Between

by Jessica Warman

  Finally, I say, “Josie … we really ought to check.”

  She glances into the backseat. “Do you have an umbrella?”

  I shake my head. “No. We’ll shower later anyway. Come on.”

  She presses her lips together, wrinkles her nose. “Why don’t you go?”

  “No. I’m not getting out by myself. Josie, please?”

  She switches the music off altogether. She looks around, peering at the road through the wet windshield. “You really think it was a deer?”

  “It was something big. Come on. We have to check.”

  My stepsister gives me a long sigh. Taking her time, she reaches into the center console and fishes out a ponytail holder. She pulls her hair back tightly so it won’t get completely soaked. Once she’s finished, she rolls her eyes at me a little bit and says, “Fine. Come on, then.”

  We get out of the car. We’re about a quarter of a mile down the road from the Mystic Market, which is closed for the night. There’s nothing else around us but woods, a windy two-lane road, and the rain.

  “Turn off the car,” Josie instructs. The rain is coming down so heavy now that there’s no point in trying to stay even remotely dry; we’re both immediately drenched. “Turn off your headlights.”

  I reach into the car and do what she says. Then I find a flashlight in the glove box.

  I gesture toward the woods. “I can’t go out there in these heels. They were three hundred dollars.” I frown. “The mud will ruin them.”

  “Take them off,” Josie says.

  I pout. “But then my feet will get all muddy.”

  She stares at the dark sky in frustration, rain pouring down her cheeks. “What are we doing, Liz? You’re the one who wanted to get out. Now do you want to look, or do you want to look? Make up your mind. I’m cold.”

  I shine the flashlight into the woods. Its beam of light is weak; I can’t see anything but barely illuminated trees.

  “If I hit a deer,” I say to her, “there’s probably nothing I can do about it now. Right?”

  “Wait,” she says, looking at my car. “Oh, wow. Check it out.”

  I’ve hit something, all right. There’s a dent on the right side of my front fender.

  “No blood,” Josie says. “That’s a good sign, right?” She peers at me in the darkness. “Maybe the rain washed it off, though.”

  “I feel like I have to throw up again,” I tell her.

  “No, you don’t.” She’s curious now. She wants to know what happened. “Come on, Liz. We should find out what it was.”

  With clear reluctance, I take off my heels, placing them on the floor of the front seat, and the two of us begin walking toward the woods. We haven’t taken more than ten steps when we both stop cold. Standing beside my living self, I come to a halt.

  “Oh my God,” I say. “Josie. Where’s your cell phone?”

  In the slim beam from my flashlight, a bicycle wheel spins on its rear axis in the pouring rain. All three of us hurry toward it. I imagine that, in my bare feet, I can feel the stones and sticks in the dirt cutting my feet, but I obviously don’t care. My breath, audible despite the downpour, sounds sharp and panicked. I don’t seem the slightest bit drunk anymore.

  The bike is a mangled mess, lying upside down on the ground, its front smashed up against a tree. But there is no rider. Whoever was on the bike is not in my range of vision.

  Out of nowhere, the rain slows to a light drizzle.

  “Be quiet,” Josie orders. “Listen.”

  What I hear next, I know, has stayed with me ever since this night, except that I’m only realizing it now. Even before I see him, I understand what has happened. I know. It is not the sound of breathing so much as it is a liquid gasping, the noise of a horrible struggle. I watch as we follow the sound and find him on the ground, his limbs bent at cruelly awkward angles. His face is so bloody that at first I don’t recognize him. I can see his skull beneath his hair. I can see his brain.

  “Josie, he’s breathing.”

  He’s barely breathing. His eyes are open. They stare up at us—at me—pleading for help, for life, for something that I cannot possibly give him.

  “Go get your phone, Josie,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “Call 911.”

  He takes another labored breath. Josie waits. She does nothing.

  “Josie, what are you doing? Go get your phone!”

  “Liz, we’re drunk.” Her tone is flat.

