by Stacey Jay
“Dad! Dad! Help! Dad!” I screamed and screamed as tears spilled down my face, hot against my frozen cheeks. I screamed until my throat was raw and my body ached, I screamed until I was certain no one would ever hear but kept screaming anyway, too afraid to stop and confront the enormity of my sins.
Finally, someone answered my call, and a familiar voice called my name.
For a split second, I thought it was Mitch, but then the shout came again. It was Dad. He’d heard me. I inched forward, just far enough to peer over the platform. A flashlight cut a path through the rain, its beam wobbling as my overweight, out-of-shape father stumbled toward me in the slick mud and leaves. Even with his baked-goods belly and thin, balding hair plastered to his face, in that moment Dad was the hero he’d been to me when I was small, the strong, loving man who could heal every hurt with a kiss and a smile.
If only he could fix this. If only he could fix Mitch.
“Dad! Mitch is hurt! He fell!” I yelled, praying he could hear me over the wailing of the wind. “Call 911!”
I saw Dad turn and heard him shout for someone to call an ambulance. It was only then that I saw my mother struggling through the rain behind Dad, still wrapped in her pink housecoat. She only hesitated a fraction of a second before turning and hurrying back toward the house.
I realized then that my hands were bleeding. The tips of several fingers throbbed and tacky warmth made my skin stick to the wood even when I forced myself to relax my claw-like hold on the platform. I’d ripped some of my nails away from my fingertips.
I observed this detail with an odd detachment as I watched my dad take the last few steps that would lead him to Mitch. “He’s in the leaves. Underneath me!” I shouted to my father, my words ending in a sharp intake of breath as his flashlight fell on Mitch.
My best friend lay in a tangle, his long limbs bent at unnatural angles, his neck twisted sharply to one side. It reminded me of the vision I’d had while we were picking apples, of my own damaged body after an imaginary fall off the stupid orchard ladder. But this wasn’t a vision. It was real. Heart-stoppingly real.
A part of me knew Mitch was dead even before my father bent down and brought his fingers gently to Mitch’s jawline, feeling for a pulse that wasn’t there. Before those interminable seconds passed as Dad searched another place on Mitch’s neck and then another. Before my father stood and his shoulders began to shake. Before he looked up at me, his eyes dark hollows I couldn’t see inside.
But I didn’t need to see. I’d already seen enough.
Chapter Twenty-One
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1:24 A.M.
I don’t remember getting down the ladder. I remembered Dad’s hands on my back, I remembered his soothing voice, I remembered the smell of wet leaves clinging to his clothes—but not the individual movements it took for him to help me from one place to another. I couldn’t guess how long it took, only that it took longer than it should have.
By the time we reached the ground, the rain had stopped and an ambulance was pulling into the drive.
Red and white light pulsed through the air. Three high-powered flashlights that made my dad’s seem pitiful in comparison were flicked on and trained in our direction. I squinted, momentarily blinded, but recovered in time to watch three large shadows and two smaller ones hurry down the gentle slope.
They were coming for Mitch, trained medical professionals. They would see that he was okay, and that my dad’s whispered words of comfort were pointless. Mitch wasn’t dead. There was no need to be “so sorry.”
I started in Mitch’s direction, but Dad stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
“No, Katie, you don’t want to—”
“I’m going with him,” I said, shrugging my dad off, knocking his hand away when he reached for me again. “I’m going with him to the hospital!”
I ran, suddenly needing to get to Mitch before the men rushing toward him. I needed to touch him, feel the life still inside of him, know that he was going to be okay before anyone else laid a hand on him. They didn’t know him, they didn’t love him, they didn’t need him to be alive the way I did. That need would make a difference. It had to make a difference.
