The Truth About My Scratches (The Carolina Killer Files #3) Read online

  The nurse stared at me for a moment. “I guess I could clean you off.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I want to do it. I need to do it.”

  “Okay,” she agreed finally. “But slowly.” She walked to my bed, wrapping my arm around her neck. Derek walked to my other side, mimicking her actions. Together, they carried me to the bathroom.

  “You don’t feel dizzy, do you? Does your head hurt?” the nurse asked, watching me.

  “I’m fine.” I shook my head. Derek pulled the door open and ushered me in to the small bathroom.

  “Can you hold her?” the nurse asked. “I’ll get a wash cloth.”

  Derek nodded, taking my weight in his arms. I looked up. We were standing in front of a mirror. Instinct made me close my eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his lips on my ear.

  I forced my eyes open slowly, staring at the mirror in front of me. I took a deep breath. Half of my head had been shaved, and I saw stitches running along my scalp. Nearly every inch of my face was bruised and swollen. My lips were bright purple, with dried blood on the corners. The silver of my eyes shone even behind my black and blue eyelids. I looked over my casted arm and my gauzed shoulder, and finally I allowed myself to look at my neck. Three thin silvery lines ran down the right side, from my jaw bone to just under my neck. The shadow of my hair almost hid them. I stared at myself, not believing that this was what I had made all the fuss about. These were the scars I had thrown my life away for. These were the scars he’d called ugly. I smiled at myself, staring at my scratches. They weren’t ugly at all. They reminded me of my strength, my survival. They reminded me that I had made it, that I would be just fine. In fact, I realized then, I kind of liked them.

  “Jaice?” he asked again, still waiting for my response. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” I smiled at him in the mirror. “I’m going to be just fine.”

  Chapter 16

  After a ten-day hospital stay, I was finally ready to go home. Mom and Dad were pacing around the room nervously as the doctor checked me over one last time. She wrote something down on my chart.

  “You’re absolutely sure she’s okay?” my mom asked. “You’re feeling okay, sweetheart?”

  Dr. Hartwell smiled at my parents and closed the chart. “Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, Jaicey is doing wonderful. Her stitches are healing, and her scans are coming back perfect. Overall, she is healing exceptionally well. She’s ready to go home,” she assured my parents. “She’s going to be just fine.”

  My parents nodded, my mom grasping her hands together in front of her face. “Thank you so much, Doctor. You have been so wonderful.”

  “I’ll need to see you back in six weeks to see how those stitches look and to remove your cast, but other than that, Jaicey, you’re free to go.”

  “Thank you,” I told her, already sliding off of my bed. She turned off a machine beside me, smiled once more, and left the room. I started to follow her.

  “Jaicey, wait,” my mom called from behind me.

  I turned around. “What’s wrong?”

  My dad took my mom’s hand in his. “Honey, there’s something we wanted to tell you. We wanted to wait until the right time. Until you were healthy.”

  “Okay?” I asked, then judging the look on Dad’s face carefully, I sat down on the bed, bracing myself. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” He smiled. “It’s just, well, this really isn’t going to be easy to say. After the accident, after you lost your memory we couldn’t tell you. When I got sick—”

  “We wanted to tell you, sweetheart,” Mom interjected. “There was just never a good time.”

  “Just tell me,” I said in a breath.

  “Well, first of all, we want you to know how unbelievably proud we are of you and how much we love you,” she said, looking to my dad.

  “Everything’s going to be okay now, Jaicey. We know that. I think you know that, but there’s just one more thing that you should know, if you’re really ready to face everything.”

  “Please just tell me.” If they didn’t say it soon, I was going to explode. What in the world had them so flustered?

  Dad looked at Mom, who looked at me with tears in her eyes; their hands were held together as if by glue. Dad took a deep breath. “Jaice, honey, Bailey’s alive.”

