Ten Tiny Breaths (29 page)

I grit my teeth.

“What was Trent’s horrible, stupid,
life-altering mistake?” Dr. Stayner pushes.

“He drove home,” I grumble.

Another paperclip pelts my forehead as Dr.
Stayner shakes his head frantically, his voice raising a notch.
“No.”

“He gave his keys to his friend to drive
home.”

“Bingo! He made a choice—in his inebriated
state—a choice that he shouldn’t ever have made. A very bad and
very dangerous choice. And when he sobered up, he learned that that
choice killed six people.” There’s a long pause. “Put yourself in
his shoes for moment, Kacey.”

“I will not—”

Dr. Stayner anticipates and cuts my objection
off at the knee caps. “You’ve been drunk before, right?”

I purse my lips tightly.

“Haven’t you?”

A night flashes in my mind without much
thought. Six months before the accident, Jenny and I went to a
field party and got loaded off Jagger bombs. It was one of the most
fun nights I’d ever had. The next morning was another story.

“That’s right,” Dr. Stayner continues as if
he can read my mind. Maybe he can. Maybe he’s a super-freak quack.
“You probably did a few stupid things, said a few stupid
things.”

I nod begrudgingly.

“How drunk were you?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I was … drunk.”

“Yes, but how drunk?”

I level him with a glower. “What is wrong
with you?”

Again, he ignores me. “Would you have driven
home?”

“Uh, no?”

“And why not?”

“Because I was fifteen at the time, genius!”
My fingers are turning white now, gripping onto the chair handles
so tightly.

“Right,” he waves his hand dismissively. But
his point hasn’t been made apparently. “What about your friend?
Friends? Exactly how drunk were they?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Drunk.”

“Was it easy to tell? Was it so obvious that
they were drunk?”

I frown as I think back to Jenny dancing and
singing on top of a picnic table to Hannah Montana. How drunk was
she exactly, I have no clue. Jenny would do that dead sober.
Finally I shrug, the memory bringing a painful lump to the back of
my throat.

“What if, at the end of the night, that
friend told you they had stopped drinking hours ago and could drive
home? Would you believe them?”

“No,” I answer quickly.

That finger goes up again, waggling. “Think
about that for a minute, now Kacey. We’ve all been there. Out for a
good night, had a few drinks. You know you can’t drive, but do you
automatically not trust anyone else? I’ve been there, myself.”

“Are you making excuses for drunk driving,
Dr. Stayner?”

He’s shaking his head furiously. “Absolutely
not, Kacey. There’s no excuse. Only terrible consequences that
people have to live with for the rest of their lives when they make
one stupid decision.”

We’re silent for a moment, the doctor no
doubt still waiting for my answer.

I look at my hands. “I guess that could
happen,” I begrudgingly admit.
Yeah
, thinking back, there
may have been one or two times that I climbed into a car, assuming
the driver was fine because they said so.

“Yes, it could.” Dr. Stayner nods knowingly.
“And it did happen. To Cole.”

My rage ignites suddenly. “What the hell are
you doing? Are you on his side?” I snap.

“I’m on no one’s side, Kacey.” His voice has
changed to even and calm once again. “When I hear your story—the
tragic
accident
—I can’t help but empathize with everyone
involved. You. Your family. The boys who died because they didn’t
do something as simple as buckle their seat belts. And Cole, the
guy who handed someone his keys. When I hear his story, I
feel—”

I storm out of Dr. Stayner’s office then,
with his shouts of, “Empathy!” following me all the way down the
hall, into my room, looking for ways to crawl into my soul and
torment me.

***

“How’s it going there?” I want to reach into
the phone and hug Livie. It’s been seven days and I miss her
terribly. I’ve never been away from her for this long. Even while I
was in the hospital after the crash, she visited me almost every
day.

“Dr. Stayner is definitely unconventional,” I
mutter.

“Why?”

I sigh, exasperated, and then tell her what I
know she doesn’t want to hear. “He’s a nut job, Livie! He yells, he
pushes, he tells me what to think. He’s everything that a shrink
isn’t supposed to be. I don’t know what quack school he went to,
but I can see why Trent came out of here more fucked up then he
went in.”

Trent. My stomach tightens.
Forget about
him, Kace. He’s gone. Dead to you
.