When I reached the place where Mitch lay so terribly still, I fell to my knees, jeans sinking into the mud, hands slipping in wet leaves as I braced myself and leaned over to peer into his face. I knew better than to risk moving him, but I needed to see his eyes, needed to see the pulse fluttering behind his closed lids. I’d be able to see it now. The flashlights were so bright, there was no way I could miss the slightest sign of—
The sound I made when my eyes met Mitch’s wide, unblinking gaze was barely human. It was an alien wail of pain and grief and a regret so profound it nearly stopped my heart. It actually might have. It was only when the stretcher thudded softly onto the ground on Mitch’s other side that the organ jerked in my chest, sending a jolt of agony flowing down into my arms.
“Move back. Get her back.” It was a male voice but female hands that grabbed me and pulled me away.
“Come on, honey.” It was my mom, her voice soft and thick, her hands as strong as they’d ever been, holding me tight even when I began to struggle.
“Let me go.”
“Sweetheart, please, you have to—”
“No! Please, I need to be with him,” I screamed, panic dumping into my blood as I watched the medics’ fingers roam swiftly and efficiently over Mitch’s still form and come away limp and lacking intention. I knew what those purposeless hands meant. They meant there was nothing they could do, no hope, no trick of medicine that could undo what had been done.
I heard the words “police” and “family” and my mother saying something about Dr. Birnbaum being on his way from the hospital in Nashville, but my mind couldn’t seem to focus on anything but the sight of Mitch’s body still lying twisted in the leaves, all the Mitch-ness drained out of it. All the wonderful, hilarious, talented, sweet, loving beauty of him gone forever.
I shook my head, hard enough to send my wet hair flying into my eyes.
This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be how it ended. This was some sick joke, a tragic nightmare. I was going to wake up any second, my pillowcase wet from crying the way it had been half a dozen times since the locket came into my life, and thank God that this was only a—
“The locket.” The locket. It hadn’t been that long since I threw it into the drain. I could still find it, put it back on, and force it to give me the chance to save Mitch’s life. I’d promise anything, suffer any depraved trick of fate, if only Mitch could be alive again.
I twisted in my mother’s arms, my movement so swift it caught her by surprise. The second I was free, I dashed toward the garage, legs churning so fast I stumbled and fell in the slick leaves more than once. Maybe twice, maybe three times—I couldn’t say for sure, only that I was up and on my way again in seconds, driven to reach that drain with everything in me.
When I did, I crouched down, swiping away the leaves that had clustered around one edge. I squinted into the darkness, praying for a flash of silver, but saw nothing more than I had the first time. The rain had stopped, but a steady stream of water still flowed from the adjoining yard, trickling into the drain on its way downhill. I could hear it falling and falling, dropping several feet before it rushed away in a different direction. The sound wasn’t promising. The drain sounded clear of leaves and sticks and anything that would snag a piece of jewelry and hold it prisoner, but I had to try. Two large screws held the drain in place. They were rusty, but with the right tool I could twist them out.
I rushed into the garage, flicked on the light, and hurried over to Dad’s toolbox, shocked by the relative warmth of the space. I hadn’t realized how cold I was, so cold the heated air bit at my skin and made me hurry to get back outside, back to where the world was numb and frozen. I didn’t want to feel anything, not until Mitch was back in the world and feeling with me.
My wrecked hands shook as they fu
mbled with the metal latch on the toolbox. The nails on my middle and ring fingers had been torn away from the quick, leaving trails of red that had settled into the wrinkles on my hand, highlighting every imperfection, making me look a hundred years old.
I felt a thousand. Fear rushed through my body like some super-virus, shredding me from the inside out. I had to get that drain open. I had to find the locket. I had to bring Mitch back.
I found the screwdriver I needed but tried to stand too quickly. The cold, tight muscles in my back seized, making me scream. I was bent over—hands braced on my knees, struggling for breath as I waited for the spasm to pass—when my family trudged through the door. Mom came first, followed by Dad, and then a bleary-eyed Gran, fresh from sleep. Her curlers were still in her hair and a quilted housecoat peeked from beneath her rain jacket.
