Wherever Nina Lies (20 page)

W
hat happens next is a blur, but there are certain details I know I will never forget—the sour human smell in the back of the police car, a mix of a hundred people’s anxious sweat, the sound of my mother’s voice on the phone when they call her from the station, because I can tell she’s crying, the buzz of the bright fluorescent lights in the room where I tell Detective Bryant a four-hour-long story about every single thing that happened in the five days since I’ve met Sean. But more than anything I know I will never forget the look on Nina’s face when Detective Bryant comes into the waiting room where Nina and I sit on scratched-up wooden chairs to tell us that Sean confessed. To everything. “We barely even questioned him,” Detective Bryant says. He shakes his head. “That happens sometimes.” And Nina just turns toward me, her lips pressed together, her eyes watering, her entire face contorted with such pure relief, I know I cannot even begin to understand the hell that preceded it.

“It’s over,” Nina whispers. “It’s finally over.” And she squeezes my hand.

“I’ll take you home now,” Detective Bryant says.

So we stand up and we walk outside. The clear early-morning sunlight shines on our faces. I can already tell it’s going to be a beautiful day.

E
verything out the window shrinks as we rise higher, houses, cars, people, mountains. My ears pop. I press my face against the glass.

“Wait, wait, wait, Belly,” Nina says. “Don’t move for just ooooooooone more second…” She holds her pen up to her lips and then brings the point back to the napkin she’s been sketching on. “Your face is more angley than it was the last time I drew you.” She holds the pen to her lips again. “More cheekboney.”

I smile. “Maybe,” I say. I glance at the napkin onto which she’s sketching the outline of my face.

“No, definitely,” she says. “You look older.”

“Well…time will do that to a person, I guess,” and I try to make my tone light and jokey but it doesn’t come out that way. The problem is this: After two years of wondering, my brain doesn’t quite know how to stop. I’ve reminded myself that now that Nina is safe and I can see her, that nothing else matters, that nothing else should matter. But
what we tell ourselves and what we deep down believe, those are two different things, I guess.

“I can’t believe Mom’s taking the day off just to come meet us at the airport,” Nina says. Out of the corner of my eye I can see her shaking her head slowly. She looks at me, down at the napkin, back up at me. “I mean, when’s that ever happened before, right?” She’s smiling. I don’t say anything.

The unasked questions sit heavy in my mouth like marbles, and everything else I try and say has to work its way around them. “I don’t know,” I say. After what my sis-ter’s been through, it doesn’t feel fair. It doesn’t feel fair to make her explain anything. But my brain just won’t stop wondering.

“Oh, Belly.” Nina sighs and puts down her pen. “Please, just ask me, already, okay? I know you need to ask me and it’s okay. Just…ask me.”

“How did you know…”

“We’re sisters,” she says simply. “That’s how.” And she turns toward me and smiles this bittersweet smile.

We’re sisters.
There’s someone here now who can say that to me.

I take a deep breath. “I just need to know why,” I say, very quietly. I look down at my lap. “And I know it’s selfish to ask because of everything that you went through.”

Nina lets out this wry little laugh and then shakes her
head. “I’m not the only one who’s been through something here, Bell. Need I remind you?”

I shake my head.

“Look, you need to know, so I need to tell you.” Nina takes a deep breath. “So here it goes. Three years ago I went to a party at this crazy house called the Mothership. It was the middle of summer, but it looked like the middle of winter in their backyard because someone had somehow gotten ahold of an industrial snowmaking machine and they just turned that sucker on and left it running for two days straight. When I got to the party, everyone was outside going nuts, some girls were building an igloo and there were snowball fights everywhere and some guy was making this insane snowman that actually looked like a person. So I had had this idea to make this sort of fuzzy pink dress for myself and dye my hair light pink, and be a Hostess Sno Ball. So I did, and that’s what I wore to the party, but everyone just kept asking if I was cotton candy or a pink pom-pom or something.

“And then this guy came up to me, really cute, carrying this snowboard. And I’d noticed him before doing these insane snowboard tricks on this ramp they’d set up. Anyway, he just turned to me and, I’ll never forget this because it was the very first thing he ever said to me, he said, ‘Someday I’ll be telling our grandchildren how when I met their grandma she was dressed up like a snack cake.’ And I know that could sound like a cheesy line or something but because of the way
he said it and because it was about snack cakes, it didn’t feel cheesy, it was just funny. And then I looked at him and I was like, ‘Well, you know, by the time we have grandkids it’ll be way in the future and snack cakes might not even exist anymore,’ and he was like, ‘Well, if that’s true we should probably start stockpiling now, don’t you think, sweetheart?’ And that was the first conversation we ever had.” Nina turns toward me and smiles.

