That Night

by Cecily Wolfe

  Day Nineteen

  Thursday

  Paul was nervous about taking an antidepressant, but he didn’t see how it could hurt. He didn’t want to become a sort of zombie, though, not when he knew the name of the guy who gave Kayla the drug that killed her, not when he needed to be clear-headed when it came to testifying against him.

  Maybe it would be a good thing to be drugged, to be physically unable to jump the guy in the courtroom and make him pay for what he did then and there. His father had left earlier that week, and strangely enough, so had his mother’s condescending attitude.

  “Up to you. I think this is worth a try, and you have to think of your future, and what Kayla would want you to do.”

  It was the first time his mother had said Kayla’s name since the party, but her face had been emotionless as she made an effort to be firm and practical.

  “Would she want you to stop living? To stop playing ball, going to school, when you’re so close to finishing?”

  He had sighed a lot while she was talking, a habit he knew she didn’t like, but she didn’t mention it. Now that he thought about it, he remembered something about family therapy or parent counseling or something like that mentioned when he had been admitted to the outpatient program. Maybe she was talking to someone and that someone was telling her to stop treating him like a five year old.

  He shrugged as if he didn’t care, which he didn’t.

  “There should be enough time to see any side effects before you go back to school in a couple of weeks. I’ll be stopping by there after I drop you off this morning to get your books.”

  He had eaten a few bites of the toast she had set before him when he came into the kitchen, but didn’t think he could eat any more. She didn’t say anything about it and left the plate on the table, taking her own and placing it gently in the sink.

  Usually she would rinse it off and put it in the dishwasher, but he had noticed that she hadn’t bothered to clean up after herself or him right away as she had always done in the past. She didn’t seem any less stressed, just focusing her efforts in other ways, he supposed. It was weird but he wasn’t going to bring it up, because it didn’t matter all that much.

  The drive to the hospital was spent in silence, and Paul stared out the window, watching school busses lumber through intersections and filtering through memories of his childhood with Kayla, before they were old enough to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Of the times he played kickball during recess, watching her jump rope with Cass and Sarah, or the less frequent times the class played hide and seek together and he would look for her first. He thought she was pretty, of course, but she also had a fearlessness about her.

  He watched her before she took a jump, as she took a test, made a guess - she considered before she acted, but she didn’t back down. She always stepped up and tried something new, or helped another kid who was afraid or needed encouragement. She was a natural leader, and that carried over to the soccer field, where it seemed like an effortless transition. He and her closest friends knew that she took her responsibility seriously, maybe too much so, and never wanted to let her teammates or coach down.

  There was a lot of outside pressure, but she added to it. He loved her drive and focus, her damp hair when she appeared from the locker room after a game, her smile and gaze meant for him alone in those first moments when she found him waiting for her.

  Sometimes she folded in on herself, though, more often than not lately, after the disappointment of the blow out and the unbelievable pain of her injury. He had been there that day, of course he had, he would never have missed one of her games, and almost fell himself stumbling down the bleachers trying to get to her after he saw her go down. By the time he reached her, Kayla had been in tears, horrified that she was crying in front of her teammates.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” she kept saying, apologizing as the other players huddled around her, rubbing her back and making soothing noises. The coach was kneeling beside her and had already sent a girl to get the ice packs they kept in a cooler under the bench. The other players gave Paul room to kneel down by the coach, and he kept silent as the woman asked Kay a litany of questions to determine what had happened.

  Kay kept shaking her head, her face growing more red as she continued to cry, and as soon as she noticed Paul she leaned into him. He put his arm around her, just as an ambulance, lights flashing but soundless, appeared in the parking lot on the other side of the field. Kay’s mother didn’t try to push her way into the crowd but turned away, leaving Mia frightened and confused, to meet the paramedics.

  Paul asked the coach if Mia could come closer, knowing that Kay wouldn’t want her little sister to be alone and unsure of what was happening, and the coach waved a hand to get Mia’s attention, encouraging her to join Kay just as the older girls saw that Mia was trying to reach her.

  “Oh my gosh!”

  Mia had stared in horror at Kayla’s bruised and swollen knee, her outburst bringing on a fresh wave of crying from Kayla. The paramedics, quick to show up but slow getting to their patient, seemed to take forever, and the ice pack, dutifully brought in a hurry by one of Kay’s younger teammates, didn’t seem to be bringing Kay any relief. Her head rested against his neck, and he felt the warmth of her tears on his neck, then now on his face when he found himself crying as he remembered the day everything had begun to fall apart.

