by Hannah Jayne
Brynna dropped her bag and rushed toward her. “Mom? Are you okay? Is everything okay?”
Her mother made no response, and for a brief moment fear and anger clawed at Brynna’s chest. “Mom?”
“Oh, Bryn, you’re home. Can I make you some tea?” She smiled thinly, but Brynna could see her blink away tears.
“Have a seat, Bryn.”
Her father pulled out a chair while her mother fiddled around the kitchen, preparing a cup of tea that Brynna hadn’t asked for. When she set it in front of Brynna, she looked from her mother to her father and growled, “If you’re getting a divorce, just tell me.”
A fat tear rolled down her mother’s cheek, and her father wouldn’t look at her. “This isn’t about your mother and me, hon.”
Brynna felt her mother’s hand on her own, squeezing with almost no strength. “It’s about Erica, honey.”
Everything in front of Brynna went black. Her tongue went heavy in her mouth, and her jaw went slack, every muscle, every vein, every cell turning into lead weight. “You know?” Her own voice was unrecognizable. “You know what she’s been doing to me?”
All at once, every image shot in front of Brynna’s eyes, like heinous snapshots, horror after horror: Remember me?, the eyeglasses, the dark form in the water, the nightmares, that night on the pier. She felt her bare feet itch as they left the splintered, salt-water-licked wood; she felt the lightness as her body vaulted through the air; she felt the tug of Erica’s arm as their fingers laced together. Then the black chill of the water as it swallowed them both up, feet-knees-hips-shoulders-head, the darkness settling over them like a death mask until there was only calm.
Brynna was crying, hiccupping, her breath locked in her chest. “Ever since we got here, Erica has been watching me and following me and leaving me things. She blames me; she hates me! The day in the coffee shop, that was her, wasn’t it?”
Her parents exchanged startled glances, and her mother started to cry harder. “No, honey, no.” She shook her head, her auburn hair swirling.
Her father took her hand, his grip firm and comforting. “Erica is dead, Brynna—”
“No!” Brynna was on her feet so fast that the chair she was sitting in went clattering to the hardwood floor behind her. “I told you, she’s here! I’ve seen her!”
“No, honey. They found her.” Brynna’s mother’s soft voice hitched. “They were able to identify her remains. Erica is really gone, honey.”
Color and sound exploded all around Brynna. It would have been loud, overwhelming, if her head hadn’t been filled with cotton or the rushing sound of her own blood, or whatever it was that was stifling every sound, vaulting her further and further away from her parents, from her warm kitchen and her lukewarm cup of tea.
“What?”
“A coroner the next county over from Point Lobos recovered”— Brynna’s father bit his lip, carefully considering his words—“some remains, a few months after Erica drowned. They were classified as a Jane Doe since there was no identification found.”
“Remains?”
Remains weren’t people, Brynna thought, and they certainly weren’t fifteen-year-old girls.
“You don’t want to know the details, honey. They’re not important.”
Brynna pressed the pads of her fingers against the cool wood grain of the kitchen table. Connecting with something—anything—made her feel real, even as everything inside of her wanted this moment to be fake.
“I want to know, Dad.” Her heart was a steady drumbeat. “I need to know.”
He cleared his throat and shifted his weight in his chair then tossed a glance at Brynna’s mother who nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Erica had been in the—”
“Erica’s body,” Brynna’s mother corrected, her eyes fierce and fixed.
“Right, sorry. Erica’s body had been in the water a long time, Brynna. The water, the animals… Honey, they had done a lot of damage to Er—the body. She wasn’t found all at once. It took them some time to identify and confirm the remains that they did have.”
Brynna’s stomach heaved and she was at the sink, gripping the tiles as she vomited. Her stomach doubled in on itself and then revolted, and tears were sliding down her cheeks as her body convulsed. Vaguely, she could feel her mother stroking her hair and telling her things would be okay. She could hear her father’s heavy footfalls as he paced behind her, clearing his throat the way he always did in a weird attempt to convey concern.
When her stomach calmed or there was nothing left inside her, an icy chill shot through Brynna, even as her body broke out in a sweat. Her teeth were chattering, and all her muscles were spent as though she had just run a marathon. She fell back against her mother and let her hold her; she didn’t react when her father wrapped his arms around them both. Her mother cried, stifling little mewling sounds while her father cried silently. Brynna just stared at the grain of the hardwood floor, eyes itchy and dry.
•••
Brynna lay in her bed, staring up at the ceiling, watching the shadows swirl in the dark. Knowing that Erica was found wasn’t the relief she thought it was going to be. As long as Erica was out there, she could have been out there, alive. As terrifying as the recent taunts and messages had been, there was a sliver of hope, somewhere deep down, that Erica was responsible. Erica could be mad at Brynna—hell, she could want Brynna dead—but Erica would be alive. And, Brynna believed, if Erica was taking out her anger on Brynna, it was fine because she deserved it.
But now…
Erica was dead. It was that simple and that horrifying. Brynna’s best friend was dead, and in a matter of days, they were going to dump her in a box and bury her under six feet of earth. Her fingertips burned, knowing that the last time she touched Erica, as their fingers pulled apart in the cold water, was the last time Erica touched anyone. Brynna didn’t push Erica, she didn’t hold her under the water, but she was just as guilty as if she had.
