Tragedy Girl (3 page)

Four

I close my bedroom door, bite an apple, and settle in at my computer. I’ve got homework, but first, I do a quick Google search. I don’t know the dead girl’s name, but I have enough information to find what I’m looking for in just a few seconds:

Officials Halt Search for Possible Drowning Victim

—By Ted Hardiford,
Hollis Island Tribune
Reporter—

Rescuers called off an eleven-hour search Sunday morning for a sixteen-year-old believed to have drowned off Hollis Island.

I interrupt my reading as my eyes drift to the high school yearbook photo of the girl that accompanies the article. Wow … she looks kinda like me, especially now that my hair’s short. A
lot
like me, actually … same almond-shaped eyes, same high cheekbones … It’s kind of eerie. I squeeze my arms across my chest and resume reading:

Cara Costwell, a rising junior at Cloverville High School, was reportedly swimming in the ocean on the north side of the island late Saturday night, June 14, when friends noticed she hadn’t returned to their bonfire on the beach as promptly as they expected. Blake Fields and Jamie Stuart, rising seniors at Hollis Island High School and friends of the victim, boarded Stuart’s nearby jet ski to look for her. After a fruitless fifteen-minute search, they returned to the beach and called the authorities.

Local police contacted the Coast Guard at 1:15 a.m., reporting Costwell as missing and possibly carried out to sea by unusually strong rip currents. Responders searched throughout the night and Sunday morning.

At noon Sunday, the rescue mission turned into a search for Costwell’s remains, which have yet to be recovered.

“It’s just devastating suspending a search when someone is still missing, particularly a teenager,” said Capt. Harold Roland, commanding officer of …

“Anne?”

I minimize the screen as Aunt Meg creaks my bedroom door open while knocking on it. I’d love to suggest that the knock precede the creak from now on, but hey, it’s her house.

“Hi, Aunt Meg,” I say, pushing my chair away from the desk.

“How was your second day of school?” she asks.

“Good,” I say, managing a smile. “A couple of girls invited me to join them at lunch, which was really nice of them.”

“Great!” Aunt Meg says, her face brightening. “What are their names?”

“Um … Melanie and Lauren. I have some classes with them. They’re really nice.”

Aunt Meg’s beaming face seems to prod me to add more adjectives, superlatives exuberant enough to match her expression, but I’m already surpassing my perky quota.

“Well,
good for you
,” she says, punching every word. “And, honey, you meant what you said last night at dinner about being willing to talk to a therapist? You don’t mind having just a few sessions to discuss your … to talk about whatever?”

I clench my fists but nod. “Yeah, Aunt Meg, it’s fine. Whatever you need me to do.”

“It’s what
you
need,” she assures me, walking over and stroking my hair. “Anyway, you’ve got an appointment next Monday at four p.m. Work for you?”

I swallow hard. “Yep. That’s fine.”

“Good.” She holds my gaze just long enough to make me excruciatingly uncomfortable, then winks and walks out, closing the door behind her.

Okay. Time to bang out my homework. But first …

I return to the Google search and click on another article:

Memorial Service Lauds “World’s Sweetest Girl”

—
By Ted Hardiford,
Hollis Island Tribune
Reporter
—

High humidity and soaring temperatures made June 28 one of the hottest days so far this summer, but mourners at Cara Costwell’s memorial service huddled together midday at Peachtree Park as if they couldn’t shake the chill from their bones.

Some literally shivered; others simply wept. But their collective body language spoke volumes: she can’t really be gone.

Yet the three-hundred-plus attendees followed Cara’s parents’ lead in facing the reality of her demise, her unrecovered body notwithstanding.

“We’ve clung to hope as long as we could,” her mother said in a quavering voice as she welcomed the throngs to the service. “But it’s time to say goodbye to our little girl. She loved the sea, and now she’s there for eternity.”

Several of Cara’s friends spoke at the service as well, including classmate Rebecca Jowers, who called her the “world’s sweetest girl.” Hollis Island High School seniors Blake Fields and Jamie Stuart, the two who searched in vain for Cara on a jet ski after realizing she was in peril, were scheduled to speak but sobbed quietly at their seats instead, too shaken to go to the podium.

