Tess Sharpe - Far From You

I swallow, hoping I’ll feel less sick. All it does is make my throat hurt more.

“Bastard,” I say. I see the same rage simmering back at me in Trev’s eyes. But the word doesn’t begin to encompass what we feel toward them. I’m not sure I want to examine it too closely, how clear everything was in those moments when the zip tie had gouged into Adam’s neck, cutting off his breath.

Prison is enough. They can both rot there.

I have to repeat it to myself, like it’ll convince me that it’s a fair trade.

It’s not.

It never will be.

But we have to live with the loss. Shape our lives around it.

Trev’s hand tightens over mine, and I squeeze back, trying to be reassuring. But there isn’t enough reassurance in the world for the two of us. There’s no more hiding. Mina is gone, and it’s just him and me, who we are and what we did and what lies ahead.

That’s the most terrifying thought of all.

“And Matt?” I ask. I feel horrible for confronting him at the church the way I did. If it were me, finding out I came from a family of killers, that they took the love of my life away, I’d be halfway to an OD by now.

“I tried calling. The phone’s disconnected. They probably unplugged it because of the reporters. We did the same thing when Mina—” He stops, because there’s a tap on my hospital room door and then my mom comes in.

“Sweetheart,” she says when she sees I’m awake. Trev lets go of my hand and gets up. “No, it’s all right, Trev,” she says. “You can stay if you’d like.”

“It’s okay. I’ve gotta tell Rachel and Kyle that Sophie’s awake,” he says. “Check in with my mom. I’ll be back later.”

My mom sits on the bed next to me, watching me with red eyes. “I’m so glad you’re awake. Your dad ran home for a few minutes,” she says. “He said you’d want your yoga pants when you woke up. How are you feeling?”

“Tired. Hurt.”

“I didn’t let them give you any opiates,” she says. “I’m sorry, honey, I wish I could—”

“No,” I interrupt. “Thank you. I don’t want any of that stuff.”

She holds my hand between both of hers. “I wish I could make you hurt less,” she says.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. It’s over now.”

I need to hear that out loud. I need it to sink in, but it hasn’t yet.

In a little while the nurse shoos my mom out and turns the lights off, ordering me to rest. I’ve got three broken ribs, a bruised throat, and enough stitches holding my stomach and face together to feel like Frankenstein’s monster; fortunately, most of the injuries are superficial. But even those hurt like hell when you can’t have anything stronger than an aspirin.

I don’t sleep yet. It hurts too much and I’m afraid of what I’m going to dream about. Afraid that the second I close my eyes, I’ll be back in that car, back in Coach’s grip, back at Booker’s Point.

I can’t stop pressing my fingers against the raw skin of my wrists where the zip tie had dug in.

All I can think about is Mina and how I wish I were like her, because then I could believe she’s looking down at me right now, happy that we figured it out, brought her and Jackie some justice.

But I can’t believe that. All I can do is feel what I feel: a vague sense of relief, dulled by shock and the spacey haze that’s stolen over me.

Now it’s only me keeping the monsters at bay: I have no mission, no crusade, nothing else. Mina’s memory will sustain me for only so long. It scares me, how easy it could be to fall back down that hole I’ve worked so hard to climb out of.

Ten months. One week.

I want Aunt Macy. I grab the cell phone my parents left for me and punch in her number with shaking hands.

“I’m on my way right now,” she says when she picks up. “I’ll be there in a few hours.”

I let out a shuddery breath. “It’s over,” I say into the phone.

“Yes it is. Remind me to kick your ass later for putting yourself in so much danger,” Macy says, the relief in her voice robbing the threat of all of its power. “This almost-dying thing is getting to be a habit with you. Not good.”

“I guess I just take after you,” I say.

Macy laughs shakily. “Hell, I hope not.”

I’m quiet for a long time, listening to the buzz of Macy’s radio, the occasional honk of an eighteen-wheeler as it passes her car. She’s on the highway, driving to me. Just the sound of it soothes me in a way nothing else could.

“I’m scared,” I say, breaking my silence.

“I know you are,” she says, her voice ringing out over the traffic noise. “But you’re brave, babe. You’re strong.”

“I want…” I stop. “I really want to shut down right now,” I confess. It’s sharp in my gut, that need to numb myself, to bury every worry about the future, avoid all the hard choices I have to make.

“They didn’t give you anything, did they?”

“No,” I say. “Mom wouldn’t let them. I don’t want any.”

“That’s smart.”

We’re quiet again, and eventually I fall asleep, the phone cradled against my ear.

Around two in the morning, the click of the door closing wakes me. I sit up, expecting the nurse, but it’s Kyle.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Charmed the nurse into letting me in.” Kyle sits down at the foot of the bed, dropping a handful of candy on my lap. “I raided the vending machine.”

He looks as bad as I feel. His eyes are all puffy and red, and he’s careful not to meet my eyes as he pushes a pack of licorice toward me.

I sit up, tearing the bag open and popping a piece in my mouth. “I don’t know what to say,” I tell him.

Kyle makes a sound in the back of his throat, an almost childish whimper. “Are you okay?” he asks. “I shouldn’t have let you go off alone. You were just gone for a second and then we couldn’t find you.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s not your fault. I thought Adam was okay. I walked right into it.”

“This is so fucked up, Soph,” he says, his voice rough. He rakes his hand through his floppy hair, making it stick up. “He was one of my best friends. We were on the same soccer team since we were, like, six. And he…he took her away .”

Kyle swallows, fiddling with an open bag of M&M’s. He starts to group them by color, eyes focused on his task instead of on me.

“I hate him,” I say. It feels good to say it out loud again. It rushes underneath my skin, the fact that now I know .

“I want to fucking kill him,” Kyle mutters as he makes a neat pile of the green M&M’s before moving on to the blue.

“I tried,” I confess quietly.

Kyle pauses, turning his head just a sliver toward me, his brown eyes determined. “Good,” he says, and the word echoes between the beeping of the machines. For some reason, it makes me breathe easier.

“I’m glad you didn’t die,” Kyle says.

“Yeah, me, too,” I say, and it’s the truth. It feels good for it to be the truth.

I shift in the bed, wincing when the movement jostles my ribs.

Kyle stares at my IV bag like it’s gonna tell him what to do. “Want me to get the nurse?”

I shake my head. “They can’t do anything. No narcotics, remember? Anyway, I don’t want to sleep. I’ll be fine.”

I sound sure, even to my own ears. I know the truth: that months in David’s office are waiting for me. That I’m going to have to work at it, through it. That there’ll be nightmares and freak-outs and days I jump at the slightest thing and days I want to use so badly I can taste it and days all I want to do is cry and scream. That David is probably going to be on speed dial, and it’s going to suck and hurt, but hopefully there’ll be some light at the end of the tunnel, because there usually is.