  Chapter 17

  I walked out of my hospital room as if in a trance, both of my parents by my side. We formed a solid wall, ready to take on anything. We walked past the nurses’ station and down a long hall. We stopped in front of an elevator and Dad pressed the button for the second floor. They had been here before, he’d told me, so they didn’t need to ask for directions. How many times had my parents visited my best friend without my knowledge?

  We climbed into the elevator solemnly, each of us staring at our reflections in the door. We went down three floors before the signal above the door sounded. They glided open, and I stared at a gray wall with a sign that read ‘Long-Term Care’. We walked out the doors, down a hallway, and around a corner before we stopped at door 713. There was no sign to let us know that this was Bailey’s room, nothing to separate her door from any of the others. She was just a room number.

  “Are you sure about this?” Dad asked. “We can come back another time.”

  “No,” I said firmly, hoping my voice sounded braver than I felt. “I have to see her.” I put my hand to the knob, feeling the cool metal press into my hand, and willing myself not to get my hopes up. I’d heard what my parents said, and I knew what to expect. Holding my breath, I turned the knob. There she was. Her curly auburn hair fell loosely around her face, her long, dark eyelashes peeking out from above her closed eyes. I watched her chest slowly rise and fall. She could have been sleeping.

  I reminded myself that this was what I had known it would be like. A coma. Mom had told me everything. Bailey was in a coma, had been for nearly three years, and she wasn’t coming out. I heard someone clear their throat in the corner of the room and looked up.

  “Mrs. O’Malley,” I cried out, seeing Bailey’s mother sitting in the corner. She was smaller than the last time I’d seen her, her hair much more gray. She stood up, holding her arms out to me, pulling me into a hug.

  “Jaicey,” she cried. “Oh, sweetheart.” She buried her face in my neck. I’d missed her hugs.

  “It’s so good to see you,” I told her.

  “It’s good to see you too.” She smiled at me. Her eyes looked much older than they had three years ago. I could see how much she was hurting. “Bailey would be glad that you got to come see her too.”

  I looked back to the bed where my best friend lay. “Could I sit by her?”

  “Of course.” She stepped back, smiling lovingly at her daughter.

  I approached the bed, looking her over. I took hold of her hand, rubbing my thumb over her fingers. It broke my heart to see that her once always painted nails were now dull and plain. I saw the burn scars all over her face, running down her arms and chest, though she still looked as beautiful as ever to me. I leaned onto her bed, trying to pull myself up.

  “You won’t hurt her, Jaice,” her mother told me.

  Upon her word I pulled myself up firmly, crossing my legs on her bed. I smiled down at her, rubbing my hands through her hair. “She won’t wake up?” I asked, though I knew the answer.

  “No.” Her mother shook her head.

  “Is it—” I stopped myself, trying not to cry. “Is it my fault? The accident? Is that what caused it? Did I do this?” I felt the all-too-familiar tears returning again.

  “No, sweetheart.” Her mom shook her head. “No. You didn’t do this. You were the best friend she could’ve ever asked for, and I’m thankful every day that she had you, and that she had you with her in the end. You’ll never know what that means to me.” She approached me, rubbing my back. My parents stood near the bed in complete silence.

  I couldn’t stand all of the crying. It was making me sick, but I just couldn’t stop. “I
s she in pain?”

  “No,” her mom answered again. “She’s not in any pain. She doesn’t feel anything anymore. She’s at peace.”

  I nodded, staring at her burns. “Where is Mr. O’Malley?” I asked, the question out of my mouth before I even realized it. Had that been rude?

  “Oh.” Her mom covered her mouth. “It’s just too hard on him, honey. After the accident we were both here every day for a year. We waited by her bed, praying, just praying that God would send our little girl back to us. We’ve accepted that she’s not coming back, Jaicey.”

  “But how?” I asked through my tears.

  She walked closer and smiled at me through tear-filled eyes. “Our baby girl is gone, and we will never ever be okay with that, but we also know that our little girl no longer feels any pain. We take comfort in knowing that she is gone, in knowing that she was saved from having to suffer anymore than she did. We know that she is in a better place and that she’ll never have to deal with the awful things that man did to her. She’ll never have to feel pain or fear or worry ever, ever again. Our daughter is at peace, Jaicey, Bailey is at peace and we are finally ready to make peace with that.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked, allowing her to hold me in her arms and rock me.