“I know some of you struggle with guilt,” Cara’s father said, looking directly at the two young men, “but Cara wouldn’t want that, and neither do her mother and I. You were wonderful friends to Cara, and you did everything you could to help her that night. The best way to honor her memory is to move on with your … ”

My cell phone rings, and I smile when I see the call is from Sawyer.

“Hey, Sawbones,” I say, x-ing out the computer screen.

“’Sup, E. I miss you like mad.”

I smile, walk over to my bed, and snuggle against the pillows. “Miss you more. Hey, have you gotten up the nerve to ask Paul out yet?”

Sawyer snorts. “Yeah. Then I climbed Mount Everest and cured cancer. Just crossing off the ol’ bucket list, one item after the other.”

“
Ask him out
,” I scold. “Seeing as you’re officially friendless since I left town, it’s time you broadened your horizons.”

We laugh some more, then I nibble a fingernail. “So there’s a guy at my school … ” I say slowly.

Sawyer sucks in his breath. “Oh god. You’re mentioning a guy on the second day of school?”

“It’s nothing,” I insist, squeezing my eyes shut and wondering why in the world I brought this up. “I barely even know him. His locker is next to mine, and we chatted a few minutes this morning, and … ”

“ … and you’re in love?”

I roll my eyes and
tsk
at Sawyer. “He’s just really … sad. He had cancer when he was younger, and his girlfriend died over the summer … ”

“Wow. You squeeze in a lot of chit-chat at your locker.”

“No, no,” I say, waving a hand through the air. “I just learned a few things about him from other people. But really, isn’t that sad?”

“Mmmmm. How did his girlfriend die?”

“
Drowned
,” I reply in an appropriately reverent tone. “And he was there. He tried to save her, but he couldn’t.”

Sawyer pauses, then says, “Hey, E?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m thinking you need to take things kinda slow. You’ve been through a lot lately.”

Okay,
that
was annoying.

“I was just mentioning an interesting person I happened to meet,” I say in a tight voice.

“C’mon, E, don’t get pissed,” he cajoles. “And don’t pretend there’s not some vibe going with this guy. This is me you’re talking to. If you just happen to drop one into a conversation on the second day of school, then—”

“Oh my gosh! Wouldn’t you consider it a little conversation-worthy if you met somebody whose girlfriend just died tragically?”

Sawyer is silent for a moment, then says, “Don’t try to be somebody’s savior right now, E. You need some time to get steady on your feet again.”

I thrum my fingers against my bedspread. “You know what’s weird? My Aunt Meg wants me to see some therapist. If only she knew that you were already covering that base.”

Sawyer laughs gamely. “Go ahead and project all your frustrations onto me,” he says. “I can take it.” But then his voice is somber again:

“Just be careful.”

Five

“Not
again
.”

I laugh lightly. “This is starting to seem personal.”

Blake has accidentally bonked my shoulder with his locker door every day this week, and now that it’s Friday, the joke has become shorthand.

“Time to take out a restraining order?” I ask.

“Time to sue the locker manufacturer,” he replies.

“It would be nice to get through one day of school without bodily injury.”

Blake steps in front of me. “Tell ya what: slug me back. Come on, I can take it.”

I simulate punching him, and he reels comically.

“Okay,” he says, his dark blue eyes sparkling. “We’re even now.”

“We’re even when I say we’re even,” I say, feigning another punch.

He winces, then leans in closer. “I’ve got an idea,” he says, his voice low. “Let me make it up to you.”

I study his dark blue eyes, stalling for time. Am I reading him right? Yes, this would clearly qualify as flirting from any other guy, a guy whose girlfriend hadn’t died just a few months earlier. I’m not sure what to think.

“How?” I ask tentatively.

He offers a hint of a smile. “The school’s having some lame kickoff party for football season tonight,” he says. “Come with me?”

Oh. I guess I
was
reading him right.

“Um … ” I say, still stalling as I press the wedding rings under my shirt against my chest. “I think I kinda made plans to go with my friends … ”

Friends.
Do Melanie and Lauren count as friends yet? Does Blake’s invitation count as a date? I lived in the same house my whole life before my parents died; I never had to wonder where I stood about
anything
. Now, suddenly, everything seems vague, ambiguous, rife with the potential for embarrassing misinterpretations.

