Dare (17 page)

It was the buzzing that woke Brynna up. It was constant and excessive, and Brynna couldn't tell if it was inside her head or outside. Inside, she guessed, because her head ached like nothing else had before, a constant, sickening pulse that shot nauseating waves to her gut.

“Ugh,” she moaned. “Ughhh…” Her body felt foreign and restrained. Something pinched at her arm, and her hand—just one of them though—was ice cold. It made her fingertips hurt.

“Brynna?”

Her mother was at the side of her bed, and Brynna liked the cool feel as she pressed her palm against Brynna's cheek. “Oh, thank god, Brynna.”

“She's awake?”

Brynna finally pulled her eyes open, but it was like blinking through a thick coating of Elmer's glue.

“Mom? Dad?” Her parents were blurry blobs in front of her. They swirled and straightened and then the details came into view. Her mother's face, drawn, pale. Her father, his cheeks ruddy and purplish, his eyes glazed.

“Don't try and move. Don't try and do anything.”

Brynna shifted in her bed and then looked around. “Am I—is this the hospital?”

“Where the hell else did you expect to end up?”

“Adam, stop!”

Brynna watched her mother bat at her father and then block him from her view. “Brynna, honey, if you were having problems, you could tell us. If you were so unhappy.”

“I don't understand—why—” Brynna paused, the whole ordeal flooding back to her.

“You drank a whole bottle of Nyquil, Bryn. And you took pills.”

“And whose fault is that, Adam? Why were those even in the house? You know she's an addict. We don't keep temptation in the house!”

Brynna broke out in a cold sweat, her stomach twisting in knots. “Stop! Stop it you, guys! Please!”

Her parents turned as if they just realized she was in the room. Brynna opened her mouth and then closed it when there was a knock at the door. A nurse poked her head in, smiled warmly at Brynna and said, “Your friend is here to see you.”

“One second, please.”

“It was an accident,” Brynna whispered, feeling tears at the edges of her eyes. “I didn't mean to. It was an accident.”

Her father sighed but looked resigned. Her mother wouldn't look at her at all.

“We'll talk about this with Dr. Rother later,” was all her mother said as they followed the nurse out the door.

“I didn't mean to interrupt—” Brynna heard from the hallway.

She perked up, surprised as the little blond came into her room. Darcy's pale features looked even more washed out under the harsh fluorescent lights. She shifted the miniature rose she was holding from one hand to the other before she placed it on Brynna's nightstand. Brynna instinctively pulled her blanket up to her chin, trying to hide she didn't know what, wondering how much Darcy knew.

“Hey, Darcy,” she said.

“If it blooms, they're supposed to be yellow,” Darcy said, gesturing to the plant. “You know, the color of friendship or whatever. And the balloon is cheesy but it came with.”

Brynna glanced at the mini Mylar balloon, a
Blue's Clues
knock-off barking “Being Sick is Ruff!” She broke into a soft smile.

“It's great, thanks.”

“So, I'm sorry about the pool.”

Brynna blinked. “The pool? I was the one who dive-bombed you.”

“No. I know you were just trying to help…because you thought I was drowning or whatever. I wasn't, but that was nice of you. So thanks.”

Brynna felt the blood rush to her cheeks and was certain that her vitals would pick up the spike in her blood pressure. She had plunged into the pool to rescue a perfectly adequate swimmer, and then she went catatonic in the shallow end.

“I guess you think I'm kind of a freak, huh?” She played with the satin edging on the pale yellow blanket.

“It doesn't matter what I think.”

The girls each studied opposite walls for a beat before Darcy, without turning, spoke. “I know you were there that night.”

Brynna held her breath, her eyes wide and fastening to Darcy's profile.

“I know what happened to you.”

Brynna's lips felt like they wouldn't work, and this time it wasn't because of the Nyquil. “Wh—what are you talking about, Darcy?”

Darcy turned to face her. “At Point Lobos. The night your friend died. I know that you were there.”

Brynna felt her mouth fall open.

“Don't worry.” Darcy rushed up close. “I'm not going to say anything about it. It's just that your name sounded familiar. My dad is a photojournalist. He was there that whole month. I help him develop his pictures, and I saw—I remember you.”

Brynna felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. “What?”

“My dad told me what happened. That a girl, about my age, jumped off the pier and didn't come back up. He told me that girl did it with a friend but she survived.” Darcy's eyes flashed with something, and Brynna didn't know if she should feel relieved that someone knew her secret or terrified that someone was going to call her a murderer.

“I didn't recognize you at first. You changed your hair color and your cut.” Darcy absently brushed her fingers through her own thin blond hair. “And I knew I recognized you but I just couldn't place you. Until today.”

Brynna's saliva soured and she swallowed it down, her stomach feeling hollow from when they pumped it and desperately achy. If she had the strength—and wasn't hooked up to all the buzzing, beeping machines—she would run out of the room, straight past Darcy and her parents pointing fingers at each other, straight back to the pier at Point Lobos. She would crash into the water and welcome the riptide when its fingers wrapped around her and pulled her under, tumbling her along in a pitch-black abyss.

“You said her name.” Darcy's eyes looked dreamy. “Erica, right? It was Erica.”

Everything inside of Brynna was pulsing, moving, throbbing. She thought about the tweet, about Erica in the coffeehouse. Could Darcy be responsible?

“You jumped in without a second thought, thinking I was her.”

“I—I—”

“You must have really loved her. Erica.”

“I did. I do. She's my best friend.”

“So why did you come here?”

