Somebody I Used to Know (33 page)

“Hey,” I said.

“Were you out here all night?” she asked, her voice wavering between disapproval and admiration. “Never mind. I know the answer to that. Of course you were.”

“I shouldn’t have fallen asleep.”

“You’re lucky the police didn’t arrest you,” she said.

“They didn’t drive by as much as I thought they would.” I turned my neck one way and then the other, trying to work out the kinks. Cool air blew in through the window. “I almost called Reece and asked for more cops, but it was the middle of the night.”

“We were fine,” Gina said. “I think it’s all fine.”

I wasn’t convinced, but I didn’t want to alarm her more than she already was, so I just asked, “Did Andrew sleep okay? Was he scared or anything?”

“He did fine.” She looked over my wrinkled clothes and the empty coffee cups and fast-food wrappers. “I think he was more at ease than you were.”

“I just took a nap at the very end there,” I said.

“Are you planning on doing this every night?” Gina asked.

“I haven’t thought that far yet.”

“Well,” she said. “I have to get to work and get the kid to school. You probably need to be moving on too.”

“Does the school know about last night?” I asked. “Are they going to keep a closer eye on him?”

“I wasn’t even going to let him go to school today. I really wasn’t. But I spoke to the principal, and she assured me they’d keep a careful eye on him. She made me feel better, and I guess it makes sense for his life to be normal. I don’t want him to sit at home with me locked in the house.”

I couldn’t think of any other angles to cover. I felt like there should be, but I couldn’t summon them in my groggy, overly tired state.

Gina bent down closer to the open window. She placed her hand on my arm. “You need to take care of yourself, Nick. Go home and clean up.”

“Yeah. Okay. I know my breath stinks.”

“And, Nick?” She squeezed my arm tighter. “Thanks. You’re really a champ.”

“I just . . . well, you know I care about Andrew.” I waited, not sure if it seemed right. “And you,” I said. “We may not make a good married couple, but I do like you.”

“I know. On both counts. And we care about you. Both of us.”

She squeezed my arm one more time and walked off toward the house.

*   *   *

The time at work dragged. When lunch rolled around, I fought to keep my eyes open. I walked downtown to try to get my blood flowing and then ate a sandwich in a diner on the square and swallowed several more cups of coffee but still remained groggy. A nervous, jittery groggy. Not an improvement.

I decided to walk it off. The day was warm, the sun bright. Everywhere I looked, it was spring. I saw couples paired off, pregnant women pushing strollers. The planters around downtown, the ones maintained by the city, overflowed with budding flowers. I ambled with no purpose in mind, or so I told myself, but I quickly saw where my legs were taking me. I crossed the edge of the campus and walked toward the street where Marissa lived.

More students were out, thanks to the warm weather. They threw Frisbees around the Hightower Meadow, the guys with their shirts off, the women catching the sun on their bare arms and legs. Music played and people laughed, and it wasn’t hard to get caught up in the energy of their youth. I wished I could step into one of their bodies or extract some of the life from them. But I also wanted to issue a warning.
You never know,
I wanted to say.
You just never know where your life will take you.

But I wouldn’t have listened to a middle-aged guy when I was twenty, and I assumed they wouldn’t listen to me. And I didn’t want to stop because if I did, even for a moment, I might not go ahead and do what I intended to do.

It took just a few minutes to reach the end of Blakemoor Street. Marissa’s street. I’d passed by there many times over the years without making the turn. But on that day I made it. I turned right and started walking up Blakemoor. Marissa’s house had sat on the left side, halfway up the block. The houses all looked the same as they had twenty years earlier. A new coat of paint here, some improved landscaping there, but otherwise the same. The recycling bins on the porches were filled with beer cans and wine bottles. The furniture looked grubby, telling me students still lived there. And then, when I reached the spot—number 784—I stopped.

