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Before: I Never Saw Him Again


Ashley

As Chris and I climbed out of the car, a part of me hoped that there would be a hurricane, a hailstorm of bullets. I pictured it sounding like a firework display, popping and exploding into sparks of red. At least I'd be with Nick. At least Chris couldn't hurt us anymore. My hands raised, Zoey's cries ringing in my ears, I stood there beside the car, facing the line of policemen blocking off the highway with their vehicles, shaking and prepared to die.

"My baby," I choked, "My baby's in the car."

One of the policemen gestured for me to step forward. I stumbled in his direction. He had kind eyes, and facial hair that made me feel like I could trust him. I needed him to get Zoey.

As I walked forward, I thought of this game Nick and I played when we were kids. He would fill his squirt gun up and follow me around the yard wearing a shiny sheriff's badge he'd gotten at a western themepark his grandfather took him to on one of their family trips to New York. A jet of water to the heart and I'd throw myself, writhing and gurgling out last words of vengence against the sheriff, clutching my water-soaked heart.

Back then, it was always Nick that shot me. Not the other way around.

Back then, the bullets were reloaded at the hose nozzle.

Back then, when we got really creative, we poured our Electo-Cooler Hi-C into the squirt guns and shot them into each other's mouth while we sat around the old drain pipe and talked about who was a jockstrap at school and planned out new ways to ride our bikes around the neighborhood or discussed which Power Ranger would win against which Ninja Turtle.

Back then, we really believed that real life was exactly like we pretended it was.

I wanted to tell Nick that in real life facing down a police officer with his gun held aloft was nothing at all the same, that nothing we'd pretended at ages eight through twelve was the way it had turned out at all.

For one thing, when the game was over, everyone who got shot had always gotten back up in time for dinner.

I reached the line of cops. "My baby is in the car," I gasped to the gentle-eyed man. He nodded and I heard him direct a younger guy to go get Zoey. He pulled my arms behind my back, and clicked handcuffs around my wrists. He receited the maranda to me.

He turned me, put me into the car closest by. I looked out the window.

I saw them slam Chris to the car. Saw them press down on his neck so his cheek pressed harshly against the hood. His eyes met mine and he stared at me, and I saw the moment when the expression in them melted from one of defiant fury to one of sorrow and remorse. I saw the moment when they broke him, when the weight of everything that had just happened really landed on his shoulders. When he realized what he'd done.

The door opened and the young officer leaned in with the car seat and secured it. I turned to Zoey as she cried, my hands shaking in their cuffs. "Shh little girl, shhh," I whispered. But I felt like maybe she somehow knew that Nick was gone. I felt like crying like that, so that my face turned red and my voice broke and crackled like static electricity. I wished I could feel how that felt. But there was so many emotions happening at once that not a single one of them had fully struck me yet. Not the grief, not the horror, not the fear, not the mourning. I felt nothing.

I turned back to the window as they pulled Chris up roughly, spun him and pushed him into the car. He stared out the window, too, our eyes still meeting through the glass, across the space. He stared at me with tears running from his eyes across his face, dripping from his jaw bone. I saw his mouth move, read his lips. "I'm sorry."

And I believed him.

Because the sorry was in his eyes.

Then the car pulled away.

And I never saw him again.




Nick

When I opened my eyes, it was to a pure white ceiling. I blinked up at it, my conciousness swimming. My tongue felt so dry that it hurt to open my mouth, like my tongue was being peeled from the top cavern of my mouth. It reminded me of the time I licked the bike rack at school on a dare and got stuck to it like the kid in Christmas Story did with the flagpole. I goot a great gasp of air and my chest felt like it might burst with the feeling.

I reached for my face, pulled a cannula out of my nose, felt my fingers slip across my scar. My body ached and I struggled in an attempt to sit up. Suddenly there was a hand on my collar bone, pushing me back down. "Don't sit up!" AJ was suddenly hovering over me, his eyes serious, panicked. "Don't sit up. It's okay, man. Relax." He paused as I relaxed back into the pillows. "Shit man," AJ said, "It's good to see you awake."

"What... what happened?" I stammered.

AJ's voice trembled, "Shit man. You were shot."

"What?"

"By Ashley," AJ finished.

A rush of images flooded my mind: The Glock. Ashley. Her terrified expression. Zoey's cries. Chris. His maniacal grin. The gunshot. The searing pain. The floor. The blood. Ashley's face hovering over me.... "Oh Jesus," I choked.

"It's all the fuck over the news," AJ was saying, "TMZ's practically pissing themselves they're so excited. They've been out front waiting for news all night for Christ's sake."

"Where's Ashley? Where's Zoey?" I asked.

I was afraid he'd say who? to the Zoey part. I was afraid I'd dreamt her. That I'd been in a coma or something. That it was all a dream. That I was waking up after the plane crash or something. That none of it had happened.

"Ashley's.... she's being detained."

"What? She's in jail?"

AJ looked uncomfortable. "Yeah."

I struggled to sit up again. AJ quickly shoved me back down. "Let me up, I gotta go get her outta there. She doesn't belong there!"

"You ain't going anywhere, man," AJ said, keeping me held down. "Dude, that bullet shifts even a little, you're a dead man."

I looked down at my chest. A bandage was wrapped around me, like a great rubber band, holding a big pad across a spot over my heart.

"She hit you in one of your arteries, Nick," AJ said. "They can't pull it out. It has to stay in. Your heart has to literally heal around the bullet." His voice was thick.

My mouth went dry.

"I need Ashley."

AJ nodded. "Okay man. I'll go find out what we need to do to make that happen. Just... don't try to move, okay?"

I nodded. "Just get me Ashley," I whispered.