Rapid Falls(45)

My mom also kept trying to make me talk to her about Jesse. She said I should go to counseling to “get through it.” She wanted me to tell her how much I missed him and how sad I was that he was gone. I knew what she wanted me to say, but I couldn’t recite the words. I was too angry to be sad. At Anna. At Jesse. They took away everything.

There was a month left until the scheduled trial when I heard the knock on my bedroom door.

“I’m not hungry,” I said.

“It’s not Mom.” My door opened and my sister walked in. Her hair was greasy, and the pimples on her chin looked deep and sore.

“Hey,” I said, shifting my legs to one side of the bed so she could sit down.

“It stinks in here,” she said.

“Does it?” I looked over at a pile of unwashed laundry. “Open a window, I guess?” I turned back to my book. I didn’t have much to say to Anna. She sat down on my bed instead of walking to the window. I closed my book and absentmindedly looked at my nails. I knew they would bleed if I bit them any more. I could feel my anger rising. All of this was Anna’s fault. We both knew it, but neither of us had said it.

“Mom won’t leave me alone,” Anna said.

“About what?” I tasted blood as I pulled a tiny tag of skin from my finger with my teeth.

“The plea,” she said.

“She’s pretty obsessed with it. The innocent thing.” I sucked on my thumb to try to stop the bleeding.

“Not innocent, Cara. Just not guilty,” Anna said.

“I guess.” I knew she wasn’t innocent. We both did. I could have stopped our silence with my rage, but I swallowed it down. This wasn’t the time.

“What . . . do you remember?” she asked me. She sounded scared, as if I was going to tell her something awful. She hadn’t asked me about that night since I saw her in the Nicola hospital.

“What do you mean? I remember pulling you out of the car. I remember . . .” I stopped talking to avoid saying too much. I remembered the feeling of mud on my hands that was so warm I had thought it was blood. I remembered things I was going to spend my whole life trying to forget.

“I don’t . . . remember anything. Nothing after . . . when we first got to the party. I remember riding up with Sandy. We were listening to the Spice Girls. She hit a huge rock with her car right after we got through the roadblock. I thought we were going to have a flat tire, and I was so glad that we made it up. I remember seeing Jesse.”

I turn toward the wall as she keeps talking.

“I don’t remember leaving the Field.” Her voice fills with panic. “I don’t remember drinking, Cara. Or taking pills. I mean, I know I had a wine cooler or two, and I stole one of those painkillers from you before we left for the prom, before Mom took our pictures. But I was staying sober. For you.”

Bile rose in my throat, but I pushed it down. Nothing she did that night was for me.

“You stole a painkiller?” I seized on the gift she had unknowingly given me. “Anna, come on. Of course it hit you super hard.”

“It was grad night. You seemed like you were having so much fun. I thought . . . I would too.”

I paused, narrowing my eyes. “How do I know you didn’t take a whole bunch?”

“Um, check the bottle?” Anna’s sharp tone made my hands clench. She hadn’t talked to me like that since the accident, but instead of reassuring me, it made me furious.

“It was in the truck.” My tone was as icy as the river. “You know, the one that sank?”

“Oh.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that you didn’t have more than one drink? The police tested your blood.”

“Maybe I was drugged?”

I looked at her with my best doubtful expression. “Seriously? You just told me that you stole a painkiller. Maybe more. Besides, who would drug you?”

“I know. It’s stupid. I just don’t know . . . Why can’t I remember?”

This was dangerous territory. I couldn’t let her keep asking these questions.

“Anna, you killed him. You killed Jesse. I have no idea why you can’t remember. Maybe your brain is trying to protect you. I don’t know.”

She flinched as if I had punched her. Her face distorted with the deepest hurt that I had ever seen: pure, unadulterated sorrow. She started to cry. Ragged sobs ripped through the room. I didn’t reach out to touch her. She gulped air quickly, trying to stop herself.

“I know. I know what I did. Do you think I don’t know?”

I stared at her coldly. “Just stop with the not-remembering stuff.”

“It’s true, Cara,” she said.

“You were at a party, Anna. You drank more than you thought you did. It happens.” My voice was frigid, but I didn’t feel cold. I felt furious, hot with anger. Even my hands were burning.

“Maybe.” She stared off into space, as if trying to convince herself. I needed to turn this around. But first I needed to know if anyone else knew about her gaps in memory.

“Have you talked to the lawyer about not remembering?” I asked.

Anna shook her head. No.

“Mom and Dad?”

“No, Cara. What’s the point? Mom will just turn it into another crusade against Dad.”