“Melanie and Lauren?” Blake asks, and I nod. I guess he’s seen us sitting together at the lunch table all week.

“So maybe we can all go together ?” he ventures, cocking his head a bit to the side, a gesture that somehow disarms me by making him look little-boyish. Little-boyish in a tall, incredibly cute kind of way.

“My friend Jamie is coming too, and maybe my brother,” he continues. “So, you know, we could go as a group … ?”

“Um … ”

“Just a suggestion,” Blake says, moving subtly closer until his eyes are level with mine.

“Sure.”

There. I said it. Surely Melanie and Lauren won’t mind. Melanie even has a crush on Jamie, right? Maybe this will turn out perfectly. Maybe I could take a breather from overthinking every little thing. Maybe my senior year of high school will actually be less than hideous. Except …

“What?” Blake says, and I cringe at apparently being so transparent.

I shrug nervously. “You’re sure you’re up for a … bonfire?”

Blake’s face darkens, and my heart sinks.

“I didn’t mean anything by—”

“It’s okay,” he says quietly. “It’s just … I thought maybe you were the one person who didn’t know … the one person in this school who wouldn’t define me by … ”

My eyes prod him to continue, but he looks down in defeat and murmurs, “I guess that’ll follow me the rest of my life.”

I shake my head. “No,” I insist. “I just happened to overhear. I’m so sorry I mentioned it … ”

“Forget it,” he says, finally meeting my eyes again. “I don’t mean to sound so defensive. It’s just … you know, over two months have passed since it happened, and even though it’s on my mind every second of the day, I’ve started thinking, ‘Maybe I can finally move on.’”

“I get it, I get it,” I assure him, oblivious to the students brushing past us on their way to class. “In fact, I don’t just
get
it … I
live
it.”

Blake studies me closer. “What do you mean?”

I take a deep breath and offer my hand. “Tragedy Guy, meet Tragedy Girl.”

He takes my hand, but simply holds it instead of shaking it.

“Perhaps you’ve heard,” I say in response to his curious expression. “My parents died in a car crash last spring. That’s why I’m here; I moved in with my aunt and uncle right before school started.”

He squeezes my hand tighter. “I’m sorry.”

I nod and swallow hard as Blake’s index finger gently rubs the top of my hand.

“So I get it … you know?” I say, pushing past the lump in my throat. “I don’t want to be defined by my tragedy, either. I want to move on too. Not forget, of course … just move on.”

He lets my hand drop, then places his palm lightly against my cheek.

Our eyes lock for a second, but I look away when I realize someone is glaring at me. Natalie is walking toward me as she makes her way down the hallway, pressing her books against her chest and narrowing her dark eyes. I actually hear her huff as she scurries past me, deliberately jostling my arm. What the hell … ?

“So, tonight,” Blake says, clapping his hands together, seemingly oblivious to Natalie’s shot of frigid air. “It’s a date?”

I pause, then smile and nod.

I guess that clears one thing up:

It’s a date.

Lauren and Melanie catch up with me as I head toward class. “Still coming with us to the bonfire tonight?” Melanie asks.

“Um … ” I fidget with the rings under my shirt. “Sure. A couple of other people want to join us too, if that’s okay.”

They exchange stymied glances. “Who?” Melanie asks.

“Blake and Jamie? I hope that’s okay. If it’s not, I totally under—”

“
Jamie?
” Melanie says, her eyebrows widening. “Hells yeah!” She gives me a fist bump. “Girlfriend, we should have added you to our posse ages ago,” she teases as we wind our way to our seats.

“Easy for you to say,” Lauren grouses. “What am I, your chaperone?”

“Oh, I think Blake’s brother is coming too,” I say as we settle into our seats. “Not like it’s a fix-up or anything. Really, guys, I hope this is okay. I totally didn’t mean to take over your—”

“Garrett?” Lauren interrupts.

I shrug. “I don’t know his name.”

“Of course Garrett,” Melanie says. “Blake only has one brother.”

She turns toward me. “Lauren just broke up with her boyfriend,” she says.

“Um, technically, I got dumped,” Lauren clarifies. “His loss.”

