Every Last Promise (16 page)

MY BIKE STILL CREAKS.
It always will, I guess.

The phone burns a hole in my pocket.

My route takes me from one end of Third Street to the other, but it's too late—or too early—for the smell of baking rolls to sweeten my journey.

At Jen's house I stop and wait, staring at the dark windows, knowing she's still at the dance or in the backseat of the car I rode in earlier, parked down by the river or on a dark road somewhere. My house is an old farmhouse that my grandparents built when they moved out here ages and ages ago. Jen's house is brand-new. Shaped like a box with lots of windows. It's been here long enough that I don't think twice about it anymore, but when it was first built, I had to squint when I looked at it. It's like a boulder in the middle of the river, disturbing the natural flow of things.

It doesn't belong here.

I walk my bike another hundred yards or so before getting on again. It's easy to find the right spot. I look for signs: the bark ripped from a tree, the hill cresting just ahead. It lives in my head like a landscape painting I just found in the attic. Cloudy for all the dust I've blown off it but recognizable.

When I get there, I drop my bike and sit. I could be sitting on old oil or blood from the accident. It doesn't feel weird, and it doesn't feel familiar, like everything else in this town does. It feels like it shouldn't exist at all.

But I pull out the phone. I'd left it for an hour on the charger I found in Caleb's room. There are voices in my head telling me what I should and shouldn't do. Some belong to other people.

Don't go snooping.

You really don't remember anything about that night?

It's okay, it was an accident.

We already sold your pie.

Others are only mine.

Watch it.

Don't watch it. It will change everything.

It doesn't have to. Watch it.

Don't watch it, Kayla. Don't.

This phone belongs to a dead boy. I swipe my thumb across the face of it and blink as Steven's home screen loads. I'm glad it's not locked. Aren't I?

I choose the photo gallery from his apps and, before I lose my nerve, press on the first image that pops up. The video begins with the sound of clinking glass, of sloshing liquid. Of laughter and catcalls and faces pressed close to the screen. Big eyes, open mouths, dizzying camera movement. Then there's moving grass for a long time. A beer
bottle falls to the ground.

A voice: “I just fucked up my shoes. You owe me a new pair.”

“Like fuck I do.”

“It's your house. Claim it on your insurance.”

Guffaws.

My hands squeeze the phone so hard that it makes indentations in my skin.

There is a quick change of scenery. Jen's barn appears. Then grass again. Then the barn. I feel sick. Dig my heels into gravel and round my back so my head is closer to the ground. When I breathe, it smells like beer and horses. Someone left a stuffed animal here for Steven.

“Look who's out here,” the familiar voice in the video says softly.

I stop watching because I have to.

I only listen, and listening is enough.

The conversation they almost have, because Bean's words are too slow and slurred to be a real conversation. Laughter. The argument over whether to turn off the video or not. More laughter.

Crying. And laughter. And suggestions so horrible I am sick again.

Another voice. I sit up. I hate hearing my recorded voice.

“Bean? Oh my God.”

I flip the phone over again so the screen faces me. Just in
time to see a blur, someone say, “Shit,” and watch it click off.

Another light fills my vision. I scoot farther back from the road, squinting into headlights. I can't tell whose car has pulled off the road in front of me until the lights go out and I recognize Bean's Honda. The driver's door opens.

“I come here sometimes, too,” Bean says by way of a greeting as she steps out of her car. Her teal sequins glitter in the bath of her headlights. A pile of red hair sits on top of her head. Gravel crunches under her silver shoes.

The phone slips from my hands and lands under my leg.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“You asked me to be your homecoming date,” she says. “I accept.”

I've already changed out of my dress and into jeans.

“That's . . . kind of creepy, Bean.”

“What is? You asking? Or me not calling to say yes before just showing up?”

“Showing up
here
.”

“I wasn't planning on coming here. I was on my way to the dance. You rode right past me on Third and didn't even notice.”

