by Debra Doxer
"Hey," Seth said first, his voice disturbing the silence.
Eddie started moving toward us. “You came,” he stated. He wore a baseball cap and the shadow made by the brim kept half his face in darkness while the unhidden half revealed a unshaven cheek. He didn’t look angry or confrontational, just exhausted.
He glanced at Seth before turning to focus on me. “Did you have a merry Christmas?” he asked.
I took a few steps to close the distance between us. “Where are you staying?” I asked, ignoring what I was sure had been a rhetorical question. He had no gloves on, and his leather jacket couldn’t have been providing him with much warmth. If he were as miserable as he appeared, maybe it wouldn’t be too hard to convince him to leave.
“Why?” he finally answered. “Do you actually care?”
I gave him a wry smile. “I guess I must.”
He didn’t respond but he continued to stare at me for another moment before he abruptly turned to Seth. “So are we good?” he asked him. If he was inquiring as to whether or not I intended to lie for him, it was odd that he asked this of Seth and not me.
Seth’s eyes immediately darted to mine before he answered. “Actually,” he began, looking down at the ground now, “we were thinking you might just want to go away for a while. Until this all blows over. Maybe there's someplace you've always wanted to go?" Seth glanced up at Eddie now, his expression hopeful.
There was no reaction from Eddie at first. Then he narrowed his eyes at Seth and asked, “You mean like Disneyland?”
Seth’s expression sobered. “We’re serious, Eddie.”
Eddie stepped away from us, running his hands through his hair.
Seth continued. “Maybe you could go to Vegas or California. Somewhere warm.”
Abruptly, Eddie dropped his arms to his side and he turned to me. “So, this means you won’t back my story up with the police? Did Seth tell you what I would do if you said no?” Eddie asked me.
I could feel my heart rate speeding up. Keeping my eyes steady on him, I replied. “He told me.”
Eddie shook his head with disbelief. “You always were an asshole, Danny. You always thought you were better than everyone else around here. But I don’t remember you ever having a problem with lying before. You’d lie to protect yourself. But you won’t lie to help me?”
It looked like there was genuine hurt in his dark eyes. “It’s too big a lie, Eddie. I can’t. I’m sorry.”
He barked out a laugh. “You’re sorry. I don’t get it. If you’re so sorry why aren’t you going to the police and telling them everything? It’s because you’re not sorry enough to put your own future at stake, just mine. Right? You’re such a fucking hypocrite. You always were.”
Seth moved toward Eddie. “Please just consider taking off for a while.”
Eddie turned on Seth. “No. Fuck you both. I’m not leaving.”
“Why not?” I asked. “You could start somewhere fresh where no one knows you. Where no one has any assumptions about you.”
Eddie’s jaw clenched as he stalked toward me. “You don’t know anything about me. Why would you assume I’d be so willing to just walk away from my life? Did you know that I’ve been paying the mortgage on my dad’s house for the past two years? He’d be homeless if I wasn’t taking care of the bills. The house is mine now. He signed it over to me. Did you know that my boss offered to make me his partner at the garage? No, you just assumed that I was a loser with nothing. Right?”
He was right. But I shook my head anyway, proving that some lies did come easier than others. “You killed someone, Eddie,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “If starting over somewhere else is the biggest price you have to pay for that, you’re getting off easy.”
I heard Seth blow out a heavy breath, waiting, as I was, for Eddie’s explosive reaction to my comment. But I had to convince him that leaving was the best option. All our futures were at stake.
Instead of exploding, Eddie silently paced, saying nothing. Seth and I made eye contact, both of us hoping he was thinking it over.
“No,” Eddie finally said, shaking his head. He pointed a finger at me. “I’m going to talk to the police and tell them I was with the both of you at the sea cliff after we left the bar and you’re going to say the same thing. If you don’t, I’m going to tell them that I saw you kill that guy and Seth is going to say it, too. You got it?”
My eyes darted to Seth’s just as his eyes darted away. “Please, Eddie,” Seth said.
“Please what?” he shot back. “I think you need to explain things a little more clearly to Dan.”
I watched the both of them with a sinking feeling washing over me. “Seth is not going to say that,” I countered, but with wavering conviction. Seth was looking pleadingly at Eddie and not looking at me at all.
“Yes, he will,” Eddie replied confidently. “I have some video of Seth that he wouldn’t want anyone else to see. If he doesn’t say what I tell him to, I’m going to put that video online so that everyone, including his father and the officials at his school, can watch every minute of it.”
Seth scrubbed his gloved hands over his face. “Jesus,” he muttered miserably.
“What’s he talking about?” I asked even though I didn’t really want to know the answer. I could feel the power shifting toward Eddie.
Seth turned to me, not bothering to hide his anguish. “I’m sorry, Dan.”
They were both looking at me now. The frozen ground seemed to move beneath me. “What video is he talking about?” I asked.
Seth pulled his gaze from mine and turned it up at the night sky, his expression pained.
“It’s a video of Seth having sex with this girl from his school, and she doesn’t exactly look like she’s enjoying it.”
