Far From You

by Tess Sharpe

  “Sophie, was that the—” My mother catches sight of Rachel, with her flaming hair, the mustard-yellow sweater she’s buttoned wrong, the chunky skull pendant dangling from the bike chain around her neck. “Oh,” she says.

  “Mom, you remember Rachel.”

  “I do.” Mom smiles, and it’s almost genuine, though her eyes linger on Rachel a moment too long. I wonder if it’s Rachel’s appearance or if Mom is remembering that night. Rachel had stayed by my side until my parents showed up. I hadn’t really given her a choice; I wouldn’t let go of her hand.

  “How are you, Mrs. Winters?” Rachel asks.

  “Well. And you?”

  “Fabulous.” Rachel grins.

  “There’s something wrong with my computer. Rachel’s gonna check it out for me.”

  “Bye!” Rachel says cheerfully, following me up to my room. When we close the door behind us, she tosses her purse on my bed, collapsing next to it. “Okay, I’ve only got forty minutes. I have to drive to Mount Shasta to spend time with my dad. It’s his birthday.”

  “Can you hack a thumb drive in forty minutes?”

  A smile tugs up the ends of her red-painted lips. “No way. I’m good with taking computers apart and putting them back together. Code is another monster. It’ll take me a while.”

  I hand over the drive. “I appreciate your trying. My method involved entering as many passwords as I could think of.”

  “Probably not the most effective approach.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So how did it go, talking to Mina’s supervisor at the ­Beacon?” Rachel asks, grabbing a pillow to prop her chin on. She tucks a leg underneath her, the other dangling off my bed.

  “He’s out of town, but he’s coming back next week. I’m going to go back then to talk to him.”

  “And obviously getting inside the house went smoothly,” Rachel says, holding up the drive, wiggling it in the air.

  I shrug. “Trev hates me.”

  “I really doubt that,” Rachel says.

  “He wants to,” I say. “And he should. He would. If he knew the truth.”

  Rachel shifts on my bed, turning the thumb drive over in her hands. But she looks up to meet my eyes when she says, “The truth?”

  I don’t say anything else, because when you hide, it’s instinctual. It’s something you have to train yourself out of, and I never trained myself out of this secret, even when I wanted to.

  “Soph, can I ask you something?” She looks me in the eye, and there’s a question there.

  The question.

  I can look away and stay quiet. I can say no. I can be that girl, hiding from the truth, denying her heart.

  But it’ll eat at me. Through me. Until there’s nothing real left.

  I twist our rings on my thumb, and they bump against each other, trading nicks and scratches earned through the years.

  “Sure. Ask away.”

  “You and Mina, you two were…” She switches tactics, suddenly so blunt, just like her letters, starting in one direction and veering off into another midsentence. “You like girls, don’t you?”

  My cheeks heat up, and I pick at the hem of my comforter, trying to decide how to say it.

  Sometimes I wonder what my mother would think, if she’d try to sweep it under the rug, add it to the ever-­growing list of things to fix.

  Sometimes I wonder if my dad would mind that someday he might walk me down the aisle and give me away to a woman instead of a man, gaining another daughter instead of a son.

  Sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like if I had been open from the start. If we’d never had to hide. How much would it have changed things if we’d been honest?

  I’ll never know. But I can be honest now, here, with Rachel. Maybe it’s because she met me at the worst moment of my life. Maybe it’s because she stuck around, even after.

  Maybe it’s because I don’t want to be afraid anymore. Not of this. Because compared to everything else—the addiction, the hole that losing Mina left inside me, the guilty knot that Trev twists me into—being hung up on this isn’t worth it. Not anymore.

  Which is why I say, “Sometimes.”

  “So you like guys, too.”

  “It just depends. On the person.” I’m still fiddling with the comforter, wrapping the loose strands of thread around my fingers.

  She smiles, open and encouraging. “Best of both worlds, I guess.”

