This is What Goodbye Looks Like (41 page)

“So we still need the campaign to work?”
she texts after a moment.

“Yeah.”

“Shit. Because it’s not working. Or at least not fast enough.”

I curse as I look back to my laptop’s screen. Five thousand dollars is a ton of money, but it’s still impossibly far away from forty thousand.

“I’m running out of ideas to get donations,”
I text back.
“How the hell do we get people interested in Camille?”

“I don’t know,”
Brie texts.
“In case you’ve forgotten, you were never exactly chatty about the accident. So you tell me. What angle have we not thought of that could get the media talking about Camille again? There has to be something.”

Her question makes me grit my teeth in frustration. But then it hits me—I’ve already told Brie exactly what could throw Camille’s campaign straight into the media spotlight. I quickly scroll back up to our conversation from the other day, trusting my typed words more than my whirling thoughts.

“The media stopped caring as soon as the trial was over.”

I’d said it out of bitterness, but it’s entirely true. Once Mom was no longer facing the threat of prison, things calmed down instantly. The media no longer had a high-stakes criminal trial to bait viewers with. The accident was just the sad story of a girl trapped in a coma and a dead boy, and it quickly fell out of the public’s eye.

I swivel my desk chair and stare at my nightstand for a long minute, just letting my gaze rest on the top drawer. It looks like it always has, light-colored wood and shiny silver handles, but it suddenly seems like the ugliest thing in my room.

My phone pings, alerting me to a new message from Brie, but I ignore it and limp over to my nightstand. With shaking hands, I yank open the little drawer at the top.

Everything seems to stop. My trembling, my breathing, time itself. All that exists is the small memory card staring up at me.

It was the first thing I unpacked when I got home. I shoved it in the very back of this drawer and swore to forget about it.

But I can’t forget it. Not anymore.

Another ping from my phone pierces the silence, and I don’t realize I’ve picked up the memory card until I instinctively clench my hand, hiding it in my palm. Brie’s words echo through my head:
“There has to be something.”

There is something. And when it comes into the light, nothing will stop the media from stampeding back to the story of the accident.

Chapter Forty-Three

I don’t know how many new donations the campaign got in the past day. I don’t know if anyone else has sent new messages. I don’t know anything but the look of shock on Mom’s face when the officers showed up at our doorstep last evening.

I’d been planning on hiding away in my room when they came. It’d have made me a coward, but it seemed like the kindest option. Mom shouldn’t have had look at her traitorous daughter while she was being arrested.

But I ended up sneaking out of my room to go to the bathroom, and right then, the doorbell rang. I froze, tucked away in the corner of the hall so the cops couldn’t see me, but I could see them. Everyone seemed eerily calm, and their conversation sounded like something out of a stilted elementary school play:

“Can I help you, officers?”

“Good evening, ma’am. We have a warrant for your arrest.”

“Oh. I see.”

“We’d like to interview you at the station. You’ll come along willingly, won’t you?”

“Of course. But can I say goodbye to my daughter first?”

“No, ma’am, I’m afraid that’s not possible right now.”

Before they started leading her outside, I rushed forward, words struggling up my throat. Words saying the video file is a fake, that the emails and calls I exchanged with the police station yesterday were all lies, that nothing I’d reported could be trusted. But I cut off before even a single syllable left my mouth.

I think there are only three things keeping me sane right now. One is the thought of how much comfort this will bring Seth, how he’ll finally get the closure his whole family is desperate for. The second is the tingling on my palm where I swear I can still feel Camille touching my hand. And the third is the soft, proud smile Mom gave me right as she was being led away, the smile that killed all my lies before they escaped.

Chapter Forty-Four

The campaign site explodes the next evening. At four o’clock, the donation amount is $5,980. By eight, when the evening news reports are done running, the number has ticked up to $9,430.

I’m too scared to look up what sort of articles are being reported about Mom’s manslaughter case, but if Dad’s mood is anything to judge by, they’re not flattering. Dad won’t stop talking, but he’s not talking to me. After he got home from the police station late last night, he walked straight into my room and just stared at me with a stricken look, his eyes wide despite being stained red with tears and exhaustion.

“What did you do?” he’d asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.

But he hadn’t waited for a response before walking out and holing up in his office down the hall, his tone stiffening into a monotone as he started calling his lawyer friends, asking for advice and help.

I don’t think he’s capable of responding any other way. All this time, he’s been fighting for Mom, and I think some small part of him has really believed that she wasn’t responsible for the accident. Now that I’ve turned over the video evidence, every last speck of hope in him is crushed, but he doesn’t let it stop his fight. Mom’s freedom is the only victory he has left in his life, and I think he’ll cling to it until the very end.

I haven’t seen Mom since the arrest, but she called me this morning and explained in an eerily calm voice that she’s been let out on bail, and she’ll be staying with Uncle Jack until the trial begins. The media knows where we live, and she doesn’t want them trying to find her at our house.

I’m still not really sure what I said in reply. I meant to say sorry. I meant to say I loved her. But I think all that came out was silence.

I spend all evening frantically refreshing the campaign’s main page and watching the donation amount climb upward. Around ten o’clock, Jeremy calls, and I actually pick up this time. He immediately starts interrogating me, wanting to know when the new trial will start, if Mom has completely broken down yet, if I’m doing okay.

I tell him I don’t know.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Everything seems to have collapsed into chaos, and all I really know is that I want Seth’s arms around me, his heartbeat warm and steady against my cheek, his gentle voice whispering that he’s there for me.