  “So what?” My voice trembles with panic. “Call someone! He’s going to die!”

  I stare at him. It’s the most curious thing, watching someone slip away. Our gazes are locked together, and in that moment I know that he sees me, he recognizes me.

  “We know him,” I say, unable to stop staring. “Josie, I recognize him. We go to school with him.”

  “What’s his name?” she whispers.

  As a ghost, the frustration is overwhelming. “Do something!” I scream at myself, at Josie. “He’s going to die! Help him!”

  But we don’t do anything.

  “I don’t know his name,” I tell my stepsister.

  He takes another breath. It’s his last one. And then—nothing. He becomes completely still. Drops of water roll from his cheeks, falling like countless silent tears.

  “Jesus Christ, we’re in trouble,” I say. I take a big step backward. I almost fall over.

  “No. We’re not.” Josie looks at me. She reaches over, turns off the flashlight, and we are instantly surrounded by darkness. “Let’s go back to the car,” she says. “Let’s go home.”

  I stare at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Liz.” Her tone is calm and steady. “You just got your license. You still aren’t allowed to drive with passengers. We’re both drunk. If anybody finds out what happened here, it will ruin our lives. Do you understand?”

  I shake my head. “Josie, we can’t just go home. We can’t leave him here all alone. Besides, it was an accident. He came out of nowhere. People will have to understand—”

  “No, they won’t.” She reaches for my hand. “I’m not kidding, Liz. We don’t have a choice. We have to go, now, before somebody gets here.”

  My dead heart breaks for Alex, lying there in the dirt. How could we just leave him? This act, I realize, will destroy me from the inside out. It will consume me in the months that follow.

  Josie tugs my hand. “Let’s go. Let’s go home.”

  So we do. We pull my car into the garage, parking it close enough to the wall that my dad likely won’t notice the small dent. I’ll worry about getting it fixed later. For now, we both agree, the most important thing is to act normal.

  That night, clearly unable to sleep, I sit on my bed and pore through my yearbook, searching for the face that I could not match to a name. After pages and pages of looking, I finally find him, staring up at me with a shy smile, a quiet, unpopular boy who I barely knew existed when he was alive: Alexander Berg.

  “Alex Berg,” I whisper to my empty room.

  We are together in the same spot where, a little over a year ago, we locked gazes as Alex took his last breath. Of course, he’s no longer bloody and broken. He’s no longer wet from the rain. He’s calm now, almost smiling at me as it becomes clear what I have recalled.

  “I killed you,” I tell him.

  He nods. “I know.”

  “Did you always know? The whole time we’ve been together?”

  He only hesitates for a second. “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? When we were in your house together, I asked you, ‘What did I ever do to you?’ You could have told me then. You could have told me a thousand times.”

  He is sitting cross-legged on the ground. “It doesn’t work that way. If you had known the whole time, you would have acted differently toward me.”

  “So?”

  “So, I think this is a process. I think it’s supposed to work a specific way. The way you remembered things, little by little—you weren’t ready to face what you’
d done, not right away. You had to understand certain things first. And I helped you, Liz. Maybe you couldn’t have done it without me. Maybe we were brought together for a reason.”

  “For what reason?”

  His gaze is steady and calm. “For me to forgive you. See, Liz, I thought that I already had done that, but I was wrong. I had a year to think about it. I’ve gone over that night a thousand times in my mind. I thought I’d let it go. But then, when I was able to talk to you again, the day you died—all the anger came rushing back. I realized that, even though I might have tried to forgive you, it didn’t work. I still hated you. Not just for … for hitting me that night, but also for the way you treated me when I was alive … like I didn’t even exist. Because you didn’t even know my name.” He shrugs. “So there we were, together, and it was obvious you didn’t remember anything about what had happened. I went along with it.”

  As he’s speaking, something becomes clear. “This is why you didn’t want me to touch you at first,” I say, “isn’t it? This is why you didn’t want me to go into your memories. You were afraid I would see something that would make me realize what had happened before it was time.”

