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I nearly ran him over?
“You didn’t get far. You were too drunk to back out of the driveway. You ended up in the neighbor’s yard. You crashed into a telephone pole. Luckily, no one was hurt.”
I exhale. I am pushing inside Dana’s mind, trying to find any of this.
“What we want to know, Dana, is why you would do such a thing. After what happened with Anthony, why would you do this?”
Anthony. That name is the fact that is too bright to hide. My body convulses in pain. Pain is all I can feel.
Anthony. My brother.
My dead brother.
My brother who died next to me.
My brother who died next to me, in the passenger seat.
Because I crashed.
Because I was drunk.
Because of me.
“Oh my God,” I cry out. “Oh my God.”
I am seeing him now. His bloody body. I am screaming.
“It’s okay,” Dr. P says. “It’s okay now.”
But it’s not.
It’s not.
Dr. P gives me something stronger than Tylenol. I try to resist, but it’s no use.
“I have to tell Rhiannon,” I say. I don’t mean to say it. It just comes out.
“Who’s Rhiannon?” Dr. P asks.
My eyelids close. I give in before she can get an answer.
It starts to come back to me while I’m asleep, and when I wake again, I remember more of it. Not the end—I genuinely can’t remember getting in the car, almost running over my father, hitting the telephone pole. I must have checked out by then. But before that, I can remember being at the party. Drinking anything anyone offered. Feeling better because of it. Feeling lighter. Flirting with Cameron. Drinking some more. Not thinking. After so much thinking, blocking it all out.
I’m like Dana’s parents, or Dr. P—I want to ask her why. Even from the inside, I can’t figure it out. Because the body can’t answer that.
My limbs are heavy, wooden. But I prop myself up. I edge myself out of bed. I need to find a computer or a phone.
When I get to the door, I find it’s locked. There should be a key that lets me out, but somebody’s taken it.
I’m trapped in my own room.
Now that they know I remember at least some of it, they are letting me stew in my own guilt.
And the worst part is: it’s working.
I am out of water. I call out that I need more water. Within a minute, my mother is at the door with a glass. She looks like she’s been crying. She is shattered. I have shattered my mother.
“Here,” she says.