  It makes me laugh, the sound bursting out of me like truth. It makes me want to cry and thank her. To tell her that I’ve never told anyone before, and to tell it and have it be accepted like it’s no big deal feels like a gift.

  26

  THREE YEARS AGO (FOURTEEN YEARS OLD)

  “Come on. Open the door.” Mina knocks for the third time.

  I’m locked in the bathroom, trying to smear enough foundation to cover the scar on my neck. I’m failing. No matter how hard I try, a shadow shows through.

  It’s been almost six months since the crash, and the idea of going to a dance, the irony of going to a dance when it still hurts to move too fast, makes me want to scream and yell no, no, no like a toddler. But my mom was so excited when Cody asked me, and Mina talked endlessly about dresses, and I couldn’t bring myself to say no to anyone.

  But now I don’t want to leave the bathroom. I hate how twisted and uneven I am, how I have to lean hard on my cane with every step.

  “Soph, if you don’t open this door in the next five seconds, I’ll break it down. I swear I will.” Mina knocks harder.

  “You couldn’t,” I say, but I smile at the thought of her, five-foot-two, a hundred pounds soaking wet, trying.

  “I can! Or I’ll go get Trev—I bet he could break it down.”

  “Don’t you dare get Trev.” Every time I’m alone with him, he wants to apologize—to fix me.

  I can almost see her triumphant expression through the door. “I will! I’ll go get him right now.” I hear exaggerated footsteps—Mina stomping in place outside the door. I can see the shadow of her feet.

  I toss the tube of foundation into my makeup bag and wash my hands off. The elaborate curls that Mina coaxed into my hair skim my bare shoulders. “I’ll be out in a second.” I tug the neck of my dress higher. The red silk is pretty—it makes my skin look milky instead of sickly pale—but Mom had to take it to a tailor to get lace added to the deep V neckline so it would cover the worst of the scarring.

  It’d taken forever to find something with sleeves. We must have tried on at least fifty dresses, sharing the same fitting room as my mom waited outside. Mina had fussed with me, helping me step in and out of the heaps of tulle and satin. She’d grabbed my hand and steadied me, and when she’d let go (holding on a second too long, my skin against hers, half-dressed in the tiny room), she’d blushed and stammered when I asked her if she was all right.

  My leg is killing me. I’d left my cane in the bedroom, and I need it now, even though I don’t want to look at it.

  I take the orange bottle out of the beaded clutch that Mina had insisted I buy along with the dress. I shake out two pills.

  She knocks again. “Come on, Sophie!”

  Make that three. I down them with water from the tap, tucking the bottle away.

  I open the door, and red silk swishes against my legs, a foreign, almost pleasant feeling floating above the mess of scars.

  Mina beams. “Look at you.” She’s already dressed, wrapped and draped in silver fabric, all shimmer and tanned skin. Mrs. Bishop is going to freak when she sees how low her Grecian-style dress is cut. “I was right—the red is perfect.”

  She spins around. Her curly hair is looped up in a headband of silver leaves, little tendrils falling over her bare shoulders as she rummages around in the blankets on her bed. She grabs somet
hing, hiding it behind her. “I have a surprise!” She’s practically vibrating in her eagerness.

  “What is it?” I ask, playing along because she’s so happy. I always want her to be happy.

  She holds it out triumphantly.

  The cane she’s clutching is painted scarlet to match my dress. Mina has glued red and white crystals all along it. They twinkle and catch the light. Velvet ribbons stream from the handle, spirals of silver and red, twisting and swinging in the air.

  “You tricked out my cane.” I reach for it, and my smile is so wide, I feel like it’s going to split my face in two. I press my hand against my mouth, like I need to hide it, hold it in, and I do, because the tears are there, down my face, probably messing up all my makeup. I don’t care, because she does something that no one else can: she makes my life pretty and good and full of sparkles and velvet, and I love her so much in that moment that I can’t contain it.

  So I say it because I mean it. Because I have to, there is no choice, standing there with her: “I love you.”

