The effects of theapproved doseDr. Rush gave me tonight are barely noticeable, and I don’t have any of my own pills left. I grit my teeth, bracing myself for the pain to come, so bad that when I open my eyes, I see double. I’ve heard of phantom limb syndrome, but this is something else. I know my leg is gone; I am, in fact, acutely aware. It’s the ache that won’t dim.
I can’t dull the pain, or silence the sound of Anne’s laughter, Harper’s scream, tires screeching.
I move closer to Amelia, feeling as I do that I’m dragging my prosthesis behind me, more a dead limb than the one they amputated.
“You said I didn’t have to be ashamed of my body. But look what you’re doing to yours.” I smile as if it’s a joke, how she’s undermined her authority on the subject. But the truth is, I already didn’t believe her.
“Your body didn’t kill the person you loved most in the world.”
I inhale sharply. “It almost did.”
“What do you mean?”
“The accident last year. It wasn’t an accident. I mean, it was—of course it wasn’t intentional—but it was my fault.”
I recall the ease with which I navigated the world for so long: two legs, sturdy and strong beneath me, foolishly convinced that so much wealth and privilege would protect me from a bad outcome.
Is that why I didn’t hesitate to get behind the wheel?
Amelia’s face flushes, and I know she understands. “How did your family cover up your drinking?”
“How do they hide anything? Money.” Anne probably even paid off the doctors, already bound by confidentiality, just to be safe.
I was still in hospital when Anne and the family attorneys showed up to pepper me with questions.
I slammed on the brakes.
I must have; I can still hear the way they squealed uselessly.
I don’t know whether she was wearing her seat belt.
I have no idea if I was wearing mine, so how could I be expected to recall if she was wearing hers?
Of course I thought I was okay to drive.
It’s gotten so I can’t remember which parts of the story are lies and which are the truth.
I don’t rememberwhen asked how we got from the car to the side of the road where our bodies lay when the ambulance arrived.I don’t rememberwhen asked why I didn’t call a taxi as we left the party.I don’t rememberwhen asked what it was that made me swerve: a deer in the road, another car, a figment of my imagination.
Anne lost her patience and the questions stopped. Drunks like me, she said, aren’t exactly known for having reliable memories.
They said—of course I don’t recall—we must have been thrown from the convertible on impact. Someone told the paps where to find the car before it was towed the next morning—a police officer charged with cleaning up the scene, maybe, eager to earn some extra cash—and photographs of the destroyed Porsche were splashed across the internet within a day. The images show smoke still rising from the wreck.
“Your girlfriend was in the car with you?” Amelia asks.
“Harper.” I can’t remember the last time I said her name out loud. I had a million nicknames for her: Harps, Harry, Hazzy, Haps. Now, the endearments feel foreign, as though I’d been speaking another language during the months we spent together. I feel careless, like I should have been paying closer attention, counting the syllables, aware that there would come a time when I’d never get to say them again.
“She agreed to keep quiet for money?”
Anne put out a press release. I’d swerved to avoid a deer. There was no mention of my blood-alcohol level.
“She would never.” If it were up to her, Harper wouldn’t have accepted a penny of my family’s money. But she was in a coma when Anne cut the deal with Harper’s parents, offering so much more than money in exchange for their silence.
“I had to agree to stay away from their daughter.”
Anne even made me change my phone number so Harper wouldn’t be able to reach me when she woke.
If she wakes up,Anne said when she handed me my new phone.
