The In Between

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Tara

I made my mother go through it all: the accident, his injuries, every detail. She hated doing it, but the nurse in her took over. She gave me everything she knew. She wanted to make sure I knew that there was nothing I could have done to save him. The thing she doesn’t say is that what could have done was not get into the car. I should never have let us get in that car.

“Baby, he never made it out,” she said. “He died instantly.”

But somehow I have this perfect memory of him carrying me out of the car, stroking my hair and telling me that he loves me.

It took me days to even ask about the other car, the one that swerved into us. Mom says the driver is in a coma. It looks like an accident due to the rain, although the driver’s blood alcohol level did show that she had been drinking. It was below the legal limit, but not by much.

It’s the day of Justin’s funeral. A black dress I think he would like is hanging on my closet door. I’m doing my makeup from bed, using a small compact. I don’t have the strength to get up and walk to my dresser. As I apply gloss and shadow I imagine for a split second that I am getting ready for a date.

I have been curled up in a tight ball for so long my legs are numb. My left side, where I bruised my rib, throbs beneath the tightly wrapped ace bandage. I ignore it, probably putting on too much makeup too sloppily, but I don’t care. I don’t want to look like myself. I am ashamed.

I wish I were dead. 

I wish I had died with Justin. 

I bury my face deeper into the folds of Justin’s wool jacket, still slightly damp, either from that rain or from my tears. I’ve been sleeping with it ever since I caught sight of it in the hospital room. I inhale his smell lingering in the creases and under the collar. Another wave of pain crashes through me, taking my breath away as I sob his name over and over again into the wet wool.   

It is my fault. He didn’t want to drive in the rain; he wanted to wait. It is all my fault.  I did this. I killed him. The only boy I have ever loved and ever will love. I dig my nails into my skin in anger and pain and something far beyond despair, beyond life itself. Justin, I cry. Justin.

There’s a tight knot in my throat making it impossible to swallow. My lungs are filled with cement. There is no space for air.

Justin is gone. Just when we found each other. He is gone.

I won’t see him or touch him or talk to him or kiss him ever again.

He is gone.

I clutch his jacket so tightly my knuckles turn white—and then I clutch it tighter, crying his name into the folds.

This can’t be happening.

I don’t want to live without him. I won’t. I can’t. It’s not possible.

“Sweetie, are you sure don’t want something to eat?” Mom calls from outside my door.

I don’t answer. I can’t steady my breath or stop sobbing long enough to talk. There is nothing to say, anyway. I am never going to move from this bed again.

She pokes her head in and, seeing me on the bed, comes in and carefully sits beside me. I’m mad at her. I don’t tell her. But her rules and her routines were the reason I made us get in the car, even though we both knew that rain was dangerous. She was an accomplice. I was his murderer and she was my accomplice.