Freefall (22 page)

After a few minutes, Rosetta stopped crying. She raised her head, looked at me, and then looked away, dabbing at her nose with her sleeve.

I said, “I really am sorry.”

She said, “It isn’t your fault.”

I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe that
she
believed herself either. But she was giving off a vibe like she didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so I decided to let it go. For now.

“We need to get you out of this rain, but I’m kind of out of ideas here,” I said. “Do you want me to walk you back to your house?”

She shook her head. “I’d rather walk to yours. I mean, if you don’t mind.”

Unexpected, but it was exactly the thing I’d needed her to say. I stood and helped her to her feet. “I don’t mind.”

5:57
P.M.

By the time we were in sight of the faded Riverside Trailer Park sign, Rosetta and I were as soaked as two people could get. My jacket felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, my pants were chafing against my legs, and my socks and shoes
were completely waterlogged. But even with the wet clothes, I was burning up. Long, treacherous walks can have that effect on a person, I guess.

“Here we are,” I said, pointing at the wreck I call home. Mom’s Honda and Kendall’s MINI Cooper were parked in the driveway. “Home sweet dump.”

Rosetta grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze, but she didn’t say anything. This was more embarrassing than I’d thought it would be. I couldn’t stop wondering what she was thinking. Up where she lived, everything was nice and perfect. Down here, everything was tacky and broken.

She waited on the steps that led to the covered porch while I went to the door. I couldn’t see into the living room—we hadn’t bothering opening that set of curtains for weeks—but I could make out noises from the TV. After flinging the door open, I stood in the doorway and yelled, “Mom! Can I get some towels out here?”

Her voice rang out from what sounded like her bedroom: “Is that you, Seth?”

“Yeah!”

I didn’t know who else she had calling her “Mom” these days with Jared being out of town.

About two seconds later, Kendall came through the kitchen. Her hair had been dyed black with blue on the ends sometime in the less-than-twenty-four hours since I’d seen her. With her purple top and short black skirt she had kind of a comic-book chick-villain look going on. “Anita, it
is
him,”
she called over her shoulder. Then she said, “What happened to you?”

“Rain.”

Mom came out with curlers in her hair, dressed in a skirt for work but with her shirt still unbuttoned. Peeking out the kitchen window, she said, “Baby, I didn’t hear the fan belt-slash-muffler that usually announces your arrival, and I don’t see your car out front. Based on that and the looks of you right now, I’m thinking you broke down or wrecked somewhere.” She put her hands together as if she were praying. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “The car’s fine. We just . . . felt like walking.”

At the mention of “we,” Mom and Kendall glanced at each other, puzzled, and then leaned to look past me at Rosetta. “Towels,” Mom said, running off. “You need towels!”

Kendall raised her eyebrows, and then headed to the kitchen like she was pissed about something.

A minute later—with the important buttons done up now—Mom came back, handed me the towels, introduced herself to Rosetta, and then closed the door on us so we wouldn’t let all the heat out as we took off some of our wet stuff.

“Is Kendall here to see
you
?” Rosetta asked, holding the base of her very messy-looking ponytail with one hand and sliding off her hair tie with the other.

I pulled my shoes and socks off and dropped them out of the way. “No. She used to live next door. She hangs out with my mom all the time.”

Rosetta leaned her head over the rickety railing and started ringing her hair out. “Oh. I didn’t realize that.”

There hadn’t been much chance for Rosetta and me to talk after we’d left the golf course. Our adventure trekking down the Hill, with all the nonstop pummeling rain and violent wind, had kept us busy. But I’d been thinking the whole time, and we definitely had more important stuff than Kendall and my mom to discuss. I wasn’t sure I had the guts to go there, though.

“I’m wondering about something,” I said, shrugging out of my jacket. “It’s about your parents. About what happened to them. If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. I don’t want to push you. And I don’t ever want to make you cry again. So maybe I
shouldn’t
ask.”

She was watching me. Curious. “You can ask. It’s okay.”

I let out a loud breath. “So. I’ve been thinking. Your parents. They were killed in a car accident?”

She nodded.

“And you were with them at the time?”

She nodded again.

