are you so pissed at—”

“This,” Adam said, hopping up from his bar stool and twirling a finger in the air, “was a bad idea. I’m gonna hit it.” He turned then, starting for the steps toward the main floor.

“Wait,” Tanna said, throwing a hand in the air. “Just sit, okay? We need to talk to you.”

Adam looked around the room. I wondered if he knew what was coming. That we’d planned tonight just so we could ask him about why he was suddenly too busy to hang out with us. That we weren’t going to let him go until he talked to us. That we were here trying to pull him back. And even though he’d pissed me off, even with all my fear that he’d push us even farther away, I still hoped he would actually let us in.

“You guys need to talk,” Adam said, sitting down again, placing his hand on the bar. “Talk. But do it fast, because I’m not hanging around for long.”

“Fine,” Pete said. “We’re worried. You seem so pissed off all the time. And you’re avoiding us.”

Adam took a swig from his glass. “I’m not avoiding you,” he said with a shrug. “I’m just doing my own thing.”

“It seems like a hell of a lot more than that,” I said. “You never return my calls.”

“Mine, either,” Tanna said.

“We’re a week into summer, and you haven’t even stopped by to play basketball in my driveway,” Pete said. “Doing stuff without him isn’t wrong, it’s a way to honor his memory.”

Shannon tucked herself into a ball on the recliner in the corner near the fireplace, rocking slowly back and forth. She sipped the pink drink and rested it on her knee. “I practically had to threaten you to come over tonight.”

“You, threaten me?” Adam took another gulp, leaving his glass almost empty. “That’s funny, Shan.”

Shannon looked up to the ceiling, scraping her nails down the legs of her blue striped pajama pants.

“Dude,” Pete said, strumming a few chords on the guitar. “Not cool. She’s trying to help.”

“I don’t know what the hell you guys want from me,” Adam said, tossing his hands in the air.

“We want to know what’s going on,” Tanna said. “Why you’re so angry. And why you’re acting like you hardly know us.”

“
We
are not
us
anymore,” Adam said. “It’s like all we have in common right now is the most fucked-up thing that’s ever happened in any of our lives.”

I couldn’t handle it, couldn’t keep quiet for one more second. Even though I didn’t know the specifics, everyone needed to understand that Adam’s issues were a lot more complicated than he was letting on.

“Tell them, Adam,” I said.

“What?” he asked, his eyes snapping to me.

“Tell them. Or I will.”

Adam took the final sip from his glass and plunked it down on the bar, shaking his head.

“Adam and Joey were fighting,” I said. “The night of Dutton’s party. And if he would just tell us about it, so we could all help him understand—”

“What will you help me understand?” Adam asked. “That Joey was all kinds of perfect and we should bow down to his memory? Well, Maggie, he wasn’t perfect. Truth is, he wasn’t even that—”

“Shut
up
, Adam!” Shannon jerked forward in her chair. “Stop trying to make it seem like Joey was the bad guy. I saw what happened at Dutton’s. And Joey did, too.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, looking from Shannon to Adam and back again. “Since this whole phone call thing came up, you’ve sworn you didn’t know why they were fighting.”

“Please, Maggie. Like you don’t know?” Shannon snorted and sat back in her chair, rocking back and forth with her movement.

“Wait,” I said, “what am I missing? I have to be missing something because I feel like I just slipped into an alternate universe.”

“I’m talking about
you two
,” Shannon said, pointing to me and then Adam. “The way you were dancing that night. Joey might have been across the yard, but he saw you. And from my perspective, it sure as hell looked like something sketchy was going on.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said. “You were dancing
with
us.”

“No,” Shannon said. “I definitely wasn’t.”

“Oh, my God,” I said. “I can’t believe this is—”