But I can’t have any of that, and I don’t deserve it. So I figure the best thing to do is focus on Camille’s needs instead of mine.

The next morning, I leave Dad holed up in his office and call a taxi to take me to the hospital. I think Dad hears it pull up, but he’s either too tired or too angry to stop me, so I make it to the hospital without incident. I kind of expect for some alarm to go off as soon as I enter the coma ward, warning that a traitorous daughter is breaking every rule enforced by her parents. But all I get is a gentle smile from the nurse at reception.

“I’m here to see Camille,” I say hesitantly, even though I’ve encountered this nurse over a dozen times, and she knows exactly who I’m here for. What I’m not sure is whether she’ll let me in. Dad gave the ward strict orders not to let me see Camille without his supervision.

“Is your dad here today?” she asks.

“No,” I admit. “I came alone.”

“What about your mom?”

I shake my head. “She practically never leaves the house these days.”

The nurse raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Strange. Because I see her here at least three times a week visiting Camille.”

A fresh wave of guilt hits me. I’d assumed Mom stopped visiting Camille around the same time I did, but I’d never thought to ask her.

“I hear Camille’s life support is due to be terminated soon,” the nurse says.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “It is.”

The nurse crosses her arms. “You know, the nursing staff here is forbidden from giving advice on life support matters. Unless it’s an immediate medical situation needing our attention, it’s absolutely off limits for us to give advice.”

“I understand,” I say, although I’m not sure why she’s telling me this now.

“Good,” she says with a stiff nod. And then, “I donated fifty bucks.” She doesn’t say anything else before shoving the sign in clipboard for relatives at me. “Good thing you’re eighteen now, so you can sign in by yourself.”

She knows just as well as I do that I’m still months away from my eighteenth birthday, but she just wags a pen in front of my face and winks. I quickly scribble down my signature and head back to Camille’s room before the nurse can change her mind.

Camille looks just like she did when I last saw her, pale and gaunt and oblivious to the chaos going on because of her. I pull my laptop out of the backpack I brought and fire it up, opening Camille’s favorite sports news site. Last time I was here, I was too broken up to read to her. But it’s been months since I’ve given her updates about what’s going on in the gymnastics world, and it wouldn’t be right to visit twice in a row without reading her some articles.

I read a few stories out loud about the recent gymnastics competitions around the nation, making sure to find a detailed account of the local junior one held in San Diego. Camille has gone to that event every year since she was little, first as a spectator and then as a competitor as soon as she was old enough. The article says the local rival to Camille’s team took home gold, but I skip reading that part out loud.

After I read through a few articles, I log onto the campaign’s page, which I’ve been putting off doing since Mom was arrested. I press the back of my hand against my mouth to stifle my shock. The donation amount is up to $18,000. Over a hundred donations have appeared since last night, which means the news story of Camille’s life support and Mom’s re-opened case must be spreading like wildfire.

My inbox is packed with new messages, and I work on responding to them over the next couple of hours. The hospital noises blur into a monotonous soundtrack of beeps and hums and murmuring voices, making time flow by slowly.

Around one o’clock, a huge rush of new donations hits the page, filling me with a mixture of excitement and dread. I’ve been avoiding looking up Mom’s case, but something is causing the sudden uptick in activity, and I have little doubt it’s some sort of official announcement from the authorities.

When I finally look up the local news, my breath freezes in my throat. I’ve always thought it’d be neat to see my photography featured on a news site, but this is definitely not how I ever imagined it happening.

On the front page of the site is a still shot of the video I handed over to the police. I shakily click on the headline—
”Local Manslaughter Case Returning to Courtroom”
—and scan over the article it leads to.

There are a few still-shot images from the video throughout the article, all showing scenes from right before and after the impact. I guess the video is just too gruesome to release as a whole—Parker’s family has suffered enough without having to deal with strangers watching their son’s death. But the still-shots are enough to give readers a clear understanding of why the case is being re-opened, and the article includes a statement from the prosecutor handling the case:

“At present, we are declining to state the source of this new video evidence. But we’re glad for the chance to re-open this case, and we’re grateful to our source for coming forward. The Ashbury family has also expressed gratitude that the case will be re-investigated.”

Already the lies are starting up again. Surely the Ashbury family is grateful, but I highly doubt they’re grateful to me, like the statement suggests. The police have already assured me that they wouldn’t be pressing any charges against me, but I almost wish I didn’t have the legal immunity. If I got an official punishment for all my lies, it’d be a hell of a lot easier to deal with compared to the guilt gnawing at me constantly.

I figured that guilt would go away as soon as I handed over the video, but if anything, it’s gotten even worse. All I can think of is Seth’s family having to read these articles, having to come back to California for another trial, having to once again deal with the uncertainty of the courts. I’m sure they’re going through hell right now, and all I want is to call up Seth and ask what I can do to help.

But I already know the answer—I need to give him space, to stay away from him and his family.

I read the entirety of the article, scanning the details I already know by heart and memorizing the newer ones: Mom is officially being charged again with first degree vehicular manslaughter. The date of the trial hasn’t been decided, and the prosecutors are also trying to figure out if they should send the case to another county, since it’s received so much media attention here. A lot of the details are unclear, but if the angry reader-comments at the bottom of the news page are anything to judge by, the video has already convinced the public of Mom’s guilt.