  “You know,” she told me, “I always thought of you as a daughter. I mean, you and Bailey were practically sisters, so you may as well have been my daughter too.”

  I nodded, not moving from her arms, my tears soaking her shirt.

  “George and I have had three years to grieve for Bailey. We’ve had three years to accept what happened, but we have the rest of our lives to remember her, to celebrate her life. She doesn’t have to be here for that. She’s in here.” She patted my chest, pointing to my heart. “We don’t need her body to stay with us to remember her.”

  “You’re saying you’re going to let her die?” I asked, pulling away from her. “You’re going to just let her go?”

  She shook her head. “She’s already gone. She’s been gone.”

  “So why bring me here?” I looked to my parents. “You knew about this? You just wanted me to feel losing her all over again? How could you do this?”

  “Jaicey, sweetheart,” my dad said. My mom was choking back tears.

  Mrs. O’Malley held up her hand. “I asked them to. Ever since the accident your parents have been so kind, helping us with the medical bills. Keeping her in a place like this has been taxing on our family, but we just needed to keep her here. We needed her with us. Four months ago, we decided that it was time to let her go, but we couldn’t do that without talking to you. Bailey was just as much your family as she was ours, and it just didn’t sit right with us to leave you out of the decision. So, Jaicey, I’m asking you, can you help us let our baby go? Can we let B go home?”

  I shook with sobs, staring at her. I felt hands on all sides of me, rubbing my back in an attempt to comfort me. I didn’t know if I could ever feel comfort again.

  “I know it isn’t fair.” She sobbed. “We’ve had years to deal with this decision and I’m giving you just a few moments. Please understand that we don’t have to do this if you aren’t ready. We can keep her here for as long as you need.”

  I looked at my best friend, at how little she’d changed over the last few years, and then I looked at Mrs. O’Malley and just how much she’d changed over the last few years. It was obvious that Bailey wasn’t the one suffering here; it was her family. I too would now be on that list. Could I stand to come here every day? To see her hooked up to machines keeping her alive? Would she want me here wasting away, waiting for her to wake up but knowing she never would? Or would she want me out living, remembering her, celebrating her? What about her family? What would I want her to do if the situation were reversed? I had thought, initially, that this would be enough. That having her body, feeling her heartbeat, and watching her breathe, I had thought that that would be enough. I knew now that I was terribly wrong. My best friend was gone and nothing was going to change that.

  “You’re right.” I wiped my eyes.

  Mrs. O’Malley looked at me. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. It will never be okay, but whether or not we keep her body here, you are right. Bailey hasn’t been here in a long time. We’ll keep her with us every day while we’re out living. It’s what Bailey would have wanted.”

  Her mom began sobbing again, hugging me tightly. “Thank you, you brave girl. Thank you,” she cried.

  “Can you do me one favor though?”

  “Anything.” She nodded.

  “Can you just give me one night with her?” I asked. “Just to say goodbye?”

  She wiped her tears then, her face blood red. “Of course I can.”

  “I’ll need some red nail polish.” I tried to laugh through my tears.

  “We can get that,” Mom said.

  They, all three, kissed my head, leaving the room in tears. Mrs. O’Malley cast one last look at me as she shut the door, and I saw peace in her eyes. I knew I was making the right decision. I turned around so that I could lay next to her in bed and kissed her forehead. I locked my pinky around hers. “You’ll be safe now,” I promised her. I rubbed my fingers over the burns on her arms and hands, and then I cried with my best friend for the very last time.

