Page 41 of Light Up The Night
Iregret my auditory reaction—his shoulders hunched as if I had struck him a physical blow, and then his entire body language simply…deflated.
I am not a comforting, nurturing person. My bedside manner is brusque—some find it off-putting or abrasive. If I can even discern that a person is emotionally distraught in the first place, I rarely know how to comfort them. I am best with facts and logic rather than emotion.
But Riley—having divulged what is, obviously, even to me, a deeply painful subject—appears to be crushed by the admission. Flattened. I simplymustcomfort him.
How?
I rise from the couch and move to stand behind him. I reach a hand toward him, hesitate, and then place it on his shoulder. Once again, he flinches.
"Riley," I whisper. "Will you tell me what happened?"
“Why not?" He sighs deeply. "Spring of my senior year, there was a party. Big ol' kegger in a field on the far north side of Ernie Henstrom's property." He hesitates. "You know what a kegger is?"
"A party centered around the presence of a keg of beer," I answer.
"Yeah, but…they can get pretty crazy. This was all high school kids and college kids home for spring break. Couple hundred kids. Big fuckin' bonfire, several kegs, music, the whole thing."
"Who allows such things? That sounds incredibly irresponsible. And illegal," I say.
He chuckles. "Yeah, on both accounts. Story I'm telling is a case in point. So, we all went—me, Fee, Nyxie, and Cole."
"Fee and Nyxie are whom?" I ask.
"Fee is my brother, Felix. Nyxie is our other best friend—Cody Nyx. The four of us have been tight since we were snot-nosed brats."
He rakes his hand through his hair, messing it up even more; I have an inexplicable urge to neaten it, to smooth it down, to play with it. I clench my fingers into fists to keep from doing so.
"I got fuckin' wasted. I mean, it's what you do at a kegger—you get blasted with your friends. It was a fun party until someone got wind that the cops had been called, and everyone scattered. I'd driven separately from the others. Nyx and Fee took off in Fee's car, leaving me with Cole. And Cole, he's always been the good one. His dad was the sheriff before him, so he's always been the voice of reason for the three of us. Nyx and I…we're the crazy ones. Jumpin' off roofs into pools, swimming in the lake in winter, crazy stunts, stupid shit. Cole…he, uh…he begged me to let him drive. He was more sober than me. But I was young and wasted and stupid. So,sostupid. We argued about it until we heard sirens. And he…he told me to fuck off. Ruin your own life, then, asshole, he said. Hopped in with Ryan Tomlinson and Becca Shore. Left me there. Me, my keys, and my car."
He is silent for a while, and when he speaks again, his voice is and low and rough with emotion. "I drove away from thatparty. I couldn't even see straight. Fuck, I could barelywalk. Fuckin' stupid thing is that if the cops hadn't been called, the party woulda gone till…shit, three, four in the morning? No one would've been on the road. I’d have made it home. None of it would have happened. Instead, someone called the cops, and the party broke up at, like, ten." He shakes his head, rakes his hand through his hair again, making it wild.
"And then?" I prompt.
"And then…I was close to home. Less'n a mile. About to turn onto the street that would take me home. I looked down to change the radio station. A song came on that I couldn't stand, so I went to change the station. When I looked up, a car was there. Ellen Johnson. Seventy-six years old. Grandmother. Widow. She…I found out later she was coming home from a prayer meeting that had gone late. I used to shovel her driveway for her. She’d pay me ten bucks and a mug of hot chocolate. Sweetest old woman you'd ever wanna meet. I changed the radio station, looked up, and there she was, turning onto the same street I was about to, coming from the opposite direction. If I'd been sober, I'd have just hit the brakes. There was time—I could have stopped or turned. Instead, because I was drunk, I just fucking plowed right into her front left quarter panel at thirty-five miles per hour. Knocked her off-course, and she smashed into a telephone pole head-on."
My heart constricts awfully at the brokenness in his voice. The guilt. The shame.