I looked to Seth, hoping for some kind of denial. But he wouldn’t acknowledge me.
“I think she later accused him of rape,” Eddie continued. “Isn’t that right? Seth, of course, denied the whole thing. But the video I took with my phone that night says differently.”
I was too stunned to say anything. Based on Seth’s reaction, there was no doubt this was true. He had told me this story but he had obviously left out some critical details. Things had turned so quickly, it took me a minute to process the shock and the complete betrayal that I felt. These were my friends at one time. I didn’t know who these people were now.
I turned to walk away when I felt Eddie grab my arm. Instinctively, I yanked it from his grasp, stumbling back once I’d gotten free. He started to move toward me again when I saw Seth’s hand reach out to hold him back. “Let me talk to him,” I heard Seth say, but I didn’t wait to hear more. I plunged back into the woods, not thinking of the consequences of leaving the discussion, just needing to be away from them. Not paying attention to the branches that scraped against me or that I was no longer on the path, I headed in the direction of the road, my breath ringing loud in my ears.
When I finally walked out of the woods, I heard Seth come through behind me. “We have to talk about what we're going to do, Dan,” he said, following me.
I whirled on him. “Did you both rape her or was it just you?” I accused, my voice a barely controlled whisper now that we were out on the street.
“Come on,” he said, obviously not wanting to answer.
“Tell me the truth.”
“It wasn’t just me,” he answered reluctantly, looking down the road now.
His inability to make eye contact inflamed me more. “So, when Eddie offered you a turn after him, you took it. Didn’t you?”
He crossed his arms over his chest without answering.
“Didn’t you?” I demanded.
“Don’t look at me that way,” he spat. “Like you’ve never done anything that you’ve regretted.”
“Don’t act like this is no big deal.”
“It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
I blinked at him, completely astounded by his attitude. “Unbelievable,” I mutt
ered. “And Eddie captured the whole thing on his phone.”
“Dan….”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I yelled at him.
He stayed silent. I hadn’t really expected an answer anyway. I backed away from him, looking toward the woods behind him to see if Eddie had followed, too. There was no sign of him. "I'm going home now. I have to be at work in a few hours."
“We need to talk about this. You can’t expect me to put Eddie off forever."
“I really have no idea what you’re capable of doing, Seth.” I turned to walk toward home.
He came up behind me. “We’re going to have to tell the police what Eddie wants us to. We have to get our stories ready and decide when we’re going to do this.”
I stopped and turned to him. “Get in your car and go home. I’m not talking about this anymore tonight.”
He looked at me, and I could see he was weighing his options. “You’re not going to be stupid about this. I know you’re not. Fine. Go ahead and sleep on it. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
I moved quickly toward the house, pulling my keys from my pocket. He was still standing there when I turned the lock and went inside. Quietly, I closed the door and went up to my room. Without looking outside, I pulled down the window shade and dropped onto my bed not bothering to remove my coat, boots, scarf, or gloves.
seventeen
I’m not sure how long I lay there staring at the ceiling. Soon I began to sweat, and I absently stripped away layers of clothing. My thoughts were all over the place. I knew I couldn’t trust Eddie, and now I was sure that I couldn’t trust Seth either. All I’d done was meet them for a drink. How had it spiraled into the mired mess of a situation in which I now found myself? I should have just gone to the police right away. What had I been thinking? Now, if I went to the police, apparently both Eddie and Seth would claim that I’d killed that guy. It was all just too ridiculous. I wanted to ignore the entire thing and pretend none of it existed.
But what if I really did do nothing? A part of me just didn’t believe that Eddie would go so far as to willingly walk into a police station and lay a bunch of lies at their feet. Maybe I should just call his bluff and take no action whatsoever?
When my bedroom began to brighten, I lifted myself up off the mattress and pulled open the window shade. Outside, everything was glaringly white. It was snowing and not just a few flakes here and there. The ground was completely covered and the falling snow was so dense, I couldn't see the road just a few yards away. Flakes landed on the cold glass of my window, melting and streaming down in icy rivulets. I pulled on some sweats, and I went downstairs. My head was fuzzy, and it was hard to think clearly. I couldn’t remember when I’d last slept.
In the living room, I found Mom reading the newspaper. She set it down on the cushion beside her and looked up when I approached. "I hope you’re not planning on driving to work today. I would be worried sick if I knew you were out in this weather."
I sat down and rubbed my hands over my face. I could hardly afford to miss a day of work, and I certainly didn’t want to sit home all day, but my mother’s Buick would never make it to the professor’s house in this snow, and I wasn’t really in any condition to go anyway.
“How are you feeling today?” Mom asked, pushing my hair off my forehead. “You don’t look much better, Daniel.”
"I'm fine."
She gestured to the discarded newspaper beside her. “The paper says that they’re still looking for the McKenna boy. He must have run off. That speaks volumes about his guilt, don’t you think? It says that the woman took her husband’s body home to Connecticut. The funeral is this week.” She shook her head, and then she stood. "I'm going to make you a good breakfast."