Marissa’s house had been limestone with a wide front porch and three dormer windows across the top. The house built in its place was made of red brick. The porch was smaller, the second floor larger. I glanced at the sides of the house and around the yard. Nothing to indicate a fire had ever taken place there. No rubble or charred remnants of the former house. No candles or makeshift memorials. Why should there be? The kids who lived in the house may not have been born when four people died on that spot. It meant nothing to them.

The door of the house opened just then. A young guy with long hair came bounding out and down the steps. I wasn’t sure if he’d even noticed me as he approached. He whistled while he walked and carried a small stack of books under his arm.

“How’s it going?” he asked, only mildly curious about me.

“Nice house,” I said.

He looked back like he’d never seen it before. “Yeah, it is.”

“I’m an alum,” I said, as if he cared.

“Right on.” He pointed at the house. “Did you used to live here?”

“No,” I said. “Some friends did.”

“Cool. You must have good memories to be coming back like this.”

I started to explain but decided against it. I settled for simple agreement.

“You’re right,” I said. “Lots of good memories.”

*   *   *

Then I walked from Blakemoor back to campus and behind Beech Hall. A small creek ran through campus over there, and in the 1920s, a group of alums had pooled their money and had the Beech Bridge constructed. Except no one ever called it the Beech Bridge. Everyone called it the Kissing Bridge. Campus lore said if two students kissed just as the clock tower in the quad chimed midnight, then they were destined to spend eternity together. I had no idea what the success rate of the Kissing Bridge might be. I suspected the university really didn’t want to know. It made the campus brochures and tours so much more appealing to simply tell prospective students they might find true love on a small wooden bridge over a trickle of a creek than to discuss love’s fleeting nature.

As I told Dale, Marissa and I kissed there. We waited until our one-year anniversary, and then we went out there one night and managed to get the bridge all to ourselves. We waited, shivering in the autumn cold, until the bell tolled, and we started making out like we wanted to swallow each other’s face. We never talked in any real terms about getting married someday. A concept like that seemed too big, too far away. We clung to our plans for New Zealand, though, and in a way that made it feel like forever for me, with or without the silly Kissing Bridge. I couldn’t imagine forever feeling like anything else but being with her.

I stood on the bridge and stared down into the water. The little creek grew deeper as it passed under me, and I watched the shifting layers of silt and the occasional appearance of a small, darting fish. Overhead, the trees were just starting to fill out with green, so enough light filtered through to keep me warm. Classes must have been changing, because a stream of students passed me in both directions, their footfalls rocking the tiny bridge ever so slightly. A few of them bumped against me, but most of them went on, talking and laughing, without making contact of any kind with me.

I stood and stared a long time, long after the student traffic had slowed to nothing. I knew I had to get back to work, but I didn’t want to go. I felt tired, wrung-out. The rest of the day would be a slog. But being an adult meant slogging through when no other option presented itself.

I was just about to return to real life when I thought I heard someone say my name.

One word. My name.

But who there would know my name?

Then she said it again.

And I knew who it was even before I turned around.

She’d come back.

She’d found me.

Marissa.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

W
e were alone on the bridge again, just like that kiss twenty years earlier.

We stood on opposite sides, separated by about eight feet of wooden planks.

It was her. A little older, of course. A few streaks of gray in her red hair. A few more lines on the face. But it was Marissa. Alive. In the flesh.

Marissa.

But neither one of us made a move for the other. I felt paralyzed. Stunned. I feared that if I moved I would break the spell, end the dream, and she’d be gone.

Again. Maybe forever.

She finally shrugged. “It’s really me, Nick. It is.”

“I know,” I said.

To that point, I had been inadequate to the moment. And I knew the moment ticked away faster and faster.

Was I going to let it speed by me like a runaway train? Like the previous twenty years?

I moved toward her then. And she moved toward me too. And we were in each other’s arms, hugging, holding each other tight.

“My God,” I said. “It’s real. It’s really and truly you.”

We held each other a long time. I absorbed the sensations: the vanilla scent of her hair, the soft brush of my skin against hers, the tangle of her hair against my face. I didn’t want to let go.

