"My high school brought in this motivational speaker my senior year," I tell Brogan. "He was all about walking the tightrope without a safety net. He said if you have a net, you'll need it. You'll use it. But if you want to make yourself reach your dream, you have to take away the net so you have no other choice."
"I don't know if that's a metaphor for bravery or suicide," Brogan says.
"Exactly! I kept thinking only someone who's always had a safety net would preach something like that. Maybe he didn't have a career to fall back on, but he had family who would step up. Some place to sleep when he didn't have money for rent, food when there's no money for groceries. No one relying on him to keep the lights on."
"So you sing," he says. He reaches out and toys with a lock of my hair. "But you're majoring in something practical."
"I don't know about practical. Criminology. I want to go to law school. That's enough of a stretch, I think."
"Ah, the money path. Not a bad plan. Then you can be the safety net for your kids, and they can grow up to believe they pursued their dreams without one."
The butterflies in my stomach swoon. "That's pretty much the plan," I admit.
"Law school." He nods as if he's mulling the idea over. "You're smart enough."
"How do you know?"
"I'm the creepy guy who watched you tutor kids at the library, remember?"
"Right. I forgot about that." I grin and he grins back, and we lie there in the cool grass with the sounds of the party carrying on around us. "Turns out you have some game after all, Brogan."
"Why do you say that?"
I shrug and scoot closer. There's a connection between us I can't deny. It might not be that sizzling attraction I felt with Arrow, but maybe it's safer than that. Warmth without the fire. "Because I'm lying here thinking about how much I like you."
"I'm told I'm a very likeable guy. It's a curse. I'm intimately familiar with the friend zone."
"Hmm, and yet I'm wondering how I can get you to kiss me."
He props himself up on one elbow and scans my face before his gaze drops to my mouth. "For real?"
The butterflies recover from their swoon to flutter wildly. "Oh, yeah."
Slowly, he leans over me and sweeps his lips against mine. Once, then twice. I've been kissed before, but Brogan's kiss is different. Most boys kiss like they're trying to rush to the next event. The kiss is nothing more than an irritating prerequisite to the activities they're truly interested in. Brogan's kisses are an effort to slow down time, to memorize the shape and taste of my lips. Under his mouth, I'm not some townie crashing the college kids' party. I'm something to be cherished.
He doesn't climb on top of me or try to snake his hand up my shirt. And when I part my lips, he only briefly touches his tongue to mine before pulling away and drawing in a ragged breath. "I'd love to hear you sing sometime," he says, and I blink at him for a minute before my eyes can focus on his blue ones. "Would you mind?"
"I think I'd like that."
Grinning, he finds my hand and laces our fingers together. "It's a date."
May, four months after the accident
Mrs. Barrett meets me at the door and wraps me into her arms before I have a chance to say hello. She's a large woman-as tall and as broad as her son, and her hugs bring my face right into her bosom. "Have you been praying for a miracle, Mia?"
"Every day," I whisper. "Every single day."
When she pulls back, her eyes are filled with tears, but a hopeful smile covers her face. "He's having a good day today," she says, leading me to the back of the house. "You know how much he loves sunny days."
"Spring is his favorite."
The click of her heels against the dull hardwood floors echoes off the ceiling. Mrs. Barrett and I don't talk about the past. We don't talk about the fact that before the accident, she wouldn't acknowledge me as Brogan's girlfriend-that she objected to his dating someone she deemed so beneath him, and regularly thwarted his attempts to be with me. We don't talk about the nasty things she once said to me.
We're bonded by this tragedy and our love of Brogan. If she blames me for being there that night, she's never said so. And if she doesn't blame me . . . well, I'm sure she'd be the only one.
She opens the doors to the three-season room and motions me toward the big, sunny space where Brogan sits during the day. He's strapped into his wheelchair, eyes at half-mast, mouth hanging open.
"I'll be in the kitchen if you need me," she says, before leaving and pulling the doors closed behind her.
I walk over to him and touch his face. It's swollen from the edema, distorting the features I once loved so much. His body is gaunt after months of muscle atrophy have eaten away at the solid mass of a man he once was.
"Good morning, handsome." I press a kiss to his cheek before picking up his hand and holding it in both of mine. "I saw Arrow this morning." Hanging my head, I squeeze my eyes shut, remembering my argument with Brogan on New Year's Eve, the betrayal in his eyes. "You think I don't see the way you look at him?" But even as angry as he was with his best friend, I know Brogan wouldn't want to see Arrow destroy his life. He'd want better for him. "It's good. His house arrest will keep him out of trouble. It'll help him get his head on straight."
Swallowing hard, I lift my hand to Brogan's jaw. "I think we're all screwed up. And I know we all miss you." My eyes burn with unexpected tears. Seeing Brogan doesn't normally make me cry, but now that Arrow's back, I feel like someone who's never known she was blind and was suddenly given sight. Seeing Arrow makes the world too bright and loud and painful. All I want is for the dark numbness to return. It's easier that way.
I sit with Brogan for almost an hour, holding his hand and thinking, avoiding my return to Blackhawk Valley. When I can't put it off anymore, I go to the kitchen to find Mrs. Barrett.
She wipes down her already-clean counter. The house is modest, but always spotless. After the accident, the Barretts sold their house and moved to Indianapolis to be closer to his doctors. Caring for Brogan in the home like they do has exhausted their savings, and I'm sure they're racking up more debt by the day, but the Barretts never complain about money.
"Have you remembered anything else about that night?" she asks.
I shake my head. "I'm sorry."
"The police are sick of hearing my voice." She releases a humorless laugh. "I keep calling to see if they have any new leads, but I don't think they're even working on the case anymore." She settles her hand over mine. It's cold and clammy. "Don't you want to know who killed your brother?"
I did, once. Now all I want is for Brogan to wake up. The doctors tell us not to hold out hope for that, but it's happened before. I've read books about men who've woken from PVS-medical speak for persistent vegetative state-and could recite everything that was said to them during their days trapped inside their own minds.
I would go the rest of my life without having answers about that night if I could have a miracle for Brogan.
But I don't say that. I open my mouth and force air into my reluctant lungs. If I've learned anything in the last three and a half months, it's that sometimes the best and only thing I can do is to take the next breath.
"I wish the police would do more," she says.
"Me too." The police chalked the hit-and-run up to "gang violence" quickly. They had nothing to go on, and everyone was satisfied with the answer but the Barretts and me. I told the police all I could, but they didn't have much to form any sort of investigation if they'd even cared to-and they didn't. It was dark. A big, dark-colored SUV came speeding up over the hill and killed my brother and destroyed the better part of Brogan's brain.
Mrs. Barrett wants answers. The only ones I have she wouldn't want to hear. His drunken pleas. His anger. His refusal to let me out of his car until I promised not to leave him. The bruises he left on my arm because I tried to leave anyway. Then Nicholas's fists when he came to rescue me. A grieving mother shouldn't have to know any of that. "I'm sorry," I whisper.
Her cold hand squeezes mine. "It's not your fault."
If only that were true.
"We saw Brogan yesterday," Chris says, eyeing me as I put the burgers on the grill. Dad invited the team over to celebrate the end of finals week, so now it's my job to entertain them and pretend everything's normal.