“Katie, honey, what are you doing?” My mom’s eyes were red from crying, and the light blue bags beneath them seemed deeper, harder than they ever had before.
“I lost the locket. I have to find it,” I said, fighting to stand up and finally succeeding despite the clenching in my back.
“What?” She turned to Dad, who only shook his head. Sadly. So sadly.
“Gran’s locket. I lost it down the drain. I have to find it.”
“My locket?” Gran asked, with that same confusion I’d seen the other times I’d questioned her during the past two weeks. “I’m not missing any jewelry. I don’t think I’ve ever even owned a—”
“Yes, you have,” I said, willing Gran to remember. “The locket I’ve been wearing used to be yours. I know you don’t believe me, but—”
“But Katie, honey, you never wear jewelry.” Mom reached for me, as if she would pull me back into her arms. I stepped back, holding the screwdriver up between us, a silent warning not to touch me. I couldn’t be touched or I’d shatter into a million pieces.
“I’ve been wearing the locket for two weeks straight.”
My mom sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Katie. I don’t know what you’re—”
“But I talked to you about it,” I said, voice rising as my eyes flicked between the three of them. “You and Dad and Gran!”
Dad’s crumpled face told me what all three of them were thinking. They thought I was crazy. That I’d lost my mind because of what happened to Mitch. Because Mitch was dead.
Oh, God. Mitch was dead. He was really dead.
I swallowed hard, fighting back a wave of hysteria. It didn’t matter that my family didn’t remember the locket. I remembered the locket. I knew it could help me. It had saved Rachel’s life and now it would save Mitch’s.
“Just let me go.” I pushed past my dad and hurried back to the drain. I felt my family follow and stand in the doorway, staring down at me, but put all my focus into removing the screws standing in my way.
The cover came off relatively easily considering the age of the screws, and thankfully my arm was thin enough to fit down the pipe. I thrust my hand down, deeper and deeper, the despair in me growing with every inch that my questing fingers explored and found nothing. Nothing, nothing at all, not even a—
“I remember when Harold put in that drainage system,” Gran said, a wistful note in her voice. “We were the only house in the area back then. Our closest neighbors were almost half a mile—”
“Grandpa put this here?” I pulled my arm from the pipe, the importance of her words sinking into my soggy, frozen skull. “Do you know where it empties out?”
Gran pursed her lips. “Well, I did . . . It’s one of those French drainage systems, to carry off the extra water that kept flooding the low place in the backyard. I thought I remember him laying the pipes down the hill toward the street in that direction, but—”
I grabbed the flashlight from Dad’s hand and was off before she could finish, running through our yard and into the neighbor’s, setting a dog to barking as I went. The locket wasn’t lodged in the drain—at least not anywhere that I could reach—but if I could locate the place where Grandpa’s drainage system emptied . . .
Three yards, two more dogs, and one jumped chain-link fence later, I’d followed Gran’s finger down the hill to Skylar Street. It was the road Isaac and I had taken out into the country the first time I’d lived through my seventeenth birthday, only a hundred feet or so down from Mitch’s house, close enough that I could see the headlights as Mitch’s father turned into the driveway.
Mitch’s dad. He was about to view his only child’s dead body. First his wife, and now the son who meant everything to him. I couldn’t let this happen. I had to spare him that soul-destroying pain.
Frantic, I trained the flashlight on the ground. Thankfully, it only took a few seconds to find what I was looking for. For once, Gran’s memory had been dead-on. An old pipe jutted slightly from the concrete curb, spilling water into the street, flowing more slowly now that the rain had stopped. I pinned its stream with my light and followed it along the side of the road for five, ten, fifteen feet, until the wide mouth of a modern drain swallowed the little river whole.
A bitter taste filled my mouth and my cold muscles cramped again. My plan had failed. The locket was either hung up somewhere in the maze of pipes beneath mine and my neighbors’ yards or it had already vanished into the vast drainage system beneath Brantley Hills. There was no way I would be able to find it. It was over, there was no—
No. No! My jaw clenched tight. I wasn’t going to give up on Mitch that easily. I wouldn’t give up on him, period. Ever. I’d dig up every inch of pipe my grandfather had laid, search through every sewer from here to Nashville.
