The In Between

Chapter 38

Tara

At three-fifteen when my last class gets out, I hurry down the stairs, hoping to leave without notice, but Gabby is lingering out front, waiting for me. I know she wants to continue our rapprochement, cementing it with a ritual hour or two spent sitting cross-legged on her bedroom floor, talking about colleges and celeb break-ups and the inherent evil of Amanda Sykes. It would be comforting, our shorthand finely honed over the years, our likes and dislikes well-known, but I don't have the energy to go through the motions today, and they pale beside what I have to do. I have someplace I have to go—alone. I can't get there fast enough. 

"I have too much homework," I tell Gabby when she falls in step beside me and suggests we hang out for the afternoon. I roll my eyes, faking disparagement at the annoying ways of teachers.

"No problem," Gabby says, trying to hide her disappointment.

"My mom is totally on my case. Mrs. Benson wants to see me tomorrow during my free period to go over my essay, which I haven't even started, and I'm way lost in physics," I continue. I happen to be one of the world's worst liars. I can't seem to stop myself from prattling on like a lunatic. The truth is, for the first time in my life, I couldn't care less about homework or tests or grades. 

"Got it."

"I'll call you tonight," I promise.

We walk a few blocks together and then Gabby turns left on Henderson Street. I keep going straight—as if I'm headed home. But as soon as I'm sure she is well on her way, I double back and walk quickly down Jackson Avenue to Route 10A.

I have avoided this street since the accident, and though my mom hasn't said so, I know she has avoided it as well, taking alternative routes when she drives me to school.  Even Luke has gone out of his way to find another way to go—though I suspect he doesn't mind that it takes us a few minutes longer to get there.

It's a clear, cold afternoon and I walk hurriedly, trying not to lick my dried out lips, a habit I've been unable to break despite years of trying. I keep forgetting to put balm in my bag and my lips are so chapped that they are beginning to split. In a weird way, it doesn't even bother me. The slight pain, the annoyance, is at least something tangible to focus on. 

I have to get there. I have to get there now.

I don't know why it didn't occur to me before.

With every step that I get closer to the turn in the road, that night comes back to me more vividly—the torrential rain, the blackness outside the smeary car window, the feel of Justin's thigh, a heated line touching mine, his deep voice resonating in the cocoon of the front seat, that all-too-brief pocket of time when I felt truly, blessedly safe and loved and happy—just before everything is shattered.

I remember seeing the car—too late. I remember Justin's arm reaching across my waist to protect me as the car swerved out of control. I remember the slow motion feeling of flipping over. 

And then nothing

The rest is gone, a gaping bottomless hole in my memory. I can't summon up a single thing until I woke up in the hospital. Even the first few hours there come back to me only in fragments. The blinding whiteness of the walls, the harshness of the lights. Justin's jacket on the green hospital chair. My mother's distraught eyes. The news that tore my world in two—before and after. Then and now.

The doctor says my type of short-term amnesia is common with a concussion, but it plagues at me more and more. A piece is missing. The piece that changed everything—the moment Justin was taken from me.