  If he thought about it, though, she had been pulling away from him, off and on, before then, but needed him more when she was injured, even if she sometimes didn’t want to. He was always there when she did, hoping she would realize that they were meant to be together, and would be able to work through any problems, any doubts she had about the future.

  “Paul?”

  His mother was patting his leg and he flinched away from her when he realized she must have been talking to him as he was lost in thought. He didn’t care that she saw him cry, but he didn’t want to talk to her about it. About Kayla.

  She and Kayla’s parents, all three of them, had thought the two of them were too serious, and while they hadn’t discouraged them from spending time together, he and Kay both knew that they disapproved of any ideas they might have had about going to college together, or having a long-distance relationship while they pursued their degrees.

  Kay had started to worry about that, too, and she had wanted to take breaks, as she called them, telling him he could date other girls if he wanted, but she wasn’t interested in seeing any other boys. It wasn’t about that, she would insist. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him.

  “Paul? Are you feeling okay?”

  Of course he wasn’t, and it was a stupid question. It was always a stupid question. Asking someone if they were okay when it was obvious that they weren’t. Why did people do that?

  “I’ll talk to the psychiatrist about the prescription today, and he can fax it to the pharmacy. We can have you on something by this afternoon, and hopefully get you on track to feeling better.”

  He rubbed his hand over his face before he spoke.

  “Let me out at this light.”

  “What?”

  His mother acted as if he had asked something impossible, when it was just a simple request. Paul wanted to open the car door and jump out right then. What would that be called, suicidal? Where would that land him? Inpatient psych? How much worse would that be than the day program?

  “I want to walk the rest of the way. I’ll get there, I promise. I just need to walk.”

  His mother was supposed to sign him in since he was a minor, and he knew that if he had asked to go alone just last week she would have pitched a fit. He wasn’t sure if the changes he noticed in her since his father left would extend to giving him some leeway in this. She was still overprotective, and he suspected that wasn’t going to change any time soon.

  Instead of continuing to drive towards the traffic light, she pulled into a driveway and stopped just as the back end of the car cleared the street.

  “I w
on’t tell you to stay on the sidewalk, or watch before you cross the road. You’re not a little boy anymore.”

  He looked straight ahead as she spoke, her words a statement rather than a question that needed a response. How could he not agree?

  “I’d ask you to call me, but I know you don’t have your phone. I heard that her friends have been getting some nasty texts, and the police have asked us to report any that you might get. So, if you do turn your phone on, let me know if there’s anything inappropriate.”

  He did look at her then. What had Cass and Sarah been dealing with? He hadn’t thought about it too much, and when he had gone to Sarah’s house on Sunday night it was just to talk about the arrest. It hadn’t been awkward, as if he’d been hiding in his self-pity for weeks, but a relief, a huge relief to know he was with the two other people who would understand the hopelessness he felt at the idea of never seeing Kayla again.

  No, not just those two. Kay’s sister would understand. What was it like for Mia to wake up every day, used to seeing the sister she adored and imitated before she had to go out into the world, without the cocoon of Kay’s love and support with her the first thing every morning? Damn, he was a selfish bastard.

  He could see Mia’s face as it was the day of Kay’s injury, the fear in her eyes as she watched Kay struggle to control her tears, the helplessness she had to have felt knowing that she could do nothing to make the pain go away. He understood that too well.

  “Yeah. Maybe I had better look at it tonight.”

  He looked at his mother and nodded before opening the door, closing it carefully behind him so it wouldn’t slam shut. He didn’t look but held his hand up towards her in a motionless wave, a simple gesture that he knew would mean so much more to her. That he would take a moment to tell her goodbye, even in such a quick, easy manner would ease her mind.

  It was less than a quarter mile walk to get to the hospital, and while they had left a little early because his mother didn’t want him to be late, he would be if he stood there on the sidewalk, staring out into the street after his mother pulled away, trusting him to go.

  The new group counselor, who had replaced the one who had the purse surprise, wasn’t as patient as she had been, and was pushing them, pushing him, in particular. He didn’t feel like thinking any more than he already had today, not about the past, or about the emptiness he saw when he considered the future, but he thought again of Mia, of Cass and Sarah, and knew that Kayla would want him to be there for them. She would want them to take care of each other.

  He began to count his steps as he headed in the direction of the hospital, focusing on each as if misplacing one would set the world ablaze.

