In an Instant(57)

“I didn’t go,” Mo says.

“I thought you asked Robert?”

“I did. But when I was in the hospital, Ally asked him, and since he wasn’t sure if I’d be better in time, he said yes.”

“That sucks.”

“Not really. I wasn’t into going anyway.”

“Did that boy Finn asked end up going?”

My ears perk up.

“Charlie. Yeah, he went with that tall girl, Cami. You know, the soccer goalie.”

My heart plummets, and I wonder bitterly if he draws cartoons of her now instead of me.

“Clover,” Mo says. “You know what’s been bugging me?”

“Not until you tell me.”

Mo smirks. “Natalie.”

“Well, there’s something that hasn’t changed.”

Mo smiles again. “So you know how you won’t talk about what happened, and I hate to talk about it, and your mom won’t talk about it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that means the only people talking about it are Natalie and her dad, and what they’re saying isn’t what actually happened.”

“So? Let them have their stupid glory.”

“I know. That’s what I originally thought. But it’s bugging me. A lot.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess because I need to keep telling myself the truth so it makes sense. It’s my way of dealing with it. We crashed. We survived. I run it through in my brain over and over again, every detail, so I can understand it.”

“So why do you care what Natalie’s saying? I’m sure no one even believes her. After all, it’s Natalie.”

“Because I’m realizing there are pieces missing. I only know the parts I know, not the whole thing.”

Chloe sits up and crosses her legs. “Mo, let it go.”

“I can’t.”

Chloe tenses. “I can’t talk about it.”

“I know. And I don’t need you to. I wrote it all down—well, most of it, the parts I know. And your part I mostly have. After we crashed, you, Vance, and Kyle were piled against the driver’s seat.”

“Who’s Kyle?”

“Kyle was the kid we picked up on the side of the road. His car had broken down.”

“I forgot he was even with us. Is he okay?”

“I think so. He’s the one who hiked out with your mom to get help.”

Chloe shakes her head. “Wow, you’re right. We really only know the parts we know.”

“Exactly. You were the first one I saw. I opened my eyes, and your mom was stumbling toward you. Your head was cut, and there was a lot of blood . . .”

“I thought Bob helped me?”

“Your mom helped you first. You don’t remember?”

Chloe’s eyes narrow in on the quilt on her bed as she tries to remember. She bites her lip as her fingers rise to the scar on her forehead, the vaguest recollection of my mom’s touch. “Oh,” she says.

“Then she realized Finn was up front, so she told Bob to look after you.”

Both fall silent, a shared moment of reverence for my death.

“Then, after the initial shock of everything, and after your dad was moved into the back, you and Vance left. Two days later, you were found.”

Chloe’s jaw twitches. Her story isn’t complicated, just horribly, simply awful.

“The parts I’m missing are what caused the accident, why Oz left, and what happened when your mom and Kyle climbed out to get help.”

“My mom won’t talk about it,” Chloe says. “She’s even worse about it than me. At least I acknowledge it happened. My mom pretends it didn’t, not any of it—the accident, the death of two of her kids. Her way of dealing is to act like Finn and Oz never existed. It’s weird, but I’m telling you, she’s not going to talk about it. She’s in serious denial and has made a superhuman effort to erase all evidence of it.”

It’s true. After my mom purged my room of all my belongings, she did the same to Oz’s room. Then she scoured the house. If she found a sock that was mine, it was discarded; an eraser Oz had used, tossed; a paper clip that was green, thrown in the trash. She no longer buys applesauce or Fruit Roll-Ups, because those were my favorites, or Hershey’s syrup or Oreos, because those were Oz’s.

Mo rolls onto her back and looks at the ceiling. There are faint outlines of the glow stars she and I pasted above my bed when we were nine. “That’s too bad. It’s her story I want to hear the most. She was amazing, superhero amazing. I owe her my life. We all do.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think she sees it that way.”

“How can she not?”

Chloe shrugs. “Like you said, none of us know the whole story. We each only know our parts and from our perspective. And I bet the part we don’t know about my mom’s story is the part that has her racing through the streets like a madwoman and pretending she only ever had two children instead of four and avoiding mirrors like that’s where the devil that chases her lives.”





70

Chloe had completely forgotten she had agreed to go to the symphony with my mom, but when my mom popped her head through Chloe’s door to tell her to get a move on for their big night out, Chloe did a great job pretending she was excited.