Collateral Damage

Chapter Thirty-One

We walked out of the house and went straight for John's car. The street was packed with visiting cars, but his was parked with enough space for a quick getaway. I snatched his keys before he had a chance to unlock it. "I'm driving," I insisted.

He didn't argue. He slumped into the passenger's seat, completely and utterly spent.

I put the keys in the ignition. The engine roared to life. And I couldn't zoom out of the subdivision fast enough.

I didn't know where to go. I could barely think; I could barely focus on the road. I was one panic attack away from getting us into an accident. All I could do was drive. John's song was incongruously stuck in my head, an earworm and a mantra: Ride, ride like the wind to be free again.

Jasmine sticking her head out the window, her hair flowing in the wind, screaming out into the night sky. The longing to just keep driving forever.

Tears pricked at my eyelids. We should have just kept driving that night. If only we'd known what would happen, we would have left Verndale right then and there.

Maybe we still could get away. If Bernadette could do it, so could we. We could get away. No more parents, fair-weather friends, useless cops, or self-righteous no-nothings. We could find someplace better...

It was a childish fantasy, no different than the magical bubble I thought I lived in before Bernadette. Bad things happened to anyone, anywhere. There was no escape. No matter how far I drove or where we ended up, it wouldn't be long before another tragedy reared its ugly head.

A car accident didn't seem so terrible after all.

Killing yourself won't solve anything, John once told me. Now the same boy that had gone so wild at the mere mention of suicide sat next to me, screamed sat in the car with a gaunt face and bleak eyes. The spark that inflamed him at the reception was burned out. There was no fight left. He looked as though he had given up on life, on everything. Just like Jasmine.

Ride, ride like the wind to be free again...

Oh God. I clutched the steering wheel for dear life. I couldn't have such dark thoughts. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want this horrible new life. I wanted my old one back, the one before that fucking party. I wanted to go back to the time when Matt loved me, Ana was reliable, and Kody was alive. I wanted that old feeling of contented comfort.

Which is why I wound up taking us to the park, my old hangout with Matt. We took Kody there almost every Saturday ever since the time we were kids. We spent hours there, throwing tennis balls or sticks at Kody, who romped around, marking his territory on every tree we could find. Matt once jokingly asked if we should carve our initials on one of them, and I refused. It was just too corny and cliché. It would have been pointless, anyway. We didn't need to draw a heart to mark our history; it was all there, lingered in the grass, the trees, the flowers, and in the very air we breathed. It was our place.

I hadn't been there since last spring. Now it was winter. The park was deserted, and beneath the snow, the grass was barren. The green, sunshine, and laughter were only memories.

We stayed inside, unwilling to step out in the fading afternoon. I turned out the heat, but nothing could keep the coldness away.

"I almost did it," came a hoarse whisper.

John had his back to me, his face pressed against the window glass. "The night Dad...the night the cops came...I almost did it then. When Frances finally admitted what she did...it was like I was trapped in a kaleidoscope. Everything around me was all color and noise. I couldn't see straight. Frances is crying, Jasmine was crying, the cops were talking, and I'm standing there, waiting for it all to make sense. One minute, I want to see Dad, tell him that I knew the truth and I'm sorry. Then I remember I can't because he's dead.