Lessons from a Dead Girl(39)

“We took turns, remember? First I did something to you, then you had to do it to me.”

“No.”

Tears slide down my cheeks, but I don’t wipe them off. Leah reaches forward to touch my face. I slap it away.

She keeps talking, but I don’t listen. I don’t let myself hear her tell Web and Jess and her boyfriend and Lucas and a couch of strangers about all the things we did. As if they are things any two best friends would do. I just stare at her awful, beautiful face and hate her.

Finally, the boyfriend shuts her up.

“We’re leaving.” He wraps his pawlike hand around her arm and pulls her to him. He doesn’t look happy.

Leah smiles at me pitifully. “See? That wasn’t so bad, was it? It’s good to get it out in the open. You’ve got to embrace your past, Lainey. That’s the only way to get beyond it. You know I’m right. Right, Lainey? The truth will set you free and all that bullshit? I know I feel a hell of a lot better. Do you?”

But you didn’t tell the whole truth, I think. You didn’t tell all of it. Only her boyfriend is half dragging her away, and I don’t have time to say the words.

Leah’s heels click on the tile in the hallway. “You’re hurting me!” her voice echoes back to us.

Jess and Web are behind me. I don’t dare turn around. I wait for a second for one of them, either one, to put a hand on my shoulder, to tell me it’s OK. But no one touches me. No one says a word before I take off down the hall after Leah.





Outside, Leah and her boyfriend are arguing by a car. He’s still holding her arm.

Hurt her. She deserves it.

Leah says something I can’t hear, and the guy stomps off, all pissed.

“Leah!” I yell.

She doesn’t turn around.

I run toward her.

“Leah, wait!”

I’m sure she can hear me. But she doesn’t turn around. She gets into a sports car parked a few cars over from my dad’s truck and takes off down Web’s long driveway.

“Fucking bitch!” the boyfriend yells. He heads off down the driveway after her, as if he could actually catch up.

I get into the truck, fumble for my keys, and turn the ignition. I pull out of the driveway, past the boyfriend waiting at the corner, and follow Leah. I’ll follow her all the way home if I have to. I don’t know what I’ll say to her, but I have to confront her. I see the look of hate in her eyes again. Feel it grab hold of my heart. Why does she hate me so much? Why did she do it? What’s the real reason she chose me? I have to know.

It’s dark on the road. Bugs fly at the headlights. I know that as I drive, I’m killing them by the hundreds. I can almost feel them hitting the hood of the truck, the windshield. I want to stop. Just stop and not go any farther. But I see Leah’s taillights way ahead, so I speed up to catch her.

Her brake lights go on in the distance, but as I get closer, she takes off again. I beep my horn, which is ridiculous, but I don’t know what else to do.

I press the gas. The speedometer climbs from forty to fifty to sixty. I don’t know the road well, but it’s not a highway and there are some sharp turns. Up ahead there’s a yellow diamond-shaped sign with a black squiggly arrow and a “REDUCE SPEED TO 25” warning. Leah’s brake lights go on, and I get close enough to see her license plate. I flash my lights at her and beep the horn again. She speeds up, crossing the double yellow lines.

The lines blur together through my tears. I blink, but it doesn’t help. Please stop. Please stop. I only say the words in my head, but they choke me just the same. I don’t want to think about how drunk and stoned she is, driving so fast. Please stop.

Finally she gets back on the right side, and I find my voice. “Pull over!” I yell to the back of her car. “Pull over before you get yourself killed!”

But as soon as the road straightens out, she goes even faster. My speedometer reaches seventy when I see another yellow sign with a curved black arrow. I wait for Leah’s brake lights to come on, but nothing happens.

“Stop!” I yell at the windshield. “I’m not letting you get away, so just stop!”

But instead of braking, she goes faster. When she reaches the turn, I don’t see her brake lights.

I quickly slam on my own brakes as I reach the turn. The truck’s tires scream. The back end of the truck forces to the right, then the left.

I think I see yellow lights through the trees ahead, but I don’t realize until I stop and the lights are gone that they weren’t mine. They were Leah’s.

Where did she go?

The headlights of the truck light up the road and the trees on the other side of it. Finally I see a set of red taillights. But they aren’t on the road. They’re down the embankment, at the edge of the woods.

I open my door carefully. As soon as I do, the chime goes off, interrupting the silence around me.

Ding ding ding ding …

I step down and feel the hard pavement under my feet. I hold myself up with the door handle. My hand is shaking.

I slowly let go of the handle and cross the road to where I saw the taillights. I step toward the edge of the embankment, afraid to look. Below me, at the tree line, the black sports car is crumpled around a tree in a grotesque sort of hug.

I smell gas.

Everything is quiet except for the ding ding ding from the truck in the distance.