I smile back.

“That was kinda it for me. We were just together after that. We didn’t have to talk about it or wonder about it, we just…were. So, one day Jason starts telling me about his stepbrother and how he was kind of messed up and how he got sent away to boarding school and how really deep down he was a good kid.” Nina shakes her head. “Jason saw the best in people. Which wasn’t always so good for him, I guess.” She looks back down at her napkin. “Jason said his stepbrother was going to be in town on break from school and he wanted me to meet him. And I was excited, actually. I mean, I had no idea where all this would…” Nina swallows hard. “I had no idea where all this would end up. But anyway, so I met Sean. I remember thinking right when I first met him that there was just something really, I don’t know, different about him, I guess. But I kind of liked that about him. You know what I mean?”

I nod. “I thought the same thing when I met him.” And I smile wryly, because it’s all so ridiculous.

Nina smiles wryly back. “He was really charming sometimes. Charming and weird and I thought, well, good for him for doing his own thing. And to be honest, at first I really liked having him around, it was nice having someone to be a big sister to.” Nina tips her head to the side. “I missed
you
then, Belly. But you were always so mad at me around that time.”

“I’m sorry.” I nod. “I just wished you were around more then, I guess, and I didn’t really know how to express it.”

“I know that now,” Nina says. “What I’m trying to say is just that I was thinking of him like a little brother. But he didn’t see it that way. He got this crush on me. Right at the beginning I thought it was just kind of innocent and sweet,” Nina takes a breath, “it didn’t take too long to realize it wasn’t.

“He started writing me these letters from school, like really, really, really long letters, full of all this stuff about how one day we’d be together, and how we were soul mates and how much he loved me. And no matter what I said or did, he couldn’t be convinced otherwise. It’s like the more I told him we were never going to be together, the harder he tried to impress me. He bought some heroin this one time. I don’t even know where he got it, but he had it with him when he came home for winter break. I remember when he showed it to me, he was just so excited about it, like I was going to be so impressed.” Nina looks at me and shakes her head. “I wasn’t.

“Fast forward to the next summer, two summers ago, right after Jason and I both graduated. It was Jason’s eighteenth birthday, and his best friend, Max, was in town staying at the Mothership, which is where he always stayed when he was visiting, and so we were having a little birthday party there for Jason. It was just me and Jason and Max and a few other kids hanging out. And I had gotten this snowboard for Jason that I knew he would love. It was expensive though, I had to get a credit card so I could pay for it. And I knew he’d never let me get him such an expensive present unless he had to,” Nina smiles, “so I drew all over it so there was no way he could bring it back. And I’ll never forget his face when he opened it, his eyes just got huge and he couldn’t stop smiling and he got a little choked up even, like, in front of his friends and everything.” Nina smiles, pressing her lips together hard like she’s trying not to cry. “He said it was the very best present he’d ever gotten and asked if I would take a trip cross-country with him for our one-year anniversary, which was in about a month, at the end of July. He said we’d just pack up his old blue Volvo and hit the road, crashing with friends on the way, and then we could stay at his step-dad’s house in Big Sur and he’d teach me to snowboard and we could give his present its first trip down the mountain together.”

“Wait, Jason had a blue Volvo?” I tip my head to the side.

“Yup,” Nina says. And then she tips her head to the side,
too. “Oh shit, that’s what Sean was driving when…” Our eyes meet and I nod. Nina sighs and shakes her head.

“Go on,” I say.

She continues. “It was around three-thirty in the morning and Jason and I were getting ready to leave the Mothership so he could drive me home, but we were both being really slow about it, I think because neither one of us wanted the night to end. I mean, it really had been just the most wonderful, perfect, amazing night. And that’s when Sean showed up, acting all casual like it was the most normal thing in the world for him to be there. Except the Mothership was about twenty miles from their house and Sean had walked there. To see me. Jason wasn’t mad or anything, because he never really got mad, he was just worried about Sean and didn’t want him to get in trouble for sneaking out and wanted to get him back home as soon as possible. At that point I felt like it would probably be better if I wasn’t even in the car with them, so I said I’d just stay over at the Mothership. I always tried to make sure I was back home by the time the sun came up, but that night it seemed like the only other choice was a really bad one. So Jason came over and said good-bye and that he’d come back and pick me up in the morning and he’d get the snowboard then, too. And then he just gave me a quick hug and we didn’t even kiss or anything because Sean was like just standing there glaring at us. They walked out waving. And then at the last second Jason stuck
his head back in the door and said something about how we could get waffles in the morning, and then he mouthed ‘I love you,’…” Nina looks down, “and that was it.”