“And that’s why you don’t ride in cars.”

That one wasn’t a question, but Rosetta answered anyway. “That’s exactly why.” She pulled off her jacket and set it next to where I’d put mine on the railing. “We were T-boned
on the passenger side. And nobody around here really knows this part, but I was the one driving my dad’s car at the time.”

Whoa.

Ever since the dance, when I’d found out
both
Rosetta’s parents had died right before she moved here, I’d been thinking it must have been from an accident of some sort. A car wreck had seemed most likely because of Rosetta’s phobia. But it had never occurred to me that she’d ever learned to drive, much less that she had been behind the wheel at the time of the crash.

Rosetta went on. “The other driver was drunk and didn’t have a seatbelt on. I was the only one in either vehicle who lived. The cars were mangled and there was glass and blood everywhere. I mean,
every
where. It wasn’t until the paramedics got me out that I realized very little of that blood was mine.”

The only time I’ve ever seen a dead person was when I found Isaac. He’d been lying there on the lawn, looking pretty much like he was asleep. But Rosetta. She’d been trapped in a car with her parents. Her dead and bloody parents. I couldn’t even imagine what that must have been like.

Even though I figured it would mean next to nothing, I said those same useless words I was always saying to her: “I’m sorry. I’m
so
sorry.”

Rosetta had tears in her eyes as she threw herself against me. I held her tightly. Kept her upright. But she didn’t break down. I guess maybe she was too exhausted by now. “I’m not
much fun to be around, am I?” she asked, her face partially buried in my neck. “I mean, it probably isn’t every day that you get stuck listening to someone talk about how she killed her parents.”

I shook my head. “Rosetta, don’t even say that. You didn’t kill anyone.”

“Maybe not. But if I’d been a more experienced or observant driver, maybe I could have avoided the collision. Or if I’d been driving faster. Or slower. Or turned down a different road. There are thousands of things I could have done differently. Any one of them could have prevented it.”

I pulled back a little and looked into her eyes. “You said I couldn’t have guessed what was going to happen to Isaac that night. That’s just as true, if not more, for what happened to you.”

“That’s what my former shrink was always trying to drill into my head, but I never believed it.” She looked away. “Did it help when I said it to you? Did you stop holding yourself responsible?”

I thought about it for a second. And, actually, no, I
hadn’t
stopped. I didn’t want to admit that to her, though, so I just said, “The thing is, all you did was get in a car and drive like millions of people do every day. You couldn’t have known anything like that would happen. It was
not
your fault.”

She nodded. “On an intellectual level, I get that. And yet here I am, making us both miserable. I’ve been thinking, maybe I should see if trying a new therapist might help me.
Does that sound like a good idea?” She smiled the tiniest of smiles. “Or do you think I’m just plain crazy here?”

I pushed her wet, tangled hair off her forehead. “I don’t think you’re any kind of crazy.”

6:13
P.M.

“I’m not sure why you’re bothering with this,” Kendall said. “Rosetta already noticed the mess on her way in.”

Rosetta and I had come inside now, and she was taking Mom’s suggestion and getting warmed up in the shower while Mom finished putting on makeup in her bedroom. This had all been going on only about five minutes, but so far I’d already changed clothes, thrown the dirty ones into the washer, kicked all the crap under my bed, and taken an armload of dirty dishes from the living room to the kitchen sink. Now I was putting the scattered mail on the table in a pile.

“I’m bothering because if it’s cleaner when she comes out, she might think what she saw before was her imagination,” I said.

“Hmm. Interesting theory.” Kendall picked up Mom’s fuzzy pink blanket, folded it, and set it on the back of the couch. “So, it’s pretty weird how you two felt like going for a walk in the middle of a hurricane, huh?”

“Not really. Rosetta has that ‘no riding in cars’ deal going on, remember?”

“Oh, right.”
Kendall smacked her forehead. “Her environmental pledge thing!”

The way she’d said it, I couldn’t tell if she’d honestly forgotten or if she was just being a bitch. Either way, I was too drained to get into it with her. “How are things with your dumbass secret boyfriend? You kick him to the curb for good yet?”