  He nods. “Yes.”

  “When did you know?” I press him. “How long after you died did you realize I was the one who hit you?”

  “I always knew,” he admits. “There was plenty I couldn’t remember, the same as it was for you, but right from the beginning, that night was clear in my mind. I remember staring up at you and Josie in the rain. I remember looking into your eyes. Your face was the last thing I saw before I died.”

  “And after that,” I ask, “did you watch me? While I was still alive?”

  He nods. “Yes. I watched you all the time. It was like I was obsessed. I needed to know that you felt something about what you’d done to me. I saw you running every day—it was like you were trying to escape what had happened, like if you just went far enough, you could put it behind you somehow. I saw you with Mr. Riley at his house all those mornings. I was there, Liz. I was watching everything. I know how guilty you felt.” He swallows. “It was killing you. In a way.” He gives me a weak smile. “And then you died. But Liz, I think there’s something else. I don’t think it’s just about me forgiving you. I think it’s also about … about you. Forgiving yourself.” He hesitates. “Do you forgive yourself for what you did to me?”

  “I don’t know.” But it’s not true, I realize immediately; I do know. “No. I don’t forgive myself at all. Alex, you have to understand—how could I possibly forgive myself? I drove drunk. I drove too fast. And after it happened, I could have helped you. I could have called 911, I could have gone to the police—”

  “But you didn’t. Things happened the way they happened.” He looks at me sadly. “You tried so hard to forget. Even after you died, you tried to tell yourself a different story. You tried to tell me a different story. Remember? At your funeral, you told me you changed your cross-country route after they found my body. But that’s not true, Liz. You changed it before they found me.”

  I close my eyes for a second. He’s right. Of course I changed it beforehand—how could I possibly have continued to run past him, knowing he was still in those woods? Knowing that I was responsible for putting him there? The truth was so awful that I couldn’t bring myself to face it. I wanted to believe the lie so badly. And for a while, it worked. Almost.

  When I look at Alex again, his gaze is steady. “And now we’re here,” he says. “And you still can’t remember what happened the night you died.”

  “So you’ve been watching me for the past year,” I say slowly.

  He smiles at my realization. “Yes.”

  “You saw what happened after you died? You saw me running, going to Mr. Riley’s house, meeting up with Vince.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what else did you see, Alex? Did you see what happened that night on the boat?”

  Something is changing. He begins to appear wispy, almost translucent.

  “What’s happening to you? Alex?”

  “I was worried about my parents for a long time,” he says, ignoring my question. “Especially my mom. You know, she used to visit my grave all the time. She lit candles for me all over our house. But it’s getting better. My parents don’t go to the cemetery as much. They’re going to find out what happened to me that night. It will be okay. They’ll finally know the whole truth, and then their lives will go on without me. I feel all right about it. Nothing will ever be the same, Liz—you know that as well as I do—but it will be okay. Doesn’t that make you feel better? Aren’t you happy that everyone will finally know the truth, about everything?”

  “When will they know? Alex, why won’t you tell me what happened? When will everyone know the truth?”

  He continues to fade.

  “Soon,” he says. “You have to be patient. Remember, it’s like a puzzle. You have all the pieces now. It won’t be much longer, and then you’ll understand everything. You’ll be fine without me, Liz.”

  “Where are you going?” I’m completely panicked. “Alex, you can’t leave. Tell me what you saw the night I died!”

  “It’s not my mystery to solve, Liz.” He smiles again. “I really did have a great time with you. You aren’t a horrible person like I thought you were. I forgive you, I really do. For everything.”

  “What did you see? Did somebody kill me? Alex, please wait—”

  “It’s so warm, Liz.” He’s fading faster now. “I think I’m finally going to get some rest. You’ll like it, once it’s your turn.” He gives me one last lovely smile. “It’s been fun hanging out with the homecoming queen. But every party’s gotta end sometime.”

  “Alex—”

  “See you later,” he says.

  And like that—he’s gone.

