Forget You(24)
Author: Jennifer Echols

I waved this idea away with both hands. Their mother would find out my dad was gone and my mom was way gone. Their mother would report me to Child Protective Services.

"Then just email him and tell him what you’re doing and why," Lila said. "Here’s my phone. Type him an email message and we’ll take a picture of you looking . . ."

"Used," Keke said.

I took Lila’s phone, typed my dad’s email address and the message, I am f**ked, and handed it back to her.

"Zoey!" she shrieked.

Keke snatched the phone from Lila and looked at the screen. "Y ou’re going to get yourself grounded. No parking with Brandon for you, ever." She pressed a key over and over with her thumb, backspacing.

"Speaking of," I moaned. "Do you think anyone got the wrong idea about Doug and me back here?"

They stared at me blankly. Lila prompted, "Like . . . ?"

"Like Stephanie Wetzel would tell Brandon."

Keke prompted, "That . . . ?"

"That Doug and I were making out or something."

"Y were ?" Lila shrieked.

"No!" I wailed, slapping my hands over my ears.

Lila laughed hysterically. "Y and Doug? That’s so random!"

Keke patted my knee in sympathy. "No, nobody suspected you were making out with Doug Fox. Y hit your head harder than we thought."

I’D ALWAYS LIVED ON THE OCEAN. I mean, right on the ocean, with the noise of the surf drowning out the TV when I opened the windows. But I never, ever took the ocean for granted, because most people in our town lived inland. Including Keke and Lila.

I woke on their den sofa at my normal time in the morning, which was pretty early. A lot earlier than other teenagers who told me they slept until the afternoon on weekends. I didn’t understand this. I had homework to do and books to read and data to enter. Keke and Lila’s younger siblings weren’t even up watching cartoons yet.

Now the headache was bad enough for painkillers, but not so bad that I was careful about moving my head too quickly. I was getting back to normal. So I approximated my normal routine. Routine was important. Since my mom tried to kill herself, routine reassured me that my life was still perfectly normal. First thing in the morning at my dad’s house, I always stepped out on my balcony to watch the ocean and breathe the air. Here, after picking off the Lego pieces stuck to my face, I stepped out the den door into their backyard.

I’d been here a lot. I should have known which direction their house faced. But it was in a labyrinth of a neighborhood like Brandon’s with even less structure, winding curves rather than right angles in the roads. I always got confused coming here. And this morning, low gray clouds blanketed the sky, almost as if it were winter. Where was the glowing patch indicating east and the sun? I had no idea which way was south and the ocean.

Whirling from back door to swing set to garden gnome, I choked out a cry and slapped my hands over my mouth. There was no direction. I held my breath to keep from panicking. My heart thumped in my chest. Tears stung my eyes.

Finally I turned back toward the house. One of Keke and Lila’s little brothers stood in the open doorway in his Superman diaper, pink elephant under his arm, watching me. Oh, I knew what he was feeling, watching a Big Person go crazy.

I sniffled and made a quick pass under my eyes with my fingertips to dry up. "Good morning!" I called. "I just realized I lost something. But no worries. I’ll find it."

Superman eyed me warily.

"Do you want to help me make breakfast?" I asked, imitating Keke’s enthusiasm.

That got his mind off my erratic behavior. Soon Princess Diaper joined us in the kitchen. I ended up making breakfast for what seemed like fifteen or sixteen children. I liked kids. I ran the birthday parties at Slide with Clyde, and of course as a lifeguard I watched kids all day long. But at Slide with Clyde I blew a chirp on a whistle when I needed their attention. I gave them a command with a nod of my head, and they followed orders because I was scary with my face stern and my eyes hidden behind my sunglasses.

In contrast, these kids didn’t understand the meaning of, "Don’t do that." I cleaned up a lot of flour from the kitchen floor and inadvertently thought really hard about the new half sibling I would have soon. Ashley’s baby was due on Valentine’s Day.

Then I read to the kiddies until I was hoarse. But I could only stand so much of this. I wanted to go home. I had no toiletries except what I’d taken in my backpack to the swim meet, and I was too tall to wear Keke and Lila’s clothes.

More than this, I wanted to find out what had happened to me. And that required a visit to the place where I’d wrecked.

"IS YOUR MOM GOING TO SUE Mike?" Keke asked. My friends lumped all lawyers into one category and made a lot of lawsuit jokes, forever asking whether my mom was going to sue people. My mom was a public defender. She’d never filed a lawsuit in her life (disappointing my dad, who said only a spoiled brat would go to school all those years and choose to make as little money as possible). I was glad Keke asked this, though. It meant she thought my mom was still working. News hadn’t gotten out yet.

"No, the wreck wasn’t Mike’s fault," I said. "Or mine. My mom just wants me to take some measurements while the evidence is still here. She might be able to get me more insurance money." I hated lying to my friends, especially since they’d taken care of me last night and they were helping me now. I was getting desperate.

Seeing the tire marks crossing the road in the distance, I parked Keke and Lila’s Datsun on the shoulder. They pulled out buckets and sheets of poster board that we’d bought at the drugstore and printed with HIGH SCHOOL SWIM TEAM FUNDRAISER . I didn’t expect to make any money. The signs would slow cars down and keep them from creaming me while I did my research. We left Keke near the Datsun. Lila flounced a hundred yards down the road to stop traffic on that end.

I walked more slowly after her, careful not to jostle my still-fragile brain. It was strange to walk somewhere I’d driven past a million times. The smells were different, melted asphalt and warm hay. The sounds were different too: the whisper of my footsteps through the long grass, chirping birds, buzzing insects, the sweep of wind in the trees. And crunch. I looked down. My flip-flops ground pieces of my Bug’s headlight into the sandy soil. Or pieces of Mike’s Miata’s headlight–that was the question. I’d reached the tire marks in the road.

I glanced up and down the road before venturing into it. Lila was in place with her sign. Keke had already stopped a sucker in a pickup. Satisfied I wouldn’t get hit, I followed the tire marks to the spot where they intersected with a second set of marks and the cars had kissed. The marks weren’t very long. Mike and I had been surprised. We couldn’t see well in the dark and the hard rain, and the deer came from nowhere.