As You Lay Sleeping

I turned the car up the driveway, the entrance visible only to those who knew where to find it. Behind the thick hedge was a wrought-iron fence. I leaned out of the window and typed the passcode into the numeric pad. Everyone had their own passcode, so Kat’s parents were aware of the comings and goings of people through their house. I was not given my own number until after a year of dating Joe. It was probably a request from Mrs. Blair, who wanted to know the whereabouts of his son’s girlfriend. I didn’t mind: it was better than waiting at the gate for someone to buzz me through.

I drove up the steep driveway. The familiar drive pinched at my heart a little. The next time I drove in, it wouldn’t be for Joe.

A text lit up my phone. I used the side of my hand to balance steering and reading the message. It was a group message from Rachael and Brittany about a meeting time for the movies tonight. I hadn’t decided yet how to tell them the news. I did want to get the story straight before Joe somehow twisted this entire ordeal into something that was my fault. I’d have to see how the meeting with him went before I could come up with a detailed story, though I already had some ideas.

The main house loomed in front of me. I followed the circular curve of the driveway. In the center was an ostentatious white-marble fountain with several half-naked cherubs continuously spewing water into the large basin. The piece was bigger than my car. And several times the cost.

Lightning lit up the sky, illuminating the massive Blair residence. The forecast didn’t mention rain, and I didn’t have a chance to go home and change before the movie, so I grabbed the umbrella from the back seat and hopped out of the car. I tucked the umbrella under my arm and grabbed the Thai food bags. I left my keys and purse in the car since I knew I wasn’t going to be here long.

I dashed around the side of the house, my flip-flops thwacking on the Belgian block walkway.

I slowed when I reach the multilevel stone patio in the back. At the far end of the grounds, the underground pool was lit, and the water calmly lapped against the sides.

A muffled thumping bass shook the windows of the pool house, which was closer to the size of my ranch-style home. I always hated being in there. It was a bachelor pad, even though Joe was in a relationship. Another reason added to the list of why he needed to be dumped.

Safe from the rain, I dropped my umbrella on one of the chairs and opened the glass doors.

Electric guitar and thundering drums blasted at me. Why did Joe always insist on having his music at ear-shattering levels? I went to the music system and turned it down. I rubbed my ears, adjusting to the lower volume. The members of Metallica stared accusingly at me from Joe’s favorite poster above the speakers.

“Joe?”

I looked around the dark space. The rain clouds had moved in quickly, cutting out the setting sun. And the blackout curtains that Joe insisted on having closed at all times didn’t help. Also, the stupid rotating strobe light made it impossible to see anything further than a foot in front of me.

“Hello?” I wrinkled my nose, smelling something putrid.

I found him in the center of the room on the sectional couch, sleeping. He lay on his side, his face buried in the cushions. I navigated around empty beer bottles on the floor to get to him. The smell was stronger now.

I poked him in the side. “Joe. Come on. Wake up.” It would be like him to pretend to be passed out, then jump up and scare me. It wouldn’t be the first time. His jokes were immature, yet he insisted they were hilarious.

I poked him again, but he didn’t move.

Two can play at that game.

I flipped the flashlight on my phone and pointed it at his face. I expected him to pop up with a goofy grin, then go into a tirade on how he “got me.”

Instead, Joe didn’t move. At all. Surprisingly, he was a light sleeper, yet he insisted on listening to music and television to fall asleep. The change in volume should have woken him, and the flashlight definitely would have.

What had he taken to keep him in such a deep slumber?

I slid the beam over the room. On the side table, there were several more empty beer bottles and other paraphernalia from the party he apparently had going on since I’d last seen him. I didn’t have time to dwell on his habits when something else caught my attention. A folded piece of paper sat on the table. I wouldn’t have cared otherwise, except my name was scrawled across the front in bold black letters.

I picked it up and unfolded it. Maybe Joe had brought me here as another joke and had no intention of setting me free from the toxic relationship. My throat constricted at the thought.

There was one line of writing, and I read the three words over and over, unable to make sense of them.

“All for you,” the note read.

“All for me what?” I asked aloud.

