Bailey Road?
The house that burned.
“I’ve been away for a bit,” he says. “I was in college, then med school … I’m just finishing up my residency. Do you remember me at all? Connor Loggins,” he says again, louder this time as if that will make a difference.
And maybe it does, because I do remember Connor. His bright green Jeep. His millions of gaming cards. The way he topped his pizza with ketchup and string beans. My parents once had dinner with his, in the Logginses’ backyard. But Connor was older than I was by at least ten years. We didn’t really have too much in common.
“Do you remember my parents?” I ask him.
“I do.” His face brightens. “Your dad let me borrow his drum pad and sticks when I wanted to learn.”
Did my dad play the drums? Why don’t I know? What else can he tell me?
“I heard you were having a rough time,” he continues, before I can ask. He takes a step closer. His hands extend to the spray can, the way you see in movies: the good guy tactfully maneuvering the gun from the villain’s hands.
My face crumples as I let him. Why am I always the villain? Why do I never get to be the hero of my own story?
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I thought you were someone else.” Does he still have the drum pad? Would it be weird to ask for it back?
“Don’t worry about it,” Connor says. He waves to the onlookers—a horde of people—telling everyone that everything’s fine. “Why don’t we sit down for a second?” He motions to a bench in front of the store.
I move toward it. The fumes from a car heat my face. The smell of diesel fuel and something else—hairspray, maybe—fills my senses, makes my throat close up.
“Is there anyone you want me to call?” He sits down beside me.
I shake my head, just wanting him to go. “I have my own phone.” I pull it out and hold it up as proof.
“I really think you should call your aunt. That’s who you’re living with, right?”
“I’m fine, really.” I manage a full breath.
“How about I call you a cab? My treat.”
I clench my teeth, unsure how things went so horribly wrong: Connor Loggins, from Bailey Road, with the ketchup-and-string-bean-smothered pizza … After the fire, his parents sent a $500 check to the local bank, where a relief fund had been set up. Did I ever send the Loggins family a thank-you note?
“Well?” he asks.
“Thank you,” I say, maybe a little too late. I stand up. My head feels woozy. I peer all around, checking my surroundings. Isn’t there a bus stop on the corner? Didn’t Detective Marshall mention that once, when she asked if I’d considered taking it home that night?
I go to text my aunt.
But I spot someone else first: Garret, the guy from the sorority party, the one who’d wanted to drive me home.
He’s going into the store.
“Terra?” Connor asks, still waiting for my reply.
“My ride’s here,” I tell him.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I nod, not sure of anything. Still, I head inside the store.
Garret stands at the coffee station with his back toward me. Ever since that night, I’ve wanted to talk to him—to ask what he saw or who he knew. According to investigators, his alibi checked out. After the party, he and his roommates went to an all-night diner, ate platefuls of pancakes (the waitress can attest), then returned to their apartment.
But what if investigators got the details wrong? What if the waitress had confused them with another group? Or might she have remembered them from a different night?
I’ve spent so many shifts, working at the library, at the same college where I went to the sorority mixer, searching the faces of students, waiting to spot his. And now, here he is: same dark rumpled hair, same square black glasses.
A loud crash sounds.
My chest constricts.
I turn to look, only to discover the crash was from me. A display of juice cans, taller than I am. At least twenty of the cans have toppled to the floor. One has busted open. Dark liquid comes shooting out, like a hose, spraying my legs, coloring the floor red. Contents under pressure, just like me.
The guy working behind the counter comes darting out, grabbing a bin.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him, at least that’s what I mean to say.
I look up. Garret is staring straight at me. His mouth parts. Did he just say something—to the worker? To me?
I open my mouth to speak, even though I have no words and know no answers, so nothing comes out. I turn back around and hurry out the door.
NOW
11
I walk back to my aunt’s house, taking the main roads, flashing back to the night of the sorority party and talking to Felix on the long walk home. A year ago, at this time, we had an unspoken agreement: to be one another’s emergency crisis hotline whenever either of us needed it. So many nights, he’d call me with issues about his mom’s new husband or his father’s unwillingness to spend time with him. I did the same, waking him out of a sound sleep to talk about the fire, how I wish it were me that’d gone up in smoke.
“Then who would I cheat off of in health class?” he’d ask.
“It’s health class; you shouldn’t even need to cheat.”
“Still, I wouldn’t survive without you, Terra-saurus. You know I love you deeply.”
“Yes, and I love you too.”
Before he left for college, we made a pact. Over a basket of onion rings in a café not far from the Emo mother ship, we vowed to text, call, or FaceTime at least once a day or as much as either of us needed. But that pact petered out after his first few weeks at school. For me: It hurt to hear how much fun he was
