Never Have I Ever(34)

“I was there,” she insisted. “When the cars met, the sound of metal ripping was like screaming. Remember?” Roux asked, and I could hear it. “That smell, from the tires, burning against the road,” she said, and I could smell it.

She leaned in even closer, her blue eyes widening and glistening. Now I was right back in it, back inside that night. My house, my tidy room, even my baby, babbling softly to his toy, faded further into darkness. There was only the taste of my own salt, choking me. Only the bite of asphalt on my knees. I saw myself reflected in her eyes, pale blue like Mrs. Shipley’s. Like Lolly’s, wet and bright as damaged forget-me-nots. I could hear Lolly’s piping voice. Amy, Paul is cry.

She said, “It’s all right, you can say it. I already know.”

I was driving.

God, those three words. I could feel them roiling through my body. I’d been waiting for permission to loose those words since I was fifteen years old. I’d wanted to say them, to save Tig with them, undrown the truth, let it be alive.

Roux said, “You killed her, and you sent that boy to prison for you.”

I could feel the breath that made her words touching my face, and she was the voice in my head, saying everything I’d repeated on a loop when I was out in California. When there weren’t enough drinks or drugs or sun-browned boys in all the world to stop the truth revolving in my mind. When there was never, never peace or silence. All that she’d set loose roared through me and around me, and words came with it, fast and soft.

“I never meant for it to happen. I never meant to lie. I didn’t remember that I was driving. Not at first. I never meant. I never meant. I swear to God.”

“But you killed her,” her voice said, and it was more than her voice. It was my own. It was the voice of God.

“Yes, I did,” I said, and all the weight escaped my body.

I thought I might fall. I thought my heart might simply stop, or I might rise up in the air and fly, and this, this feeling, this was why there was such a thing as confession. This was why Roux’s game had worked at book club, why we all played, why we all said too much. To speak, to release, to let go, to let this truth be shared between our human bodies, breath and blood, in sunlight. I hated her, and I was almost in love with her, for making this moment. For knowing. For letting me say these words out loud, at last, at last, at last.

“Good,” Roux said. “Good. Now. How are you going to make it up to me?”

I blinked, disoriented still. “Make it up to you?”

“To me. Surely by now, you’ve guessed who I am?” Roux asked.

I shook my head, still puzzled.

“That night? It’s my first memory. I was in the back, strapped into my booster. I saw my mom die. I remember. I saw my babysitter staggering out of the car that killed her. Driver’s side. And it was you.”

I landed back in my body, hard, only to find that my bones had all gone rubbery and soft.

“You aren’t Lolly Shipley,” I told her. My hands came up to touch my head. When I thought of Lolly and baby Paul—and I tried not to ever, ever think of them—all I saw was clear blue water. No way to see past it.

“Tell me that you’re sorry.” Her eyes were so intense, boring into me, but I did not know them. They were the eyes of any blue-eyed stranger. “Tell me that you’re sorry that you killed my mom.”

I stepped back, gulping, sick and dizzy, my legs so weak I nearly lost my balance. She wasn’t Lolly. It was impossible. “You aren’t her.”

“How can you say that?” she asked. Her lower lip trembled. Unshed tears welled up, sparkling on her lashes. “How can you look right at me and deny me?”

My vision pinholed, the world tilted and spun, and Roux tipped sideways. No, I did. I was falling. I was under. Blue waves billowed around me, around Roux’s terrible, beautiful face, so close to mine, and I found Lolly after all. I saw her the way I used to see her when I lost control, early days, when the real worsts at my core would come unfolded, showing me everything I owed.

I saw Lolly in the water, holding Paul, struggling, kicking, trying to pull them both up. All the air leaving her, bubbles tumbling toward the surface and the sunlight, up to where she could not go.

But what had I done? What had I said?

Lolly sank into a blue so deep and velvet it was almost black. I saw bubbles rising, but Lolly, she went down. She went down fast, and I went with her, into a silent darkness.





6




I was lying on the floor. It was dry. No waves, no water. The blue I saw billowing around me was only the skirt of Roux’s long dress. My head was cradled in her lap. Had I fallen? Somewhere a baby was making noises. Not unhappy, but getting there. Readying to fuss.

Not Paul. Not Lolly. They were not here. They could not be. It was my baby. It was Oliver.

Roux peered down at me, saying, “Welcome back. You fainted,” but that could not be right. I wasn’t the kind to faint.

From a thousand miles away, I heard my front door bang open. Someone was calling for me. “Amy?”

“Shit!” Roux jerked, looking up. “Is that Kanga? Does she not knock?”

“Amy?” It was Charlotte, calling from the foyer, coming for our walk.

Roux pushed at me, rolling me away so she could stand. I flopped back and lay flat, sick and dizzy. She bent at the waist, leaning over so her eyes met mine, talking in an urgent near whisper. “Tell her— No, too complicated. Get rid of her, fast, and come see me. Today, or I swear to God . . . You owe me. You owe me, and you are going to pay.”