I folded the note and shoved it in my pocket. “Joe, come on,” I said louder. “Wake up!” I shook his shoulder.

He still didn’t wake. I’d never had to try this hard before. I reached my shaking hand to him, slower this time. I shook his shoulder. “Joe?”

My voice sounded far away in my ears. I shook harder. Still nothing. I touched his neck, feeling for a pulse. My own pulse throbbed in my fingertips, though no blood rushed through his veins.

I had to make sure he hadn’t done something stupid. I gripped his shoulder and turned him. His unmoving glossy eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.

A shuddering breath escaped my lips. I screamed and clamped my hands over my mouth, backing away from him. I knocked over a couple of beer bottles; they clinked against the floor and rolled in different directions. I bolted from the pool house, escaping from the claustrophobic feeling welling in my chest. I leaned over and threw up my dinner all over the brick patio. I knelt on the ground next to my puke and took deep gulps of air. My hands trembled in my lap.

I looked at the door of the pool house, knowing Joe’s dead body was on the other side.

It took me a few seconds to snap out of it. I grabbed hold of my senses and stood up on shaky legs. I needed to call for help. I looked at my empty hands, and a feeling of dread swelled in my already sensitive stomach. In my terror of seeing Joe’s body, I must have dropped my phone.

Through the glass sliding doors, the beam of light from my phone’s flashlight acted like a beacon, taunting me from inside. My stomach lurched at the thought of going in there again. I didn’t have a key to the main house to call from the landline, so I had to go back in there.

As I stepped into the pool house, the scent of something unfamiliar burned my nose. Was that what a dead body smelled like? My stomach rolled, and I swallowed to keep whatever was left in it firmly in place.

A sob escaped my lips when I realized the phone was next to the couch. I would have to go near his body to get it.

I stepped closer to him, slowly as if the floor were made of cracked ice. I knelt down by the phone and clamped a hand over my mouth and nose, trying not to breathe in the stench of him. I avoided looking at Joe’s still body.

I whimpered as I grabbed the phone and bolted out of the pool house. Outside, I inhaled the sharp scent of chlorine coming from the pool. It was better than inside the confined space. My shaking fingers pressed 911.

“Chester Bay nine-one-one. What’s the address of the emergency?” a female voice said over the line.

I stumbled over Joe’s address, my voice shaking. The woman didn’t ask me to repeat myself, so I figured she understood through my sobbing. Or the GPS on my phone gave the location.

“I think he’s dead,” I said.

“Who’s dead?”

“My— Joe, Joseph Blair. Please hurry.”

“Don’t worry, miss. I’m sending someone now.”

I hung up the phone and closed my eyes, trying to forget the image of Joe’s dead face burned into my brain.

I turned and could see Joe’s body through the glass doors. My stomach shifted uneasily.

I took a breath and decided to wait for the police at the front of the house. It was better than staring at the place where my boyfriend had died. My chin trembled, and I dragged a breath through my chattering teeth before letting out a choked sob. Tears blurred my vision, and each step was harder than the next.

I took one last look behind me. I imagined Joe walking out of the pool house at any second, but he didn’t. He never would again. All of Joe’s drug and alcohol abuse had caught up with him. Why had I been the unlucky one to discover him?

Chapter 3

The image of Joe’s blank face flashed in my eyes every time I blinked. The lights from the police cars painted the overlay of his face in red and blue. The police had been at the house for almost an hour already. Did they really need those lights on? I rubbed my temples with my fingertips. The nasty stench of death had settled in the back of my throat, making me want to gag again, though I doubted I had anything left in my stomach.

A pair of headlights pierced through the darkness further down the driveway. I stood up from the wide stairs at the entrance of the main house. I leaned my body against one of the large white columns, squinting to see who it was.

When I recognized the car, a breath whooshed out of me. I raced from the steps, weaving between the blue and white police cars to get to my dad’s Jeep.

A female officer stationed behind the other police cars waved for Dad to stop.