  Chapter 18

  Twenty years later

  “They say that time takes everything, Jaicey, and in time I think you’ll find that it does. It takes away everything you need it to and everything you wish it wouldn’t. Youth, heartache, loved ones, sadness, sanity, memory; you’ll find nearly everything falls prey to time at some point or another. You’ll often hear that time heals all wounds, and I believe that it does, but more importantly I believe that time is cruel. It doesn’t pick and choose. It doesn’t care if you are a good person. In the end, it only cares that it keeps moving, keeps taking. What about the truth?”

  I looked up at Dr. Townsend, her graying hair a prime example of all that time takes. “What about it?”

  “Sometimes we try to pick and choose truth, our truth. I think you’ve learned the hard way that you can’t decide your own truth. There’s truth, Jaicey, and there’s lie. I know this sounds absurd, but what you’ve told me over these past years, it all makes sense. Sometimes, and I’ve seen it time and time again, sometimes you lie to yourself without realizing that you are lying. It’s a defense mechanism that the brain has picked up. In your case, you lied to yourself because you needed to; because you couldn’t deal with the truth at that point in your life. Because you mentally weren’t able to accept what had happened. If you lie to yourself long enough, sometimes it becomes real. You’d never have known any different if it weren’t for Brayden. It’s likely your memory of the incident would have stayed locked up forever.”

  I nodded, twisting the hem of a pillow between my fingers.

  Dr. Townsend smiled. “So you said that your mother died when you were fifteen because in your mind, she had. The mother that you had grown up with wasn’t who was sitting across from you at the table anymore. You said you didn’t want to drive because you thought that you had killed your best friend while driving. It was easier for you to pretend you had never been popular than to remember a time when you were. As messed up as you believe this all was, I promise you I’ve seen worse.”

  We were silent for a moment.

  “I’m glad that I could convince you to come. I know this anniversary is a hard one for you, and I like to think that it helps you to be able to be here, to talk through it again. Your journey amazes me.” She leaned across the table. “So, that being said, I’m going to leave you for exactly one hour. I want you to write down all that you can for me about what you remember.”

  “Is this really necessary? Every year? I’m not going to forget.”

  She pressed her lips together. “I don’t want this to be a chore. I like to make sure that your memory isn’t slipping, that you aren’t degenerating back to the memory loss, but this isn’t ma
ndatory, no.”

  “But you think it helps me? It keeps me from forgetting?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, taking a pen and notepad from her.

  “One hour,” she reminded me. “Don’t think of it as a test. Just tell me your story. Your time starts now. Good luck.” She looked at her watch as she walked out of her office. I flopped back onto the couch, placing the notebook on my knees and beginning to write.

  ***

  When the hour was up and she had returned, I had written way more than I had actually planned. She took the notebook happily. “This is more than usual.” She read silently, her eyes locked on the pages as they turned. When she finally finished, she closed the notebook and looked up. “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for. This is quite a breakthrough, Jaicey. Could I ask you a favor?” She held the notebook tight to her chest.

  “Sure,” I told her.

  “Would you mind if I read a bit of this tonight at my seminar? I really think it could help some of my other clients.”

  I nodded. “I guess I don’t mind, but it isn’t very good though. I wasn’t trying to make it perfect.”

  She placed her hand onto my shoulder. “I didn’t want perfect. This is real. This is honest. I couldn’t have asked for better.”

  ***

  I showed up at the seminar that night a few minutes early, hoping to find a good seat. I sat in the crowd and listened to the different stories being read, stories of people’s tragic and unfair lives. When it came time for Dr. Townsend to read mine, I held my breath. I felt Derek lace his fingers through mine, just as he had on graduation night, at our wedding, and as we had brought our beautiful little girl into the world. My father had been present for all three events. He squeezed my hand lovingly as she began reading aloud.

  “Someone once told me that eventually time takes everything you have. Everyone you love, your dreams, your memories, your fears. It takes it everything you’ve ever had, and you never notice until it’s gone. The same person told me that though time is known to heal, time is actually cruel. Despite every single thing time steals from you, it will never take one thing away. No matter how many nights you spend awake, how many meals you miss, or how many stares you try not to notice, time is just time, and no matter how much time passes, it will never let you forget the truth.”