Page 21 of Born to Run Back
“I need help,” I whispered hoarsely, the admission scraping my throat raw.
“Yes, you do.” Andie reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “But wanting help is the first step.”
She stayed while I made the call to Dr. Probst, the therapist she’d been recommending for years. She stayed while I poured the rest of my liquor down the sink, while I finally acknowledged whatever I’d found in that canyon had been nothing more than two broken people mistaking shared trauma for a connection, for love.
Real healing, I realized, would have to start with myself.
Wendy
Saturday, 2:45 p.m., same week
The Riverside Behavioral Health Center looked exactly like what it was: institutional, sterile, devoid of all feeling. Beige walls, fluorescent lighting, that particular smell of disinfectant and resignation that seemed to permeate places where people were admitted when they wanted to disappear.
I’d called ahead three times, confirming and re-confirming that Delaney Lewis was allowed visitors on the weekends, and that she was stable enough for company. The receptionist had asked if I was family, and I’d lied without any hesitation whatsoever.
“Cousin,” I’d said, the word tasting like ash. “Visiting from out of state.”
Sitting here now in the visiting room with its mismatched chairs and motivational posters about healing and hope, I wondered what the hell I was really doing here. What did I possibly think this would accomplish?
Delaney walked in accompanied by a nurse, and I barely recognized her.
The vibrant, smiling nineteen-year-old from the Instagram photos had been replaced by someone who moved like she was underwater, her steps slow and sluggish, her eyes focused on nothing in particular. She’d lost weight—too much weight—and her dark hair hung limp and unwashed around her youthful face. The scar from that night was visible, a thin white line across her forehead that disappeared into her hairline.
“Delaney?” I stood up, my heart thundering. “I-I’m… I’m Wendy. I was there that night. When—”
Her dark brown eyes focused on me with sudden, terrifying clarity. “You were there.” It wasn’t a question, but rather a statement delivered with a voice as flat as a day-old open can of soda.
“Yes.” I sat back down as she took the chair across from me, the nurse retreating to give us some privacy. “I wanted to see how you were doing. To check—”
“Beck’s dead.” She said it the way someone might comment on the weather. Matter-of-fact. Emotionless. “Did you know that?”
“Yes, I know. I’m so sorry.”
“Are you?” She tilted her head to one side, studying me with an intensity that made my skin crawl. “Because I remember you. You held my hand that night.”
“I did.”
“And then you left. With that man.” Her voice never changed inflection, never betrayed any emotion. “The one who tried to save Beck.”
My chest tightened. “We gave our statements to the police—”
“I don’t care about the police.” For the first time, something flickered behind her dark eyes. Not anger, exactly, but something harder.Deader.“I care about the fact that you’ve been building memorials to my dead boyfriend.”
The words felt like a slap across my face. “How do you—”
“I have friends. They send me pictures sometimes. Of the accident site.” She leaned forward, her face never leaving mine. “All those stones. All those flowers. Very pretty. Very elaborate.”
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even breathe.
“Do you know what I see when I close my eyes?” Delaney continued in that same terrible, flat, dead voice. “I see his face. The way it looked when the life left it. I hear the sound the metal made when it twisted. I smell the gasoline. I taste the blood in my mouth.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks, but she showed no reaction.
“I can’t paint anymore. Did you know that? I was an art major. Now I can’t even hold a brush without my hands shaking.” She held up her right hand, and I could see the visible tremor, subtle but constant. “The doctors say it’s a trauma response. PTSD. They have a lot of real fancy words for being broken.”
“Delaney, I—”
She cut me off. “So tell me,” she said, “what exactly were you grieving? Because it wasn’t Beck. You didn’t know Beck. And it wasn’t me, obviously, since you never once came to see me until today.”