“That’s my dad,” I said breathlessly, fighting back another round of tears. I needed to get as far away from this nightmare as I could. I’d called Mom and Dad after the 911 call. They told me to wait for them. I had enough trouble controlling the violent trembling of my hands and the flashes of Joe’s face, so I knew I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to drive.

“This is still a crime scene,” the officer said, clasping her hands behind her back. “He can meet you on the other side of the tape.”

I lifted the yellow tape and stepped under. Raindrops peppered me in the face. Thankfully, the rain had let up until moments after the police arrived. Until my parents arrived, I’d huddled by the front entrance of the main house, not wanting to go inside any of the buildings on the estate, especially the main house. The huge empty house would definitely add to the creep factor of the entire night. And I wasn’t going back to the pool house to get my umbrella. I’d buy another one.

Mom and Dad came out of the idling Jeep, and I fell into Dad’s arms. The strength of his embrace melted the terror in my bones and opened the floodgates. I sobbed into his shirt.

“Sorry it took us so long. The streets were blocked with police,” Dad said, his voice a hearty rumble against my ear.

Mom rubbed a hand on my back. “Sweetheart, what happened?”

I rested my cheek against Dad’s chest. Mom stared at the house. “He’s dead.” The words were like a foreign language on my tongue, uncomfortable and shaky. “I thought he was sleeping…”

Dad squeezed my arm. “Carebear. I’m so sorry.” He shook his head absently. “His poor parents.”

Mom nodded, glancing at him. Unspoken words hung between them.

Joe’s parents wouldn’t have nightmares of his frozen, expressionless face for the rest of their lives. That was Joe’s parting gift to me.

Dad patted my back. “We should take you home. Let me speak to the person in charge and see if it’s okay for you to leave.”

“Dad.” I grabbed his arm, unwilling to take another step toward the house. I needed to be as far away as possible. For the rest of my life if I could help it.

My parents shared another look and Mom placed a hand on my shoulder, escorting me to the Jeep. My legs vibrated as if I’d run ten miles in the last two hours. I collapsed on the backseat. My damp shirt clung to my body, turning to ice when the air conditioning hit it. My teeth started to chatter. At this rate, I was going to have stubs for teeth.

Mom got into her seat, closed the door and turned off the air conditioning. She turned around. “There’s a blanket next to you.”

It was the huge blanket Mom always kept in the Jeep for impromptu beach trips. I wrapped it around me and tucked it around my legs. I pressed my lips together and imagined I was in the warmest place possible. I thought of the beach, but then remembered the many trips Joe and I took to the various coves in Chester Bay. The thought made me shiver. Not the desired effect.

Dad hadn’t returned when two paramedics pushed a stretcher carrying a sealed black bag to the ambulance. Bile rose in my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut and saw Joe’s face again. They sprang open and I stared at the back of headrest instead. Was I going to see him every time I closed my eyes? If so, I was never going to sleep well again.

Mom sighed, her voice full of emotion. “I can’t believe this.”

“Me neither,” I murmured. What if I had come over earlier? Would this still have happened? Could I have said or done something differently? I tucked the blanket closer to my body. I couldn’t believe Joe could be so reckless. Well, I could believe it: I’d seen him get close many times.

My stomach churned. I swallowed a few times, willing it to stop quivering.

Dad approached the car, and I sat up straighter. Finally, we were getting out of there.

He got into the Jeep and sat there, his expression slack. The vacant look he gave the windshield reminded me of the last image I would ever have of my boyfriend.

“What did they say, Tom?” Mom asked.

Dad cleared his throat. “Cara answered all their initial questions. If they have more, they’ll be in touch.” His hand reached over and squeezed Mom’s.

“What other questions could they have?” It was an accidental overdose, that’s all. I had nothing to do with it other than wanting to escape the toxic relationship I’d endured for the last two years. Sure, I was the one who didn’t have the guts to leave, but I didn’t kill him.

I removed the blanket, suddenly becoming too warm.

I caught Dad’s gaze in the rearview mirror. He shrugged. “Probably none.”

Probably none? That didn’t settle me one bit.

