Page 37 of Paper Ghosts

She reached for the door handle, but Bailey was already jerking the car into reverse. She shifted into drive and sped out of the parking lot by the field, dirt spinning under her tires.

Tasha turned and watched the bonfire fade to a pinpoint in the dark countryside, a tiny hole into another universe. She immediately took out her phone to text her mother. She had no choice. There wasn’t anyone else Tasha could alert to the distinct possibility that Bailey Wester was actually kidnaping her from her own party.

But before she could pull up her mother’s name, she noticed a figure ahead of them emerge from the hill that sloped down to the creek. Bailey’s headlights hit him and he turned, placed his cigarette between his lips, then stuck out his thumb for a ride.

It was Clutch Vallow.

“You’re not going to stop for him, are you?” Tasha asked uneasily.

Bailey gunned the engine, which Tasha assumed meant she wasn’t. But then the car tires began to edge off the road, heading straight for him. And the closer they got, the less time they were going to have to miss him.

“Bailey?” she said as Bailey increased her speed. “Bailey! You’re going to hit him!” She dropped her phone and put her hands to the dashboard as if to brace for impact.

Clutch, walking backward, seemed to realize what was going to happen at the same time as Tasha. And he didn’t have many options. He ran backward for a few moments, a few moments too long. By the time he turned to run down the hill knotted with kudzu and blackberry vines, it was too late.

Tasha screamed when she felt the thud of Bailey’s front bumper hitting him, then the crash of his body taking out the side mirror next to her. She immediately twisted around, but didn’t see him in the road behind them. He’d been tossed down the bank.

Bailey continued toward the intersection with the rural highway, running the stop sign and taking the turn so quickly the tires squealed. Tasha kept begging her to stop, but she drove and drove until the darkness of the rural highway gave way to the streetlights in town. She finally swerved into the Methodist church parking lot.

Tasha opened the door, her hands trembling so badly it was like she was experiencing turbulence. Oh, God. Did that just happen? Was this real?

Anger had always smelled metallic to Tasha, like steel. But now that she was scared, too, the steel had an iciness to it, like a winter handrail. Smelling every strong emotion was bad enough when they came one at a time, but when they had layers like this, when she felt too much at once, it made her sick.

She grabbed her phone from the floorboard and darted out, calling her mother. She put the phone to her ear, doing a pirouette as she looked around for someone, anyone, to run to.

She finally turned back to the car. The overhead light had come on when Tasha had gotten out. Bailey was still sitting there, her hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles were turning white. Her blond hair was moving around her face like a mermaid underwater, and it took a moment to realize it was because Bailey’s entire body was shaking. She was crying. That’s when Tasha saw it. The cut on her forehead. The bruises forming on her face and neck.

And it all started to make sense.

Her mother answered and said over the noise of the party, “Tasha? Where are you, darling?”

Tasha slowly lowered the phone and disconnected the call.

She stared at Bailey for a long time. Her breath started to calm, no longer echoing in the empty parking lot. Now the only sound around them was dusty white summer moths flicking against the streetlamps.

Finally, her legs like putty, she walked back to Bailey’s car and got in, closing the door and waiting for the dash light to dim.

When it did, she whispered in the darkness, “What did he do to you?”

Bailey wiped under her eyes with her fingertips, then looked at her hands and rubbed them on her skirt to get rid of the mascara. She flipped down her visor and looked at herself, immediately scrubbing her cheeks to erase the mascara tracks. She was trying to compose herself, to find her way back. “Nothing,” she said as she flipped the visor back up. “I got away.” Then, in a quieter voice, “I didn’t know he was going to be like that.”

“You didn’t know?” Tasha repeated, her voice rising. “How could you not know?”

“Don’t yell at me!”

Tasha had too much experience with people who thought their irrational behavior was completely normal and therefore everyone else was wrong. So she wasn’t backing down. Not this time. “You just hit Clutch Vallow with me in your car! I have every right to yell at you! Everyone is going to be on your side. Your family sure as hell isn’t going to let anything bad happen to you, so you’re going to come out of this smelling like roses. But I get to yell at you!”

Silence. Then, “Do you think he’s dead?”

“I don’t know. We should go back and check.”

Bailey stared out the windshield. “What if we just don’t say anything?”

Tasha was stunned, and the scent of the emotion was so strong it was like astringent, and it made her eyes water. “You’re not seriously asking me cover up a hit-and-run,” she said, half coughing.

“We’re not covering up anything.” Bailey turned to her. “We’re just not talking.”

“Look at your car. Look at your face. You think no one’s going to make the connection? Bailey, there were … circumstances that everyone will understand. Clutch has always been bad news.” No, she was done being the sensible one, the adult, the one always managing other people’s actions and emotions. “You know what? You don’t need my help. You never did. Why aren’t you running to your grandmother?”