"She was driving this little Kia, tiny little thing made of fuckin' tin. And the—the pole was old and wooden and rotted to hell. So when she hit it head-on, the pole fell right onto her car. Crushed that poor old lady like a goddamned bug." His hands flex, tighten into fists, flex again, shaking with extreme, intense emotion. "I didn't know any of this at the time. I was obliterated. I was driving a big old F-150, and that thing barelydented. I remember the crash itself, but that's it. I blacked out. Apparently, I drove away. I don't remember. All I do remember is waking up confused. Hungover. Felt like shit. But I didn't have a fuckin' clue what happened. First indicator that somethin' wasn’t right was my truck was gone—wasn't parked in the driveway where I usually put it.
"We had this old barn on the property. Falling down old thing that we stored junk in, basically. I had parked behind it. I could see the tail of it from my room. I knew I'd driven drunk, so I was already feeling guilty and stupid, but I was like, whatever, so what if I parked behind the barn? Right? Well, I vegged out and nursed my hangover until like three or four that afternoon. It was a Saturday. Nothing going on. Everyone was hungover, I guess. So then Cole calls me. He’s upset. Someone pulled a hit and run, killed sweet old Ellen Johnson."
His head hangs and his shoulders shake. I feel pulled to him—drawn by his guilt and sorrow and shame. I lean against his back. Rest my cheek between his shoulder blades and wrap my arms around his middle. I cannot think of anything to say, however.
He grips my hands in his, breathing hard. "When I heard Cole say that—when he told me Ellen Johnson was dead, it all came back to me. The radio. Looking up and seeing her little Kia in the middle of the turn. Smashing into her. Her car hitting the pole…the way that thing wobbled, tilted, and then…fuckin…I see it in slow-mo,every—goddamn—night. The pole falling. Crushing her car. The roof caving in right over the driver's side. I can—fuck. I can still see the driver's window all shattered and spiderwebbed. All…all fuckin' bloody." He groans as if sick, bent double. "Fuck—Jesus,fuck."
"Riley," I whisper, at a loss. "Breathe. It is okay. You are okay."
He shakes his head. "I drove away. Drove home. Left her there alone. Dead. I killed her, and I just fuckinglefther there." He straightens, turns to face me, and his eyes are red and wet. "Told you, Cadence, I'm a piece of shit."
"How did the authorities find out it was you?" I ask.
He shrugs. "I turned myself in. Walked to the station, sat down in front of Cole's dad, and told him it was me. He didn't have a choice but to lock me up. I pled guilty, got six years at Holbrook. Paroled out in four." He scrubs his face, groaning gruffly. "When I got out, everything was different. I was different. Prison changes you, man. No matter what, it changes you. And it changes how people see you. People I'd known my whole life wouldn't talk to me. Couldn't get a job. Felix was out on his own by then and was Dad's number two. He…Felix let me crash on his couch. Put me to work on his demo crew. He, Nyx, and Cole were the only ones who treated me like nothing had ever happened to me. I…the shit I went through trying to put my life back together after prison is what prompted me to put the program together, although that came years later, after Fee and I started flipping houses together and I had Crowe Demo up and running."
"What was your life trajectory before the accident?" I ask.
He laughs—a bitter, sarcastic sound. "Full-ride scholarship to Ohio State for football and hockey, which I only managed academically by seeing a shitload of tutors just to keep my GPA high enough to be eligible. I was damn good at hockey, but I was fuckin'…legit, I could've been All-state QB. Maybe even pro. Everyone says that, I know, but it's true for me. My plan was gonna be to focus on football. And then…one terrible decision fucked my whole life. I can live with that. I didn't go to college, so the fuck what? Killing Mrs. Johnson? It'sreallyfuckin’ hard to live with that."
"Riley, I…" I press my hand to his chest again, feeling the rhythm of his heart. "I am finding it hard to know what to say."