“I’m sorry about all this,” she said finally.

“How did you find me?” I asked.

“Jade. She told me she’d talked to you.”

“But here . . . the bridge?” I asked.

“I didn’t want to just show up at your house,” she said. “I didn’t want to ambush you. Jade looked up where you worked, so I drove by there. It’s lunchtime. I looked around downtown and around campus. I found myself coming this way, and, of course, I remembered the bridge. To be honest, I drove by your office a few times this morning, hoping I’d see you. It sounds crazy, but I wanted to lay eyes on you again.”

“I don’t care. I don’t care at all.”

I released my grip on her a little. I held her at arm’s length and studied her face. It was the same. She was there. The same girl.

“I’m worried about Jade,” I said. “I scared her. I wanted her to tell me where you were.” For a moment, I couldn’t speak, and then I asked, “Where have you been? What have you been doing? My God, Marissa, how did all of this happen? Is what Jade told me true?”

“Whoa,” she said. She appeared guarded, nervous, looking around, averting her eyes from mine. “I’ll tell you. I promise.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“I do want you to know something right away,” she said, returning her eyes to mine.

“What? Anything.”

We still held hands, our arms extended.

“I’ve looked you up over the years. People-finder programs on the Internet. Facebook. I knew you were here. I saw things happening in your life. I wanted so much to make contact, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Too much was at stake.”

“I heard. And I’d want you to be safe.”

“But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to reach out to you. I wanted to tell you everything twenty years ago.” She closed her eyes as though she’d been stricken with a sharp pain. “If only I had. If only I had told everyone the truth about everything back then.”

“You were young. You were under your father’s control.”

Marissa was shaking her head. “I can’t use that as an excuse anymore. The expiration date on that one is up. Dad is dead. So’s Mom. It’s us now, we’re the adults, and maybe it’s time to clean all of this up.”

“We can take our time figuring that out.”

Marissa looked away. The breeze picked up, blowing a strand of hair across her face. A couple of students came walking by, and we stayed silent while they passed, her body pressing closer against mine, a surge of energy speeding through me, illuminating every cell. Filling me.

When the students were gone, Marissa said, “I dreaded you ever knowing those things. About the accident. Honestly, a part of me didn’t want to see you because I didn’t want you to hear about all of that. I worried—”

I placed my hand on her shoulder. “There’s nothing to worry about. It was an accident. You were helping Jade.”

She didn’t look at me, but said, “Thanks.” And then she did it. She lifted her hand to her mouth, pinching her lips between her thumb and index finger. Just like Emily in the grocery store. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

“I want to talk to you. Can we go somewhere?”

“We should.” She nodded. “We’re out in the open here.”

“Do you want to go to a coffee shop or something?”

“No.” Her voice carried surprising force. “I want to go someplace private, someplace safe. I don’t even like being out here this way. Campus always felt safe to me, but it doesn’t now.” She turned to face me. “Can we go to your place? I don’t have much time.”

“My car’s downtown,” I said.

“Mine’s right here.”

She took me by the hand, and we left the bridge.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

W
hen we reached her car, a red hybrid, Marissa held the keys out to me.

“I want to look around at the campus and the town,” she said. “Do you mind driving? I haven’t been here in twenty years.”

“I don’t mind.”

When I took the keys, she held on to my hand for a moment. “I used to think I’d never drive again, after the accident. But I did. I had to.” She let go and we got in.

Once we were moving, I asked, “Would you like to see anything in particular?”

“Not really.”

She stared out the window and seemed to have settled into a moody silence. I didn’t want to push her, but I said, “I went somewhere today, right before I saw you.”

“The house?”

“Yes. It’s weird. It’s like it never existed.”

“I went by there too. It wasn’t easy to see. I was so close to those girls. They were my best friends.” She swallowed. “And I know someone else died in there as well.”

“Charles Blevins is his name.”

She turned to look at me, her face expectant and nervous.