Starting with this one.
The end of the flashlight just barely fit between my teeth. I held it in my mouth and used both hands to brace against the pavement as I dropped to my belly and slid my legs into the rectangular drain. Refusing to think about rats and other terrifying things that lived beneath the streets, I wiggled backward, until the weight of my lower body pulled the top half of me down into the darkness.
I fell for scarcely half a second—no more than two feet before my shoes made contact with more concrete—but it was enough to send my racing heart skyrocketing into dangerous territory. The world swam black and red and the flashlight slipped from my tingling lips, rolling to a stop a few feet away. I struggled to stay upright through the dizzy spell even though everything in me wanted to drop to the ground and dig my fingers into the muck, clinging to something low and safe.
Falling. That was what I was really afraid of.
I was afraid that I’d lose control and fall and every watchful step I’d taken would be for nothing. It was why I’d avoided heights, and change, and conflict. It was why I stuttered through every audition, a part of me determined to sabotage myself. Better to ensure my own understudy status than to go for the part I wanted and be shot down. Better to stick to the plan than veer off course and fail, even if that failure was in the name of love.
I’d tried to be so, so careful, but I’d failed anyway. Spectacularly. Horribly.
Still, there was a chance I could make things right, a chance I could undo what had been done, go back and choose not to take the easy way out, not to break my best friend’s heart, and not to build that stupid, stupid tree house.
I bent to retrieve my fallen flashlight and froze, afraid to believe what I was seeing. There, in the thin beam of light, a shy bit of silver shone among the mud and the leaves and the crushed beer cans. Between half a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup and something soggy that might once have been a sock, the locket waited patiently for me to come to my senses. To pick it up and put it back on.
I snatched at it with shaking hands, praying my cold-numbed fingers would be able to work the clasp. After propping up the flashlight to illuminate more of the space, I brought the two halves around my neck, refusing to listen to the voice in my head screaming that the locket wouldn’t make things better.
I didn’t care if the locket made things better. I just wanted Mitch back. Alive.
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“Come on. Come on,” I whispered, crying out when I forgot about my ruined nails and tried to use one to capture the clasp. I swallowed the pain, ignoring the feeling of fresh blood trickling down my middle finger, using my pointer finger instead.
One try. Two. Three. Four. Five. My neck cramped and my hands shook and sweat beaded on my forehead despite the cold, but I didn’t give up. I couldn’t. I couldn’t let—
My breath rushed out as the tiny metal loop finally slipped home and the clasp closed around it. The locket fell heavily against my chest, glad to be back. It would work now. It would give Mitch a second chance at life. It had to work. It simply had to.
“Please, please, please take me back,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut and imagining myself back at the coffee shop, the day I’d first had the idea to build Mitch the platform that had been the death of him.
“Please. Please, help me make this right.” My aching fingers wrapped around the locket, fisting tight, praying for the slightest change in temperature. But the locket remained cold, even colder than my frostbitten hands.
I was asking for too much, too much time, too many opportunities. I was being greedy. That’s why the locket wouldn’t take me back.
“Okay, okay.” My words echoed in the closeness of the concrete drain, the desperation in my voice terrifying. “Then take me back an hour, to right before he fell. I’ll catch him. I’ll find a way to keep him safe.” I waited, bringing both hands to wrap around the locket, funneling every ounce of energy I had left into the lump of metal, wishing harder than I’d ever wished before. “Please, I’ll give you anything you want. You can ruin my life, wreck my future, anything, but please . . . please . . .”
My voice broke, tears so close I could taste them on the back of my tongue. I bit my lip and held my breath, refusing to give up hope. The locket would take me back. It would feel how much I needed this, how much I was willing to suffer for Mitch’s second chance, and it would turn back time.