  It’s there, just for a second. I see the flicker in her eyes, and she does so well to cover it, but I see it, before she hugs me and whispers against my ear, “I love you more.”

  27

  NOW (JUNE)

  Rachel leaves for her dad’s, promising to call me as soon as she gets the thumb drive open. I start my morning yoga practice, but I pushed myself too much yesterday. After my knee buckles for the fourth time in warrior pose, I roll up my mat and put it away.

  It’s important to know when you’re beat.

  My jeans are still on the floor where I tossed them last night, and when I pick them up, the envelope the thumb drive had been in falls out of the pocket.

  There’s a piece of notebook paper folded inside that I hadn’t noticed last night. I unfold it and see unfamiliar handwriting:

  Please, babe, just answer the phone. We have to talk about this. All I want to do is talk. I promise. Just answer the phone. If you keep ignoring me you’re not going to like what happens.

  I turn the note over, but it’s not signed.

  It doesn’t matter. It has to be from Kyle.

  If you keep ignoring me you’re not going to like what happens. I read the sentence over and over again, stuck on it, like it’s on an endless loop in my head.

  “Sophie?”

  I look up from the paper in my hand. Dad’s standing in my doorway, frowning.

  “Sorry. Yeah?”

  “I was just saying I’m heading out,” he says. “I’ve got an early lunch with Rob. Your mom already left. Sweetie, are you okay? You look pale. I could cancel—”

  “I’m fine,” I say, but my ears are ringing. Already, I’m cycling through the possible places Kyle would be right now. “I just pushed myself too much. My knee hurts.”

  “Do you want some ice?”

  “I’ll get it,” I say. “You don’t have to cancel, Dad. Go to lunch. Say hi to Coach for me.” I need Dad out of the house. I have to find Kyle. Where would he be right now? At home?

  “Okay,” Dad says. “You’ll call me if it gets bad?”

  I smile, which he seems to take as a yes.

  I wait, Kyle’s note crumpled in my fist, until Dad drives off in his sedan. Then I pick up my phone and punch in Adam’s number. I pace across the room as it rings.

  When he finally picks up, I can hear laughter and barking dogs in the background. “Hello?”

  “Adam, hi. It’s Sophie.”

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “I was wondering if you knew where Kyle’d be right now,” I say. “I found a necklace of Mina’s that I think he gave her. I wanted to give it to him to make up for being such a bitch last week. I wasn’t sure where or when he was working this summer.”

  “Yeah, he’s probably at work,” Adam says, and someone says his name, followed by more male laughter. “Wait a second, guys,” he calls. “Sorry, Soph. He’s at his dad’s restaurant, not the diner, the seafood place out on Main…the Lighthouse.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Yeah, no problem,” Adam says. “Hey, give me a call next week. The team’s having our bonfire out at the lake. We’ll hang out.”

  “Sure,” I say, not taking it seriously. “I’ve got to go. Thanks again.”

  I drive too fast, gunning it as the yellow lights switch to red, barely pausing at stop signs, careening around corners. Our downtown isn’t much because our town isn’t much. The good and bad parts are kind of squished together, the courthouse and the jail a block apart, the liquor store kitty-corner to the Methodist church. A handful of restaurants, a diner tucked across the railroad tracks, and a few pay-by-the-week motels that are a breeding ground for trouble. I slow down only when I see the Capri M-tel, the blue-and-pink neon sign with the missing O.

  The Lighthouse is right next to it, so I park quickly and bang through the doors, not caring if I’m drawing attention. Kyle is leaning on the counter, watching the basketball game on the flat-screen on the far wall.

  The restaurant is almost empty, just a few tables full. I march past them and up to Kyle as his mouth tightens.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “I’m at work.” He glares at me through his floppy blond hair. “If you go psycho in here—”

  “Take a break to talk to me, or you’ll find out how ­psycho I can get.”

