All the Rage(55)

Coming back.

I interrupt that stray, unwelcome thought by focusing on putting Grebe behind me and by the time I’m at its edges, I feel the first tentative drops of rain.

The sky is darker now, promising a storm.

I reach the highway. I don’t know where I’m headed. Ibis is closest, but there’s nothing for me there. I keep to the shoulder and the rain falls with a little more certainty. I glance down the ditch, at all the overgrown grass and garbage in it, and think of my classmates searching for Penny and I think as long as no one finds her, she gets to be alive.

That’s the thought that breaks the sky.

It’s like the rain has been up there, accumulating for ages, getting heavier, too heavy, and now it’s all coming down at once. It drenches me, plastering my hair to my face and my clothes to my skin. A semi goes speeding past and the sound of it makes my ears hurt. All of its wheels splash road water on me but I don’t care. I push on until I reach Slab Road, a dirt road just off the highway. Mud road, now. My feet slop against the ground. Eventually, through a curtain of rain, I see a shape on the horizon. Something’s not right. I squint, trying to make it out.

It’s an accident.

An SUV in the ditch. All the way in. Tipped forward, its grille pressed against the earth. I double over and clutch my stomach with one arm, trying to pull air into my lungs while I reach for my phone with the other.

I stumble forward until it’s clearer, what I’m looking at.

An Escalade EXT.

There’s only one of those in Grebe.

I’m immediately set on going back the way I’ve come, leaving this here for someone else to find but—I stare at the wreck. I can’t tell if it’s the kind of accident that would hurt someone bad or just badly enough.

I don’t have to help, just because I want to look.

My legs are numb, but I force them to take me to the car, to Alek. I get a good look at the wide gap between the back tires and the road and it’s going to really take something to pull this out. My eyes drift down to where the vehicle’s weight is pushing the front of it farther into the grass, the ground.

The driver’s side door is flung wide open.

I inch down the embankment. My running shoes barely grip the grass. I fall into the car and my fingers slip over its wet exterior. I peer in the driver’s side. Keys in the ignition, but the engine’s off. Cell phone on the floor—his. I pick it up, check his call history, see if it’s a tow truck or an ambulance or something. But his last call was last night, to his mother.

“Penny!”

I turn to the woods beyond the car.

How long has it been since I heard her name said like that?

Like it was being said to her.

Penny. If she’s back, if she’s in those woods, it can go back to how it was and no one needs to be here that doesn’t need to be here. I move into the trees, where the rain comes lighter and I see a boy in the clearing. Alek, in the clearing. He’s not looking at me, his right arm held tight to his chest. He’s as broken as I’ve ever seen him but I don’t care, wouldn’t care, because I’m looking for her. Alek called her name. She has to be here. Has to. If she comes back, he doesn’t.

Alek stumbles around when he hears my footsteps, his eyes wide. He loses his balance and hits the ground hard and then he’s just sitting. He buries his head in his hands, his long, thin fingers creeping into his hair, and then he slumps onto his side, curls in on himself.

He’s drunk.

He’s drunk and she’s not here. He didn’t find her. I wonder if he was pretending he had. Drove himself off the road knowing she wasn’t here, but wanting to feel the lie just for a second. He unfurls himself slowly, until he’s on his back, staring at the sky, so resigned to this, me.

“I guess I’ll call your dad,” I say. I’ll call his dad and nothing will come of it. I get pulled over sober, and Alek. He’ll stagger away from this, untouched.

He closes his eyes for a minute and when he opens them again, says, “Gimme your phone. Gimme your phone, I want to show you something.”

The sick understanding of what he’s just given away washes over me.

He stares up at me, focuses enough to enjoy it.

“Oh, you saw them,” he says.

“You—” I lower my phone. “You took the pictures.”

He nods, the back of his head rubbing against the ground, a grin ghosting his mouth. This memory makes him smile, is the only thing that could make him smile right now. I close my eyes and I see Alek, I see my phone in his hands and I don’t want to hold my phone if it’s been in his hands. I don’t want my skin, if he’s seen so much of it.

“You let me,” he says.

“No.” I didn’t. I wouldn’t have.

“You did—” He starts to laugh and his eyes drift closed. “I told Penny you let me and she didn’t care. She told me to … she told me to stop. The last time I talk to her, we fight—” He stops laughing and opens his eyes. “About you.”

I step away, but I can’t untangle myself from this, what he’s said. I can’t …

“But you let me, you wanted it.” He tries to sit up, but he can’t, he can’t, and Penny’s in my head, and she’s taking something from me, she’s always taking something from me. A girl at a diner, a girl sitting across from me in a booth. She opens her mouth and she says—“Like you let him. Worthless f*cking slit.”