New Girl - By Paige Harbison Page 0,96
microphone. Max squeezed my hand.
“Hello, everyone. I’m sorry to have to call you all here on one of your last nights at Manderley. But…”
Professor Crawley spoke calmly and gently to us. He told us in the only way he must have known how. He gave us the facts.
An initial din quieted to only a few hushed sobs. Everyone listened as Professor Crawley explained, quickly and without gruesome detail, that her body had been found in the water.
I thought back to the recurring dream I’d been having all year long about being whipped around beneath the waves, unable to find air. I knew the feeling well, having grown up next to the beach. You go in the ocean enough and you’ll eventually get caught in a riptide that sends your brain the thought that this time, the water is going to…
Swallow me whole.
I remembered the ghostly Becca I had seen in my dream on the night of the Halloween Ball and how she had asked if I could hear the ocean, and how she told me that no one knew if it had swallowed her whole.
Why had she gone near the water? Had she taken out the boat, like Blake had wondered? If so…did she know she was going to die?
I barely listened as Dr. Morgan took the stage, to urge us all once again to come talk to her. Her small face contorted with worry as she looked out at the auditorium filled with sobbing teenagers. I spotted Johnny along our same row. He looked etched out of marble he was so still. His eyes were fixed on the seat in front of him, but I could tell that he was not really seeing it.
I didn’t find Blake and Cam until the end, and when we did they were as somber as we were. Neither shed a tear, but the shock had clearly affected them.
“Are you okay?” Blake asked, looking to Max after nodding a hello to me.
He hesitated. “Yes, I’m okay.”
Blake nodded and then looked concernedly at him. “If you need anything…”
“I know.” He glanced up at them. “Thanks. I’m going to bed for right now. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
“Dana’s mom is here.”
“What?” I asked.
“Her mom. They told her before us. I guess she wanted to tell Dana herself, but got here too late…”
Max and I both muttered something about that being too bad, and then our conversation wound down to good-nights.
Max walked me up to the girls’ dorms, where we, too, said a quick, polite good-night and then parted ways.
I floated up the stairs in a haze, and then into my room. The door was cracked, so I pushed it open quietly. I was walking to my side of the room when I heard Dana in the bathroom. It was muffled through the door, but I could tell she was weeping. Her sobs were unbridled and deep. It stung my eyes and throat to hear.
“It’s okay, it’s all right. You’re okay.”
The person who must be her mother was speaking in a slow, calm voice.
“I watched her…I watched her on the dock and I didn’t stop her. It’s my fault…”
“No, honey, it’s not. It’s not because of you. It’s not because of anyone. You’re okay.” Her voice was still measured and soothing. I imagined that she was soothing Dana in the way my mother always had me, by running her hands through her hair and wiping tears from her cheeks.
“She was my f-friend! I could have done something. Should have gone after her or…or…” Her voice trembled, and I could hear her trying to catch her breath. “No one was there for her and I should have been! She had enough time out there alone to…to…”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. You did all you could. You are okay.”
Dana broke into tears again. A few seconds later she had caught her breath. “What was the last thought she had? When she…when she woke up that day, she didn’t know it was the last time she ever would. Did she know she was going to die? When did she stop being aware of what was happening? She must have been cold… I can’t…I can’t stop imagining it....”
This time her mother said nothing. I didn’t blame her for being stumped. After all, I had thought the same thoughts, too.
“I want to die!”
There was a twinge in my chest. No, Dana, you don’t want to kill yourself, I thought.
“I know that you feel that way now, but you will change your mind.