There’s a pause. “But is it working? Are you
going to get better?”

“I don’t know yet, Livie. I just don’t know
if anything will ever really get better.”

***

Jenny laughs hysterically as a car passes us
on the road. “Did you see the look on Raileigh’s face when I belted
out
Super Freak?
It was classic.”

I laugh along with her. “You sure you’re okay
to drive?” After I jumped off the hood of George’s truck and
tackled one of Billy’s friends to the ground, I knew there was no
way I was in any state to get behind the wheel so I gave her my
keys.

She waves her hand dismissively. “Oh, yeah. I
stopped drinking, like,
hours
ago! I’m—”

A bright flash of lights distracts us both.
They’re headlights and they’re close. Too close.

My body jerks as Dad’s Audi crashes into
something, my seatbelt cutting into my neck from the force as a
deafening sound explodes in the air. In seconds it’s over and
there’s nothing left but silence and a strange eerie feeling, like
all my senses are both paralyzed and working in overdrive.

“What happened?”

Nothing. No answer.

“Jenny?” I look to my side. It’s dark now,
but I can see enough to know she’s not sitting behind the wheel
anymore. And I know we’re in trouble. “Jenny?” I call again, my
voice shaky. I manage to unbuckle my seatbelt and open my car door.
There’s that saying, scared sober. I know that’s what I am now as
walk around the front of the car, keenly aware of the engine’s
hiss, and the smoke rising from the mangled hood. It’s totaled. My
hands push through my hair as panic rises inside me. “Ohmigod,
Dad’s going to—”

A pair of sandals on the ground stop me
dead.

Jenny’s sandals.

“Jenny!” I scream, scrambling over to the
patch of grass where she’s lying face down, unmoving. “Jenny!” I
shake her. She doesn’t respond.

I need to get help. I need to find my phone.
I need to …

It’s then that I notice another hunk of
metal.

Another car.

It’s in far worse shape than the Audi.

My stomach sinks. I can faintly make out the
outline of people in it. I stand and start waving my arms around
frantically, without thought. “Help!” I scream. There’s no point.
We’re on a dark wooded road in the middle of nowhere.

Finally giving up, I creep over to the car,
my heart pounding in my ears. “Hello?” I whisper. I don’t know if
I’m more terrified to hear something or nothing at all.

I get no answer.

I lean in and squint, trying to get a glimpse
through the broken glass. I can’t see … it’s too dark …

Snap. Snap. Snap
… Like stage lights,
suddenly a rush of light pours down over the area, illuminating the
horrific scene within. An older couple sits hunched over in the
front seat and I have to look away, the mess of bloody flesh too
gruesome to handle.

It’s too late for them. I just know it.

But there’s someone in the back too. I rush
over and peer in to see a broken body with raven dark hair cradled
in the contorted door.

“Ohmigod.” I gasp, my knees buckling.

It’s Livie.

Why the hell is she in this car?

“Kacey.” Icy cold fingers grip my heart at
the sound of my name. I peer further in and find a tall dark form
sitting next to her. Trent. He’s hurt. Bad. But he’s awake and he’s
looking at me with an intense stare.

“You murdered my parents, Kacey. You’re a
murderer.”

The night nurse, Sara, rushes into my room
just as I’m coming to, screaming at the top of my lungs. “It’s
okay, Kacey. Shh, it’s okay.” She rubs my back in slow circular
motions as a cold sweat breaks out over my body. She continues to
do so, even as I curl up in the fetal position, hugging my knees to
my chest tightly. “That one was unusually bad, Kacey.” She’s been
in here a few times already, during my night time episodes. “What
was it about?” I notice she doesn’t ask me if I want to talk about
it. She assumes I need to, whether I want to or not. That’s the
thing about this place. All they want you to do is talk. And all I
want to do is stay quiet.

“Hmm, Kacey?”

I swallow the prickly lump in my throat.
“Empathy.”

***

“So maybe you’re right.”

Dr. Stayner’s brow curves up in question. “Is
this about the dream you had last night?”

My scowl tells him it is.

“Yes, Sara told me. She wanted me to know in
case there were any concerns. That’s her job. She didn’t betray
you.” He says it like it’s a line he’s said time and time again.
“What happened exactly?”