“So that was the last time you…” I start to say. I bring my hand up to my mouth. I can’t even bring myself to finish the sentence.

Nina nods. And takes a deep breath. She wipes her face quickly with her hands, because she’s crying a little, and I wipe my face with my hands because as it turns out, I am crying a little, too. “The next morning I called Jason and he kept not picking up his phone and I was figuring he left his phone on vibrate or something. So I just kept calling and calling. And then finally his mom answered.”

Nina looks up at me. My heart squeezes in my chest. “She sounded really weird on the phone, it was like I was talking to this robot or something who’d been programmed to sound like her. I was trying hard to be extra friendly because I always had the feeling she didn’t like me. I was saying something about the wallet she’d gotten for Jason for his birthday, how nice it was and everything but she just cut me off. And she just asked me if I’d seen Jason the day before and I said yeah, that I had. And that we’d had a birthday party for him. And then she said, and I remember, these are her exact words, she said, ‘Well, Nina, your little birthday party killed him.’ And at first I somehow didn’t even think she meant literally, I thought she just must have meant she
thought he was really hungover or something, which didn’t even make any sense because he’d been driving and he would never drive if he’d had anything to drink. But then she started saying all this stuff about the preliminary autopsy reports and how they suggested a heroin overdose. And it was obvious from the way she said it that she thought it was my fault.”

“But how could she even think that at all!” I say. I feel my face growing hot. I’m getting mad now.

“Her son had just died, Belly,” Nina says. “I’m not sure you can blame someone for
anything
they’re thinking in a situation like that.”

And I stop and I nod, because I suddenly remember that I’ve had the tiniest taste of what that might feel like when I thought Nina was dead, and I don’t think I’d even begun to really feel it yet.

Nina goes on. “So here was Jason’s mom telling me he was gone, and I still somehow didn’t even understand what she was saying. I kept thinking that they must have made a mistake and maybe he was just sleeping! And then finally she just said that she had to go and she hung up. My head basically exploded then and I don’t remember much of what happened for a while. I stayed at the Mothership basically catatonic until the funeral.

“It wasn’t until after the funeral was over that I started to think about some things. Like how I knew Jason would
never, ever, ever, ever,
ever
have done heroin, and how Sean had gotten some up at school that time. And then I started thinking about how weird Sean was acting at the wake. I just had this vivid memory of him sitting next to me on the couch, rubbing my back, and telling me how he and I needed each other now that Jason was gone. And that Jason would have wanted us to go through this together. And even though I felt like something weird was definitely going on, I still couldn’t even imagine that Sean would have done what he did.

“But then something else happened. There was this girl named Jeannie who I’d met at the Mothership. She was this funny girl from Texas with a thick Texas accent and was just in town for a few days. But she was there the night of Jason’s party, and after Jason died, she came to his funeral. So she was hanging out with me at the Mothership the day after and the two of us were sitting out front and she was comforting me and I guess she had her arm around me or something. And I just remember looking up and there was Sean walking up the driveway, and he was just glaring at her with this
hatred
. The next day she was driving back to Texas and she got in a car accident and the insurance company investigator said someone had fucked with her brakes. Thank fucking God she was wearing her seat belt so she was basically fine, but
that’s
when it all finally clicked in my head. When I found out about Jeannie, I suddenly realized what had happened.”

Nina leans back in her seat. My heart is pounding. “So what did you do?” I say.

“Well, as soon as I realized what happened I went to the police. But all they said was that they’d ‘look into it’.” Nina makes air quotes with her fingers. “It was obvious that they thought I was crazy and weren’t taking me seriously and probably weren’t going to do a damn thing. So I went to his mom and stepdad and tried to explain but they wouldn’t even talk to me. Meanwhile, I was still staying at the Mothership then. I didn’t feel like I could leave or come home, I was just too messed up. Sean kept coming by to see me and finally I just hid in the basement so everyone would think I wasn’t there anymore. But then I just kept thinking about you and about Mom, and how if Sean was capable of killing his own brother to get to me, and would slice some girl’s brakes just because she had her arm around me, then what would he do to the other people I cared about the most? Wouldn’t killing you guys make me
need
him? And isn’t that what he wanted? So I decided the only thing I could do that would make everyone safe would be to leave…” Nina pauses. “So that’s what I did.”