“You have to come with us,” Melanie beseeches her. “You
know
I’ve been crushing on Jamie for months now—since even
before
he started lifting weights and got hot. And who knows? You might really click with Garrett.”

Lauren shakes her head. “I don’t want to be fixed up.”

“Fine!” Melanie says, presenting the palm of her hand as an oath. “We’ll just go as a group.”

Lauren deliberates a moment, then says, “Whatever. I’ll go. But
only
as a group. No pairing up and leaving me stranded with the junior.”

“Absolutely,” I say, feeling guilty that I seem to have commandeered their plans.

“Yes, fine, fine,” Melanie says. “Anne, count us in.”

I nod, then lean in closer. “That creepy Natalie girl practically shot daggers through me in the hallway,” I tell them in a lowered voice. “What’s up with her?”

“Hmmmm,” Melanie says. “You were with Blake at the time?”

“Well, our lockers are right next to each other … ”

“She’s probably been planning her wedding to Blake since she started bringing him brownies all the time in middle school,” Lauren says.

“He had cancer,” Melanie says matter-of-factly. “Natalie apparently perceived that as a glass-half-f kind of opportunity.”

“So, they’ve dated?”

Lauren snorts. “She wishes. I don’t think Blake’s ever dated anybody but Cara—the girl who died. I guess Natalie figured this was her chance. Then along comes Number Eleven … ”

She and Melanie laugh at my perplexed expression. “Remember?” Lauren prods. “The guys have decided you’re an eleven?”

I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head.

Melanie peers into space. “Who knows, Natalie might have even offed that poor girl.” She gives us a silly grin, then turns somber when she sees our reactions. “Alrighty then. Note to self: too soon to joke about dead girl.”

Lauren swats Melanie’s dark blonde hair playfully. “We are
so
signing you up for sensitivity training.”

“Just don’t schedule it for tonight,” Melanie says. “Looks like I’ve got myself a date.”

I shut the front door and take a deep whiff of pepperoni.

“Hi, honey,” Aunt Meg calls from the kitchen. “Homemade pizza for dinner!”

“Yum,” I say, walking into the kitchen. “Aunt Meg, I wish you wouldn’t feel like you had to rush home from work and cook dinner for me. I’m fine fending for myself. And, you know, if you’re not scared of botulism, I could start cooking for
you
.”

She laughs, too loud, too hard. “Silly. Uncle Mark and I love cooking for you. And we were thinking maybe a movie after dinner?”

I hug my arms together. “It sounds great, only … ”

“Yes?” Aunt Meg prods.

“I kinda have plans with some friends from school, if that’s okay. There’s a bonfire tonight to kick off the football season.”

“Oh, honey, that sounds great! I’m so glad you’re making friends. I knew it would happen in no time.” Her eyes turn wistful. “Your mom and dad would be so happy.”

The moment hangs in the air, then I say, “I dream about them a lot.”

Aunt Meg intertwines her fingers. “You do?”

I nod. “I dream that I’m at some random place—a car wash, or a grocery store, wherever—and I glance over and there they are, in my peripheral vision. At first, it doesn’t seem like any big deal … just, ‘Oh, there are Mom and Dad.’ But then I remember—in my dream, I mean—I remember they’re dead, so I get super excited that I’m seeing them. I start rushing toward them, but they hurry away, hiding their faces. The more I call to them, the farther away they get.”

I gaze into space, my eyes suddenly misty.

“It’s so frustrating. I’m like, ‘
Please
come back.’ But then I hear my mom’s voice telling me it’s too soon. It’s too soon to see their faces; it’ll just upset me. But I tell her it’s not too soon, and that even if I get upset, who cares? I’d give my right arm to see them under
any
circumstances, even in a dream.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “You’d think I could at least see them in my dreams.”

Aunt Meg sniffles and dabs at her moist blue eyes. “Oh, sweetie,” she whispers in a choked voice.

I slip my hands into my jeans pockets. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“No, no … I
want
you to talk to me. About your parents, about your dreams, about school … about everything.”

Then she hugs me, smelling all fresh and floral, and I think fleetingly,
Who knows. Maybe I can.

Maybe this is a start.