Sleep No More

SEVEN

Despite my stress and guilt and worry and paranoia, I do manage to get one uninterrupted night of sleep before I find out Matthew is dead.

My mom is crying in the kitchen, and fear squeezes my heart so tightly I’m pretty sure it stops beating for a few seconds. I can’t help but feel a smoldering of anger as I watch the news report. What could he possibly have done to get killed like this—stopped to pee in the snow? Everyone’s been on their guard—why would he get out of his car?

I told him to be careful. It wasn’t enough. I failed.

I’m almost deaf to the sound of the newscaster when one detail worms itself into my head.

“We have been informed that the male minor—who police have identified but whose name has not yet been released—was shot with a gun that, though registered to his father, was engraved with his name. The gun was left at the crime scene and hopefully holds a key to this killer’s identity.”

Shot with his own gun.

My knees won’t hold me and I collapse into a chair as questions race through my head: Why did he have a gun in his truck? Did he start carrying it because of Bethany’s murder? Or because I told him to be careful?

I feel a strong hand wrap around my upper arm and pull me into the hallway, but the message doesn’t reach my legs in time and I stumble and stagger after Sierra. Momentarily out of my mother’s sight, Sierra stares at my face, studying me. Not studying—scrutinizing. I don’t have the energy to try to hide anything. I simply look back, tears coursing down my trembling cheeks.

Sierra straightens, appearing satisfied. “This one surprised you,” she whispers, her hand rubbing my upper arms. It would be comforting if I didn’t already feel so guilty.

I nod. It’s the truth. I had just started to believe—to almost hope—that he would live. That I had changed his fate. I was surprised.

“You didn’t see it.”

I close my eyes and start to cry in earnest now. She takes my sobs as an answer and gathers me against her chest. “This is always the hardest part,” she murmurs in my ear as her fingers stroke my hair away from my damp face. “Seeing innocent lives snuffed out and thinking there was something we could have done.” She pulls back and looks down at me. “Charlotte, listen. There is nothing you could have done. Not for him, not for that girl. Not without setting into motion uncontrollable ripples of consequence. You’re innocent.”

Innocent? I’m anything but. If I had said nothing, would Matthew still be alive? Was it something he did in the name of caution that led to this? There’s no way to know for sure. But I took action and now, to some degree, I bear responsibility. I am so far from innocent.

But I nod. Because I have to. Because she won’t let me go until I do, and I need to get back to the news—to hear anything they might have discovered. My own method of torture, perhaps.

When I flee, Sierra doesn’t bar my way and I go right back into the kitchen. I eat a type of cereal I couldn’t have identified five minutes later and listen to the news, hungering for some tidbit of evidence that might exonerate me.

Or condemn me.

After an hour, I push my still half-full bowl away and go to my room. As fast as I can, I pull on yesterday’s jeans and shirt and jam my bare feet into boots. I’m back in the hallway in less than a minute, headed toward the front door.

My mom can tell what I have in mind the second her eyes fall to my boots. “Charlotte, no. You are not going to school today.”

I ignore her and grab my coat from the row of hooks by the front door. There’s a crash from the kitchen and I know Mom’s trying to maneuver her wheelchair down the barely wide-enough hallway. I’m a terrible daughter for taking advantage of her handicap to get away, but I do. I fling the door open as my arms slip into the sleeves of my heavy coat, then slam it shut and take off.

I’m almost half a block away before I hear Mom reach the porch and start shouting my name, but I duck my head and hurry onward, taking the first corner I reach to dart out of her sight.

She won’t chase me in her wheelchair; she knows she’d never catch me. There’s going to be hell to pay when I get home, but I had to get out of there before I choked.

I didn’t even think about the fact that I headed in the direction of the school. The “corner” I whipped around isn’t a corner at all; it’s the edge of the parking lot. Now I’m walking through the middle of a huge square of white snow. If I were younger—more ignorant, less guilty—I would lie down and make a snow angel. Or run around in circles full of giddiness at being the first person to mar the perfect blanket of pure whiteness.

Instead, I stand in the middle of the lot, the snow untouched except for my single line of tracks that lead halfway across.

It’s almost time for school to start. But no one’s here. Well, there’s a sprinkling of cars right by the front doors that probably belong to teachers. I wonder if school will be canceled again.

My phone chimes in my pocket. My mom. I stare at the brightly lit screen as it continues to ring and it occurs to me why this day is different from the day they found Bethany. That morning, a crowd gathered around the crime scene and word of who had been killed leaked out like wildfire as soon as Rachel saw those shoes.

Matthew was killed in a remote area. Even the few people who were there were kept far from the scene by both officers and the trees.

I’m the only student who knows the name of the victim.

I can imagine exactly what’s happening right now in hundreds of homes around Coldwater. Students are frantically calling each other; checking on their friends one by one. I can picture the texts.

Are u ok? Text me back RITE NOW!

U didn’t answer. Call me the SEC you get this.

Or even something as simple as:

Another kid is dead. Please let me know it wasn’t you.

The only person who called me was my mom. And I didn’t answer.

I text my mom a simple:

I’m at school. Sorry.

and shuffle forward. I’m halfway up the steps when my text chime pings again.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I mutter as I dig my phone out again.

A sinking swoop envelops my stomach when I see that it’s not from my mom, but that same unknown number as before. I look around but see no one.

Which is stupid because there’s no reason someone should need to see me to text me. With shaky hands, I unlock my phone. My hands are so cold I can hardly manage it, then I huddle into the corner of the entryway and force my eyes to look down at the screen.

Your attempt was admirable, but it obviously didn’t work. I can show you how to stop it from happening again. Call me when you get desperate enough. Do it for that poor boy’s sake. Please.

I suppress the urge to fling the phone to the ground as my lungs suck in air in fast, loud gasps.

Whoever this is, they know. But how much do they know? Are they watching me?

They know I saw the vision of Bethany, and that I tried to warn Matthew.

And that I failed.

I shove my phone into my pocket and duck back into the early morning wind. I’m not sure where I’m going.

I can’t go home. I just can’t. I’m not ready. Not to face my mom or Sierra. I head past the school, walking down more unshoveled sidewalks and marring more perfect sheets of snow. My sockless feet are starting to tingle with cold inside my boots, but I ignore them. My mind tosses questions and possibilities around and around my brain.

After half an hour, I’ve circled the same block three times and I’m out of new snow to walk on. I feel similarly trapped in my head as my mind grows weary. It leaves the wild theories, the guilty scenarios, and instead focuses on the two pictures that won’t leave my eyes, even when I scrunch them closed: the bleeding gap across Bethany’s throat, and the hole in Matthew’s head.

And I realize I can’t live with myself if it happens again.