Page 7 of Find My Way Down to You

“You” scrapes out of my tight throat.

He’s frozen, startled. The alley’s shadows crawl hungrily toward him.

“What—”

The word hasn’t even skimmed my lips before Cary’s gone. Like a ghost.

“—the fuck,” I finish while staring at the spot where Caryshould be.

But he’s not.

My gaze roams past the dumpster. There’s a boot on the ground. Cinderella’s forgotten shoe.

Cold sweat snakes down the back of my neck. I struggle to walk on steady legs. My shallow breaths fight for a consistent rhythm. All the effort is useless after I step around the puddle.

What I find makes me jump:

Lifeless eyes stare back at me. Blue and dull as old denim. A mouth cracked open as if it struggled for a last breath. Or tried to shout for help. The body is propped against the brick wall like a discarded marionette.

This isn’t a random stranger lying dead in an alley.

It’s…Hal.

2

Hal’s corpse isn’tthe first I’ve seen up close.

The memory always starts like this:

The sharp scent of antiseptics burns the inside of my nose. Thick, salty tears fill my throat. Underneath my fingertips, there’s no pulse. Only ice-cold skin. He lies motionless on the table.

Dead.

His body is spared the cuts I suffered. The scars that took months to fade. But a river of dried blood snakes from his temple to his collarbone.

Traumatic brain injury, the doctors whisper. Their voices are like thin breezes. Nearly silent compared to the ache thundering in me.

Helpless, I stare at him. Blue lips that once held contagious smiles. Sunlit tan skin now pale as milk. His eyes are shut, butI remember how green they were, like aloe. Under the LED panel lights, shards of glass glitter in his wavy brown hair.

He was smart. Funny. He stole attention from every room. He held me like nothing could rip us apart. He was everything.

He was…mine.

And in the flash of a traffic light changing. The press of my foot against the accelerator. In a blink, the suddenness of another car smashing into ours, London Sanders became awasinstead of anis.

Outside the hospital room, my parents wait with his. They give me a moment, for a goodbye. But my splintered voice can only say this:

I’m so sorry.

Over and over.

Those words change nothing. They don’t silence the howlingly loud guilt inside me. They don’t bring him back.

I was sixteen when I stood over my first dead body.

I’m eighteen when a detective questions me about the second one.

“Mr.Clarke?”