“And you followed.” I can't decide if I wish I stayed at the dance now or if I'm glad Bean and I weren't seen together there. What I do know is that the way she's looking at me—intense, knowing, vindicated—scares me a little. I'm like an animal flushed from its burrow. No more hiding.

“I was curious where you were going. This is a strange choice for your after-party.”

“It wasn't much of a party.” I wince. I know we're not going to talk about the homecoming dance, but I want to. Anything to keep Bean from saying the things I'm certain she wants to say.

I can't stop her, though. All the words she's kept inside come tumbling out.

“I marked the tree so I'd remember where it happened.” Bean points to the X dug into the bark behind me then to the furry fabric on the ground. “I brought that bear for the memorial. Does that seem sick to you?”

Yes, I want to say. But I can't. I don't want to think about Bean standing here, holding a gift for Steven's memorial because no one would listen to her.

“When I come back here, I think about how he died in the accident. Everyone says I'm the nicest girl they know, but I'm
glad
someone died. I wished someone else dead, too.” She sits close to me and peers into my face, as though searching for something. Agreement. Confirmation. Because I, of all people, can't think poorly of her for wishing someone dead. And what she finds satisfies her because she nods. “I don't feel guilty, either, wishing that. Then I wouldn't have to look at him every day in school. And feel, over and over, what he did to me.

“It's what you wanted, too, huh, Kayla? For them to die.
Or to hurt them, somehow.
To not let them get away with it.
You did it on purpose. Turning the car into the ditch. You did that for me.”

“I didn't . . . ,” I croak. Swallow. “I didn't see everything. That night, I mean.”

Her hand reaches out. Touches my shoulder. Pulls away. “Doesn't matter. You saw enough. You replay it. In your head.” She nods at the phone. “With the video. You remember what happened now, don't you?”

I remember. I remembered long before “now.” I didn't remember, yet, when they'd asked me, the police, so it wasn't a lie then. But I remembered long before I came home, the pieces falling into place as I explored Aunt Bea's suburban neighborhood in Kansas City. I remembered when I ate, the swallowing harder the more I thought. When I slept, my dreams taking on the graininess of an old movie, until the only thing I recognized was a night outlined in fear.

But every day I was gone, I talked to my parents. And when they didn't bring up what happened that night before the accident—the things that had led up to the accident—I realized that Bean hadn't told anyone what they did to her. And Bean's silence made me feel like I could come back. I thought she didn't
want
to tell. Eventually, I thought that maybe I had remembered things wrong. That it was all a mistake.

Jay was a star athlete. A hero. A boy everyone had such hope in. He could have any girl. And he certainly wouldn't have to rape someone.

I know better now. Rape isn't about sex.

“Does Jen know?” I ask softly.

“Yeah. She knows.” Her expression softens. She swallows and looks at her keys cradled in her hands. “I told her that night. Before we heard about the accident. She told me I was drunk and hallucinating and that I should go home.”

“I tried to come back for you,” I say. “It would have been different.” The moon glints off the silver key. Off sequins. Her skin is so pale. Why did I try so hard to come back for Bean that night but not after? How did her experience, how much I care about her, change so much in the time between the car crash and waking up? How can I still hesitate when she's right here, in front of me, putting so much faith in me?

“I know you did. Someone else gave me a ride home. I can't even remember who. The whole night was happening in a dream . . . a nightmare. I didn't hear about the accident until the next morning. I was in my room all night, staring at the wall like I'd lost my mind.”

The same way I did all summer long. Eyes locked on the plain, white ceiling in Aunt Bea's guest room, seeing my memories as though they were being replayed in a rearview mirror.

“I needed to file a report, but how could I? Jen didn't believe me. If she didn't, who would?” She blinked. Her dark mascara made her green eyes pop. “You, of course. But then I learned you couldn't remember what happened. I was so worried about you. When I heard about the crash. After.”

“Nothing to worry about,” I mumble, because I never wanted her to waste her worry on me. I'd never deserved it.