  Day Twenty

  Friday

  Cass didn’t know if it was harder to be in school all day or to be at home on the weekends. Of course, she was spending a lot of time at Sarah’s, and her parents weren’t hassling her too much about it. Sarah and her father had money and her father was well-respected, so Cass’s parents figured all that goodness would rub off on her.

  School had fallen into a routine of classes, ignoring people in the hall as best she could, and crying in the restroom when she needed to. That was one thing the guidance counselor was good for - late passes when she had to take a break.

  It had taken her awhile to really cry over Kayla, and she had felt guilty as Sarah broke down again and again, but now it hit her in waves triggered, mostly, by loud whispers in the hall.

  “She didn’t even have a locker we could decorate.”

  “Her little sister looks just like her!”

  “I heard that Paul tried to kill himself.”

  Some of what was said was true, some was false, and some were thoughts that she hadn’t considered herself, by probably should have.

  “I hear they’re going to make a shrine in the awards hall, in the glass case with the trophies.”

  “What about her yearbook picture? We haven’t even filled out our sayings and goals yet.”

  “I would have voted for her for prom queen.”

  Sometimes it was too much to hear, and other times, she heard nothing at all. She followed the pattern of classes until she could meet up with Sarah again, and it felt as if it would continue on this way, maybe until they graduated, until she overheard the news.

  “I wonder if we can go. Do you have to be an adult to watch?”

  Watch what? Cass had wondered with mild interest as the buzz in the hall grew around her. She pushed her locker shut and began to walk towards the cafeteria to meet Sarah, but at the sound of his name she stopped and turned around, searching for the speaker.

  “Devin’s hearing, or trial, or whatever it’s called, we should make t-shirts with her name on them, and wear them.”

  She couldn’t see who was talking, not with the crowd and the noise surrounding her. It was a girl, and she sounded intent.

  “The judge needs to know that we miss her.”

  Stephanie stepped out from the group of girls closest to Cass and the rest of them followed her, walking right by her into the cafeteria. A few of them nodded and offered small smiles to Cass, but she knew they had only ever been friends with her, if she could call it that, because of Kayla.

  “What was that about?”

  Sarah frowned as she watched the soccer team file into the cafeteria, as if they were marching onto the field to play. Cass hadn’t heard her walk up, but she wouldn’t have been able to hear anything with Stephanie preaching to her crew so loudly.

  “Not sure, but I don’t feel good about it.”

  She felt Sarah’s hand grasp her own, and she let Sarah lead her towards the cafeteria behind the kids who had followed Kayla’s teammates. When Sarah stopped without any visible barriers, Cass came up alongside her to see why everyone was crowded around a table set up close to the entryway.

  “What the actual hell?”

  Cass dropped her hand from Sarah’s and pushed herself through the mass of kids up to the table, which was covered with a long, bright green tablecloth and a large square acrylic box with a long slit in the top. She recognized it as one used during raffles at school events. It was clear so everyone could see what was inside, and a standard notebook paper sized sign holder was attached so it stood out at the top.

  There were a few dollar bills and some change in the box, and Cass watched a couple of girls stuff more money into it as Stephanie spoke to them. She didn’t know what Stephanie was saying, but she saw what the sign said, as well as what the larger poster, folded in half so it stood prominently on the table in front of the group of girls who stood behind it, read.

  “In Memory of Kayla Hunter: Contribute to Addiction Services.”

  Cass didn’t bother trying to reach Stephanie where she was holding court across the table, stomping instead around the table and rushing into a very surprised girl sporting the team’s green hair bow and soccer jersey. She shoved her aside just as some of those watching noticed what she was doing.

  The girl squealed but stayed out of Cass’s way. Stephanie was too busy talking to see that Cass was headed towards her, and while one of her teammates leaned over to her and said something, Stephanie brushed her off and gave her a look that showed how annoyed she was at being interrupted.

  She toppled over the metal folding chairs behind her as Cass rushed into her, completely unprepared to defend herself, and screamed as she hit the floor. She struggled to stand in the midst of the fallen chairs but Cass fell on top of her, one knee on her stomach, her hands on Stephanie’s upper arms holding her down.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Cass hissed, her voice growing louder as she spoke. Stephanie’s eyes were huge, her confusion and fear shifting slowly into understanding.

  “Ladies!”

  The vice principal was yelling but his voice was distant as Cass stared at Stephanie, both of them still except for the heavy breathing that had resulted from their exertions. Someone grabbed Cass’s arm from behind and pulled her up, but
she held tight to Stephanie’s arm and Stephanie cried out as Cass’s nails dug into her skin.