  I sit alone in the woods, feeling cold and damp. I cry. I miss Alex. I am overwhelmed with regret. If only I hadn’t driven home that night. If only I’d taken a ride from someone else. But I was seventeen, I was full of life, and I didn’t think anything bad could possibly happen—not to me, the rich and popular Elizabeth Valchar. How could my life cross paths in such a significant way with the so insignificant Alex Berg? How could I possibly have the power to take his life away with one momentary collision?

  Where is there to go from here? I wait around for a while, hoping that Alex might reappear, but in my heart I know that he’s gone forever now, undoubtedly to a better place.

  All alone for the first time since my death, I get up. I go home. I climb onto my bed and stare at the ceiling, waiting for the morning to come, hoping the daylight brings something more than another piece of an endless stretch of time.

  Twenty-two

  There isn’t anything to do but watch. On a Saturday morning in early November, a few days after Alex disappears, I observe as Josie walks down the street to Richie’s house and knocks on his front door.

  Mrs. Wilson answers. She stands behind the screen door, making no gesture to open it. She doesn’t smile at Josie.

  “Hi, Mrs. Wilson. Is Richie home?”

  Mrs. Wilson glances over her shoulder, toward the stairs. “Actually, Josie, he’s not.”

  Josie frowns. “But your cars are all here. And he told me he’d be around.”

  “Josie …” Mrs. Wilson appears to be summoning her nerve. “How is Liz’s dad doing?”

  Josie stares at her for a long minute. Then, in a defiant tone, she says, “My dad is okay. He’ll be all right.” She swallows. She continues to stare. “We all will, Mrs. Wilson. Richie, too.”

  Mrs. Wilson begins to close the heavy front door. “I think you need to go home, Josie.”

  “But when is—”

  My stepsister stands on the front porch, stunned, as the door closes in her face.

  The memory sucks me in like I’m made of liquid. All of a sudden, it’s everywhere around me, and I can’t do a thing to stop it.

  I am five, maybe six years old. Josie, Richie,
and I are on the floor of my parents’ living room. Josie and I are playing with Barbie dolls, but Richie is trying to coax us into battle with a handful of plastic toy soldiers.

  “We can fight each other!” he urges, lining them up in a row. “Liz, you and Josie can be on one team. I’ll be the enemy. You can be the good guys. Or we can all play together and break into Fort Knox and steal all the gold! My dad says that’s where the government keeps all the money.” When it becomes clear we aren’t paying any attention to him, he gives up on the idea of toy soldiers. “I’ve got Hungry Hungry Hippos at my house,” he offers. “I could go get it. You guys want to play that? We could play cards, too. Liz, want to play Uno?”

  “She’s playing Barbie,” Josie says, without looking at him. “Leave us alone.”

  But my young self glances shyly from Josie to Richie, considering. When he and I make eye contact, I blush. I say, “We could all play beauty salon. Richie, you need a haircut. Me and Josie can be your hairdressers.”

  He brightens. “Okay. Where do you want me to sit?”

  Our parents are having a dinner party in the dining room, which is adjacent to the living room. They are drinking wine and eating brie on crackers. My dad sits at the head of the table. To his right, there’s my mom. To his left, there’s Nicole. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson sit across from each other. Josie’s dad, Mr. Caruso, is at the opposite end of the table.

  The adults are loud and probably all a little drunk. It’s past our bedtime, but they always let us stay up late when they get together like this, which is often. The only quiet one at the table is Josie’s dad. He never talked much, not that I can remember.

  Richie’s mom stands up. “How about another bottle of wine?” she asks. She looks at my mom. “Lisa? I’m going into the kitchen. Want to come?” And she puts two fingers to her lips in a silent puffing gesture. She means cigarette.

  “I’ll be in. Just a minute,” my mom says. Her elbows are on the table and she’s leaning forward, her gaze interested even though her eyes are dull, listening to my father as he tells a story about something that happened at work. She hasn’t touched her plate of cheese and crackers. She’s so skinny that she’s hard to look at.