  He glances around at the people at the tables. “Come on,” he says, and I follow him through the kitchen and out the back way, behind the restaurant, where there’s a fenced-in area for the Dumpsters. It smells awful out here, like grease and fish and garbage, and I breathe through my mouth, trying to block it out.

  “I can’t believe you.” Kyle rounds on me as soon as the door closes and we’re alone. “What’s your problem?”

  I hurl the note at him, slapping my palm on his chest. “Want to explain that?”

  He grabs it from me, scanning it. “So what?”

  I fold my arms and plant my feet. “Tell me what you and Mina fought about the night before she died.”

  Kyle is the definition of an open book. He’s crap at hiding his emotions, and his mouth drops for a second before he remembers to close it. “It’s none of your business.”

  “It is when you’re leaving Mina threatening notes right before she gets murdered!”

  “Bullshit,” Kyle says. “This wasn’t a threat. I just wanted her to call me back.”

  “You threatened her. ‘If you keep ignoring me you’re not going to like what happens.’ Who says that to their girlfriend?”

  Kyle goes red, his puppy-dog eyes hardening. “Shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then explain it to me. Tell me what you guys were fighting about.”

  “You need to leave it alone,” he warns.

  “Not gonna do that.”

  “Fuck you.” He starts toward the door, and I plant myself in front of him and push him hard. He’s over six feet and thick with muscle, but it feels good to shove him. As he stumbles, I move toward him again, but he recovers his balance and grabs my wrists easily. “Stop it, Sophie.” Then he lets go of me and steps back, holding his dinner plate–sized hands out in front of him. “You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

  I lunge for him again, but he darts out of the way. I come down too hard on my leg and nearly fall.

  “You’re such a pain in the ass,” he mutters as he grabs my arm to steady me.

  “Tell me,” I insist. I’m panting, adrenaline ricocheting through me. “Why were you fighting?”

  “Don’t,” he says. “Just don’t.”

  “What did she tell you that made you so angry? What were you threatening her with?” With each question, I push him, and he just takes it. I’m right in his face, inches away, standing on my tiptoes.
I have to grasp the chain-link fence behind him to stay steady. My leg is shaking, but I try to ignore it. I won’t fall in front of him. “She cared about you. She even let you sleep with her! Why would you—”

  “Shut up!” he yells, and I gasp, flinching at the raw note in his voice. His brown eyes shine, like he’s about to cry. “Shut up. There’s only one of us here who was fucking her, and it sure as hell wasn’t me.”

  28

  THREE YEARS AGO (FOURTEEN YEARS OLD)

  “We are so late,” Amber says, grabbing her soccer bag out of her mom’s car.

  Mina glares at her, pulling the walker out of the backseat and unfolding it for me. “Chill out,” she says sharply.

  “Coach is gonna kick our butts. We have to warm up.”

  I nudge Mina. “Go. I can get to the bleachers by myself.”

  “No,” she replies.

  “Amber, go,” I tell her. I don’t want her to be pissed at me for making her late. She hadn’t even wanted me to come, but Mina insisted.

  Amber nods, taking Mina’s bag with her.

  “I’ve got it,” I insist when Mina doesn’t go with her.

  Mina looks over her shoulder. The girls are already on the field; she’ll get in trouble if she doesn’t hurry. “Hey!” she shouts, waving across the parking lot. “Adam! Kyle!”

  “Mina—”

  “If you want me to go, then you let Kyle and Adam help you,” she says to me.

  I roll my eyes and grab the handles of the walker, heaving myself up, leaning on it. The doctors are making me use it for an extra month before I can switch to the cane. I can’t believe I’m actually looking forward to a cane, but I am.

  The boys come over, and once Mina’s reassured they won’t let me fall off the bleachers, she tears off toward the field, her hair streaming behind her.

  Kyle looms over me. His jeans are an inch too short—he’s already bigger than everyone else in our grade and hasn’t shown any signs of stopping. He keeps a hand hovering behind my back during the torturous minutes it takes to get to the bleachers, like he’s afraid I’m going to just pitch over at any moment.