For whatever reason, I tell him the entire
nightmare, from beginning to end, shivers running over my body as I
relive it.

“And what made it so horrible?”

I cock my head and glare at the doctor.
Clearly he hasn’t been listening to me. “What do you mean? Everyone
was dead. Jenny was dead, Trent’s parents were dead. I killed
Livie. It was just … so awful!”

“You killed Livie?”

“Well, yes. It’s my fault.”

“Hmm …” he nods, giving nothing away. “How
did you feel when you saw Jenny lying there, dead?”

My hands press against my belly button with
the thought.

“So you mourned her,” he answered for me.

“Of course I did. She was dead. I’m not a
sociopath.”

“But she was driving the car that crashed
into Trent’s family. Into Livie. How can you possibly mourn
her?”

I’m rambling faster than I’m thinking.
“Because it’s Jenny. She’d never want to hurt anyone. She didn’t do
it on purpose—” I stop short and glare at him, clueing in. “Sasha
is not Jenny. I see what you’re doing.”

“And what is that?”

“You’re trying to make me see Sasha and Trent
as people who laugh and cry and have families.”

His know-it-all brows rise.

“It’s not the same! I hate them! I hate
Trent! He’s a murderer!”

Dr. Stayner leaps out of his chair and runs
over to his book shelf, pulling off the biggest dictionary I’ve
ever seen. He storms over and throws it into my lap. “There. Look
up the word,
murderer,
Kacey. Do it! Look it up!” He doesn’t
wait for me to, likely feeling his asinine point made. “You’re not
a stupid girl, Kacey. You can hide behind that word, or you accept
it for what it is. Trent is not a murderer, and you don’t hate him.
You know both are true, so stop lying to me and, more importantly,
stop lying to yourself.”

“Yes I do hate him,” I spit back, my voice
losing some of its strength.

I hate Dr. Stayner right now.

I hate him because in the back of my mind, I
know he’s right.

Dr. Stayner leads me into a small white room with a
window overlooking another small white room. “Is this a one-way
mirror?” I knock on it.

“Yes, it is, Kacey. Sit down.”

“Okay, Dr. Dictator,” I grumble, flopping
into the pro-offered chair.

“Thank you, Patient Pain in the Ass.”

I smirk. Sometimes Dr. Stayner’s
unconventional methods make this less painful. Mostly not, but
sometimes.

“What punishment do you have in store for me
today?” I throw back nonchalantly as the door pushes open. My body
goes rigid and I suck in a mouthful of air when I see the face
walking through.

It’s Trent.

Cole.

Trent.

Fuck.

It’s been weeks since I saw him last. With
that light brown messy hair of his, striding in with those long,
lean muscles, he’s as beautiful as ever. That much I have to admit.
And I hate admitting it. Except now I see no smile on his face. No
dimples. Nothing that resembles the charming guy I fell in love
with.

In love with. I clench my teeth to fight the
ache that comes with that recognition.

He takes the chair positioned directly in
front of me. I don’t even need to know Trent to read the raw agony
alive in his eyes. But because I do know him, or some slice of him,
that pain screams out to me.

And it’s intolerable. Instinctively, I want
to reach out and take it away.

Dr. Stayner’s hands push down on my shoulders
a second before I bolt out of the room. “He can’t see you, Kacey.
He can’t hear you.”

“What’s he doing here?” I whisper, my voice
shaky. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“You keep saying you hate Trent and we both
know you don’t. He’s here so you’ll admit that to yourself once and
for all and move on. There’s no room in your recovery to hang onto
the idea of hatred.”

I can’t pry my eyes away from Trent, even as
I deny Dr. Stayner’s words. “You are one fucked up, twisted
doc—”

Dr. Stayner cuts me off. “You know that he’s
also my patient, Kacey. And he needs as much help as you do. He
also suffers from P.T.S.D. He also deluded himself into thinking he
could bury his pain instead of dealing with it appropriately. He
just did it in a less conventional way. We won’t talk about that
now.” I flinch as he pats my shoulder. “Today, I’m cheating a
little. This is a two for one session.”

“I knew it.” I shoot an accusatory finger up
at him.

Dr. Stayner smiles as if my reaction is
funny. I don’t find any of this funny. I wonder what the medical
board will think of this when I report him.