She gives me a tiny smile. “When you came home, I thought it was because you'd remembered. I was hopeful for the first time in months. But even when you said you didn't remember . . . I knew the memories were there, in your head, somewhere. That's why I left that note in your locker the first week of school. I thought maybe it would trigger you or something.”

“You didn't need me to remember,” I say. “Your word—”

“What Jay did to Hailey . . . she left town earlier than she'd planned to. To stay safe. Because she knew if she stayed . . . if she told anyone . . .” Bean straightens up, lifts her chin to look at the sky. Her voice goes up a measure with incredulity, with impatience, with the unfairness of everything girls go through. “That's how it always goes, right? ‘She shouldn't have been at that party. Shouldn't have been drinking. Shouldn't have worn a dress. He
was
her boyfriend, so of course it was a misunderstanding.'” She shakes her head and makes a low noise. “And it's Jay Brewster, so.”

I know what she means. The Brewsters' house is new.
Doesn't really belong here. But the family does. Erica's influence as county prosecutor is nothing compared to Jen's uncle in the state senate.

But all that? Pales in comparison to the backing of a town that loves its golden boy.

“I didn't even know about what had happened between Hailey and Jay until days later. She could tell something was wrong, so I told her. She warned me. Don't tell anyone, she said. They will destroy us.”

“Oh, Bean,” I whisper.

Her eyes flick to me. “Yes, you understand that. The danger of telling. Hailey didn't tell because she was worried they would take it out on the rest of our family. They did anyway.” Her laugh comes out as a strangled sob. “I don't even think it was ever about me. As a person. I think . . . I was just a part of this crazy power struggle with my sister. Because Hailey broke up with him.”

I bury my face in my hands. Bean's probably right. How dare Hailey leave him? Boys like him think they're entitled to everything they want.

Bean sighs. “Hailey hates herself for that. But at least she's gone. And I had to stay here and
look
at him. I sit as far from him in classes as I can. I walk the other way when I see him in the hallways. But still, he's there.” She slams her hand into the ground. “Every.” Slam. “Day.” Slam. “Knowing he would bury me if I told. Knowing I'd waited too long for . . .
the evidence. To be able to go to a doctor and say, ‘Look at my body. Look what they did to it.'”

I brush the back of my wrist under my nose. Tamp down a shudder.

“It will kill my parents to know, Kayla,” she says. “But this is destroying me. What they did. That he could do it again.”

I clear my throat but my voice is still husky. I need to cough or scream or something loud, too loud. “I'm so sorry about Hailey.”

“I know. I am, too. I'm sorry it happened and I'm sorry she couldn't tell.
Me
, at least. So I'd have been warned.” She kicks a row of gravel and crouches in front of me. Tears stream down her face. “But I know how dangerous it is to let someone like him off the hook. And now you know. Now there's a witness and they're going to pay for what they did. It won't ever. Happen. Again.”

“I didn't see everything,” I repeat feebly, because my head is filled with buzzing and I can't think of what else to say. How to agree with her but . . . how to explain why I came home, after all. How telling the truth destroys everything that I've been working for and how I can't, not yet, think about losing my home forever.

How I really wish that accident
had
stolen the memory of that night from me. I'd give anything not to have to choose.

“That's okay,” she whispers. “You know, anyway. You
won't let them get away with it. Especially with the way they'd grabbed you. I remember that. The things they must have said to you . . . You won't let them get away with that. I know you won't. Because you drove the car into the ditch. On purpose. That means something. And once you tell Jen . . . she'll have to do the right thing, too. She'll believe you, even if she didn't believe me.”

“She will?”

“Keeping quiet was wrong. But I knew I couldn't accuse them alone. Now it won't be just my word against theirs. It'll be yours, too. We have proof, right here.” She points at the phone, then nods in the direction of my bike. “Do you want a ride home? We can figure out what to do next. Who to talk to.”