Chapter 5: What Kayla Had to Say for Herself
I let it ring.
It rang again twenty minutes later.
Then Brandon called.
Then Kayla again.
I sat at my mother's kitchen table and watched the screen light up and go dark and light up again, and I thought about the fact that two hours ago they couldn't find a single word to say to me in that bedroom, and now apparently they had plenty.
My mother appeared in the doorway.
"Do you want me to answer it?"
"No."
"Do you want me to go over there?"
I almost smiled at that.
My mother was sixty-three years old and five foot two, and the look on her face suggested she was entirely prepared to drive across the city and say things that could not be unsaid.
"Not yet," I said.
Lily was asleep on the couch.
My mother had convinced her to take off her shoes, at least.
I picked up the phone on the fourth call from Kayla.
Not because I was ready.
Because I needed to know what she thought she could possibly say.
"Nicole." Her voice was thick.
She'd been crying.
I didn't say anything.
"I know you don't want to hear from me right now.
I know that.
I just — I need you to know that I'm sorry.
I am so sorry.
There's no excuse for it."
"You're right," I said.
"There isn't."
A pause.
"I never wanted to hurt you."
"And yet."
"I know." Another pause, longer.
"I need to tell you something.
About the accident."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"What about it."
"Brandon knew you were crossing that street.
He knew your route home.
He'd walked it with you a hundred times." Her voice dropped.
"The day of your accident, he got a call.
From the hospital.
Before you did.
Before your mother did.
Someone called him first."
I was very still.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying he wasn't surprised when he found out." She was crying now, quietly.
"I was there.
I saw his face.
Nicole, he wasn't surprised."
"Kayla." My voice came out low and careful.
"Are you telling me that Brandon knew about the accident before anyone called him?"
Silence.
"I don't know what I'm telling you," she said.
"I just know what I saw."
"That's not good enough."
"I know."
"If you know something, you say it clearly.
You say exactly what you saw and exactly what you heard.
Don't call me with half a thing."
"He made a phone call," she said.
"Right after he got the news.
Before he came to the hospital.
I heard him say — I heard him say that it happened, and that the timing was good."
The timing was good.
I set the phone face-down on the table and pressed both palms flat on the surface and breathed through my nose until the ringing in my ears subsided.
My mother was standing in the doorway again.
She'd heard enough.
"Nicole," she said quietly.
"I heard her."
"What do you want to do?"
I thought about the car that had run the red light.
I thought about the driver — I'd been told it was a hit and run, that the police were still looking.
I thought about Brandon sitting in our apartment, twenty minutes at the hospital, straight to voicemail, the timing was good.
I thought about Lily, asleep in the next room, who had heard something in a hallway before any of this happened and had been carrying it alone.
"I want to call the detective," I said.
"The one handling the hit and run."
My mother didn't hesitate.
She went to the counter, picked up a notepad and pen, and set them in front of me.
"I'll get you the number," she said.
I pulled the notepad toward me.
My ribs ached.
My lung ached.
My hands were still steady.
I wrote down everything Kayla had told me, word for word, while it was still exact in my memory.
The phone call.
The timing.
The words she'd heard.
I wrote down the date of the accident.
Brandon's one visit.
The texts.
The voicemails.
The lease agreement signed three weeks ago.
I wrote down: *He wasn't surprised.*
Then I looked at what I'd written and understood that I was no longer dealing with a man who had simply betrayed me.
I was dealing with something much worse.
And somewhere in this city, that man was in an apartment with my sister, not knowing that she had just called me.
May you like
Not knowing what she'd said.
Not knowing that I was already writing it down.