I kept my television on all night, fearful of the shadows that stretched across the room after I turned off the lights. Joe lingered in my mind the entire time. I recalled our whole relationship from start to finish on a memory loop in my mind. I tried to pick out the happier parts keeping the afterimages of his dead body on the periphery of my mind. At least for a little while. I wondered what had gone through his head. From speaking with Joe earlier that day it didn’t seem like he was upset. Accidents did happen, though.

My mind wandered to Kat. I could almost see her reaction when the police called her family. I hadn’t wanted to call or text her. I didn’t want to contribute to the situation more than I already had. And partly because I was a coward. My parents agreed that I shouldn’t call her, since it was the police’s job to release all information to the family. Knowing the devastation that was about to befall Kat’s family kept me up into the early hours of the morning.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep from pure exhaustion, because I woke when an explosion of music erupted from my phone. I sat up, disoriented for a moment after being catapulted from the edge of unconsciousness.

The ringing stopped, and I took a breath, leaning back against my headboard. Three text tones sounded from the ground in rapid succession, then the phone started ringing again. I knew it was Kat. If we didn’t pick up the first time, she would type 911 in three separate texts, then call again. Most of the time it was for fashion or gossip ‘emergency’; this time, I knew it wasn’t about clothes.

I scooted off my bed and headed toward the ringing sound. I shoved my clothes from last night out of the way and found my phone under the pile that I intended to wash at least a dozen times before wearing again, if ever. Even though my clothes didn’t touch Joe, I could swear they held onto the scent of him. The smell that made me want to throw up all over again.

A picture of me and Kat from the prom filled the screen. I took a steadying breath and picked up.

“I. Can’t. Believe. It,” Kat sobbed on the other end. Her words interrupted by sharp pulls of breath.

I lay back down on the bed, covering my eyes with my hand. Tears welled in my eyes and a few escaped before I wiped them away. “I’m so sorry, Kat.”

She sniffed, the sound thick and wet across the line. “The police said you found him.”

I made the mistake of closing my eyes and his face appeared. I tried to shake it off. “Yeah.”

“God! That must have been awful for you.”

“It was.” I sat up. I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep after this conversation. “When are you coming home?” I couldn’t do this alone.

She sniffed. “Dad scheduled our plane for this morning. God, I can’t believe this!” Another round of sobs sailed over the line. Flashes of Joe’s dead face punctured my vision and I couldn’t hold back my tears, either. “He had so much life to look forward to. Stanford in a few months. He didn’t deserve to die.”

“I know . . .” I trailed off.

She was right. He did have a lot to look forward to.

Someone knocked on my door, allowing me to briefly escape my haunting thoughts and reliving with Kat the horrific night I’d just endured. I was sure to do that again when she came home. At least I could compose my thoughts in the hours it took her to get home.

Mom poked her head into the room. “Sweetheart?”

I pointed to the phone and mouthed the word, “Kat.”

Mom nodded and said softly, “Breakfast is ready.” She left the room.

“Hang in there, Kat. Call me as soon as you land.” I slid off my bed and shoved my feet into my worn slippers.

“I will.” Someone spoke in the background on the other line. “I have to go,” she said after a moment of silence.

We said our goodbyes and I hung up first. I stood still, staring at the carpet, trying to build enough strength to make my legs move forward. I pushed my fingers through my tangled mess of hair. I didn’t have the energy to move, never mind care how I looked.

I walked around my bed and kicked something. A folded piece of paper flipped over, revealing my name. I sucked in a breath. The note Joe had written me. I’d forgotten all about it after I found him. I lifted it from the ground, pinched between my fingers like a broken shard of glass. I didn’t need to read it again to see the words in my mind’s eye. The words “All for you” repeated in my head.

I placed the note in my desk drawer and closed it. I wasn’t sure what to make of the message but it wasn’t as if Joe were alive to ask. Then, I took several steadying breaths before heading to the kitchen.

Chapter 4

Dad and Madison were sitting at the table when I arrived. I was surprised he wasn’t already at work.

“Hey, Carebear,” he said, turning in his chair. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Not really.”

Mom and Dad shared a look; something between pity and sadness.

For some reason, it annoyed me. I sat in my chair and tried to ignore whatever psychic conversation they were having.