“That’s my plan,” she said. “Assuming, of course, that I can get ahold of him and convince him to meet me in a secret place to have the secret discussion where I end our secret relationship.”

“Right. Like you do.” I stepped around her to grab Mom’s sweater off the chair in the corner. “So will that talk be happening before or after you have your last secret hookup?”

She punched my arm. But she was smiling, so I could tell she wasn’t really pissed.

Mom came out of her room. “I’m off to make my millions. Kendall, you want to run and scootch your car over so I can pull out?”

“Actually, I’m leaving too,” Kendall said. “There’s no way I’m hanging around here while Seth’s trying to get laid.”

Mom fake screamed and covered her ears. “Okay, you absolutely can
not
say things like that about my baby boy!”

“I’m sorry,” Kendall said, patting the top of my head. “It’s just that wittle Seff is gwowing up so
fast
!”

I gave her my best “eat shit” look. I wasn’t sure what the
hell she was trying to do, but this was not a conversation I ever wanted to be having in front of my mother.

Mom cleared her throat. “Enough of that. Let’s get a move on, girl. I’m already running late.”

They both grabbed their purses and headed out the door. But before closing it Mom came back inside, her forehead lined with worry. She kissed my cheek and glanced in the direction of the bathroom. “You be good.”

“Mom—”

“I’m dead serious here, Seth.
Promise
me.”

I sighed.

8:01
P.M.

Rosetta’s phone chimed. She grabbed it from the coffee table. “All right,” she said, looking at the screen. “Vicki’s text says she’ll cover for me if necessary. But only if I tell her what I’m
really
up to tonight.”

“You might want to hold off on that,” I said. “You know how Vicki feels about me.”

Rosetta pressed a few more buttons and held the phone to her ear. After a few seconds she said, “Aunt Coco, it’s me . . . Yeah. Everything’s fine. I’m just calling to let you know I’m staying over at Vicki’s tonight.” She kind of rolled her eyes at me about telling the lie while she listened to whatever her aunt was saying on the other end. “We’re just watching movies and stuff here. I’ll come
home in the morning, okay? . . . Yeah. . . . Okay. . . . Bye.”

With the call ended and her mission accomplished, Rosetta smiled at me. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. It was official now. Rosetta was staying
here
tonight. All night.

I knew that when Mom got home, she was going to be as upset as Rosetta’s aunt would have been if Rosetta had told the truth, but really, there hadn’t been any other option. The rain had let up somewhat, but it was very wet and dark outside now. Walking back up the Hill wasn’t only a hassle at this point; it was dangerous, too. Or, at least, that’s what Rosetta and I had been telling each other for over an hour now.

“I hate lying to her,” Rosetta said. “But it isn’t like I had much choice, right?”

“Right.”

My heart had started beating like crazy, and I wanted to get up and sit on the couch with her. To just be
close
to her. Instead, I stayed where I was on the reclining chair, held on to the Magic 8 Ball, and pretended to be engrossed in the crappy reality show on the TV. Following Mom’s order to “be good” sucked. I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to pull it off.

The oven timer went off in the kitchen, so we both jumped up and headed over.

“What do you think?” Rosetta asked as she pulled the pan from the oven and set it on the stovetop.

I had no clue what I was looking for. All I knew was that fudge brownies and Rosetta’s shampoo—or
my
shampoo, I guess it was—smelled amazing together. “Didn’t the box say to stick a toothpick in it?” I asked.

“Ooh! That’s right!”

Surprisingly, Rosetta was about as a bad a cook as I was. For dinner I’d managed to make cheese sandwiches in the toaster oven without burning anything, but she’d let the Ramen boil over. She did save the day later, though, by noticing that I’d misread the glass measuring cup; she stopped me just in time before I poured a full cup more vegetable oil into the brownie batter than the directions called for.

After we finished the toothpick test, I watched Rosetta bend to put the pan back in the oven. She was wearing one of my T-shirts and black sweats. I’d never had any idea how
hot
those clothes could look.

“We should have waited five years to meet,” Rosetta said as she set the timer for two more minutes.

I leaned against the counter. Close enough to keep checking her out. Far enough away not to touch her. “Why do you say that?”