Me: Hey! Someone who’s up as late as I am most nights. Guess some things do change.
Mikey: I know, I know. I hated staying up late when I was a kid. I loved my sleep. And now I can’t seem to get enough of it.
Me: You and me both. So, you said you remember the accident that night?
Mikey: Yeah, I’m surprised you don’t.
Me: LOL! I remember the hospital part briefly before I fell asleep in the waiting room.
Mikey: AHA! Sounds like you. But I’m not sure how much help I can be. Em never really talked about it much.
Me: Do you know why she’s so finicky about it?
Mikey: Your guess is as good as mine. I tried to press her a few times about what happened that night, but she’d always shut down. And it was such a long time ago that I probably can’t tell you more than you already know.
Me: Could you try for me? Please? At this point, you’re my only hope.
Mikey: Sorry, girl. I wish I could help. But that damned accident was so fuckin long ago that even if I could force myself to come up with something, I’m not even sure it’d be truthful.
Me: Well, thanks for talking to me anyway.
Mikey: Hey, anytime. I hear you’re in Cali now! How are you likin it?
I kept up the small talk as much as I could before I backed out of the conversation. I figured it was a dead end in the first place, but it had been worth a shot. Mikey had been her best friend back during our high school years. The two of them shared everything, including boys sometimes. So, the mere fact that he didn’t have information about the accident either told me that one of two outcomes was true.
Either she didn’t talk with him about the accident, which meant she was hiding something about it.
Or, she forced him into secrecy and the secret itself is so bad that he doesn’t want to open that can of worms.
Either way, it only stoked the fire in my gut to figure out what the hell happened that night.
“I guess I could try and call his family,” I murmured to myself.
I felt tempted to do it, too. But it felt too much like an invasion of their privacy. There had to be a way to get the answers I sought without any of this getting back to my sister or JoJo. And since I had already taken a risk contacting Mikey, I knew I couldn’t risk trying to contact his parents as well.
Especially in the same evening.
“Why doesn’t anyone tell me anything?” I grumbled.
As much as I hated it, I ended up dragging myself back to bed. I wouldn’t get any other answers tonight and I needed sleep before another hellish week at work started. I pushed myself off the couch and dragged my ass back to my bedroom where I flopped down into my pillow face-first. I managed to get my phone on its most recent charger: a wireless charger that I had splurged on a few days ago. And after I heard it beep, I relegated myself to a few hours’ sleep.
While I turned over my predicament in my dreams.
22
Rebecca
The second myalarm went off I knew it was going to be a rough day. I couldn’t get my eyes fully opened until I stood beneath a hot shower and let my nose drain of the sinuses that had determined that now was the proper time to make me feel like shit. I loaded up on sinus medication and threw on my most comfortable work clothes. I didn’t care about the summer dresses or the matching shoes. Hell, I didn’t even care about work clothes. I slid into a pair of waist-high black yoga pants and donned one of my baggier blouses before I slid some sunglasses onto my face and called it a morning.
But, as I left my apartment to go track down some caffeine I didn’t have to make myself, I got a very unexpected call.
“Michael?” I asked as I picked up the phone.
He chuckled. “You seemed shocked to hear from me.”
I slipped into my car. “Well, considering the last time we saw one another…”
“Yeah. I kind of owe you an apology for that.”
