Echo Bridge

Chapter 10

Ted drove like a maniac. I had never seen him so upset—he seemed almost scared. He was silent on the ride to the hospital. I focused on getting into character: the worried but supportive girlfriend. I groped for inspiration in my mental archives but found they'd been erased by fear. I couldn't give anything away, but I felt like there was no air in the car, my guilt filling it like gas. In the driver's seat, Ted's face was hard and grim. He stomped on the brakes for a red light, and they squealed as we lurched forward inside the Rover. Worried and supportive, I thought. I reached out and touched his right arm.

"Ted," I said softly. I had an irrational fear that he would shake me off, as if he might somehow know that I had had something to do with all of this.

Instead, he lifted his left hand from the wheel and covered mine with it. "I just don't understand what happened," he said. "Why would he get wasted at school? Why not wait until the afterparty?" Ted closed his eyes, shook his head, and squeezed my hand. "And what the hell is he on?"

"I don't know. Acid maybe?" I said. "Special K? That thing from the ABC Afterschool Special where Helen Hunt jumps out the window?"

"Jesus, Courtney, do you have to do your 'encyclopedia of American cinema' thing right now?" Ted dropped my hand in disgust and gunned the engine as the light turned green.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean... I mean, I don't know a lot about hard drugs, so I just..."

"I didn't mean to snap at you," Ted said more calmly, rubbing his forehead. "I'm just freaked out."

"I know. Me, too." I took his hand again.

It was easier than I thought it would be to act worried. Hugh would be fine—probably, anyway—but I was genuinely upset to see the pain this was causing Ted. I wished there were some way to show him what a monster his best friend was without breaking his heart. But I didn't know how to tell Ted, let alone make him believe, what Hugh had done to me, to Lexi, to Farah. At that moment, all I could think about was how he would hate himself when he found out the truth, for not seeing Hugh for what he was. If you found out your best friend, who'd always had your back, whom you'd spent every single day with for years, was a criminal—the sociopathic kind, not the pot-smoking kind—how could you not question yourself? What was wrong with you? Why didn't you see it? And what was it about you that had attracted such a person?

"This is just really bizarre," Ted said, hitting the gas to slide through a yellow light.

He gripped my hand as we walked through the automatic doors into the emergency room. Coach Jessup had ridden in the ambulance with Hugh, and when we saw him sitting next to a large potted plant (far less exotic or charming than the ferns in the conservatory we'd just left), I tensed up. Ted thought I was giving his hand a comforting squeeze and returned it. I swallowed hard; my mouth felt very dry. He's no different from any audience, I told myself.

"Coach." Ted dropped my hand put his out to shake Coach Jessup's. "What's the news?"

Coach Jessup was sitting in a molded plastic chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands folded in front of him. He'd probably been big and solid like Hugh, once, but now he was doughy and sagging and had an unfortunate comb-over. He studied Ted, glanced at me, and looked back at Ted. I could tell he was trying to gauge what to tell us. Ted wasn't on the hockey team, so he and Jessup didn't have much rapport, and I wasn't sure the coach even knew who I was.

"Hugh has been sedated," he finally said. "They're running tests. His parents and the headmaster are on their way."

"Can we see him?" Ted asked.

The automatic doors slid open behind us, and the Marsdens and Farnsworth burst through them. I drew a breath. I was afraid if anyone asked me directly what had happened, I might crack.