Between by Jessica Warman Page B

her?”
    Mera nods. “I did.”
    “After how long? Ten minutes? An hour?”
    My friends stare at each other. Finally, Richie says, “It couldn’t have been longer than maybe fifteen minutes. We sent Mera up to the house.” He swallows. “But she didn’t make it. She walked outside, and she saw Liz right away.”
    Joe takes a long moment to consider each of my friends. He stares at my parents. I notice a softness to his eyes, a watery quality. This isn’t easy for him, either. He knew who I was; I wouldn’t be surprised if he remembers me and Richie from that night a few months ago. Two kids in love, steaming up the windows of a car after prom.
    “So we’ve got ourselves a little mystery,” he murmurs. “Isn’t that something?”
    Silence. The calm inside the boat is unnatural, buoyed by silent horror and heartache.
    Joe closes his notebook. “All right. That’s it for now, kids. I’m going to be in touch with all of you, though. So, you know, don’t go too far.” He glances at my parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Valchar, we’re gonna need you both at the station directly.”
    They don’t say anything. They only nod.
    Alex and I follow Joe and his partner, Shane, onto the dock. Once they’re out of earshot from the boat, they stop.
    “You believe that?” Shane asks.
    “Do I believe what? That an eighteen-year-old girl fell into the water and drowned in the middle of the night without anybody noticing?” He takes a long look at my parents’ boat. “I don’t know. She had a history. I guess we’ll see what the medical exam says.” He appears to be thinking. “It’s probably an accident. That’s my best guess.”
    “But it sounds kinda fishy,” Shane prods, “doesn’t it? Like a bunch of liars in there with a lousy story they’re trying to keep straight.”
    “Fishy,” Joe repeats. “Ha.” He pats Shane on the shoulder. “You watch too many Law and Order reruns, you know that? This isn’t New York City. I’m sure her friends didn’t just decide to up and kill her.”

Five
    Before people knew me as a dead girl, they knew me as a runner. I remember this fact as clearly as I remember my own name or my mother’s face. I was on the cross-country team. I wasn’t all that fast—I usually clocked around an eight-minute mile—but I could run for hours. And I did; every morning, even during the school year, I’d roll out of bed before sunrise, tug on my running shoes, and go up and down the Sound, along the road leading to Mystic—which is the larger community that neighbors Noank—sometimes all the way to the outskirts of town before turning around to come home. It wasn’t unusual for me to do ten miles in a day. It is such a comfort that these memories are still with me, to know that they are ingrained within my being. At any time, I can close my eyes and almost hear the rhythm of my footsteps against the road.
    It’s funny—my parents used to worry about me, running alone in the mornings like that. Water everywhere, all around us, and they were always worried about my safety on dry land.
    For right now, everyone’s version of the events from that night seems to point to the conclusion that I drowned. The story is this: I was drunk, had low blood sugar, and I went outside to get some air. I stumbled and fell off the docks. Nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything.
    And people seem comfortable enough with that version of the truth. My parents seem to accept it; my friends seem to believe it. It’s the Official Story. Case closed.
    But unofficially, Joe Wright is standing in a suit and tie at the back of the funeral home, watching with quiet eyes as the crowd shifts in the room.
    Getting around with Alex is easy enough; all it takes is for me to close my eyes as I make some kind of physical contact between the two of us, and he can come with me anywhere. Even though we don’t like each other, I can tell that we’re both grateful for the company. Regardless, aside from the memories that