Who?I wanted to ask.
Who wasthey?
But I knew the answer without her explaining.
The police had found the Ford.
They’d found the Ford and Ro had been heading to the interstate and Mel was crying and I knew.
I knew what she wasn’t saying. I knew.
“He’s not with me,” I choked out, and Mel let out a guttural sound I had never heard before and hoped never to hear again.
“No, not my baby!” she was shouting. “Not my baby. No.”
It felt like claws digging into my chest, between my ribs, inside my lungs, hearing Mel like this. It felt like someone tearing the skin off my body, ripping it from the bone slowly. Agonizingly slowly.
Rowan.
That’s all I could think.
Rowan.
“Mel!” I shouted into the phone, but she sounded far away now, like she’d dropped it and was screaming from across the room.
“No, no, no, no,” she cried. She sounded like a wounded animal. She sounded ...
No.
Not Rowan.
No.Her refrain became mine now, too.
No, no, no, no.
I held the phone to my ear, hoping someone would pick it up and say something else to me. Hoping it would be Ro, saying he’d just walked in and I’d never believe the way Mel was behaving.
I waited and waited and waited, listening to Mel wailing for so long that she stopped sounding human. She stopped sounding real.
There were voices, people consoling her. But none of them was Rowan.
By then I had started to shake, because I knew.
I knew.
He was gone.
My best friend was gone.
Because of me.
Everything was because of me.
19
NOW
I call insick for everything I have on Saturday. I don’t go to Tennis Win or go to see Ernie.
