Darynda Jones: Death and the Girl Next Door

I hurried to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. Clearly that had been one of those flashes of nonsense. But it seemed so real. I could feel the weight of the air, the depletion of the boy’s energy as he fought, his limbs shaking from exertion and from adrenaline as it pumped through his powerful body.

I blinked and forced myself back to the present, forced myself to calm. Stepping back into the hall, I glanced around in search of the dark-headed boy, to no avail. Disappointment washed over me. For one thing, I wanted a better look. For another, I wanted a better look. The first was for obvious girl reasons. Those arms. That jaw. Who could blame me? The second was because of what I’d just seen. Surely my vision was metaphorical in some way. Scorched clouds in violet skies didn’t exist. And thankfully, neither did that beast.

I must’ve been in the restroom longer than I’d thought. Brooke and Glitch were waiting for me outside. But I couldn’t get those images out of my head. I’d never seen anything like them in my life.

As I grabbed my backpack with a shaking hand, I sensed someone watching. I turned to see Cameron Lusk sitting in a booth, his shoulder-length blond hair visible even in the shadowy corner. Though we lived in a small town and Cameron and I were in the same sophomore class, we hadn’t spoken in forever. He was more the loner type, scowling at anyone who tried to communicate with him. But still, he was right there. It would be rude of me not to acknowledge his surly existence.

“Hey, Cameron,” I said as I fished a tip out of my bag and turned back to our table.

“Your friends already left a tip,” the barista said from behind the counter. “See you tomorrow.” She grinned at me, knowing I’d be back. If I remembered correctly, she’d graduated a couple of years earlier and had gone off to college in Albuquerque. Must not have worked out, since she was now a barista in a small-town coffee shop. Or it worked out perfectly, and she’d gone to college to become a barista in a small-town coffee shop. Hard to imagine, but okay.

“See ya,” I said before glancing at Cameron again. He took the whole brooding thing way too seriously. The glare he’d graced me with could have frozen heck itself. “See you tomorrow, Cameron.”

He lifted a finger in acknowledgment. I felt oddly honored.

“What took you so long?” Brooklyn asked as I stepped into the late-afternoon sun. New Mexico was nothing if not sunny, even where we lived in the Manzano Mountains.

“Did you see that boy?” I asked, scanning the street.

“Cameron?” Brooklyn asked. If the distaste wasn’t clear in her tone, the wrinkling of her nose would have said it all.

“No, a dark-haired boy, tall and really, really muscular.”

Brooklyn jumped to attention and joined me in the search, turning every which way. “What boy? I didn’t see a boy. Especially not a tall, dark, and muscular one.”

Glitch peered in through the coffee shop window. “I didn’t see anyone either. Maybe you imagined him.”

“I had a vision,” I said breathlessly, and two sets of eyes widened on me. I knew we’d spend the rest of the evening talking about what I’d seen. If my vision was even remotely authentic, something very dreadful was about to happen to that boy.

Three days later, I found myself struggling against both melancholy and euphoria. But if I’d known my day was going to suck like a turbo-powered Hoover, I totally would’ve faked the flu and stayed home. Or chicken pox. Or malaria. Instead, I’d walked to school like it was any other day. Like my heart wasn’t breaking. Like my head wasn’t reeling and my feet weren’t weighted down by the sudden and tragic onset of clinical depression, making each breath a trial, each step a struggle. I totally needed a car.

I walked along Main Street, past trees and small businesses geared more toward tourists than locals, until my high school came into sight. Riley High was the latest and greatest achievement of the Riley’s Switch Board of Education. It was sparkling and new with stone arches that would’ve looked more at home in an architectural magazine than in a small New Mexico town. Heavy plate-glass windows lined the front with arched pillars at the entrance. The whole thing was topped off with a scarlet dome, like a castle tucked into the mountainside. Several outbuildings encircled the school, including the gym, the agricultural and construction shops, and the cafeteria. I had to admit, when I started here my freshman year, the place intimidated me more than a little. But I adjusted quickly when I realized how much the boys had grown over the summer. High school was a grand place to be.

I spotted Brooklyn in the sea of students rushing to class and zigzagged toward her. Hugging my notebook to my chest, I took turns dodging a group of wrestlers practicing their chosen profession in the hallway and barely escaping with my life when a linebacker decided to plunge through the crush of bodies.

Who knew high school could be so dangerous?

Brooklyn was busy dialing the combination on her locker. She glanced at me between spins. “Hey, you.”

“Hey.” I leaned against the wall of bright red lockers and asked, “Do you remember what today is?”

She stopped midspin, her dark visage puckering in soft admonishment. “Of course I do. How could I not?”

I shrugged and glanced down. It was weird. I figured the tenth anniversary of my parents’ disappearance would be excruciating. Like if I’d broken a leg or gotten a really bad paper cut. Instead, the pain in my chest was more like a whisper bouncing off the walls of an empty cavern. I just woke up and they were still gone. Like they had been every other morning for the last ten years.

At first their absence had seemed like a dream, but the depth of despair my grandparents fell into convinced me they were really gone. And everyone asked me questions. What happened? What were we doing there? What did I see? Nothing, I would tell them. Again and again, nothing. I didn’t understand why they were asking me questions I couldn’t possibly have the answers to, but they said I’d been with my parents when they disappeared. The police found me unconscious beside our car at the old Pueblo ruins outside of Riley’s Switch. I didn’t remember being there. I just remembered waking up in the hospital days later, my body so heavy, I could barely move, my lungs so thick, I could barely breathe. And no one had any explanation as to why.

Then came the questions. Over and over until my grandparents, in their state of utter bereavement, ordered the authorities to stop and took me home to grieve. I found out later that the entire town had helped look for my parents. Search parties scouted for days, hunted for clues. Even the FBI showed up, but nothing was ever found. Not a single shred of evidence. As cliché as it sounded, they literally vanished without a trace.

The official report stated that my parents had wandered off and lost their way back. But they would never have done that. They would never have left me. And yet, because there was no evidence of foul play, the investigation lasted only a couple of weeks.

And I, the only one who could offer any explanation, could remember nothing. The guilt of that fact weighed on me more and more every year, like a jagged boulder in my chest that grew with each passing moment.

I’d never told anyone about the guilt except for Brooke.

Her eyes filled with sympathy. “Why didn’t you stay home?”

“And wallow in a deep pit of despair alone when I could force you to wallow with me? No, thank you.”

She nodded. “That’s a good point. I’m pretty good at wallowing.”

“And,” I said, withdrawing inside myself just a little, “I have something awful to confess.”