Forget You(44)
Author: Jennifer Echols

"Just tell me what happened!" I screamed. My voice set the locks buzzing against the lockers. "How did you find out? Who else knows?" As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized I didn’t need to yell at her. I knew exactly who else knew and how she’d found out. I jerked up my backpack and stomped toward the door to the pool.

As I reached the door, Keke put her hand on my arm and pulled, eyes full of fear. "Y can not tell them you heard this from me. Doug will kill Mike. Mike

ou will never speak to Lila again. And Lila . . . and me . . ."

"Then tell me what it is."

Keke pressed her lips together.

I jerked open the door before Keke could stop me again. I headed straight across the pool deck, empty except for Lila and Mike sitting close together on the lawn chair. When Lila saw me, she jumped up, holding out my clipboard, almost as if she were ready to make up with me. "I can’t believe you forgot this!" She saw the look on my face and stopped.

I closed the steps between us and took the clipboard from her. "Tell me what happened Friday night."

She gaped at me, then wailed over my shoulder at Keke, "Y told her!"

"I didn’t tell her what happened," Keke clarified. "I told her she needs to find out . She can’t go around not knowing, Lila, and I don’t care if it does break you up with your boyfriend."

"Y just don’t want me to have a boyfriend," Lila squealed. "Y can’t get a boyfriend so you don’t want me to have one either!"

ou ou

"Whatever," I mumbled, skirting Lila and approaching Mike, who had edged toward the pool. He watched the twins silently as if he had nothing to do with any of this. I walked right up to him and stopped inches from his face so he couldn’t pretend he didn’t hear me, one of his usual tactics for saying nothing. "Michael." I smiled, skin stretched so taut across my face that it might break. "Baby. Tell me what happened."

He turned red as a stop sign and shook his head.

"Doug is not going to kill you." As Mike’s eyes widened, my voice rose. "He is not going to beat you up or whatever he threatened to do to you." I wasn’t sure Mike was really safe, but I was desperate. "Doug is full of shit, in case you haven’t noticed. Now, for the last time, what the f**k happened?"

As a diversion, Mike jerked the clipboard from my arms and slung it into the pool.

Behind me, both twins gasped.

The plastic board floated for a few seconds. The wind stirred ripples that lapped at the pages, soaking them. Then the clipboard nose-dived.

I didn’t stay to watch it hit bottom. My arms were still extended like I could grab the clipboard and save it. I put my arms down. Turning for the gate to the parking lot, I called over my shoulder, "Thanks for being true friends."

Never get into a shouting match with twins. They emptied their clips into my back, still shouting at me as I crossed the parking lot to the Benz. Right back at you, pot calling the kettle black, talk about a true friend.

Bitch!

That last bullet jogged the keys from my hand as I reached for the door of the Benz. I bent to pick them up and noticed I hadn’t repainted my fingernails since Saturday, which wasn’t like me at all. A huge chip had formed in my thumbnail.

It wasn’t like me to talk on the cell phone while driving, either. That wasn’t safe. As I pulled out of the parking lot onto the street, I pressed the button to call Doug. I got his sarcastic voice-mail prompt.

Speeding down the straightaway where I’d wrecked, my thumb hovered above the button to call my dad’s cell. But what good would that do me? If he had the accident report, it was in his office, which was off-limits to me. He would tell me no, I couldn’t go in there to retrieve it. I could ask permission, be denied, and do it anyway. Or I could go ahead and do it. Or I could call to ask him what might be in the report that my ex-friends wanted me to know. But then I’d be admitting I was missing part of my memory and I was crazy like my mom, as he’d suspected all along.

When I reached my house I sat in the Benz in the courtyard for a few last seconds, soaking up the late afternoon sun on my skin. I had to go in, I had to find out, but these were my last breaths being innocent. I was afraid what I found out would change my life forever.

And then I walked into the house. Past the cameras in the living room, the cameras down the hall. My dad’s office was so forbidden, two cameras were trained on the door.

Here I paused again. The room had become officially forbidden when I was in middle school and my dad found me looking through his office drawers for invisible tape for a school project. He grounded me from seeing Keke and Lila. I screamed and pitched a fit, because the only thing worse than being grounded when you’re a kid is being grounded when you know you didn’t deserve it, when you were only looking for tape for school, and my dad wanted me to go to school, didn’t he? I remembered every detail of that drama queen day–the school project on the history of daylight savings time, the sheet of scrapbooking paper with little clocks I’d bought as a cute border for the report (thus the tape), the pink polo shirt I was wearing, the pink wristwatch I stared at as I rocked in the chair on the front porch, willing the hands to move and my mom to come home from her Saturday at work. Eventually she pulled up and I ran across the stone courtyard and threw myself into her arms. She told me she couldn’t undo the punishment my dad had doled out because parents worked as partners, but she would talk to him. Eventually she got my sentence reduced from a week grounded to two days grounded. And she laughed at my idea that my dad didn’t want me in his office because he had something to hide. No, he just needed an oasis. Starting a business like Slide with Clyde was stressful. Living with two women was stressful. He simply wanted one place in the house all to himself. I could understand that, couldn’t I?

Looking from one camera to the other and wiping the tears from my eyes, I stepped through their invisible force field protecting the open door. Checked the top of my dad’s desk, the in-box, the out-box, the drawers, the filing cabinets, the shelves, the counter. The accident report wasn’t there.

Feeling more and more panicky about what could be in that report, I dashed out to the Benz. I had one more source to try for this report–the police station–but now it was after five o’clock, and with my luck, they’d be closed. I was shaking by the time I parked in the courthouse square, next to my mom’s office.

But I heaved a huge sigh as I slammed the door of the Benz and saw I’d gotten my first break all week. Two parking spaces down, Officer Fox was just stepping from his truck in his police uniform. He must be arriving for work.

I hurried toward him. "Hey!" I said, trying to sound surprised and pleased to see him.