I had to come back up for air three times before I finally got the driver’s side door open and pulled the girl free from the wreckage. A crack in the windshield meant water had started to seep into the car, and the pressure would eventually widen the hole, allowing for more water to get in. So, I worked as fast as I possibly could against the pull of the water and the weight of the car.
My arms and legs were on fire by the time I had the girl on land. Another car had pulled up at some point, and people were standing around on their phones. But I was too busy searching for a pulse or signs she was still breathing to answer their questions or even acknowledge their presence.
I began CPR like I had been taught at the YMCA the summer before last when I had tried out for a lifeguard position. I didn’t get it, but I was one of the top five. Someone with better connections and more experience probably was hired.
I continued switching between compressions and breaths until sirens approached and a pair of gloved hands grabbed me, pulling me away from her damp, limp form. I didn’t recognize her then, but later, I found out she was Tiffany Anderson—our rival school’s valedictorian. She was driving home from her last shift at Stanley’s Pies and would have started at UC Berkeley in the fall.
The paramedics worked fast, running over with a stretcher and loading her up. I watched, helpless and cold. Water dripped from my hair, and I was in a daze when a cop turned me around and shone a bright light in my face.
“Why are you naked, son?” he asked. His badge lit up as the light roamed my face, and a fellow officer with just as bright of a light shone it between us. I tried to cover my face, still in shock, and the cop grabbed my arm, twisting it behind my back and pinning me to the ground.
His knee crammed into the middle of my back, and I cried out from the pain that bloomed under his weight. I’d thought I was cold before, but when he slipped the cuffs around my wrists, clicking them into place tightly, I was freezing. Even my bones felt as if they were coated in ice.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked him when he pulled me up, one hand gripped around the back of my neck and the other pulling the restraints even tighter. My hands went numb within minutes.
He moved his hand from my neck to grab a fistful of my hair and tilted my head back. “Because the way I see it, you are the primary suspect. That girl can’t speak for herself. But your car over there smells like the ass-end of a kegger. Next time, don’t leave your open beer cans all over the floor and ground.”
I tried to piece together what he was saying, but none of it made any sense. “That’s not my car,” I said, but they didn’t listen.
They just nodded and kept saying, “Sure it isn’t,” over and over. Even then, I’d known if they’d just run the VIN on the car, they’d find out it wasn’t mine. Of course, as fate would have it, the car that had caused the accident had been reported stolen a few weeks back. And since the only description they had of the culprit was a young male with no further distinguishing marks, naturally, they assumed I was the one who had stolen it.
Avalee sucks in a breath, and I come out of the haze of memory for a moment to check on her. Her face is twisted in concern and sadness. I never want to be the reason she is sad, but here I am, being just that. I close my eyes and push through the guilt.
I spent that evening in the county jail, but they couldn’t hold me since I was still considered a minor. When I got home, my father was basically throwing a party. Turned out, I had two half brothers, and they had finally come home. His dreams of having a son just like him were fulfilled—twofold. So, while I was spending the night next to a local drunk and someone who was busted for driving on a suspended license, my father was drinking himself into a stupor with his new and favorite progeny. When the cops showed up at the door with me, he only laughed and told them he didn’t care to know what I had done or where I had been because his real sons were there now. He even told them they could take me back and keep me for all he cared.
The cops already hated my family. They were on a first-name basis with my father, so seeing me on the books wasn’t a surprise to anyone at the precinct. Even though I had a clean record and no priors, other than by association.
I couldn’t get the scene of the wreck out of my mind and didn’t sleep much.
I stop and think about those sleepless nights, tossing and turning in my bed. Tiffany’s face and pale, limp shape haunted me. “I tried to call you. I even went by your house to check on you, but when I got there, the house was empty. You were just…gone.”
Avalee sighs. “I know, and I am so sorry.”
“Tiffany died exactly two months after the wreck. The whole town had come together for a vigil. Headlines spoke of a girl who had a future and a boy who couldn’t escape his past. It was all so poetic to the reporters. They twisted everything against me.” I stand and walk to the edge of the patio, crossing my arms over my chest, deep in thought. Avalee comes up beside me and rests her head on my shoulder. I breathe in her scent and continue my side of the story. The true side of what happened, even though nobody ever believed me.
When the news broke that Tiffany had died from the injuries she’d sustained in the accident, charges of reckless endangerment, driving under the influence, vehicular homicide, and intent to assault came down on my head. It didn’t matter any longer that I was still not yet eighteen, or that I maintained my innocence. I couldn’t leave the house because the public had labeled me a killer and people were turning violent.
The school suspended me. I was appointed a public defender, Henry Jones. But no matter what I told him, how hard I tried to make him understand the truth, he just told me to keep my mouth shut and do as he said. Back home, Snake and River beat me every day. My father laughed, and sometimes he joined in.
Throughout the trial, nobody cared to bother asking, “Ruin, what’s up with your face?” or “Why are you so bruised, Ruin?” Even my public defender just assumed I was getting what I deserved. Karma was serving up justice.
The court, the public, they all deemed me guilty. I tried telling them I did have a witness, but she had disappeared. How convenient. Gone without a trace. So, of course, they didn’t think my witness even existed. They assumed I had fabricated it all to try to commit some elaborate crime, just as my name implied.
I pause to search her face. She looks stricken. “Don’t blame yourself, Avalee. I know your father hated me. Hated my name. My family. You were never to blame for what happened back then. You didn’t even know.” My voice breaks at the last part, and we stand in silence, the weight of it all shoving a wedge between us—just like before. “They released me after four years in maximum security prison for good behavior, but also because they could never come up with any definitive evidence that I was actually behind the wheel that night. I would have been in for twenty if the prosecutor had had her way. Avalee, Tiffany’s family sat in that courtroom, staring at me, wishing I were dead. It was the one time in my life that I actually also wished for the same. And I had plenty of reasons not to want to breathe anymore.”
I pull her in for an embrace, not wanting the wedge to grow any wider or for her to feel sorry for something she is completely innocent of. With my chin resting on her head, I close my eyes and release a deep breath. “There was one thing that kept me going,” I whisper.
She makes a soft sound in the back of her throat, as if asking what.
“The thought of seeing you again, one day, maybe. It gave me some hope. But that hope dwindled over the years, and eventually, I just accepted that my life was meant to be full of pain and heartache.”I love you, Avalee. Always have and always will,I think to myself, savoring the feel of her in my arms. “And then you showed up again. Like a ray of sunshine in the middle of a storm.”
Twenty-Three
Avalee
I can’t find the words. I mean, what can I say? Sorry doesn’t cut it. Ruin keeps telling me that I am innocent and I have nothing to be sorry for. But I can’t help feeling like I am the very reason why things went the way they did. If I had been here for him, like I was supposed to be, I could have defended him in court.
I saw the accident. I could have been his witness. My father was a prominent man in the community. My word would have saved him. At least, I think it would have. It sounds as if the cops were biased from the start. I clutch at my chest, my heart aching to take away the pain and loneliness he must have felt.Why doesn’t he resent me?I would if I were him.