Madison sniffed and I took a moment to look at her. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she stared at her hands. She hadn’t touched her food.

Mom placed a spoonful of scrambled eggs and a slice of toast on my plate. “Were you talking to Katherine?”

I pushed the eggs around my plate with the fork. “Yeah. She and her parents are coming home later today.”

“Well don’t worry about coming into the inn today,” Dad said. “I’m going into work late. Mom took the day off.”

I had no thought of going into the inn for work. “Thanks.”

“Deb,” Dad said to Mom, “I can take the day off, too.”

“You don’t have to,” I said quickly. It was enough that Mom was going to stalk me all day. I didn’t need the both of them on my case. I started to wish I’d never got out of bed. Even in death, Joe was still screwing with me. I immediately regretted the thought. And karma had a quick response, filling my mind with his face again. My stomach churned, even though it was empty.

I managed to swallow a few bites of toast before it settled.

“Cara,” Mom said. “We told Madison about what happened.” She gave me a look that seemed to add, “. . . sparing your delicate fourteen-year-old sister the gory details.”

“Why would he do that himself?” Madison asked. “Is it because you were ignoring his phone calls?”

Three sets of eyes trained on me.

My cheeks burned.

Mom put her coffee cup down on the table. “Cara, is this true? Why were you ignoring his phone calls?”

I blinked. “I wasn’t.”

“Why did Madison say you were?” Dad interjected.

I couldn’t tell them I planned on breaking up with Joe. Why did Madison have to be such a brat? It didn’t help that she blamed me. His death wasn’t my fault but that didn’t stop the guilt from coiling around my stomach and squeezing, unsettling it once again.

I stared down at my plate. “I don’t know. Maybe she should mind her own business.”

“Cara!” Mom warned.

Why were they ganging up on me? I slammed my fork down on the table. “What, Mom? I find my dead boyfriend and you all are accusing me of having something to do with it?”

Dad reached a hand out to me. “We weren’t—”

“You were,” I said pointedly to Madison. “I don’t need to talk to you about this. What do you know about anything?”

She shrank into her chair and tears flowed down her face.

My throat tightened. I could have put it all out there. I could have told them everything about Joe’s and my relationship. About his recreational-drug use and underage drinking. Speaking ill of the dead would only make me feel better. And I was sure another lecture would follow about the possibility of my taking part in those activities. I didn’t, but I wasn’t prepared for that headache.

“I’m going to my room,” I said, shoving the chair away from the table. I didn’t look at either of my parents or my traitorous sister. Tears hovered in the corners of my eyes, making my vision blur.

I entered my room, kicked the door closed, and went over to my desk. I crossed my arms and studied my photographs. The happy, grinning Cara from only a few weeks ago had no idea what turn her life would take. I unpinned the traditional prom photo of me and Joe. To everyone else, we seemed perfect. It was the picture I took two years to paint for the world to see. I briefly wondered if it had been worth all of it.

While I was in the shower later that morning, the doorbell rang. Twice in quick succession. Kat was still on her way home. Maybe it was Rachael and Brittany. I quickly finished up and wrapped a towel around my body. While I didn’t want to talk to my parents about what happened with Joe, I wanted to talk to someone. More specifically, my best friends. I was surprised they came over. Unlike Joe, the girls rarely came over. My house was the smallest out of the group and we found it easier to gossip without Madison and my parents in the next room. Most of the time we met at Kat’s. Her room was the farthest down one of the wings with a view of the pool house, giving us the privacy we needed.

I met Mom in the hallway. Her hands were clasped in front of her as if she were praying.

“Is it Rachael and Brittany? Give me a second to change—”

“It’s not,” she interrupted and lowered her voice. “There’s a detective here to speak with you.”

My heart leaped. “W-why is there a detective here?”

“To ask you questions about last night.”

“I already told the other policemen what happened.” What else could I possibly say?

“He promised it wouldn’t take long. I guess this is normal since you were the one to find Joe.” Mom’s voice hitched. I couldn’t bear more people crying in front of me. “You should speak to him so we can all move on.”