I sat there with my eyes closed, resting them, until I heard her call me into the kitchen. Sitting myself down at the table, I asked, "Did Dad go into work today?"
"Yes. I called him a few hours ago to tell him to come home, but he wouldn't listen. You know your father. By the way, Daniel, don't think I've forgotten about that hair cut you promised me. This week all right? When the roads are clear."
"Sure."
I ate but I hardly tasted anything. Then I called Professor Sheffield. He assured me that he hadn’t expected me to make the drive today. Next, still in a daze, I showered, and when I walked back into my room, my phone was vibrating on my dresser. I saw Seth’s name and I hesitated. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around what he had done. How could the person that I’d called my best friend for years rape someone? I let the call go to voicemail. Immediately, it vibrated again.
I sighed and answered it, “Hey.”
“Hey,” Seth replied. Then he cleared his throat. “Are you at work?”
“No. I decided not to go. Not in this weather.”
“Can you believe this? Did they forecast snow for today?”
I rubbed my hand across my forehead, uselessly applying pressure to my headache. “Are we really going to talk about the weather?”
I heard static as he sighed into the phone. “Look, Dan,” he began, “I’m really sorry.”
His apology washed over me with no effect. My head throbbed beneath my fingers. “You could have prepared me,” I said. “You knew where the conversation was going to go last night.”
“I was really hoping he would agree to leave. I didn’t know about his dad’s house or about the garage.”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t kicked his dad out of the house if it’s his now.”
“His dad isn’t doing too good. All those years of drinking did a number on him. He hardly ever leaves the house. I think the tables have turned and Eddie runs the show at home now.”
“He runs your show, too, doesn’t he?”
I heard Seth sigh again. “I didn’t know he was recording it.”
“You told me that he lost control that night but it sounds like he knew exactly what he was doing. How the hell could you have done that? Jesus, Seth.”
“We were all drinking. It was a mistake. Okay? A mistake that I’m obviously really sorry for now.”
“He’s going to hold that over you for the rest of your life. You know that, right? Even if you say what he wants you to about the guy he killed, he’ll still have that video.”
“I know that. He promised to erase it, but….”
“But you can’t trust him.”
Seth didn’t reply. I only heard his breathing, a silent acknowledgement of what I’d said.
“So what’s your decision?” he finally asked.
I hadn’t consciously made a decision, but I knew what I was capable of and what I wasn’t. I had walked away from this place and these people once before, and now I realized that I planned to do it again. I was going to call Eddie’s bluff and do nothing. I was betting that he wouldn’t voluntarily talk to the police and try to make them believe that I had done it. If the police found him and he led them to me, I would tell them the truth. In the meantime, I didn’t plan on doing anything other than getting through the rest of this winter break and going back to school. But I wasn’t dumb enough to throw down the gauntlet with Eddie. “I don’t know yet,” I told Seth in answer to his question.
“You don’t know?” he asked incredulously.
“I need more time to think about it.”
“You’re stalling, Dan.”
“I’m hanging up now.” I heard him saying my name as I ended the call. Then I turned off my phone, and I lay down on my bed. My eyes felt heavy, and I thought that I might actually be able to fall asleep. Eddie and Seth could do all the scrambling they wanted. I was done. I felt myself relax as my exhaustion overtook me. Eddie had never really been my friend. Although, I couldn’t have imagined he was capable of all I’d seen him do in the past few days. The sense of mourning I’d felt over the loss of my friendship with Seth had completely disappeared. I now realized that I was lucky to have escaped the both of them unscathed the first time. I could only hope to be so lucky the second.
I
did sleep, nearly all day. When I woke, it was almost four in the afternoon. I glanced out the window and saw that the snow had stopped. My headache wasn’t gone, but I felt more clear-headed. After quickly brushing my teeth, I went downstairs. As I descended, I could hear both my mother and father talking in the kitchen. I paused on the stairway and tried to hear what they were saying, but their voices had stopped.
“Daniel?” my mother called.
I came around the corner and saw them seated at the table with two cups of coffee. “You slept the day away,” Mom said with a smile.
When I realized that if my dad was here, then his vehicle must be here also, I got an idea. “Can I borrow the truck?” I asked.
Dad raised his eyebrows at me. “Where do you need to go?”
“I just want to get out of the house for a while,” I shrugged.
He exchanged a look with my mother before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his keys.
“The roads are slippery, Daniel. I’m not sure driving is a good idea,” Mom predictably commented.
“They’re plowed and sanded,” Dad told her.
I turned with the keys in my hand and headed for the door. “Will you be back for dinner?” Mom asked.
“I don’t think so,” I called over my shoulder. I’d left my heavy coat and gloves upstairs in my room, but I was so anxious to get out of the house that I just grabbed a sweatshirt and my Red Sox cap from the front hall closet.
Outside was a frozen, white-washed world. It felt like a different place than it had been last night. The air was still cold, but moist and clean now. It was unusually quiet. The heavy blanket of snow muffled the familiar sounds of the day. The asphalt road had disappeared, now only defined by a coating of brown sand and the weaving depressions made by passing tires.