Brynna's blood pressure stared to come down. She started to feel a modicum of calm as Darcy sat in the visitor's chair by Brynna's bedside.

Brynna licked her lips, pressing her top teeth against her bottom lip. “My parents wanted me to leave. I got—I was—it was really hard for me after Erica.” Her eyes flicked to Darcy's, trying to read them, but Darcy's still held that glossy, dreamy look. “It wasn't like I wanted to go.”

Darcy dragged her long, elegant fingers up the length of the chair's armrest, her head cocked as she listened to Brynna.

“It must have been hard for you.”

“Yeah.”

“Leaving her behind like that.”

Brynna's attention snapped like a broken rubber band. “What did you say?”

“Knock knock!” The overly cheery nurse poked her head through Brynna's door a millisecond after she knocked. “Visiting hours are over, honey,” she said to Darcy.

Darcy hopped up while Brynna tried to process the last fifteen seconds. “What do you mean by—”

But Darcy had already left with a halfhearted good-bye while the nurse poked around Brynna, trying to fluff up her pillow. When the nurse shut the door, Brynna was left with the faint smell of the miniature rose and Darcy's last words turning over and over in her mind: “
It
must
have
been
hard
for
you…leaving her behind like that.”

•••

Four days passed uneventfully, but Brynna still found it hard to breathe. She wanted to think that “Erica” had gotten tired of her or had moved on to someone else, but she couldn't quite believe that. Her parents were keeping a tight leash on her, dropping her at school, picking her up the minute the bell rang, and surreptitiously sniffing at her hair and clothing for telltale cigarette smoke or general drug odor when they thought she wasn't paying attention. She had to present her backpack and purse upon coming and going and grit her teeth while her father pawed through it, his own breath a noxious combination of smoky scotch and Crest that she wasn't supposed to notice.

On the fifth day, Brynna dumped her backpack at the usual checkpoint, but her parents still circled around her like nervous sharks, unsure if they were predator or prey.

“What?” Brynna asked, her head snapping first to her father then her mother.

“Come into the living room, please.” Her mother sounded strangely formal and even seemed to walk with a more careful step. Brynna looked over her shoulder as her father followed behind.

“What's going on?”

Her mother stepped aside with what would have been a
tah-dah!
if the item on the table were something that Brynna should have been excited about. But all it did was make her stomach sink and resigned her to knowing that no matter what she did, no matter what was happening, she would always be a drug addict and her parents would never stop second-guessing, never stop wondering how they could have protected her better.

“You're giving me a drug test?”

Her father edged in front of Brynna and started yanking open the little cardboard box on the kitchen table. He turned and presented her the “sample” cup, and Brynna shrank back, remembering those first humiliating days at Woodbriar Rehabilitation Center.

Brynna
woke
up
and
stepped
out
of
bed. There really was no reason to get dressed, although the nurses here at “Hugs Not Drugs,” as some of the other patients called it, encouraged them to get back to their daily routine—the parts of it that didn't include getting drunk or high—as much as possible.

She
shimmied
into
a
hospital-approved robe, startlingly white, like everything else in the place, and was met in the doorway by Marcus, the orderly. He was two whole heads taller than Brynna and had forearms like giant hams. Faded tattoos were barely visible on his dark skin, and he looked every bit like he could crush you with a stare. Marcus was linebacker big and bald, and had the softest, sweetest voice Brynna had ever heard. He was getting off duty when she came in last night, but he was the one who put her instantly at ease. Louise, the night warden, was sour and pinched, and for every one of Marcus's soft, doughy folds, she was angled and sharp, wearing her disdain for her charges as plainly as she wore her uniform.

“Hey, Marcus,” Brynna said softly.

His
face
broke
into
a
wide, easy grin. “How'd the first night go, Sleeping Beauty?”

Truthfully, Brynna wasn't sure she'd slept at all. She remembered staring at the industrial ceiling above her, watching the way the raindrops cast murky, gray-blue shadows against the ceiling tiles.

“Okay, I guess.” She pointed to the ladies' room across the hall. “I've got to go to the bathroom.”

“No problem.” Marcus turned around and fiddled in his cart, then Brynna heard him mumble something into the miniature walkie-talkie that all the Woodbriar nurses had clipped to their shoulders.

Brynna
took
a
step
into
the
hallway, and he held up one meaty palm to stop her. “Escort's not here yet. And you need this.”

She
looked
down
incredulously
as
Marcus
placed
a
little
plastic
cup
in
her
hand. Heat shot through her, and her mouth went dry as she blinked at the man in front of her.

Marcus
gestured
toward
the
cup. “You know the rules. Every morning.”

Brynna
tensed
at
the
thought
of
locking
herself
in
the
bathroom, peeing into that stupid cup, and—what? Handing a full cup of urine to Marcus? Humiliation hummed through her body, and she wanted to sink into the shiny white laminate underneath her. A woman Brynna didn't recognize came strolling down the hall with a neon
-
green bungee keychain wrapped around her wrist. She paused in front of the women's restroom, sunk her key in the lock, and opened the door a foot. “You coming?”

Brynna
looked
at
the
specimen
cup
in
her
hand. She looked at Marcus with his eyes that suddenly didn't look so soft anymore. She looked at the woman, her “escort,” guarding the threshold to the bathroom.

And
she
wondered
how
it
was
that
she
had
gotten
herself
here.

Brynna took the cup from her father's hand. All she ever wanted at Woodbriar was to come home. But now home was just like rehab.

“You've been home from the hospital for over a week now…”

“And I've seen Dr. Rother almost every day. I've done everything I'm supposed to be doing. I'm even back at school.”