She’d been carrying a bottle of schnapps in her pocket, a half bottle by the look of it. He wondered if she’d been at the same party as them. He looked around too at the half-hidden houses, wondering if she’d come from one of them, why she’d been running, if something had panicked her.
She looked like a student but he didn’t recognize her. He looked at her face again and was mesmerized by how beautiful she was, so beautiful he felt cheated. He felt guilty too, because of Natalie, but he couldn’t understand how he hadn’t seen this girl before, and couldn’t help but feel bereaved, even though he hadn’t known her.
He wondered what her name was, what she’d been like, and he knew she was dead but some crazy part of his brain was imagining what kind of couple they would have made. It was the shock he supposed, the first time he’d seen a dead person, but she was beautiful.
It was disturbing too that her face looked so serene and undamaged. He glanced again at the mess of blood, then back to the alabaster white of her face, the soft red of her mouth. He reached out and rested his fingers on her lips, still warm, a warmth that upset him, and then something moved and he jolted back in shock.
He didn’t know what the movement had been but he looked again at her face and saw now that her eyes were open. He edged closer and looked into them. Maybe it was just a reflex reaction - but no, they were moving.
She was looking at him. He didn’t know whether she could actually see him, whether or not she was registering anything at all, but she was looking at him. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t understand how someone with her head caved in like that could still be alive.
Her lips moved as if she was trying to speak but they hardly separated and no sound came out, just a few small delicate bubbles of blood stacking up on top of each other at the corner of her mouth. She wasn’t dead but he didn’t know what to do. And it was worse because he knew she had to be close to death.
Her head was caved in and there was blood coming out of her mouth. She was looking at him, trying to speak, and she was dying and he didn’t know what to do. He knew he was meant to comfort her or call for help but he’d never been this close to death before, had never been close to death at all, and he was scared.
He could feel the panic building, firing up in his muscles, urging him to run, to get away from her. He tried to tell himself to stay calm but she was dying right there in front of him and the two of them were alone in the road and he didn’t know how to reach her or how to help. He was just scared, like a child, wanting someone responsible to take it away from him.
He was walking before he knew it, walking away, and the voice was screaming in his head to go back. She’s still alive, he yelled to himself, she’s still alive, do something, go back, but he couldn’t go back. He kept walking along the road and he ignored his own internal screaming and told himself that it was too late to walk back anyway, because she’d already be dead.
He should have stayed through those final moments and he hadn’t but she was dead, she had to be. Her head was smashed in, she’d been thrown fifty feet, maybe more. She was dead. He kept telling himself and he knew it wasn’t true and he kept screaming inside his own thoughts but he couldn’t go back. He couldn’t.
The car was up ahead, passenger door open, taillights, exhaust trailing, the vague silhouettes of the four people inside. He realized he was crying, not sobbing but with tears flooding down his cheeks. He wiped them away with his hands, then with the cuffs of his coat. He didn’t want the others to see him like that. He had to stay calm.
He breathed deeply as he got closer, and when he got to the car he kept his head facing into the road until he’d closed the door and the light had gone out. He was feeling more in control now, and focussed on the air of expectancy that was coming from the four of them.
‘Go,’ said Alex, looking at Matt.
‘Shit,’ said Rob, not needing to hear anymore.
Matt looked amazed and said, ‘She’s dead?’
Alex nodded, another round of expletives from the back, Matt’s face a blank.
‘What about the car?’
Matt shook his head.
‘Not a scratch. I couldn’t even see where she hit. You’re sure she’s dead?’
Alex nodded again and said, ‘She must have been thrown about fifty feet. Her head’s all smashed in.’
Matt looked at Alex as if reminding him of something basic that he’d forgotten, and said then, ‘Well, we can’t just leave her there.’
‘We have to Matt. You’ve had a drink. If the car was damaged maybe. Look, just go; we need to get somewhere we can discuss this without being seen.’ What he really wanted was to get away from what he’d just seen back there, from the confusion of feelings and guilt, from the fear.