Brynna stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling, for two full days. When she slept, it was fitful and unsettling, and when she left her room, she was a walking corpse, expressionless, emotionless, dragging her feet toward the refrigerator or the kitchen sink. Her parents gave her a wide berth, but between her restless catnaps, Brynna began to notice that things were missing in her bedroom or bathroom: the nail polish remover that was there yesterday was gone. The three tabs of baby aspirin she was allowed to have, gone. A metal nail file, an ancient jump rope, her Daisy razors. Even the glass was gone from her picture frames.
My parents think I’m going to kill myself, Brynna thought, pushing her head into her pillow that was already beginning to smell sour and old. The thought brought no great emotion to her; she couldn’t decide whether she was angry or intrigued, horrified or warmed. She simply rolled over again and squeezed her eyes shut against the few bars of diffused light that still found their way through the blinds and did her best not to think about Erica.
When she opened her eyes on Sunday morning, she was able to shower and head down the stairs. She was even able to push around her half-mushy cereal and swallow a few bites. Erica’s body—her remains, she kept correcting herself—still weighed heavy on her mind, but there was something else there too, something she was missing. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was until late in the day when she crawled back in bed and pulled her tablet to her lap.
She had an inbox full of emails from Evan and Teddy and Lauren—there was even one or two from Darcy asking why she wasn’t in school on Friday or why she wasn’t answering their calls. It wasn’t until a tweet from Evan popped up that Brynna realized what was eluding her: “Erica” had left her alone for three whole days.
Since the day Brynna had learned that Erica really was dead.
White-hot heat shot down Brynna’s spine. Erica was dead, it was confirmed, and suddenly, the harassment stopped. Had she been alive
just three days ago?
“No,” Brynna muttered to herself, sweat making her T-shirt stick to her back. Her father said that Erica had been found—and here the sick roiled in her stomach again—in pieces. They didn’t find Erica, they didn’t find her body—they found her bones. Brynna’s heart beat in her throat.
“Dad, Dad!” She sprinted down the stairs, breathing heavily when she threw open the door to his office. He froze, standing with his hand wrapped around a cut-glass highball glass, an inch of brown liquor at the bottom. Brynna’s eyes went directly to it. His eyes followed hers. Her whole body clenched and thirsted. The glass, the bottle, could make all of this so much less real. The knife-sharp edges of memory, or reality, could be blurred out or forgotten completely. Maybe not forever, but even a few minutes would do.
Then she remembered why she was there.
“Dad, how did they know it was Erica that they found?”
He set the glass down, pushing it behind a framed picture, so it would be out of her line of sight, she guessed. “I told you, Bryn, they did something with forensics, I guess. They were able to match her.”
“You guess? Are you sure? Or did they just assume the body was Erica’s? Did it look like a teenage girl, so they figured it must be?” Brynna could feel the flush in her cheeks.
“No, honey. They wouldn’t do that to the Shaws. They must be sure it’s her.” He sat down behind his desk. “Where is all this coming from?”
“She was alive, Dad, I know she was. She was here in Crescent City just a couple days ago—”
He shook his head. “She had been dead for months. There was no doubt about that.”
Her father spoke with the kind of certainty that blanketed her entire body in a heavy, dark cloud. Because if Erica truly had been dead for months, then someone else was sending her those notes.
Brynna bristled. Now that Erica was gone, would her stalker go too?
ELEVEN
Brynna yawned as her mother turned the car into Dr. Rother’s parking lot that Monday morning. She glared at the numbers on the dashboard clock—7:12 a.m.—and groaned.
“Couldn’t we have done this after school?”
“Dr. Rother didn’t have any openings after school, and your father and I both thought it was important for you and her to talk after…” Her voice dropped off. “Either way, we didn’t think it was appropriate for you to miss any more school. Dr. Rother is really doing us a favor taking you before class.”
Brynna hated the way her parents were suddenly presenting a united front, as though as long as she stayed screwed up, they’d hold together their screwed-up relationship so everyone could be nuts together. It wasn’t exactly the picture of familial perfection she wanted. But the one thing she wanted less was to sit in Dr. Rother’s office for the next fifty minutes and talk about Erica.
As her mother slammed the car door, Brynna’s gaze wandered over to the coffeehouse where she had seen Erica slip in. It was as bright today as it had been that day, and the colors of the house and its patrons seemed to throb in the sunlight. It had been Erica. She hadn’t made her up. Her stomach roiled. Had she?
“You coming, hon?”
Dr. Rother met them in the foyer where the right-out-of-high-school-looking receptionist usually greeted Brynna and her mother. Brynna never made eye contact with the girl, certain that when she disappeared behind Dr. Rother’s door, the girl would press her ear against it, listening, thanking god she wasn’t as messed up as Brynna was.
