But it’s the wrong thing to say. Any remorse slips away as his neck tightens, that vein bulging yet again, and his eyes dart towards me.
“It was not anaccident,” he spits. “She deserved it. The things she did to me, to you, to her apparent friends. She deserved it.”
I can tell this is the mantra he’s adopted in the years since he killed her. A way to justify his actions. If only I can unpack this, to make him see he’s wrong.
“She made mistakes,” I say slowly, wading in. “She did things she regretted, deeply.” My mind touches on the image of her wrapped around Declan, but it’s quickly replaced by the scene from later that night: Phoebe, so small against the pitch-black sky as she explained how she had no other choice than to run away. “Jimmy hurt her. She had to—”
“Don’t you dare say his name.” Josh’s words are icy, and he jerks suddenly, the car jumping over the center of the empty road. “You always tried to defend her. Even after everyone else could see what she really was.”
And it’s that comment that shifts the panic into something else. Something sturdier, more forceful.
Josh’s comment is a variation on the same thing I’ve been told over and over this week. By Adrien, who was so certain that Phoebe’s death wasn’t worth investigating. From Randy, who could only see Phoebe as a haughty, arrogant teenager. And even from Declan, who so easily deflected his responsibility to Phoebe.She came on to me.
No more. I will not let this person, this man, excuse his actions because of something a vulnerable, traumatized girl did years ago. Phoebe was flawed, sure. But she was my friend.
Suddenly, I’m back in our dorm room at Hamilton that very first day. I was terrified, so far from home, and drowning in homesickness. Overcome by the anxiety of having to meet a whole new group of people, I was nearly trembling as we got ready. I remember how astutely Phoebe picked up on it, how she urged me to take a seat on her bed as she softly spread blush across my cheeks and darkened my lips. How she asked me questions the entire time she worked, making me feel not only more beautiful, but more interesting.
Despite everything she did, all the mistakes she made, I loved her. And this man who stripped her of her life has the gall to talk about her like she deserved it.
Anger floods through me, infiltrating my every thought. I think of what Phoebe would have done in this situation. What shediddo, all those years ago.
In an instant, everything becomes clear. Before I can think better of it, I snatch my hand out, grabbing the steering wheel.
Josh’s shock is written clearly on his face, and his fingersmomentarily release their clutch. I use that opportunity to yank the wheel as hard as I possibly can, sending the car veering off the road.
It’s the weightlessness I feel first, the lack of gravity as the tires leave the ground, as the car flips.
Then comes the sound. The breaking glass, the devastating crunch of metal and bone. The pain flashing through my body like the vibrations of a pulsing speaker.
And everything goes silent.
48
Claire
Now
The first thing I notice when I come to is the pressure.
My head feels like a balloon. Strobe lights of pain flicker through my vision, complemented by a ringing in my ears.
And then I understand why. The crash comes back to me in flashes. My hand on the wheel, the SUV flipping through the air, the bone-crushing contact as it collided with the ground.
When I force my eyelids open, I take in a blurry view of the windshield, so smashed it’s almost unrecognizable. And close, far closer than it should be. Then I feel the pain in my chest, the sharp, digging pressure of something cutting into my heart. The seat belt.
I try to unbuckle, but everything feels wrong, disorienting.
I blink and realize the ground is where the sky should be. I’m hanging upside down. I contort my body, every single bone and muscle screaming, and eventually manage to unbuckle the seat beltwith one hand and prop myself against the roof of the car with the other.
I force open the door, which became unlocked at some point during the collision, and collapse with a grunt onto dirt and glass.
Shards dig into my back and legs, and my head feels as though I recently extricated it from a blender, but I force myself to a standing position. I realize with a wince that I can’t put any weight on my right leg.
Since I regained consciousness, my thoughts have floated around me like clouds, light and ethereal and just out of reach. But suddenly, the memories break through with sudden clarity.
Josh.
It’s then that I hear it. Something between a grunt and a groan filtering through the hazy, disturbed air.