“I’m the first one here today,” Dr. Rother said by way of apology, “so if you’ll give me just a sec, we can begin.” She fiddled around the stark-looking room—which could have been the waiting room of a dentist, an accountant, a lawyer, or a shrink, so generic were the beige paint, pressboard furniture, and itchy couches—while Brynna wedged herself against the arm of the couch and picked up an ancient-looking copy of Seventeen magazine. She didn’t open the magazine, instead watching while Dr. Rother flipped on the coffee maker and her mother made benign conversation with the doctor, as though her daughter weren’t suffering from paranoid delusions, severe depression, and/or a possible stalker.
“Okay, Bryn,” Dr. Rother said with far too much cheeriness. “I’m ready for you.”
Brynna and the doctor took their usual places across from each other, and Dr. Rother pulled out a new sheet of paper while Brynna went around studying every nuance in the room, just as she did during every session.
“Your parents are quite concerned about you.”
Brynna shrugged, averting her gaze.
“They told me that Erica’s body has been found.”
Dr. Rother’s words needled a tiny, cold opening in the blackness of Brynna’s mind that she refused to acknowledge.
“How did that make you feel, Brynna?”
She wanted to laugh at the stereotypical psychiatrist question, how it made it sound like Brynna and the doctor were in some poorly written play that would have three acts, a dark moment (this one), and an ending where the crowd would applaud. There didn’t seem to be an ending to what Brynna was going through.
“What do you want me to say?”
Dr. Rother straightened in her chair. “I want you to tell me how you’re feeling. Have your feelings changed significantly now that we know Erica is deceased?”
Brynna pressed her fingernail into the wood grain of her chair. “You told me I had to accept that she was dead a long time ago.”
“But you never did.”
She refused to react.
“So now that the proof is irrefutable—”
“Irrefutable? They found remains. It wasn’t even a body. It wasn’t even Erica’s body.” She pressed her fingernail harder, relishing the sting of pain as the nail bent. She focused hard on the pain, on the chalky white mark that spread across her peachy nail.
“They’ve tested it, Brynna. It is Erica. Your mother told me there is going to be a memorial.”
Brynna’s chest tightened. All at once, the cloying smell of those lilies hit her nostrils and turned her stomach, and she could feel the stifling heat of the mortuary. “We already had a memorial for Erica.”
“I guess at this one they’re planning to inter her remains. Your mother said you were thinking of going.”
Truthfully, Brynna had walked into the kitchen while her mother sat at the counter, her cell phone pressed to her ear. She was sitting stark silent and still, which was odd for the woman who routinely multitasked, and Brynna had paused in the near darkness of the hallway.
“I’m so sorry, Melanie,” her mother had said. “I know this can’t be easy for you.”
Brynna felt the burn in her cheeks when she heard the name Melanie—Melanie Shaw was Erica’s mother’s name.
“Of course we’ll be there.”
There was a beat of silence and Brynna watched as her mother pulled a pencil and a piece of paper from the junk drawer and very carefully, very precisely wrote something down.
“I know Brynna will want to say a proper good-bye to Erica.”
Brynna turned to leave as her mother hung up the phone. “Bryn? Is that you?”
She turned slowly as her mother slid off the barstool and came toward her. “That was Mrs. Shaw.” She looked at her daughter as though she didn’t know whether to smile or cry. “There’s going to be a memorial for Erica. Small, graveside. Just family and close friends.” She brushed a hand through Brynna’s hair. “I told Melanie that we would be there. It’ll be nice for you to say good-bye.”
The memory flitted through Brynna’s head, and she shifted in the chair she was sitting in, pressing her shoes against the gray industrial carpet in Dr. Rother’s office.
They were quiet for a long while. Brynna stared down at her finger on the chair arm, studied the way the wood grain ran. She could feel Dr. Rother’s eyes intent on her, a silent challenge.
Finally, “It should have been me that died.”
Dr. Rother looked at her over the top of her legal pad and calmly set down her pen. Brynna absently wondered if the doctor had learned that in shrink school: when a patient says they should have died, set down your pen and look interested—even if you agree with them.
“Did finding Erica’s body make you think that?”
Brynna wagged her head. “I’ve always thought that.”
“And why do you think that, Brynna?”
Brynna hated the breathy way Dr. Rother’s voice sounded.
“It just would have been better. Erica—Erica was better at—at everything. She was the better student, the better swimmer. She probably wouldn’t have gotten fucked up.” Brynna looked up from her jeans, feeling the creep of pink on her cheeks. “Sorry. Erica probably wouldn’t have gotten messed up on drugs if I died.”
“First of all, let’s not go assuming what Erica would have done if the situation were reversed.” Now the doctor put her notebook down too and leaned back in her chair, giving Brynna her “we’re about to make a breakthrough” stare. “And second of all, about Erica being better than you at everything. Do you see what you’re doing there?”
Brynna hated this part—the part where she was supposed to stumble on some brilliant realization and break down in tears or skip out of here, cured.
“No,” she said with a slight grumble.
“You’re idolizing her.”
“So?”
“So, was Erica really better than you were scholastically? Didn’t you say that you used to help her study?”
“Yeah, but—”
“And you were both on the swim team, were you not?”
Brynna raised an eyebrow, unwilling to speak.
“Was she really better than you, or did she simply have different strengths?”
